by Mike Dorrell
Melganik became angry. ‘Quiet, you fool!’
‘Sorry, Guv.’
But it was already too late for caution. Virginia had heard Curly give away the approximate location of the hideout. Her eyes narrowed as she thought what Dick Barton would give to hear the information. Then, from upstairs, she heard the doorbell ring.
When the French maid opened the front door of the house, she found herself looking once more at a working man in greasy overalls who was carrying a toolbag. But this time there was a difference: there was someone else with him – the team was back in action.
‘I got that spanner, Miss,’ Barton said as he and Snowey stepped into the hall.
‘Oh,’ the maid replied in an irritated fashion. ‘Sacre blue! Entrez’
‘Brought my mate along in case I needed a hand,’ Dick Barton explained.
‘Comment?’
Barton pointed to Snowey. ‘My mate. Mon ami.’
The maid seemed to have lost interest. ‘Oh,’ she replied. Then, she closed the door behind them, and after indicating the position of the ground floor bathroom, went off down the hall.
‘Merci bien, mademoiselle,’ Dick Barton said as she went away.
Then, Barton winked at Snowey, and together, they walked towards the bathroom. However, as soon as the maid was out of sight, they tiptoed hurriedly to the cellar door, and the special agent tried the handle.
Down in the cellar, Curly Cohen came back into the main room after speaking to Melganik. He looked suspiciously at Virginia, who in the meantime, had succeeded in freeing her hands, but still held them behind her back as if she was bound. Then, Curly glanced at Rex Marley. The crooner was still lying unconscious on the mattress in the comer of the room.
‘Who was that at the door?’ Curly Cohen wanted to know.
Virginia shrugged in ignorance. If she had been still tied, there would have been nothing else she could have done.
‘I better check with the Guvnor,’ Curly said to himself. He went back into the smaller room.
Virginia had watched as someone she knew came down the stairs. She was not, therefore, shocked when Dick Barton said: ‘Hold it right there, Curly.’
But Curly Cohen’s reaction was another matter altogether. He whirled around in surprise, and his hand immediately went into his bulging pocket. He produced a revolver, and was about to fire at Dick Barton when Virginia leapt at him, dragging his arm down so that Curly shot harmlessly into the cellar floor, and then dropped his gun.
‘You she-cat,’ Curly hissed.
But the thug was not yet outwitted. He turned and pulled the semi-conscious Rex Marley to his feet.
‘The game’s up, Curly,’ Dick Barton stated flatly.
‘So you think, Mr Clever Dick Barton,’ Curly Cohen replied as he hoisted Rex Marley in front of him and began to back towards a heavy metal door set in the cellar wall.
Virginia Marley had discarded her gag, and now picked up Curly Cohen’s gun. She pointed it at the thug, but dared not use it because she was afraid of hitting her brother.
Curly continued to back towards the wall. ‘You’re up against forces you couldn’t even guess at,’ he said to Dick Barton as he went. ‘You’re outclassed, Mr So-called Barton, and the sooner you realise it the better off you’ll be.’
Curly Cohen disappeared through the opening dragging Rex Marley behind him. The heavy metal door shut with a clang. Dick Barton hurled himself against it, but his effort was futile.
‘I wonder where in heaven’s name that leads to?’ the special agent muttered.
A buzz came from the next room as Snowey came down the steps. All three looked in the same general direction. The buzz came again.
‘Seems impolite not to answer it,’ Dick Barton said. He walked in and picked up the microphone, managing a passable imitation of Curly’s voice.
‘Curly here,’ Barton said.
Meantime, Snowey White was helping Virginia to untie her ankles.
Melganik’s voice came over the receiver. ‘Curly – we’ve just learnt that Barton and his gang are on their way back to Mr Hetherington’s house.’
‘Don’t you worry about that, Guv. I can deal with them,’ Barton replied. He hoped his imitation was good enough.
‘No!’ Melganik’s accent became more pronounced as he got angry. ‘You will take the prisoners and leave now for GHQ.’
‘GHQ. Right you are, Guv. Where was that again?’
The voice at the other end of the receiver became furious. ‘You dolt! At Llanech ...’ There was a pause. Then Melganik seemed to recover his composure. ‘That is not Curly,’ he announced.
Dick Barton spoke in his own voice this time. ‘No old chap,’ he said. ‘Barton’s the name. Captain Richard Barton M.C., at your service.’
Melganik became furious once more. His accent was thick and foreign. ‘Barton! Your impertinence and your irritating ubiquity is beginning to rile me!’
Dick Barton’s reply was cool; ‘I should learn English a bit better before you start on those long words, old son.’ There was an almost incomprehensible sound from the other end. It sounded like ‘you’; Barton could not be sure. It was followed by a click as the receiver was switched off.
Barton grinned to himself. For a moment, he was one up. Though, naturally, there was still Rex to rescue. ‘Excitable, these foreign chappies,’ he said. Then, more directly to Virginia; ‘You all right?’
‘Just about,’ Virginia replied. She was rubbing her wrists where the rope had chafed them. Snowey was standing by her side.
