by John Creasey
“Did he get back before the girl?”
“Yes, by an hour.”
“What then?”
“I sent reinforcements, and Spats Thornton and Carry came off duty. This woman must be a beauty, Bill, even Spats went off the deep end about her.”
“Damn the woman. What’s the man like?”
“They didn’t get much of a look, but agreed on his toughness. Evening dress and all that, but a pretty noticeable hairy heel.”
“Whose name is the flat in?”
“Hers. Myra Berne.”
“The man’s our meat,” said Loftus. “Pour me out another cup, will you?” He lit a cigarette, and closed his eyes for a moment. “Yes, the man’s our problem. I fancy the woman will be used to decoy us from our straight and narrow path.”
Oundle scowled. “That’s sheer guesswork.”
“Not entirely,” asserted Loftus. “She was a decoy for Arkeld all right. Everyone tries the same old tricks, my son, time has shown that they work. Mike’s the most likely to succumb, isn’t he?”
Oundle scratched his chin.
“Dammit, there’s no reason to think that she . . .”
“There’s every reason in the world,” said Loftus firmly. “She asks about Mike and Mark, so she’s on to them. She’ll probably angle for a meeting, and apologise for this mistake about her friend and see what develops. Ring Mike to come over—no,” he amended, “I’ll go and see him, there’s the little merchant to attend to.”
Loftus finished his tea, slipped out of bed, bathed and dressed in quick time, and was ready when a waiter brought breakfast from the restaurant.
It was a meal he particularly enjoyed, but he did not linger over it that morning. In less than half an hour he was walking briskly towards the Errols’ flat. There was no one in the street except tradesmen whom he recognised as regulars, and there was no sign that the Errols’ flat was being watched. He made a mental note to find what flats opposite and nearby were empty—or had recently been let—and then knocked at the flat door.
Wally Davidson opened it.
Wally looked tired; he rarely looked anything else. Loftus knew him well enough to be sure that he had had a good night’s sleep, and that there had been no trouble. The Errols greeted him somewhat exuberantly, although Mark was on the quiet side. They had taken turns in watching their prisoner, who had slept most of the night on his couch.
Loftus went into the room where he was lying.
He removed the gag and ear-plugs, while Davidson gave the man a glass of water. He drank eagerly.
“What the ’ell d’yer think yer doing?”
Despite the truculence of his words there was fear in him. Brought to a state of hunger, thirst, cramp and weariness, he was obviously not in a position to hold out much longer.
Loftus said:
“I’m going to find out who you are, where you come from, and who you work for. If you refuse, I’ve special authority to deal with you the way I think best. Got that?”
The man’s eyes wavered.
“In case it hasn’t sunk in,” said Loftus, “I’ll give you five minutes to think about it.”
He turned away abruptly. Davidson followed him, and the door was closed. Mark Errol said quickly:
“Will he talk?”
“Looks remarkably like it,” said Loftus confidently. “I’ll give him a few minutes to make sure.”
Afterwards, he knew that it was a mistake, but there was nothing to indicate that at the moment. Had he started questioning the man right away he might have had some obstinacy to overcome, and he had no desire to use force if it could be avoided. The five minutes would produce a mental condition, he believed, which would make the man more amenable.
But hardly had he reached the other room than the telephone rang, and Mike Errol answered it. He held out the receiver.
“It’s Gordon.”
“Right, thanks,” said Loftus, and took the receiver. The call might be one of mere routine, or it might be fraught with many complications; he judged from Craigie’s crisp and serious voice that it was more likely the latter.
“Get over at once, will you,” Craigie said. “And bring Ned.”
“Right. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” Loftus replaced the receiver, and then dialled Ned Oundle’s number. The Errols and Davidson were watching the big man closely, all of them aware that there might be developments of first-class importance.
