Give a Man a Gun

by John Creasey

  Brammer burst out: “What the hell are you waiting for? Get it over.”

  “It won’t be long. We’re going to have a conference, and then—”

  He stopped.

  A sound came from outside; a moment later a man inside the house shouted. The roar of the engine grew very loud, and shots cracked out from other rooms.

  The youth strode to the window, kept to one side, and thrust his gun forward – but he didn’t shoot.

  The car crashed, and glass splintered. The youth at the window spun round, white-faced. Then the engines of other cars started up. More shots rang out, but the cars didn’t stop until they reached the house.

  “That’s curtains for you, Brammer,” the youth said viciously; “we won’t have time—”

  “You won’t have time,” Pauline Weston said.

  The youth looked stupefied.

  Brammer’s eyes held a fierce, bright light. Pauline took a small gun from her pocket and shot the youth in the arm. Then she raced across to the door and slammed it, turned the lock, and spun round in time to stop the youth from rushing at her.

  “Stay just where you are!”

  He stood swaying on his feet, blood dripping from the wound in his arm.

  Pauline backed towards Brammer.

  “The police are here,” she said, as if she hardly knew what she was talking about. “It’s all right, my darling, it’s all right. I got in with the brutes; to fool them I had to fool you. I hoped that I’d be able to prove who—”

  She stopped.

  Shooting crackled on the stairs and on the landing, but after a few tense minutes, all was quiet. Heavy footsteps sounded. They heard Roger West’s voice. He reached the door and turned the handle.

  He called: “Bill, this one’s locked. Better be careful.”

  “It’s all right,” Pauline said.

  She didn’t call out loud enough for Roger to hear. Now that it was over, she was trembling, and her voice wouldn’t keep steady. Her hand quivered as she unlocked the door.

  “It’s all right,” she repeated. “Look—look what they were doing to him.” She turned towards Brammer. “They intended to make it look as if he committed suicide. That was going to ‘prove’ he was the leader, but he isn’t; he’s nothing to do with it. Ruth—Ruth Linder is.”

  Roger bent over Brammer, untying the cords at his wrist. They hadn’t been tied really tightly. This could be as phoney as anything that had gone before it.

  “Now we’ll have the proof,” Roger growled.

  “Ruth will soon be here, if she isn’t already,” Pauline said. “She ’phoned one of the boys, to say she was coming. She wanted to see Bram before he was killed. She was on the way, so couldn’t be warned when you began the attack.”

  That might be true. Faced with the emergency outside, Ruth would have thought up a lie in a hurry.

  “I still want proof,” Roger said.

  “We heard them talking,” Brammer said gruffly. “Oh, I know it won’t give you any excuse to act, but it’s true, Handsome. Pauline—”

  “That’s right,” Roger said. “Let’s hear what Pauline’s been doing.”

  “Very well,” Pauline said quietly. “I’ll tell you everything. My name isn’t Weston. It’s Prescott. Roy Prescott was my brother. I—I tried to save him.” She gave a brittle laugh. “That’s how I got mixed up in it all at the start. I knew he had gone off the rails—I didn’t know how far. I was sure he was under the influence of someone bad—evil. An evil woman, with whom he was infatuated. He was as close as an oyster, so I mixed with his friends to find out all I could. Mortimer seemed nearest, so I concentrated on him. I wanted to get at the woman before it was too late.

  “Well, it was too late. Roy killed, and was killed, and I’d failed. But—call it revenge if you like” – she looked at West defiantly – “I was determined to make her pay for it. I like to think it wasn’t just revenge, that I believed I could save other boys from going the same way as Roy. Take it how you like.”

  “Go on.” Roger’s voice was expressionless.

  “Mortimer made it easier by falling in love with me. Easier in some ways, though a bit embarrassing at times, as I had to hold him.” Pauline shot a quick look at Brammer, but he did not meet her eyes. “I warned Mortimer that you came to see me about that brooch, to convince him that I was on the level with him. I let him use my car—”

  “I suppose you know that he used your car to decoy me into a trap,” Roger broke in sharply.

