by Mike Dorrell
‘You were not alone in that supposition,’ Barton replied. ‘The question is – what now?’ Using the tree trunk for support, he tried to struggle to his feet.
‘Oughtn’t you to rest a bit, sir?’
Dick Barton’s answer was decisive. He did not underestimate the opposition, but he was going to fight them with everything he’d got. ‘No time for rest, Snowey. Those swine have still got Miss Marley, remember?’
It was some time later. Barton and Snowey were back once more in the living-room of his flat in Somerset Mansions. Snowey was standing watching as Barton paced impatiently up and down the room. He was glad to see the governor back to his old self, though he didn’t know where he got the energy from.
‘Hetherington, Hetherington,’ Barton was saying to himself as he walked up and down.
‘I don’t know no one called Hetherington,’ Snowey said to no one in particular.
‘The name’s familiar, that’s all,’ Barton muttered to himself. I just can’t ...’ he stopped as he tried to concentrate. ‘Wait a minute. Snowey – hand me my trusty Who’s Who.’
Snowey reached up to the nearest shelf, scanned along it quickly, found the volume and handed it down to Barton who leafed through it quickly.
‘Hatfield ... Heslop ... Hetherington!’ Barton’s voice rose as he found what he had been looking for. ‘Charles, Percy, M.P. Of course! You remember, Snowey!’
Snowey shook his head in reply. He didn’t know anything about it.
‘Bright young politician before the war,’ Dick Barton explained. ‘Went to the bad over a woman – forced to resign. Formed his own party – got more and more extreme – fought a few by-elections with no success at all.’
None of it meant much to Snowey. ‘I never took much interest in politics,’ he said. ‘One lot’s as bad as the other if you ask me.’
But Dick Barton refused to be drawn into a discussion. He kept his concentration on the glimmer of light at the end of the very murky tunnel. On the character of the renegade M.P. called Hetherington. He turned to Snowey. ‘He became very bitter by all accounts.’
‘I don’t see how he comes into all this,’ Snowey replied.
‘Nor do I, Snowey – yet.’ Barton turned towards the door. ‘I suggest we pay a little social call on Mr Charles Hetherington, former Member of Parliament.’
Dick Barton and Snowey came out of the doors of Somerset Mansions and stopped dead in their tracks. In the road, an overalled figure was bending over the open bonnet of the Riley Monaco.
‘Another piece of sabotage, Snowey,’ Dick Barton whispered. ‘Go round behind him. I’ll try the frontal attack.’ Snowey nodded in reply, and moved quietly off so that he could approach the man from behind and cut off any possibility of retreat.
Barton sauntered casually across to the car, and stood directly behind the overalled figure who was working on the engine with a spanner. Barton waited for a while and then spoke softly: ‘I wouldn’t try anything if I were you,’ he said.
The man looked up startled. He had sandy hair and a thin moustache. He was even more surprised when Snowey grabbed his arms from behind.
‘Got him, Sir!’
The sandy haired man was outraged: ‘What the heck do you think you’re playing at?’
Then, Barton recognised him. ‘Oh – it’s Jock Anderson, isn’t it?’
‘I just came round with your new carburettor,’ Jock explained. ‘Thought I’d fix it for you.’
Dick Barton motioned to Snowey. ‘It’s okay, Snowey – you remember Jock.’
Snowey released his hold on Jock. ‘Oh – sorry mate,’ he apologised. ‘I thought you was one of the nasties.’
‘What business are you two in, anyway?’ There was an expression of puzzlement on Jock Anderson’s face.
Dick Barton grinned in reply. ‘Good question, Jock. We’re not quite sure ourselves, yet.’ He looked thoughtfully at the mechanic. ‘But seeing you gives me an idea. I wonder if you’d do me a favour?’
Snowey grinned now. So the governor was up to his tricks again.
The Riley Monaco stopped in the Hampstead Street. After a moment, the driver’s door opened, and a very different Dick Barton got out. He was now wearing Jock Anderson’s grease stained overalls and a peaked cap. He was carrying a toolbag and looked like what he was supposed to be; an ordinary tradesman on a housecall.