“Gordon sounded as if we’re for it,” said Loftus with a faint smile. “But there’s work for you, my friends. Mike, the lovely you seem to be so enthusiastic about is looking for you.” He gave no time for that to sink in or heed to Mike’s exclamation, following on with swift instructions to be where the woman might easily find him—at Cherry’s or similar haunts. Mike did not look displeased.
“What about me?” demanded Mark aggressively.
“You’re after the boy-friend of Byng Court, you and Wally together,” said Loftus. “Find out all you can about the gentleman—Miller at the Yard may be able to help a bit—and get it fast.”
“What about the Shrimp?” Wally demanded.
“Ring the Yard, and have him collected for the time being,” said Loftus. “We can get him out of Cannon Row later, if needs be. Ask the Yard about the girl, too—child, if you prefer it—they might know of her. All set?”
Oundle’s arrival coincided with their nods of satisfaction. The two men hurried downstairs and into Oundle’s car.
Loftus looked swiftly up and down the street. “It looks as if they’ve given their little man up as hopeless, but we can’t be too sure. I’ll get up to the office right away, and you phone from a call-box to the Yard. Ask Miller to make inquiries about flats opposite or near ours—and it might be an idea if his men had a look through any empty ones for signs of recent habitation. Got that?”
“Why don’t I ring from Gordon’s office?” objected Oundle.
“Because it will lose another four or five minutes, and I’ve lost plenty already,” said Loftus.
Oundle pulled up near the side-turning from which the office was reached. They had not been followed, although that was not necessarily good news—Loftus would have liked to feel that someone was on his heels. He was more worried by the apparent inaction of the other side than he would have been by any demonstration of hostility.
He put that thought aside when he reached Craigie’s office.
Craigie was alone, his expression one of deep anxiety. An expression so alien to the Department leader’s usual composure and calm caused Loftus to move forward quickly.
“What’s gone wrong, Gordon?”
Craigie said: “Arkeld was murdered last night.” He pushed a hand over his thinning hair, and added quietly:
“A cargo ship with a full load of Argentine beef was blown up last night. It was ready for unloading this morning. Seven soldiers guarding it were killed, half-a-dozen others were injured. It was at Liverpool, and intended for the seventh area.”
Loftus said evenly:
“The seventh, eh? So it’s spreading?”
“It looks like it. Of course, it might have been intended for any area as far as the crew and others knew—but . . .”
“I know,” said Loftus. “They bring it across the Atlantic, they get it through hell and worse, and when it’s safely in dock it blows up and there’s nothing to show for all that heroism and fortitude. No question that it was sabotage, I suppose?”
“None at all—there were no raids up there last night.”
“And Arkeld was murdered about the same time. Where was he?”
“In London,” said Craigie with a gesture of resignation. “I had to take all of you off, you know that. The regional directors and Mortimer were at the Landon Hotel for a conference, and Arkeld was to make a statement. They were all staying in the same hotel. So I got the police to watch, it was certain, I thought, that there would be no funny business while they were together like that. Howover—someone got in and shot him.”
“No chance of suicide?”
“Not the slightest. There was no gun.”
“Oh, well,” said Loftus. “I suppose I’d better go over, although there isn’t likely to be much to find. The police are on to it, I suppose?”
“Miller’s there himself.”
“That’s something,” said Loftus. As he spoke, the green light showed again, and Oundle was admitted. Craigie nodded a greeting, then turned back to Loftus:
“It alters a great deal, Bill. We can’t safely leave any of the regional directors or Mortimer unattended, and they don’t know what’s happening yet! I’ve had the P.M. on the phone, and he has an idea that they should all be told, so that they can look for leakages in the areas under their control. What do you think of it?”
“I don’t,” said Loftus briskly. “Will Hershall insist?”
“I think he’ll leave it to us.”
“Tell him that if we’ve got to look for leakages I think we ought to start from the top, will you?” said Loftus. “And tell him also that if the trouble is starting from outside, we’re more likely to get results if the directors don’t realise that there is danger on a major scale.”