  “That wasn’t Mortimer,” she said emphatically. “Someone else took the car—on her orders, so as to frame me. She knew I was after her by then.” The girl sounded very tired.

  “Why did you have it repainted black immediately afterwards?”

  “Mortimer told me to. He found out it had been used to frame me, and was furious—and alarmed. He said I must have it painted, or the police would get me. I played it his way, that’s all.”

  “Was Mortimer your only contact with the gang?”

  “There was one other—Lamb. I had followed Roy to the secondhand shop once or twice, and once Lamb called at Roy’s flat when I was there. They were very thick. I’ve been following that up too.” Suddenly all the life went out of her voice. “That’s all, I think,” she said.

  “You haven’t told me how you got here,” Roger reminded her.

  “That—that won’t take long.” She made a great effort. “When Bram disappeared for the second time I was—terrified. I took my one chance, and persuaded one or two of the youths that I was in the game. They brought me here. At least I was able to stop them shooting Bram.”

  “How much of all this had you told Bram?” Roger asked.

  Brammer broke his long silence.

  “Nothing,” he growled. “I got on to Lamb myself, though. I was coming to tell you, but was shanghaied on the way.”

  “Lamb can’t help us,” said Roger wearily. “He doesn’t know much.”

  “Oh, yes, he does,” said Pauline sharply. “So does his wife. I’ve seen her with Ruth.”

  “You have?” Roger’s voice sharpened. “Brammer, did you tell anyone you’d got on to Lamb?”

  “Only Pauline, and she knew already, though she didn’t let on.” Brammer gave Pauline a twisted smile, then turned back to Roger. “Where do we go from here?”

  “You can both go home,” said Roger. “Under escort,” he added grimly.

  It was soon discovered that Roger had been held prisoner in this house. In the back yard was timber and boards like that used in the crate. One room was a kind of surgery, with a young medical student in charge. He dressed any wounds members of the gang might get. There were hypodermic syringes, morphia, a fairly complete first aid unit.

  Later, Roger and Sloan sat in Roger’s office, with a silent Peel sitting on the arm of a chair near the fire. All three were smoking. Empty cocoa mugs and a plate with one curling sandwich were on Roger’s desk.

  It was after one in the morning.

  “I still don’t see where we go from here,” Sloan said. “Both those girls’ stories are as phoney as hell. Suppose Pauline Weston is Roy Prescott’s sister—and we can soon find out—how does that help?” He drew savagely at his cigarette. “She could still be in it up to her neck. And Ruth—which of them is fooling us? Who’s the girl who blackmailed Micky Lamb and Rickett? Pauline and Ruth are the same height; give Pauline a pair of falsies and they’re much the same build. There isn’t a hope of getting Lamb or Rickett to identify one or the other. Even if we tried, they’d give us a phoney statement. Whoever’s behind it set out to bamboozle us, and have they done a job!”

  “Any ideas, Jim?” Roger asked Peel.

  Peel shrugged. “No.”

  Roger said: “Well, I’ve got one, which might not amount to much. There’s one man we’ve never paid much attention to. Sol Klein. He was nervous tonight, and didn’t like Ruth being there at all. That might be natural enough, but could also mean that he had special reason to feel nervous. Ji
m, you go and have a talk with Klein. Tackle him now that he’s tired—wake him up, if necessary. Tell him that you’ve got the case against Ruth all sewn up. Tell him that we’re going to hold her on another charge first thing in the morning, and she won’t get a remand on this one. Tell him that we know he’s in it, but if he’ll talk, he may get off. Then come away.”

  “And you’ll be waiting at Ruth’s place,” Peel said.

  “If Klein convinces her that we’re going to hold her, she may panic and run. It’s worth trying,” Roger added, “although she might guess that it’s bluff.”

  Sol Klein hadn’t gone to bed.

  He saw Peel in the shop, hands trembling, wet lips quivering. Peel didn’t know what he was talking about; Ruth wasn’t a criminal. He, Sol, hadn’t done a dishonest thing in his life.

  “I swear it, Sergeant, never once in my life—”

  Peel laughed into his face.

