by John Creasey
Loftus was pleased in most ways.
Davidson and Oundle were on the mend, and so was Craigie—who would take a month off when he had recovered enough to travel, and thus have his much-needed holiday. There was a visit from Braddon and Pam to his flat, a couple wrapped up in themselves enough to be touched only lightly by the plot in which they had played so strange a part. Braddon had been fixed up at the Ministry of Food, and they were in their private seventh heaven.
And ten days after the affair at Larch House the B.B.C. announced that the Prime Minister would speak on the Home and Empire Radio that night. He did. Among those who heard him were Loftus and Carruthers, Mike and Mark Errol, Spats Thornton and the exuberant Martin Best, who grumbled at times that he had only had half enough to do in the business.
Hershall refuted the “food scare” leaflet utterly and completely and said there was more food than ever in the country. Yet he treated it as only a brief item in his speech, which concerned the general progress of the war. The six men listening stiffened with the closing words:
“Many work among us, unseen, unknown but unafraid, and to them we owe more than we can reckon. We salute them.”
Six men looked at one another; and then six men drank, as if to cover their confusion, to the voice which had just faded from the air.
Go Away Death
John Creasey
1
Loftus is delighted
Standing by the window of his Brook Street flat, with a cigarette in one hand and a tankard of beer in another, William Loftus looked with interest at a telegraph boy cycling erratically along the road.
Loftus was a large man, by no means handsome, but with a face which, when he smiled, could be extremely attractive. He had a full, sensitive mouth. His eyes, one a shade higher than the other, often narrowed as if with weariness; they did then.
‘Your trouble, Ned,’ he said, looking away from the window, ‘is congenital laziness allied to incurable romanticism.’
Ned Oundle, sprawled full length on a settee, regarded him without reproach. He was painfully thin, so that his features at times looked gaunt, but they were relieved by his enormous eyes, round as with innocence, fringed with most unmasculine lashes.
‘What you mean is that I’m in love but too lazy to do anything about it,’ he said mildly.
‘A man in love is never too lazy to do anything about it,’ said Loftus. ‘Whoever the girl is—’
A ring at the front-door bell interrupted him.
Oundle closed his eyes, and heard Loftus say:
‘Well, young man?’
‘Cable-fer-yer-sir,’ said a piping voice.
Oundle heard the tearing of an envelope, then a sharp exclamation which made him open his eyes abruptly. The possibility that there was bad news faded immediately, for Loftus uttered a sound that was very nearly a whoop, and said heartily:
‘Sonny, you are a bearer of good tidings! Here’s half-a-crown. No, no reply.’
The door closed on the boy’s startled ‘ta!’ and Oundle uncoiled himself from the settee, saying severely:
‘Why the unseemly generosity? What—’
Loftus smiled happily. ‘Di’s coming over.’
‘Did she say what’s bringing her?’
‘No. Here’s the cable.’
Oundle glanced at it, finding only a brief statement that Diana Woodward was leaving New York that morning, hoping to be at London Airport about three o’clock.
There had been a time when Oundle had resented Diana, for until her appearance on the scene Loftus had shown no serious interest in women, and had been well satisfied to work in his peculiar way, with Oundle as his often-present companion. A friendship of twenty years, thought Oundle, had been on the point of being broken, or at least damaged.
But Oundle had reckoned without the requirements of Department Z—a department once held up to ridicule by the Press, and by others who turned up their noses at the thought of an ultra-secret service. The activities of the Department, however, had become so widespread and had so often hit the front pages of the national papers that now the scoffing was heard only in odd corners, and about Loftus and other members of Department Z there had sprung a legend.
Loftus at that time was the leading agent in Department Z, which did not mean that he was its leader. That onerous, often thankless task was Gordon Craigie’s; but Loftus was the man of action, while Craigie held the strings, sitting in his large office in Whitehall and sifting the enormous multitude of reports from sources as far afield as China and the Far East, Lapland and Greenland.
About the time that Bill Loftus was driving into London Airport to fetch Diana, Gordon Craigie was examining some reports which lay on a large, light-oak desk. It had several telephones, some manilla folders, and a blotting-pad, but nothing else except the papers Craigie was reading. He was wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, a recent innovation, and one to which he was not yet fully accustomed; long, white fingers fiddled with the spectacles as he read.
He was a man of medium height, thin, and lantern-jawed. His hair was grey, a small bald patch showing at the crown.
He looked up suddenly.
A faint click sounded in the otherwise silent office, large and, at one end, furnished with only the bare necessities of desk, filing cabinets and, by his side, a dictaphone. By the mantelpiece at the far end were several easy chairs, a small table, a bookcase and a cupboard, the door of which gaped open to reveal an astonishing miscellany of articles. A collar poked from one shelf; a jar of jam, half-empty, showed on another.
A green light was shining on the mantel-shelf.
Craigie pushed his chair back, approached the far end of the room, and pressed a button beneath the shelf, close to the green light. A faint whirring sound was followed by the opening of a sliding door, and into the room stepped the most-photographed figure in Great Britain.
On a square, rather pale face, the sensitive lips were twisted in an ironic smile. Wide-set eyes of intense blue looked at Craigie with the same amusement. Dark clothes covered a figure which would have been tall but for the hunched, rounded shoulders, shoulders befitting a young bull. The short neck increased the bull-like impression, as did the quick but sturdy movement of the man, none other than the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Graham Hershall.
Craigie pressed the button again, and the door closed behind his visitor, who pulled a flat silver case from his pocket and stuck a thin, dark cheroot into the corner of his mouth.
