The Executioners

by John Creasey

  “You keep out of this,” the constable said roughly.

  “Why, you sonofabitch!” The youth kicked at the policeman’s knees, but he stepped quickly to one side. As two more of the youths joined in the attack, Brown twisted one man’s arm and sent him staggering; as the other aimed a vicious kick towards him, he caught his ankle and tossed him backwards.

  “… washed in the blood of the lamb,” Jeremiah boomed. “These men ought to have been hanged,” the orator was bellowing. “They should never have been let loose on society.” He was shaking his fists. “Where are they now, that’s what I want to know? What are they up to?”

  A police siren wailed as a third car swung round the corner, and seeing this, Brown felt a deep relief. The youths were grouped together again, warily; the speaker still ranted; the Abolitionists, led by Jeremiah Taylor, continued to sing, as if oblivious of the surrounding tumult.

  From the bedroom window of Number 21, Cecil Chayter and his brother stared down at the commotion, while Julie Chayter sat drearily on the side of her bed.

  Cecil Chayter’s cheeks were white, and his eyes were bright and glassy, as if his body as well as His spirit had been touched by despair.

  In all but two of the streets where the released men lived, there were similar scenes. Jeremiah Taylor appeared at each in the big Rolls-Royce, His voice resonant, his strength undiminished. Word of them was relayed to Roger West and Frisby at the Yard by telephone, special messenger and teletype, and Roger’s office was in a state of perpetual motion.

  Roger sat at his desk, reading, listening, making notes. Two men injured in a scuffle at Aldgate … Three arrests after brick throwing in Fulham … A motor-cyclist injured when he ran into the crowd at Chelsea …

  Interspersed were the reports from the County and Borough forces, and the London Divisions. Among these were:

  Twenty-seven telephone calls and three visits from persons saying they had seen one or more of the men. That was from Aberdeen.

  Eighty-four witnesses say that Boyden had been seen at Bournemouth. Seventeen reports that Leep had been seen in Bristol.

  Each of the men whose photographs had been on the front pages were ‘identified’ at least a hundred times, from places as far apart as Southend and Blackpool, Edinburgh and Cardiff, Norwich and Dundee. Reports came in faster and faster.

  But at last there was a lull.

  Roger got up, and limped towards the passage door. His leg was stiff but less painful. Men were going to and fro all the time, most of them turning into, or coming out of a room at the end of the passage. This was a sergeants’ room which had been turned into an operations centre. Roger saw Kane and two other men at a huge chart which covered most of one wall. The chart was marked with the names of the main centres, and each centre was dotted with black- and green-headed pins.

  A man was saying; “Need a computer for this lark.”

  “Need your head,” Kane growled.

  “How’s it going?” Roger inquired.

  “Chaotic,” said Kane, while the other two sprang to attention. But Kane’s eyes gleamed, as he continued: “I think we’re getting somewhere.”

  “Why?”

  “The green pins are reports we can trust,” said Kane. “See? Each pin represents ten reports. The black-heads are probables.”

  On that part of the chart showing central London there was a thick cluster of black- and green-headed pins, and on the ledge beneath were some teletyped, handwritten and typewritten reports, each marked with a big green daub. There were thirty or forty of these in all.

  “See?” Kane was almost excited.

  “All of the missing men have been seen in the Baker Street Station area in the past week,” Roger remarked.

  “That’s right,” agreed Kane. “In the past week.”

  “What good does that do?”

  “Baker Street’s the nearest station for Blenheim Terrace,” said Kane. “And the offices of Medlake’s campaign are in Marylebone Road. I’m beginning to think both places ought to be raided—sir,” he added belatedly.

  “Who are the reports from?”

  “Our chaps mostly. Two tube station ticket collectors, a bus conductor, a newspaperman and a bookstall manager all recognised them – not much doubt they’ve all been seen walking in the vicinity, after coming by tube or bus. What do you think we ought to do?”