  “She’ll drag you down with the rest of them, Sol. Tell us what you know about her.”

  “I don’t know a thing!” Sol screeched.

  Roger and Sloan were in a private car at a corner of Willington Place. Peel had sent word to the Yard and it had been passed on. There was no way of telling whether Sol Klein had taken any action. Certainly he hadn’t visited Ruth. He might have telephoned; and if Peel had convinced him that it was desperate enough, he might persuade Ruth to try to escape.

  No policemen were in Willington Place itself, but one was at the window of a flat opposite, and could see the entrance of Ruth’s block. The back exit was also covered. Police with walkie-talkie radio were stationed all round the block.

  Everything was quiet for so long that Roger began to feel flat and jaded. Sloan was yawning, as if he couldn’t keep his eyes open another minute. Dawn began to creep across the sky.

  It wasn’t going to work. If Ruth were guilty, she felt secure – and recognised the visit to Klein as a bluff. If she were innocent, then Brammer and Pauline—

  The radio signal flashed.

  Roger grabbed it. “Hallo?”

  “She’s left,” he was told. “She’s walking towards Park Lane.”

  “Fine! Keep close to her.”

  “She won’t get away,” the man said.

  Sloan was already starting the car, tiredness forgotten.

  “On the move?”

  “Towards Park Lane.”

  “Good work,” Sloan rejoiced.

  He swung round two corners, and then slowed down when they turned into Park Lane.

  Ruth Linder had reached it and was walking towards Marble Arch. She knew that she was being followed; she must have known that for a long time. She almost certainly realised that if she wanted to escape from her shadowers, she would have to get among crowds.

  Sloan drove slowly, two hundred yards ahead of her.

  Another car came along at a good pace, then slowed down alongside Ruth. Brakes squealed as it jolted to a standstill. Ruth jumped in, the doors slammed, the car put on a furious burst of speed. A police whistle shrilled out.

  Roger looked round sharply.

  Sloan could see the headlights of the other car in his driving mirror. He pulled over, as if to let it go past. Its horn blared. He waited until the last moment, then wrenched his wheel. The driver of Ruth’s car swung towards the pavement.

  A shot flashed; the bullet passed in front of Sloan’s face and went out by Roger’s window. Another hit a tyre, the wheel went wild in Sloan’s hands.

  The two cars collided, broadside on.

  Ruth’s car swayed wildly to one side, struck the kerb, and looked as if it would turn over, then smacked into a lamppost.

  As it did so, she opened the door and jumped out. Another car flashed up. Ruth ran towards it, and was inside before the police could get her. It drove on, scattering the police right and left.

  The car was found abandoned, half a mile away. Ruth Linder and her rescuer had disappeared.

  Back in Park Lane Roger recognised the woman driver of the first car which had come for Ruth.

  It was Lamb’s wife.

  Grimly, he started the hunt for Ruth and the driver; and began the interrogation of all the prisoners.

  Mrs Lamb was dead. Roger broke the news to her husband, in gaol, and added that Ruth was on the run.

  At first Lamb did not believe him, so Roger had him taken to the morgue. It was not just callousness that made him hope Lamb would crack when he saw his wife’s body.

  Lamb cracked …

  He had been high up in the gang, and his story about being blackmailed by an unknown woman was a blind.

  “But Rickett’s telling the truth,” he told Roger earnestly. “He doesn’t know it was Ruth. Nor do the others …”

  Eight others, in different parts of London, also distributed weapons; Roger had been just two short in his estimate. Each of them, said Lamb, had an arsenal. Each was blackmailed by Ruth. He gave the names and addresses, and Roger passed them to Sloan …

  When Lamb had been arrested he had told Roger the blackmail story in the hope that this true role in the gang would not be found out. He knew the others would tell the story if they were caught, and so long as Ruth remained free their story could not be broken down. He had not wanted Ruth caught, in case she might think he had split on her and take her revenge by doing the same thing. That was why he had given Roger Brammer’s name.

  “But it doesn’t matter now,” he said brokenly. “You can have it all.”