“You mean that they’ll be more easily approached by our unknown enemy, and we will have more chance of seeing who does the approaching,” said Craigie with a slow smile. “I think he’ll be happy enough to let us go our own way for a few days, but only if we get results.”
Loftus grinned. “He’s a man for results, bless him! But there’s no reason why they—the directors—shouldn’t know that we’re investigating Arkeld’s murder and the thirty-ninth area trouble.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, and Craigie said quietly:
“You’d like to look in at the conference, is that it?”
“Can you fix it?”
“I’ll try,” said Craigie.
He felt better when Loftus and Oundle had left, for Loftus gave him a feeling of assurance which at times was apt to grow thin. Craigie had the same effect on the big man; neither knew of their mutual sources of inspiration. But Craigie was smiling a little as he telephoned Number 10, spoke first to Smythe, the P.M.’s confidential secretary, and then to the Prime Minister himself. Hershall raised no objections to Loftus’s suggestion.
“He can have three days,” he said decisively. “All right, Craigie, thanks for ringing.”
Loftus, meanwhile, was on the way to the Landon Hotel. All was quiet. It seemed that the newspapers had not yet heard of the murder. He asked for the manager, and soon afterwards was ushered, with Oundle, into a suite on the second floor. On the way—the manager accompanied them—Loftus learned that the six gentlemen on whom depended the regional distribution of the nation’s food had occupied suites on the same floor.
“Who suggested that?” Loftus had asked.
“It was my idea, sir. And Sir Bruce Mortimer was good enough to commend it. It made it easy for them to get assembled for informal discussion at almost any time.”
The door of Suite 18 was opened by a plain-clothes policeman standing outside. The first room was empty. The second contained four men, one of them dead.
Arkeld had been shot in bed.
The bullet had entered his right temple, and the result was not pleasant. Two men were arranging a camera tripod, one of them a finger-print expert. The third man was Superintendent Miller, Special Branch Chief at Scotland Yard.
His face, a large one and rugged, with broad features and a look of good-humour—was distinguished by a pair of shrewd light blue eyes. He nodded to Loftus and Oundle, whom he knew well.
The camera-work was soon finished, and the sheet replaced.
“Well, what do you make of it?” Loftus asked Miller.
“What do you?” asked Miller. “You can see what I can see.”
Loftus turned back the sheet again, noting the sharp and somewhat severe features of the murdered man. His eye travelled from the bullet wound to the window, and then to the door.
“Well, he certainly wasn’t shot through the window or the door if he was lying on the bed. And if he was shot from closer by, there would have been more damage. A biggish bullet, wasn’t it?”
“A .45,” said Miller. “You’ve got it in one, Loftus. He wasn’t lying on the bed when he was shot, but the pillow and the sheets were drenched in blood, so he might have been carried here immediately afterwards. The only time anything was heard which could have been the shot was at twelve o’clock last night—and,” said Miller quietly, “at twelve o’clock, if I’m to believe what I’m told, he was with the Director-General and the regional directors.”
Loftus said: “Why should they lie? When was this discovered?”
“About an hour and a half ago.”
“What does the surgeon say?”
“He can’t give the time of death much nearer than ‘within three hours of midnight’,” said Miller. “It doesn’t help us a lot. But . . .” his face showed a glimmer of a smile—“it’s your job, Loftus. Or so I’m told.”
“We’re co-operating,” said Loftus promptly. “You heard what might have been a shot about midnight. And . . .”
He stopped, then. He had to, for from somewhere inside the hotel, and not far away, there came the roar of an explosion so violent that the whole building seemed to rock. They stared at each other, tense and alarmed, before Miller said hoarsely:
“The conference is meeting now, in the hotel. And that came from downstairs.”
7
Conference in Confusion
Loftus reached the door before Miller, and seeing this, Miller held back. He knew his limitations, and he knew the qualities of Loftus. He believed that the large man would be more effective with Mortimer and the others, and that the presence of a policeman, even one of high rank, might hamper him.