Before he crossed the road to the Hetherington house, Barton turned and spoke to Snowey through the open car window: ‘If I’m not out in ten minutes, get in there somehow and create merry hell.’
‘We’ll find a way, Mr Barton,’ came the reply. ‘Don’t you fret.’
Snowey watched as the special agent disappeared around the corner of the street. Then, he looked at his watch. From the back of the car, came the voice of Jock Anderson.
‘He’s a cool customer, your Mr Barton,’ Jock said in admiration.
‘He is that,’ Snowey agreed. ‘You couldn’t wish for a finer officer to serve under.’
Snowey opened the passenger door. ‘Come on Jock, my lad. We’d better keep an eye on things.’
In his working clothes, and looking like the tradesman he wasn’t, Dick Barton mounted the steps of the bijou Hampstead residence given as the address of Charles Hetherington, former M.P. in his copy of Who’s Who. He rang the doorbell, and waited. A few moments passed. Then the door was opened by a maid.
‘Oui?’
‘Beg pardon, miss?’ Dick Barton had replaced his cultured tones with a rough working class accent.
‘What is it you want?’ the maid said.
Dick Barton looked down at the piece of paper he held in his hand. He pretended to consult it. ‘Name of Hetherington, wasn’t it?’ he said after a while.
The reply was sharp: ‘Mr Hetherington is out.’
‘Ah, well,’ Dick Barton said, as he went further into his imitation of the working classes. ‘Plumber miss. Taps, wash basin, one – on the blink, savvy?’
The maid looked at him blankly.
‘Tap, you know,’ he tried again.
There was still no response. Using his ingenuity, Dick Barton mimed a tap being turned out, and made a ‘shushing’ noise.
She understood now. ‘Ah – tap!’ She nodded at him eagerly.
‘Right,’ Barton said. ‘Oui! Certainment. Un tap. Mr Hetherington he telephone, yes? Telephono?’
‘I do not know this,’ the maid replied.
‘Well, he telephoned all right,’ Barton insisted. ‘I can tell you that. Me mend it, right?’
‘You had better come in,’ she said, as she stood aside.
From the other side of the road, as they sauntered casually past, Snowey White and Jock Anderson saw Dick Barton go into Hetherington’s house. The door closed behind him. Snowey nodded at Jock.
In the cellar of the same house, Virginia Marley, who was sitting bound and gagged in a chair, heard the doorbell ring and the front door close. She followed the sound of footsteps on the floor above. Then, she looked at her brother Rex, who was also bound and was lying on an old, stained mattress in the far corner of the dark and damp smelling room.
Curly Cohen, who was standing near the entrance door to the cellar, with a revolver in his hand, sneered as the footsteps passed overhead. ‘Your precious Mr Barton, poking his clever nose in again,’ he said to Virginia.
The girl glared back at him.
Barton was now standing in the hall of the Hetherington house. The maid was standing in front of him. He pretended to consult his piece of paper again.
‘Ground floor, it says,’ he announced, as he tried the first door that he came to.
The maid protested. ‘No. No. No one must go down there.’
Down below, in the darkened cellar, Curly Cohen stood at the top of the steps as he heard the cellar door being tried. He tensed, and made sure that the safety catch was off his revolver. Then, as the footsteps receded, he relaxed, and came down the steps.
Virginia watched as the thug looked at his
watch, and then went into a small room situated off the main cellar. She took her chance and screamed as loud as she could. The gag was tight on her lips.
Dick Barton was moving away from the cellar door when he heard the muffled scream. He stopped and turned to the maid.
‘What was that, Miss?’
She seemed to misunderstand him. ‘It is the cellar,’ she said.
‘No – that noise.’
The maid frowned. ‘I heard no noise.’
He decided to play it cool. ‘Must have been the mice down there,’ he commented. ‘If you’ll just show me the bathroom.’
The maid then led the way down the hallway.
Curly Cohen had heard Virginia scream. He came running back into the main room of the cellar and slapped the captive woman hard across the face.
‘Just keep quiet, that’s all,’ he said. There was menace in his tone.
Virginia Marley glared at her jailer. It was obvious that the thug had no regard at all for the normal code of decency. She hated him.
