Trusted Like The Fox by James Hadley Chase Page A

men don’t get up and play golf as early as this.
    All the same, she hurried down the fairway, keeping a sharp look-out for any sign of life, but she saw no one, and arrived at the clubhouse a little breathless but calm.
    She went in through the front door, which she had left on the latch, and made her way to the ladies’ room at the far end of the passage.
    Cautiously she pushed open the door, glanced in. The room was small and dark. Around the walls were wooden lockers, and a row of wash-hand basins stood in the centre of the room. She entered, closed the door.
    She stared at herself in the long mirror above the basins, pulled a little face. She looked dirty and dishevelled, her hair was knotted and hung limply each side of her white face. She stripped off her coat and blouse and ran water into a basin.
    The water was cold but refreshing, and she felt better after she had rubbed her skin red with the towel she found hanging on a hook behind the door. She took a comb from her bag and did her hair, pulling at the tangle impatiently, hurting herself.
    It was a hurried toilet, but she had no time to spare. She was longing for a cup of tea, and when she had finished doing her hair, she ran down the passage into the kitchen and put on the kettle.
    She returned to the ladies’ room armed with a long screwdriver she had found in the kitchen. She broke open a locker, found nothing in it except a bag of clubs, broke open another. Before she found what she wanted, she had broken open more than a dozen of the lockers, and time was passing.
    She feverishly slipped out of her wet skirt, put on a light tweed skirt she had found in one of the lockers. A wool sweater, a weather-proof jerkin and a dark blue beret completed her change of clothes. After further delay she found a pair of nail- studded shoes that fitted her, and then she stepped to the mirror to study the completed effect.
    Yes, she looked better, almost attractive. She smiled at herself, excited with the new clothes, and with her changed appearance. She rolled up her old clothes and took them with her to the kitchen, where she found the kettle boiling.
    She made tea, cut herself several slices of bread and butter, and while she was eating she collected together the remaining food she found in the refrigerator.
    The tea revived her spirits, and she felt that the position wasn’t after all so desperate as she had at first thought. Perhaps the police wouldn’t come, and if they did, they might not think of looking for them on the course.
    Now she would have to get Ellis some clothes, and leaving the kitchen she went along the passage to the men’s room.
    This room was much bigger than the women’s room. Lockers took up nearly all the available space, and once more Grace began to attack the narrow wooden doors with her screw-driver.
    She was fortunate to find a sweater and a pair of flannel trousers in the first locker, and a leather jerkin in the next. The third provided a pair of shoes she thought might fit Ellis, and also two pairs of socks.
    She gathered these articles into a bundle, wished she could find an overcoat. She paused to look around the room; her heart gave a great bound, stopped beating for one agonised second, and then fluttered against her ribs so quickly she could scarcely breathe.
    Sitting on a straight-backed wooden chair at the far end of the room was a young man in a canary-coloured sweater, immaculate flannel trousers, and a pale yellow shirt. His straw-coloured hair was thick and neat and shone like honey. His rather fleshy but distinctly handsome face was heavily sunburned. In his long thick fingers he held a mashie-niblick and he looked at Grace with the most startling green eyes she had ever seen.
     

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    Grace stood staring stupidly at the young man, unable to move, like a rabbit facing a stoat.
    “I don’t think the Secretary likes ladies to come into this room,” the young man said and smiled. He had a pleasant, rather