‘Stout girl,’ Dick Barton commented.
‘Thanks,’ Virginia said ruefully.
‘I was referring to your spirit – certainly not your figure,’ Barton said as he explained his compliment. ‘Come on – let’s get out of here.’
He led the way up the stairs. Snowey and Virginia followed.
Jock Anderson was sitting at the wheel of the Riley Monaco when he saw Dick Barton, Virginia and Snowey come out of Hetherington’s house, and cross the road towards him. He got out of the car as they approached.
‘No one tampered with the old flivver this time, I trust, Jock?’ Dick Barton drew level with the car.
‘They’d have had to cope with me if they’d tried, Mr Barton,’ Jock answered.
Virginia and Snowey then approached. Barton made the introduction. ‘Virginia – this is John Anderson, known to his friends as Jock for some unfathomable reason.’
Virginia smiled at the Scotsman. ‘Hello, Jock – I hope I’m a friend.’
For the first time since Barton had known him, the mechanic seemed to be overcome with embarrassment. ‘I’m sure I hope so too, Miss ...’
‘Marley – Miss Virginia Marley,’ Barton said.
‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.’ Jock was now recovering. He grasped the handle of the back door of the car and held it open for Virginia. Then the others got in.
‘You can drive if you like, Jock,’ Barton said. ‘We’ve got some hard thinking to do.’
The Riley Monaco pulled away from the Hampstead street.
As Jock concentrated on the driving, Dick Barton sat beside him in the passenger seat. Virginia and Snowey were in the back. The special agent’s mind was on other things: ‘Now we know that your brother’s being taken to the headquarters of these crooks,’ he said as he turned to face Virginia.
‘In Wales.’ Her reply was simple.
‘In Wales?’ Barton questioned.
‘I overheard that Curly creature talking to Melganik about it,’ Virginia explained.
‘Melganik?’ Barton wanted to know.
‘That’s the one who you were talking to on the radio,’ Virginia shuddered involuntarily as she spoke. She hadn’t liked the sound of the man’s voice at all.
‘Melganik’s in on this, is he?’ Barton commented.
‘Yes. And a girl called Melissa Agranova.’
Barton spoke again: ‘I don’t know her.’
Snowey White didn’t feel too c
omfortable. Even the mention of the woman’s name reminded him of the bloomer he’d made.
‘I think she’s his fiancée,’ Virginia took up her explanation again.
‘I see.’ A frown crossed Barton’s face. When he spoke it was with deliberation. ‘If Dmitri Melganik is involved it’s a dirtier game than even I imagined.’
Jock spoke directly to Barton. ‘You know him do you, sir?’
‘Indeed, I do, Jock.’ Barton was looking out of the window as he spoke, but he was thinking about other, more foreign parts. Places where the streets of London seemed as remote as Timbuktu. ‘I ran across him once in Istanbul. He was running a string of casinos but they were merely a front for some much nastier activities – white slavery – gun running – hired killings –’
‘Sounds a bit of a bad boy to me, sir,’ Snowey interrupted.
‘Aptly put, Snowey,’ came the reply. ‘And not one to tangle with, I can assure you. Nonetheless we have no choice. So their headquarters is in Wales at Llanech ... something.’
‘Llanechbrantiog.’ There was certainty in Jock’s voice. Dick Barton was very surprised. ‘How on earth do you know that, Jock?’ he asked.
Jock Anderson didn’t take his eyes off the road. His attitude, like his skill at mechanics, was calm and precise. ‘I been doing some thinking,’ he said. ‘I kenned as soon as I clapped eyes on it I’d seen that Hetherington’s Rolls before. I mind I delivered it for somebody from Derby before the war – and that’s where I took it to.’
Barton was pleased. He now had a definite lead on the unsavoury group of people connected with the master criminal. ‘Then lead on, McDuff,’ he answered.
Jock seemed unaware of the banter – at first. ‘Anderson’s the name sir,’ he replied.
Barton spoke again: ‘I was quoting the world’s greatest poet, you ignoramus.’
‘Never,’ Jock said. There was a smile on his face. ‘I know the works of Robbie Burns backwards.’
Barton smiled back. ‘Drive,’ he ordered. ‘To Wales.’
Some hours later, Dick Barton and Jock were lying full length hidden in a clump of gorse amongst the wild, open moorland of North Wales. Barton was looking through his field glasses. A bleak range of hills stretched before him. The sky overhead was dark, and the hills were in shadow.
‘That’s Llanechbrantiog,’ Jock said.
Through a rising mist, Dick Barton could just make out the posts of a tall barbed wire fence that ran across the side of the hill and disappeared into the distance.
‘There was this great fence and a gate and I wasn’t allowed to go through,’ Jock continued. ‘Some blokes met me. They didn’t have proper uniforms or anything, but it was somehow like the army. That’s why it stuck in my mind.’
Barton continued to scan right along the fence. It stretched for miles, following the dips of the hills as it went. ‘There must be a way in somewhere,’ he said. ‘But I’m dashed if I can see it.’
Jock turned around to make sure that Snowey and Virginia were safe in the car, which was parked some distance behind them.