Dick Barton was now in the ground floor bathroom fiddling with one of the taps on the washbasin, pretending that there was something wrong with it. Jock Anderson’s toolbag was open on the floor beside him. He pretended to sort through his tools.
‘I’ll need the smaller wrench for this,’ he said to the maid who was standing behind him.
‘Comment?’
‘I said, I’ll need ... Oh – never mind. I’ll come back later, right?’ He began to gather up his tools and replace them in the bag. ‘Comprehendez-vous?
The maid looked at him blankly ‘Ah – never mind.’ He picked up the bag and walked out of the ground floor bathroom into the hall, heading for the front door. ‘See you later, miss,’ he said as he went out.
In the cellar, Curly Cohen nodded to himself with satisfaction as he heard the front door slam. But his attention was soon diverted. There was a buzzing sound from the next room. Curly hurried across the cellar floor, and went into the smaller room which was lit by a single bare electric light bulb. There was a table in the middle of the room, and on the table a radio transmitter. Curly picked up the microphone and began to speak.
‘Curly.’
The voice of Melganik, the master criminal, came through the receiver. ‘The prying Mr Barton has gone now. For good this time.’
Curly grinned to himself. ‘What have you done, Guv?’ ‘Those fools were stupid enough to leave their car unattended. We have attached a little device, Curly. As soon as the speedometer needle reaches fifty ...’ the voice broke off into a hideous chuckle.
Eagerly, Curly Cohen asked: ‘What? What? What happens?’
The laughing stopped. Then, Melganik spoke with relish: ‘The vehicle and its occupants will be blown into a million fragments.’
In the next room, Virginia heard the voice come over the radio. She had no way of warning Dick Barton of the terrible death that awaited him and Snowey. She struggled against the ropes that bound her. She could not escape.
Dick Barton, Snowey and Jock converged on the Riley which was still parked in the Hampstead street. Not a word was spoken until they were inside. No one was going to take a chance of being overheard.
‘Well,’ Dick Barton said after he’d eased himself in behind the steering wheel. Snowey was by his side, and Jock was in the back, as before. ‘We know where they are now.’
‘In the house?’ Snowey asked.
‘Yes,’ came the reply. ‘The cellar. But the problem is – how do we get them out?’
There was a pause as both Snowey and Jock considered the question. Then Snowey spoke suddenly: ‘Wait a minute, sir – look!’
Barton followed the direction in which Snowey was pointing. Through the side window of the Riley Monaco he saw a 1934 Rolls Royce 20/25 glide past. And in the Rolls sat a man whom he recognised immediately.
‘Hetherington,’ Barton said loudly. He switched on the ignition and pressed the starter button.
‘We going after him, sir?’
‘Too right we are, Snowey,’ came the reply.
Then, Barton deftly put the Riley into gear and they began to move off. Barton had to accelerate to keep the Rolls in sight. The speedometer needle started to flicker upwards.
Unknown to Dick Barton, Snowey and Jock, that flickering needle held the key to their future existence. Once it reached fifty they were doomed. And for their epitaph they would have only the lingering laugh of the master criminal Melganik.
‘Where the blazes is he going?’ Dick Barton was puzzled by the speed at which Hetherington was travelling.
‘He’s speeding up again, Mr Barton,’ Jock announced.
‘Looks like he’s heading for the Great North Road,’ Dick Barton said as he kept his eyes on the road ahead.
It was a simple remark. It contained no fear, or awareness that Hetherington, in the Rolls Royce 20/25 was leading them to a horrible death. The speedometer had reached thirty-five long ago. Now forty was reached, and it raced suddenly upward towards forty-five...
Is Dick Barton speeding towards death? How has the former M.P. Hetherington become involved with Melganik and his evil machinations?
Read the next chapter of: Dick Barton – Special Agent.
Chapter Six
Dick Barton, in a bid to rescue the crooner Rex Marley, and his sister Virginia, gives chase to Charles Hetherington, renegade politician. What Barton does not know is that his car is booby trapped to explode as soon as he reaches fifty miles per hour.
Now read on...
Dick Barton had to slow the Riley Monaco as they came to a junction. Hetherington, the renegade ex-M.P. driving the Rolls Royce 20/25, had turned and was now speeding up again.