  Lamb had been the executive in the terror campaign. Acting under Ruth’s instructions, he had sent the threatening letters, made the threatening ’phone calls – and arranged the unprovoked attacks on policemen. Those had been special jobs, done by specially chosen youths: desperate youths, who had been well paid for their work. They had all been sent out by Lamb, and were something apart from the ordinary armed robberies.

  Lamb admitted that he had been close to Prescott, and that he had supplied Prescott with his private arsenal. He admitted also that he had arranged Prescott’s murder – again on Ruth’s instructions. Prescott had to be killed, he said, because he knew too much.

  “What about the nights when there was so much shooting?” Roger asked.

  “Ruth again,” Lamb said. “Rickett and the others just had to spread the idea that it was a night to let loose. If there were trouble in several places on the same night, it would set the police running round in circles. We dropped the idea in the minds, that’s all. And I detailed the specials to attack the cops.”

  “What about the attacks on Matthewson and the leaders of the Citizens’ League branches?”

  “I don’t know a thing,” Lamb said. “Ruth told me to lay off the League—naturally enough, as she was mixed up in it. She told Rickett and the others the same, so those attacks weren’t organised by us. But gunmen wouldn’t like the League boys, you know. I couldn’t understand why Ruth hobnobbed with them, but—” He shrugged. “She wasn’t normal. She was eaten up with this hate complex against the police.” He spoke as if she were already dead. “She didn’t give a damn about danger—in fact I think she revelled in it.”

  Lamb’s cigarette was finished, and he stubbed it out. Roger gave him another.

  “Why did she release Brammer and me, Lamb?”

  “Oh, that job,” Lamb said, and licked his lips. “She was going to bump you off. I had to detail one of the boys to borrow Pauline Weston’s car when she wasn’t looking—”

  “Mortimer?”

  “Not Mortimer. Fellow called Sexton. That part of it was to frame Pauline, of course. We knew she was after us—she used to come nosing round the shop. Well, it all went off all right, but when it was done it occurred to Ruth that it would make you look the biggest fool in England if you were released without being injured. The Yard would be at screaming point, so would your wife—and then the laugh would be on you. She hated you most, West. She couldn’t bear to have you killed, simply because then you wouldn’t be there to hate.” Lamb laughed shortly, unsteadily.
“I don’t know why she let Brammer go. He was getting pretty close.”

  Another thing Lamb did not know was why Mortimer and Gedd had raided Ruth’s flat and shot Hann-Gorlay.

  “Except that Mortimer may have been getting sweet on Pauline,” he said as an afterthought. “And Ruth had it in for her.”

  Roger said slowly: “When did you get mixed up with her?”

  “I knew her when she was a kid—just after her father was hanged, and her mother committed suicide. Old Benny agreed with me, something happened to her then. She had started on this game before Uncle Benny died.”

  Lamb paused again.

  Roger recalled how unsettled he had been about the killing of Old Benny; how he had suspected that he had never heard the whole truth.

  “Go on.”

  Lamb said slowly: “Uncle Benny discovered what she was doing. He didn’t like it, and said so. He said that if she didn’t stop encouraging these kids to violence, he’d turn her over to the police. So she fixed her own uncle. She did it through Prescott—that was one of the reasons why he had to be rubbed out after he was caught. Prescott told young Harrock that Uncle Benny was going to put the police on him, and advised the boy what to do about it. Prescott was good at that sort of thing—he was an educated chap—and Harrock was easy to influence.”

  “So she would even do that,” Roger said heavily. “And still you’d work for her! What was in it for you, Lamb?”

  “You’ll find out when you search the shop, if you haven’t already. I could have retired in another year. Now—”

  “Where is she now, Lamb?”

  “I don’t know,” Lamb said earnestly, “I just don’t know.”

  No news came in about Ruth. Every newspaper carried her picture, every policeman was on the look-out, thousands of reports came in, to say that she had been seen or found; none was accurate.

  “Check every movement she ever made,” Roger said. “Try to find out if she’s been seen in any particular district in the past. Try everything.”

  “You haven’t forgotten Hann-Gorlay, have you?” Sloan asked.