  “I want you to arrange for everyone who’s made a report to come to see me,” Roger said, “I’ll fix a special watch on the men.” He nodded, and turned away, sensing something of Kane’s excitement. As he went into his office, Coppell appeared.

  “How’s it going?” he demanded.

  “There are some indications that each of the missing men has recently been in this area,” Roger said, pointing to his own wallmap. “I’m going to ask the Division to concentrate all available men there, and send help from the Yard and other Divisions. We want a spot check on all shopkeepers and residents, even if we have to question a hundred thousand people.”

  “Doing a questionnaire?”

  “No, sir. We only need two questions answered. One: who’s been seen? Two: where?”

  “Get it going,” Coppell said.

  Within the next hour, two hundred and seventeen plainclothes detectives and a hundred and eleven uniformed policemen began putting the two questions to shopkeepers and residents in the area of Baker Street. Gradually a picture took shape. Each of the missing men had been seen in the vicinity by several people, and by evening Roger, Kane and Frisby were able to say with some certainty that each of them had visited Medlake’s campaign headquarters – most of them some time the previous day.

  “We can’t take chances,” Coppell said. “We’ll get you a search-warrant in case you have any trouble. You’ll lead the raid yourself, I take it.”

  “I certainly mean to,” Roger said.

  It was nearly dark when the police moved in. The campaign offices were in a side street near Baker Street Station, just round the corner from Madame Tussaud’s and the Planetarium. The premises comprised a shop with two rooms and a kitchen at the back, and a flat above, and were approached from a narrow alley. Roger, Kane and two Divisional men walked up to the front door, and after getting no reply to his knocking, Roger inserted a skeleton key in the lock. He expected to find the door bolted, but it was not, and he pushed it open cautiously.

  There was no sound.

  Kane went inside and switched on the lights, showing the campaign posters on the wall. An Eye for an Eye. Capital Punishment – the Best Deterrent. Round the walls were trestle-tables covered with stacks of leaflets, all on the same subject; with most of them Roger was familiar. All were printed in two colours – red and black. In one corner was a small desk, behind it shelves laden with envelopes and wrappers.

  “Like an election committee-room,” Kane remarked. “Not exactly a big show, is it?”

  Roger said: “Not here.” He went into the rooms at the back, a store-room for more literature, and a rest-room with two easy chairs. The modem kitchen was spick and span. Outside the back door, in a tiny yard, more police were waiting.

  “We’ll try the cellar,” Roger decided.

  “How do you know there is a cellar?”

  “All these places have them,” Roger said. “There should be a door in the cupboard under the stairs.” The staircase itself was cut off from the shop, but the sloping ceiling in one corner showed where it was. There was a deep cupboard beneath it. Roger twisted the handle of the cupboard door but it remained firmly closed.

  “Like me to open it?” Kane asked.

  “Try a key first,” said Roger.

  The skeleton key turned the lock, but the door still wouldn’t open. Kane pushed hard, top, bottom and middle, and said sharply: “Three bolts, sir – all shot from the inside. That’s unusual for a cellar.”

  “Yes,” said Roger softly. “We want that door down, but we don’t want to do too much damage.” He turned to summon the Divisional man who would have the nece
ssary tools for the job, but as he did so he smelt something he hadn’t noticed before. He sniffed.

  Kane began: “Do you smell—” and broke off.

  “I can smell smoke,” Roger said with sudden tension. He raised his voice to a bellow. “Get this door down—quick!” He stepped awkwardly aside as men came hurrying. Two of them shaped up against the door and heaved with all their weight. The wood creaked, but the door held fast.

  The smell of smoke became more pronounced every second.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hell Fire

  At the fourth assault, the door caved in, and the two men almost tumbled into the cellar. Thick grey smoke billowed into the room, pungent enough to start them coughing, and enough to scare Roger.

  “Call the Fire Service,” he barked. “Get masks and extinguishers.”

  The fumes were almost overpowering as he went through the doorway on to a small landing above the steps leading down into the cellar. He held a handkerchief over his nose and mouth, but the smoke bit at his eyes and they began to water. The two men stood at the top of the steps, one of them almost bent double with coughing, the other saying: “Look!”

