by John Creasey
“… I could tell you harrowing stories of men and women, once in good health, with a glowing future before them, and a wife or husband and family with whom to share it—men and women who could laugh, as you have laughed tonight. I have seen them after young brutes had coshed the very sense out of them. Hale, hearty men – suddenly half-paralysed. Intelligent men turned into idiots. Old folk viciously attacked in the evening of their lives … young folk wickedly attacked so that not only their bodies have been affected, but through all their years they will remember with horror the blows which came out of the darkness.”
There was hardly a movement, hardly a sound but the one man’s voice, in the great hall.
“Now what is it that we ask?” Hann-Gorlay went on. “Simply, protection for our wives, our children and ourselves. That is the simple duty of the state, that—”
The applause burst upon him like a torrent; nothing he could do could stop it. He waited, pale-faced, looking very tense; and there was tension in Ruth, too. Watching, listening, Roger felt that Hann-Gorlay was almost in a trance; believed passionately in everything that he said.
Could he be fooling them?
The roar died away, and he went on: “Is it too much to ask that these armed beasts should be met with arms? Force with force? … Are we to continue to stand by and watch our policemen—our loyal, faithful, courageous friends in blue—slaughtered? Are we …”
The wave of applause drowned his words, men were on their feet, cheering.
“Give these men arms, and they will be able to defend themselves as well as us—they will be able to protect our property. But we want more. Where there is one policeman today, unarmed, we want two tomorrow—fully armed …”
He had to wait again for silence.
“And we call for a recruiting campaign which we know will be answered when the people realise that at last the authorities—the Government—is ready to tackle this awful problem with all the vigour that an emergency demands.”
He had the crowd where he wanted it; won silence or cheers, shrill laughter or tense grins – they gave him everything he called for.
His voice grew more powerful, he seemed to grow bigger, he commanded a great silence as he cried: “It was said long ago, and well said, that there should be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. That is our demand tonight. Let us use the cat-o’-nine tails, let us bring back harsh, let us have terrible punishment inflicted upon those who are guilty of the brutal crimes. If any man kills, he is hanged. Why should he not suffer, in kind, if he makes others suffer in other ways? It will be the greatest deterrent—”
The crack of a shot, the flash of a gun, broke across his words.
Chapter Sixteen
Mob Law
After the shot, there was silence.
It lasted only for a moment: a shocked moment when there was no sound at all. It was as if every man and woman in the hall had stopped breathing.
Then came a roar which was much louder than anything that had come before; it had a note of ferocity in it.
Hann-Gorlay, upright until that moment, leaned against the table in front of him. Matthewson jumped up, and Ruth Linder was at their side in a flash. But they couldn’t save Hann-Gorlay from falling; he slumped over the table as others rushed to help, then fell.
Brammer from the Press table was on the move at once.
Roger jumped on his feet, saying sharply: “Come on, Bill. You stay there, Sir Guy.”
He began to move down the gangway, with Sloan just behind him. Chatworth ignored his advice, and followed. Not far off, Roger saw a little group of people, standing up and fighting. Other detectives were converging on the spot from which the shot had been fired.
A youth was in the middle of the surging group. Roger saw his fists wave about, saw him seized, saw fists battering at his face, saw one man with his hands round the youth’s neck. On the faces of most of the men near was something so ugly that it was frightening in itself – as if they lusted for blood.
Yard men had reached the group, and were struggling to get to the youth.
Other people were standing, getting in Roger’s way. He elbowed his way past, rapping words out: “Police—let us through! Police—let us through!”
He drew nearer.
Other Yard men nearer to the youth had been thrust to one side. The youth looked limp, now, his face deathly pale, as fists smashed into him; one pair of hands was still clenched viciously round his throat.
Men were shouting:
“String him up!”
“Break his neck!”
“Tear him to pieces.”
Sloan tried to whisper in Roger’s ear.
“If we show our guns—”
“It’ll drive ’em mad,” Roger growled. He roared: “Police, police! Let him go!”
He had to smash his way through the crowd now, but some men kept their heads, several were pulling the vicious ones off the youth, who seemed to have fainted. As he fell, the man trying to strangle him was prised away.
Women were watching, terrified; a few fainted. In the tension of the moment, it was easy to forget the rest of the crowd. Roger knew there was a bright light, but did not know that one of the spotlights had been turned towards them.
He reached the youth, and hauled him up. Other Yard men and some of the audience were ready to help, now.
“Get the gun,” Roger ordered. “Then gangway, please. Bill—” he barked to Sloan. “Take his feet.”
He had the youth’s shoulders.
He wasn’t sure whether the youth was alive or dead. He was bruised and battered – in a few seconds his face had been smashed almost beyond recognition; the bruises were swelling rapidly. The only certain thing was that he was a stranger.
“Gangway, please!”
The cry was taken up.
There was another sound – a voice over the loud speaker. Matthewson began to talk quite calmly.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it will help if everyone will remain seated, just for a few minutes. That will also help the police – after all, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it to help the police? Sir Neville is not seriously injured …”
That assurance broke through the tension, forced the thoughts of the crowd away from the shooting and the prisoner back to the platform. There was a cheer, ragged at first, soon much stronger.