Pictures which had been hanging in the passage were either on the floor or askew, and the thick red carpet was covered with fallen plaster. Cracks showed, but Miller did not think that they were deep. He was wondering what course to take when Sergeant Adams, an elephantine man much shrewder than his appearance suggested, appeared at the end of the corridor. Adams was dishevelled and had a slight cut in one cheek.
Miller said sharply:
“Where was the explosion? The conference room?”
“No, sir. In a cupboard fairly near to it. Mr. Loftus has just gone into the conference room.”
Miller rubbed his chin.
“Right. Then we’ll wait until he sends us a message, Adams.”
In the conference room six gentlemen, two secretaries and William Loftus, were foregathered.
When Loftus had entered it was plain that there had been some alarm, and the state of the room indicated that the ceiling had suffered fairly severely. One heavy portrait—of the dozen that lined the walls—was on the floor, and several small panes of glass in the windows were broken. Three chairs and a writing-bureau were lying on their sides.
It was not difficult for Loftus to imagine that before the explosion the directors had been sitting round the long, horseshoe shaped table, going through items on an agenda which remained on the table in front of Sir Bruce Mortimer’s chair. There would have been the minimum of formality; their getting together at the Landon Hotel suggesting an intention of doing things rather more quickly than was usually their custom.
Loftus knew Sir Bruce reasonably well.
He had been watching that gentleman for three days, although Mortimer did not know it, and in the course of the three days Mortimer had contrived to get through an amount of work which was gargantuan in its proportions. He was an odd combination. Though untiringly industrious, traditional ways of procedure mattered to him, and he was guided by them. No one could deny his ability, his shrewdness, his genuine desire to do his best, his knowledge of his subject; if only he would have prised himself from his love of red tape he would have had few critics. But it seemed that he had been a civil servant too long. Loftus believed that the Minister of Food would have transferred his Dir
ector-General of Distribution if he had been able to find any other capable of the divers duties.
It was Mortimer who spoke when Loftus entered.
“There is nothing we want, thank you.”
Loftus walked right in and closed the door.
“I told you . . .” began Mortimer, and then he stopped and looked a little startled. He was standing by his seat, a tall, white-haired aristocratic-looking man, with thin, aquiline features, and very light blue eyes. He looked piercingly at Loftus. “I have already told the manager we are quite untouched.”
“Sorry,” said Loftus. “The report didn’t reach me. I was upstairs with the police, gentlemen, and—well,” he added with a shrug of his shoulders, “I was naturally a little afraid that something had happened here. Are you continuing with the business of the day?”
“Certainly we are,” said Mortimer. “What is your name, please?”
“Loftus.”
It would not be true to say that Mortimer thawed, or that his manner grew any more human, but there was a definite change in him. “You have been sent from—er . . .”
“The Department,” said Loftus gently.
“Ah. We were discussing you before the explosion. It will perhaps be best if you meet the directors.” He presented Loftus to each man separately with a formality which gave the Department agent an opportunity to weigh up and assess: he needed that opportunity.
Lord Brelling was first.
A short, thickset man with wiry red hair, Brelling gave the impression of being an aggressive self-made man. That was true. He had started life as a grocer’s errand boy, and within twenty years had become the owner of the largest chain of grocery shops in the country. His stores were popular and well-run; it was said that he had a genius for choosing the right men to act for him. Certainly no better choice could have been made for the task of controlling one of the regional areas of food distribution and conservation. He nodded amiably enough to Loftus.
Sir Augustus Gray, a thin whippet of man, had similar qualifications. One would never be surprised to see him standing behind a counter. There was the faintest suggestion of foxiness in his thin features, and small brown eyes, yet he had an irreproachable reputation, and he was one of the few men who, after making progress in the world of commerce, had gone to Oxford and graduated—at one time he had been the oldest undergraduate at the University. A man, it was said, who did everything thoroughly, and one who did not easily forgive mistakes.