‘Why the deuce do you go in for these melodramatic trimmings, Craigie? Well, what d’you want to see me about?’ He sat down.
Craigie said slowly: ‘American co-operation, sir. There is a growing movement in the States which believes that all we’re trying to do is to make sure America pays the cost of English defence. In the last two or three days, prominent industrialists who in the past have supported generous contributions to N.A.T.O., and the acceptance of British membership, are veering round. They’re big corporation men, they’re making good and reasonable profits out of supplying N.A.T.O. countries with arms, but they’re changing their attitude without any apparent reason. There must be a reason.’
Hershall pursed his lips.
‘Ye-es. How many are involved?’
‘Five, to date,’ said Craigie. ‘And Washington is worried by it. One man, Cyrus K. Hoppermann, is flying from New York to England this morning. I expect he’s landed by now. Washington has sent an agent after him, and asked me to contact that agent, and to watch Hoppermann. He’s probably the most influential of those who have changed sides recently.
Hershall was frowning.
‘Hoppermann, Hoppermann. President of the Nu-Steel Corporation. I hardly expected him to change his mind.’
‘No one did,’ said Craigie dryly, ‘but he has. He gave a television talk two nights ago, saying that he had information suggesting that America was being cheated, and that he was coming to England to see for himself.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Hershall.
Hershall sat back, eyes narrowed, smoke curling slowly from his cheroot. He said nothing.
‘I can’t answer any of these questions,’ Craigie went on, ‘but Hoppermann’s arrival in England, and the purpose of his visit, might give us an idea. I propose to have Loftus and the others working on him immediately, and I think you should know that I feel it essential that they get results, whatever the difficulties of the job. Hoppermann would not be inconvenienced in any way that would give him cause for complaint, of course.’
Hershall widened his eyes.
‘What’s that? Your men work without giving cause for complaint? Don’t try to blarney me, Craigie, whatever else you do! Loftus will do exactly what he thinks should be done, and damn diplomacy. H’m. You’ve nothing else?’
‘Not yet.’
‘All right.’ Hershall stood up, speaking crisply. ‘If you do anything to make a fool of me, or to jeopardise our relations, I’ll give up trying to rely on any of these pesty departments.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘No offence, and don’t take any.’
After he had gone, Craigie sat silently in his chair for some seconds, shrugged, then picked up one of the telephones. After a short delay, he was speaking to Ned Oundle.
‘Craigie,’ said Craigie. ‘E-I-G—’
‘Go on,’ said Oundle, who had in any case recognised his chief’s voice, but waited to hear the name spelt backwards; by such a simple trick it was possible for all Department Z agents to make sure that telephone calls were genuine; the simplicity of the system probably explained its effectiveness, for no one had ever misused it.
‘Where’s Loftus?’ asked Craigie.
‘Didn’t you know? Diana’s flying in from New York this afternoon, and he’s gone to fetch her from the airport. But he’ll be back any minute—her plane was due in at three o’clock.’
‘Three o’clock,’ echoed Craigie. ‘That’s the ’plane Hoppermann took; an American V.I.P. we’re anxious to have a word with. So Diana actually travelled with him? I’ll be over in half an hour or so.’ He hung up without saying goodbye.
At the other end of the line, Oundle heard the click of the replaced receiver, and he too hung up. A moment later he heard the front door open, but no sound of voices. Loftus came in, alone, his face set.
Oundle waited, and Loftus said at last:
‘Diana didn’t get here. Nor did the ’plane. It exploded in mid-air—no one was saved. No one,’ he repeated slowly, and in his eyes there was a pain which Oundle hated to see.
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John Creasey
Master crime fiction writer John Creasey’s 562 titles (or so) have sold more than 80 million copies in over 25 languages. After enduring 743 rejection slips, the young Creasey’s career was kickstarted by winning a newspaper writing competition. He went on to collect multiple honours from The Mystery Writers of America including the Edgar Award for best novel in 1962 and the coveted title of Grand Master in 1969. Creasey’s prolific output included 11 different series including Roger West, the Toff, the Baron, Patrick Dawlish, Gideon, Dr Palfrey, and Department Z, published both under his own name and 10 other pseudonyms.
Creasey was born in Surrey in 1908 and, when not travelling extensively, lived between Bournemouth and Salisbury for most of his life. He died in England in 1973.
ALSO IN THIS SERIES
The Death Miser
Redhead
First Came a Murder
Death Round the Corner
The Mark of the Crescent
Thunder in Europe
The Terror Trap
Carriers of Death
Days of Danger
Death Stands By
Menace
Murder Must Wait
Panic!
Death by Night
The Island of Peril
Sabotage
Go Away Death
The Day of Disaster
Prepare for Action
No Darker Crime
Dark Peril
The Peril Ahead
The League of Dark Men
The Department of Death
The Enemy Within
Dead or Alive
A Kind of Prisoner
The Black Spiders
This edition published in 2016 by Ipso Books
Ipso Books is a division of Peters Fraser + Dunlop Ltd
Drury House, 34-43 Russell Street, London WC2B 5HA
Copyright © John Creasey, 1941
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage
Contents
1Lovely Lady
2Shrimpy Little Man
3Not a Good Day
4Enter Loftus
5Topsy Talks
6Shocks for Craigie
7Conference in Confusion
8“Quite a Circus”
9Of Maximilian Golt
10And of Myra
11An Invitation
12Job for Braddon
13Loftus Says “Yes”
14Strange Story
15Night of Disaster
16Effects of Fear
17“To the Public”
18Hotel Tragedy
19Carte Blanche
20Quick Work
21Says Braddon
22Food Shortage