  Down below a deep red glare gave the smoke an angry tinge.

  “Bloody inferno,” the man gasped.

  Roger said: “Get water and wet cloths.” He started down the stairs, fearful in case anyone was trapped in the blaze. It was stiflingly hot, and now he could see the leaping flames. Half-way down, a man behind him said sharply: “Let’s pass!”

  Roger glanced round, and through the tears brought on by the smoke saw Kane, a fire-extinguisher in his hands. He drew to one side and Kane knocked the cap off the nozzle as he rushed past. Another man, also carrying an extinguisher, followed. The strong, acid fumes of the extinguisher chemical mingled suddenly with the smell of burning.

  Reaching the foot of the steps, Roger found himself in a small square room, filled with foam, smoke, and blackened paper. Kane and his companion were battling with a blaze in the far corner. In the wall beyond, barely discernible through the billowing smoke, Roger could see the hazy outline of a large archway, He groped his way towards it. Then he caught his breath.

  He was standing in a larger room, the only light that of the flames. The scene before him was so shocking, so macabre, that all thought of danger was driven from his mind.

  In the middle of the room was a gallows.

  From the gallows a man was hanging,

  Roger was stunned to stillness only for a moment; suddenly he sprang forward, oblivious of everything but the hanging figure. Pulling his knife from his pocket, he started to climb to the platform. Almost at once, Kane shouted in his ear: “Careful!”

  “What the hell—?”

  Kane swung himself on to the platform, surprisingly agile. He lifted the body as Roger reached the platform, skirted the open trap door and stretched up to cut the rope. It was thick and strong. He towered above the dead man and looked down into an old face, a lined face, a face from which death had drawn all expression, even fear.

  Roger recognised him; it was Leep, one of the men who had received the drawings.

  “How’s it going?” Kane grunted.

  “It’s very tough.”

  “Shall I have a go?”

  Another man appeared on the creaking boards, with a larger knife.

  “This will do the trick, sir.”

  Roger stood aside, feeling sick, feeling frightened. What was going on? What new horror was he likely to discover? The room was filling up with men, and he called to one close by: “Lend me a hand.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Roger lowered himself to the floor, and joined two men who were working at a slight recess, the size of a door, in one wall. One man was slapping it with the flat of his hands, creating a hollow sound. The other was pressing the wall above and at the sides, obviously to check whether this was a sliding door.

  “Try all the walls,” Roger ordered.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Of course they would try all the walls, he was talking for the sake of talking. He moved round to see two men carrying Leep from the gallows, and went across to them slowly. It was a long time since he had been so affected by a discovery, no matter how gruesome.

  “Any sign of life?” he asked.

  “Shouldn’t think so,” said Kane.

  “He’s still warm,” the other, younger man said. “But he’s not breathing.”

  “Get him upstairs, send for an ambulance and a doctor. Try the kiss of life.” The instructions came automatically. Roger watched the small procession out of sight, then turned and looked up at the gallows.

  They were an exact replica of gallows used in prison – the disused gallows, never to be an instrument of death again unless the law was changed. An elderly Divisional Superintendent joined Roger.

  “Hellish, isn’t it?”

  Roger said gruffly: “Couldn’t be worse. Do we know what burned?”

  A cheerful, unimpressed Fire Service man came up smartly.

  “Are you Mr. West?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Chief Officer Galloway. Shavings, sacks and paper were being burned, that’s all.”

  “Oh,” said Roger. “Just a smoke screen.”

  “Seems like it.”

  “To give them time to get away,” put in the Divisional man. “They must have started that fire while we were up in the shop,”

  “And hanged Leep.”

  “Vengeance is theirs,” Roger said. He looked about the walls; now that the smoke had cleared, he could see the curled posters, black and red like the leaflets upstairs, and the sight sickened him. Hell Fire said one, Vengeance is Ours, said another. A Life For a Life, said a third.