‘Yes, I thought as much,’ Dick Barton remarked. ‘He’s turning on to the Great North Road.’
From the back of the car, Jock Anderson was keeping an eye on the speedometer, it had risen to forty-three miles per hour, there was a worried look on his face.
‘I don’t like the sound of that engine, Mr Barton,’ Jock said after a while.
The needle on the speedometer now read forty-five.
‘Sounds all right to me,’ Dick Barton replied. He kept watching Hetherington up ahead.
Forty-eight was now showing on the speedo.
‘He’ll show us a clean pair of heels unless we overtake him before the open road,’ Barton stated. He was preparing to accelerate.
‘Stop!’ Jock Anderson’s voice was filled with alarm.
‘What the dickens are you talking about, Jock?’ Though he questioned Jock’s decision, Dick Barton had slowed down nevertheless.
Jock Anderson leant over the front seat. The urgency in his voice had increased. ‘Will you stop the car, Mr Barton! Yon engine’s been tampered with – I’d stake my life on it.’
‘But we’ll lose him,’ Dick Barton protested.
‘Never you mind that, sir,’ Jock assured him. ‘There’s something going on under that bonnet I dinna like the sound of.’
Reluctantly, Dick Barton started to apply the brakes. ‘Well, you’re the boss in the engineering department,’ he said.
The speedometer, which at its peak, had been touching forty-nine miles per hour, gradually dropped back.
The Riley stopped in the suburban street. Up ahead, the Rolls continued on its way. Barton, Jock and Snowey got out of the car. Immediately, Jock hurried round to the front of the car, and flung the bonnet open.
‘There!’
Barton and Snowey followed the direction in which Jock Anderson was pointing. They could hardly miss what he was showing them. Strapped to the engine of the Riley were four sticks of dynamite.
‘Well, well, well,’ Dick Barton said grimly. ‘Some sticks of rock. A present from Blackpool, no doubt.’
Snowey looked up at the special agent. ‘More like a present from that Hetherington, if you ask me.’
‘And with death printed all the way through,’ Barton replied.
Jock looked up from where he was sti
ll examining the engine. ‘It’s wired up to the speedo, sir,’ he told Dick Barton. ‘As soon as you reached fifty ...’
Dick Barton needed no help to reach the conclusion: ‘Goodbye the old firm of Barton, White and Anderson.’
Jock had to admit that whoever had done the job had been of an ingenious turn of mind. ‘It’s neatly done,’ he remarked to the other two. ,
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Dick Barton said drily. Then he paused. ‘Thank heavens for your Rolls Royce ear, Jock.’ He became more serious. He couldn’t fail to be aware of the fact that they had all missed death by just one mile per hour. ‘Can you disconnect the thing?’
Jock bent over the engine once more. ‘Och, yes!’
Snowey watched as Jock deftly began to feel his way amongst the maze of wires that connected the dynamite to the speedometer clock. Then, he turned to Dick Barton. ‘Well, we’ve lost that Hetherington bloke, that’s plain.’
Dick Barton looked up the long suburban street. Rows of neat houses stretched in a line to the horizon. There was no sign of the Rolls. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘It’s back to Hampstead I think, Snowey. Miss Virginia’s still in that cellar, remember?’
Already Jock Anderson was holding up a fistful of wires. It didn’t look as if it would take him long to finish the job.
Back in the cellar of Hetherington’s bijou Hampstead home, Curly Cohen, the bald headed thug, sometime chauffeur, and captor of Virginia and Rex Marley, was speaking into the radio receiver on the bare table in the smaller room.
‘Stopped?’ Curly was saying. ‘What did he stop for, Guv?’
In the adjoining room, Virginia Marley was slowly working her way towards freedom. She was still gagged and bound* but as she leant against the brick wall of the cellar, she was slowly sawing at the ropes that held her against a staple that protruded from the wall.
As she worked, Virginia could hear the conversation that was going on over the radio receiver.
The sibilant tones of Melganik came over the receiver. ‘Somehow he suspected our little device. Stand by the prisoner, Curly. In an hour we will move them up to GHQ.’
‘In Wales, you mean?’