“A doctor is already attending him,” Matthewson went on, “but as an old soldier, I know enough about gunshot wounds to be sure that this one is a glancing wound which will do little serious harm.”
Whether that was true or false, it calmed the crowd.
Roger and Sloan were at one of the circular corridors at the back of the hall. Other police took the youth from them. The gun was a .32 automatic; Roger now had it.
“Get a doctor for him,” Roger said, “see that he’s kept away from the crowd.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bill, we want one or two of those fellows who started to tear him to bits,” Roger said. “Hurry.”
Chatworth, just behind them, heard that.
“Why?”
“Mustn’t let ’em get away with it,” Roger said, and pushed past the AC. “That way we’ll ask for mob law.” He was already hurrying back to the spot. “There was a fellow in blue, with a bow tie,” he said to Sloan. “Another chap with a scar on his right cheek. They’ll do.” He stood at the end of the rows looking for the pair. “There they are.”
Other police had followed.
Roger called: “You, sir—” he pointed. “And you—”
He pointed again. Men looked at him. “Just a moment, please, we’d like a word with you.”
They came without argument. It wasn’t until he got them away from the crowd that he charged them with assault. They looked shocked. The man who had nearly strangled – perhaps had strangled – the life out of the youth, looked astounded. Now that passion was spent, he was just an ordinary, mild-mannered man.
As they walked along the passage
, Matthewson was saying: “… And so the Citizens’ League proposes to form its own force, of Vigilantes, public-spirited men and women—yes, and women—who will band together to protect their lives and property, until the police forces are strong enough and sufficiently armed …”
Roger, Sloan and the two prisoners went out of earshot. Chatworth was nowhere in sight. Roger handed the two men over to uniformed police, who took them downstairs and had them sent to the Yard.
The youthful gunman was still unconscious.
Roger and Sloan went to the rooms beneath the platform. A few policemen and some of the organisers were standing about. Chatworth was among them, and several pressmen. Brammer was with these, looking sardonic as Roger appeared.
“Have you got the gunman, Handsome?”
“Yes.”
“Name—”
“Later,” Roger said. “If you and the rest of the newspapermen have any sense, you’ll run a story on the folly of individuals taking the law into their own hands. They nearly choked the life out of him.”
“But, Handsome,” Brammer protested mildly, “that’s the mood they’re in. Didn’t you notice?”
“How’s Hann-Gorlay?” Roger asked abruptly.
“He’ll be all right,” said Brammer.
Roger and Sloan went into a dressing room where the injured MP was lying. Ruth was there, a doctor, several other people. Ruth saw Roger, but didn’t move towards him. Hann-Gorlay was lying on his back, and the doctor was putting adhesive plaster on his temple. The injured man was conscious, and there was some colour in his cheeks.
Chatworth came in as Roger moved towards Hann-Gorlay.
“Remember me?” he asked. “I’m Chief Inspector West of New Scotland Yard.” He didn’t give Hann-Gorlay any time to respond. “If you’ve any sense at all, you’ll stop this campaign before you do a hell of a lot more damage than the young brutes themselves are doing. If it had got any worse outside, there would have been a panic in the hall, with hundreds injured, perhaps dozens crushed to death. You’d have been as responsible for that as anyone else. Widows, orphans and idiots wouldn’t stop to think you did it for what you thought was best. That wouldn’t make any difference to them—they’d still be widows, orphans and idiots.” His voice was harsh, angry. “For God’s sake drop this idiocy before it goes too far.”
He stopped.
Ruth Linder pushed her way forward, until she was by Hann-Gorlay’s side.
“I think that’s more than enough, Chief Inspector.”
“Don’t stop him, Ruth,” said Hann-Gorlay. His voice was smooth; he had recovered almost completely, showed no sign of strain or shock. “We have to expect opposition even from the police themselves, of course—especially from senior officers. The fewer there are of them, the greater the glory they share.” The words were meant as an insult.
“Listen to me,” Roger said. “You’ve weakened the police force more tonight than twenty bandit hold-ups would have done. That’s only a beginning. If you get an armed corps of Vigilantes, then every young fool who wants to break into a house will know he’s likely to face an armed man and—”
“He’ll think again!”
“He’ll take a gun.”
“They take guns already.”
“Look,” said Roger, almost desperately, “you want a little sense of proportion. We had three hundred and forty-one burglaries or robberies in the Great London area last week. In fourteen cases the crooks were armed. That’s one in twenty. You’re going to turn it into one in every two or three. Then we’ll have a job so big we’ll never be able to tackle it. Can’t you—”
“Very persuasive,” sneered Hann-Gorlay. “Darling, I think I’m well enough to go back to the meeting. They do expect me, don’t they?”
Roger shot a glance at Chatworth.
“We could hold him—on grounds of causing a breach of the peace.”
Chatworth said: “Let the fool go.”
“Darling—” Hann-Gorlay took Ruth’s arm as he stood up the side of the couch. He looked more pale. “Will you lead the way?”
“Are you sure you’re fit?” Ruth began.