  “They must be mad,” exclaimed Galloway. “Stark staring mad.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Roger. He felt a futile anger rising, both with himself because his movements were so restricted, and with the perpetrators of this horror. Mind pictures of Sir Solomon Medlake and Rachel del Monde flashed in front of him – could people of their breeding and background do such hideous things as this?

  When were they going to find out where the other door was?

  A man shouted, almost in direct answer: “Here we are!”

  The recessed part of the wall was pushed to one side, revealing a dark void beyond. Everyone in the room stared at it, and as the man who had cried out so triumphantly went forward, Roger shouted: “Careful! You need some light.”

  Torches flashed out, into the darkness, the light losing itself in distance. Roger joined the men in a long, narrow tunnel, hardly high enough to stand up in. It seemed to go on for a long way, but at last they came upon another wall. It took them nearly fifteen minutes to move this second door, which led to the basement of an empty shop – once a florists’ – in Pilkington Street, W.1.

  Footmarks in the dust indicated that three or four men had passed through the shop and into the street, probably within the last hour or so. If the police cordon had been spread a little wider it would almost certainly have netted them. As it was, another urgent job had to be started – all the people in Pilkington Street and near by had to be questioned, and the Press, television and radio had to be used to find anyone who might have seen the men leaving this empty shop.

  The chances of finding them were slight, but the attempt must be made.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock that night before Roger stepped into his office at the Yard, The whole place seemed deserted; only a few detectives and maintenance men were on duty, the clerical staff having long since gone. The lights in the Information room were still burning, as the staff there worked all night, though its busiest time would be in the dawn, as the light uncovered the crimes of darkness,

  Roger picked up a telephone.

  “Get my wife, will you?” he said. As he replaced the receiver, the communicating door opened, and Frisby came in. He looked surprised.

  “I thought you’d go straight home, sir
.”

  “Not tonight,” Roger said. There was a moment’s pause, broken suddenly by the ring of the telephone. He picked it up. “Hallo? … Oh, hallo, darling … Yes … Yes, I’m afraid you’re right … Not at all, I think I’ll kip down here, so that I can be on call if I’m wanted … Are they?” His voice softened. “Tell ’em I’m sorry, I’ll see them next week. Say goodbye for me … No, Jan, really,” he went on, and suddenly he sounded very tired, “I don’t think I can, it’s a hell of a job … Yes, I will … I’ll see you sometime tomorrow but there isn’t a hope of getting back to see the boys before they leave. He chuckled. “Tell him no!”

  He rang off, half-smiling.

  “My two sons are going off to Paris for a long week-end,” he said. “I’d forgotten it was Friday.” He rubbed the side of his nose, then his smile broadened: “Aren’t you going home, either?”

  “I can tell you someone else who isn’t,” said Frisby. “Mr, Coppell. He’s having some supper in his room and wants you to join him. Shall I order something for you, sir?” “Something hearty,” Roger said. “Kane been in?”

  “He’s along with his maps.”

  “Don’t let him go until I’ve seen him,” ordered Roger. He went out, knowing that Kane would tell Frisby what had happened, and that he, West, would now have to brief Coppell. He could have done without that. He was tired, and tiredness in these affairs soon led to irritability. He was in no mood to make a special effort with Coppell, and thought, Why the devil doesn’t he go home? When he reached the Commander’s office, the door was ajar.

  Coppell stood up from a table at which he had been eating, put a hand on Roger’s shoulder, and said: “You must be all in, West. How’s the leg?”

  “Could be a lot worse,” said Roger, mollified.

  “Good. Whisky?”

  “Just what I need.”

  “Ordered a meal?” Coppell was already pouring out.

  “Frisby’s sending it up.”

  “Good. Sit down.” As Roger sat at a table already laid for him, as well as for Coppell, he wondered what Coppell was after; this mood of affability didn’t sit naturally on him. He took the glass. “Cheers,” said Coppell, who already had a drink poured out.