“Of course I’m sure; I’m perfectly all right.”
They moved towards the door.
Roger blocked their path.
“Wait a minute,” he said. They stopped. “You’ll get a big cheer when you show your face there again. You know that. You had them where you wanted them before, now you’ll be able to do what you like with them. But you might regret it. The murderers might have planned this carefully. They might have a second gunman waiting to finish the job the first one started.”
“Be good enough to move aside,” Hann-Gorlay said stiffly.
The youthful prisoner was still unconscious. Letters in his pockets showed that he was Edgar Randall, with an address in Fulham. Detectives were soon on the way to the address.
“Have him taken to a nursing home,” Roger said. “And keep me in touch.” He poked his fingers through his hair, and glanced at Sloan; Chatworth hadn’t left the room below the platform. “Let’s go and hear what Hann-Gorlay’s saying now, Bill. He’s got guts, but I’d like—” He didn’t finish.
The great hall was hushed, but for Hann-Gorlay’s voice. He was speaking very quietly. The spotlight made him look like an Adonis – and the patch of plaster over his right temple must have caught the imagination of the crowd.
“… It is now evident that these vicious youths, these depraved brutes, will stop at nothing. Knowing the police are not armed, they will take the risk, the almost negligible risk, of corning here and of attempting to prevent the people from organising themselves. But I know the people better than they—”
He won the deep-throated roar of applause that he obviously wanted.
“… and our Citizens’ League must organise itself, must patrol the streets of our home towns and our suburbs. Its members must band themselves together, becoming so strong that they will stop these brutes from daring to attack. For this—you will understand so well—for this we need money. We cannot forever be maintained by one or two newspapers. So we have arranged for stewards to go among you. We know that you will give everything you can spare towards this cause, this very great cause …”
Roger watched him, hands thrust deep in his pockets, cigarette jutting out from his lips. Sloan was fidgety. After a few seconds, Hann-Gorlay sat down. Ruth leaned across to speak to him. Matthewson got up, to get the collection in motion. The whole crowd was in movement, men taking out their wallets, women their purses. Stewards with collecting bags and plates were busy.
“We aren’t going to have any more trouble tonight,” Sloan said. “Not here, anyhow. I wonder what’s been happening outside.”
Roger shrugged.
“Let’s get back to the Yard. Chatworth came in his own car, we needn’t worry about him.”
Outside in the crisp night air great crowds had gathered, the police were still having difficulty in keeping them from trying to force their way into the hall. Men were standing on soap-boxes, in doorways, holding impromptu meetings, all with the same theme as Hann-Gorlay’s.
Roger switched on the radio, and got through to the Yard.
“West here. Is there anything—”
“We’re having a hell of a night,” he was told. “Trouble in nearly every Division. We just haven’t the men to go round.”
Chapter Seventeen
Bad Night
It was one o’clock in the morning. Chatworth sat in the small armchair in front of the fireplace in Roger’s office. Sloan and Peel were present. Peel put some small coal on a dying fire, and made it completely black.
Chatworth took a half-smoked cigar from his lips, and looked at it.
“How many burglaries?” he asked Roger.
“Seventeen, sir—that’s not exceptional for a dark night. But nine were with violence. Two policemen were shot at for the hell of it, another was coshed, a third slashed with a razor. Out of the raiders we picked up one man i
n HK Division. He fell from a roof, and is unconscious—they’re going to advise me as soon as he comes round.” Roger stood up. “It’s time I went to Ruth Linder, Willington Place, I think. And you, Bill.”
Chatworth looked rather like a sulky bulldog.
“Why?”
“Hann-Gorlay and Ruth Linder are still at a night-club they went to after the Albert Hall show. They like the gay life after their serious work, don’t they? I think there’s a risk that they’ll be shot at as they turn up at her flat. In any case, I want to talk to her again.” Roger seemed to be defying Chatworth to tell him not to go; but Chatworth simply jabbed his cigar back between his lips. “I’ve arranged for Matthewson and the other organisers of the Citizens’ League to be watched—they’re sticking their necks out.”
“Hmm,” grunted Chatworth. “You ought to know, you’ve been doing it for long enough. Do you know anything more than you did a month ago?” He wasn’t being nasty.
“Not much.”
“Can you think of any good reason why anyone should want to make the police vicious?” Chatworth asked, as if that were the one thing he couldn’t understand. “If there were any sense in it at all—” He broke off.
Roger said: “I wonder if it’s too easy to assume that this is all one organised campaign? The Courier, and that means Brammer, started that idea. Nearly everyone else has jumped to the same conclusion. I get less and less sure that they’re right. There’s an organised gang, I should say, but a lot of these youths are on their own. It’s too big to be one group of people under a central direction. There are a few indications that Prescott was connected with some other killer, and we know he had guns for another seven. We haven’t proved that he ever worked with anyone else, though.”
Roger lit a cigarette, and the telephone rang while he was doing so.
Peel answered, and they all waited.
Peel said: “Okay,” and rang off. “They’ve called for their bill at the night-club, Roger, and should be at her flat in twenty minutes or so.”