‘There’s the gate if you follow the road, of course,’ Jock remarked.
Barton started to edge back through the gorse, towards the position of the parked car. ‘Right. But that’s guarded, you say. They’re hardly likely to put the welcome mat out.’
Jock began to follow the special agent. ‘No – I reckon not.’
‘Mmm,’ Barton murmured thoughtfully. ‘This calls for a close reconnaissance.’
When Barton and Jock emerged from the gorse, they were beyond any point from which they could be viewed on the perimeter of the fence. They began to walk towards the Riley Monaco, it’s black shape silhouetted against the surrounding hills.
‘Any luck, sir?’ Snowey asked when they were close enough.
‘ ’Fraid not, Snowey,’ Dick Barton replied. ‘We’ll have to get in closer.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s now ... sixteen hundred hours.’ He made a series of decisions: ‘Snowey – you’re coming with me. Jock – if we’re not back by sunset – that’s in about two hours – get to a telephone – I noticed one in that village about five miles back. Call Detective Inspector Harrington at the Yard. Mention my name.’
‘Right you are, Mr Barton,’ Jock said promptly.
‘Good lad. And keep a close eye on Miss Marley here.’ As he spoke, Dick Barton turned towards Virginia.
Jock grinned in reply, and began to look embarrassed again. ‘Och – that won’t be too much hardship,’ he said.
A more serious tone crept into Dick Barton’s voice. ‘We don’t want her getting herself kidnapped again.’
‘Over my dead body,’ Jock declared.
Barton began to look over the hills. Dark, ominous clouds were forming on the horizon, seeming to signify that they were in for trouble. And not just with the weather. ‘That’s the ticket,’ he said to Jock after a while. ‘Now, frankly I don’t know what the heck we’re going to find behind that fence ...’
‘Nothing you and me can’t handle, sir, I’ll be bound,’ Snowey interrupted from where he was standing.
A thoughtful expression crossed Dick Barton’s face. ‘Maybe. Maybe. But the first rule of war is – never underestimate your enemy.’
Snowey was feeling more sanguine about their chances than his former captain. But then he had yet to see the perimeter fence that stretched for miles across the otherwise bare moorland. ‘Nor overestimate him, neither,’ Snowey said. ‘We learnt that outside Salerno, eh sir?’
‘True,’ Dick Barton agreed. ‘Anyway – enough of the pep-talk. Let’s go.’ He turned to walk over the hills once more. ‘Come on, Snowey.’
Virginia Marley watched her rescuer begin to stride into more possible danger. She was concerned about him. ‘Good hunting, Dick,’ she said as Barton and Snowey began to move.
Without looking round, Dick Barton waved cheerily in reply.
The special agent and Snowey White were hidden behind a boulder. All around them stretched undulating hills. In the valleys there were rough stretches of grass, and rushes marked out the boglands. But there, on the hilltops, it was barer. As far as they could see the sturdily built barbed wire fence stretched into the distance.
‘It’s a devil of a big area this fence encloses,’ Dick Barton remarked.
‘There’s a break in the ground over there, sir,’ Snowey pointed in the general direction.
‘Where?’ Dick Barton asked. He wanted a more specific location.
‘See by that white rock-like triangle,’ Snowey said.
‘Got you.’
‘Just about twenty yards beyond that.’
Dick Barton picked up his field glasses and trained them on the area that Snowey had mentioned. He could now see clearly that it was more than just a break in the ground. There were white scars on the hillside, evidence of other workings. There was a clear depression that had been man-made.
‘Looks like the edge of a cliff or something, almost,’ Snowey said as Barton looked through his glasses.
‘Not exactly a cliff, Snowey,’ Dick Barton said softly.
‘A quarry.’
Dick Barton had seen enough. He put down his glasses, and looked closely at the barbed wire fence, thinking of a way that they could get through.
‘If we only had some of them lovely wire cutters, sir,’ Snowey remarked. ‘Like what the Sergeant-Major used to cut his nails with.’
Dick Barton moved into a crouching position, and started to go cautiously forward. ‘No good wishing for the moon, Snowey. Come on.’
So Dick Barton and Snowey left their cover, and darted over the open landscape. Remembering their commando training, they used whatever landscape features were available as a shield. Twice, they dropped down behind some bushes. And then they were on their way again, over the stony hilltop. They were now approaching the fence.
‘Get down, quick!’ Dick Barton whispered urgently.
They both dropped to the ground. A few moments passed. Then,
Barton cautiously raised his head. His sixth sense had been right. When he looked up he saw a guard patrolling the fence. The man was Oriental. He was dressed in a quasi-military style uniform, and for company he had two large Alsatian dogs straining at their leashes. He was also wearing an armband that had an insignia Dick Barton recognised. It was the ideogram that had taken Mr Chen’s breath away. The one, according to Snowey, that Melissa, Melganik’s fiancée had been wearing on her brooch.
The Oriental guard, accompanied by his dogs, drew level with the spot where Snowey and Barton lay concealed. One of the dogs stopped and started to howl. The guard stopped and looked around suspiciously. When the dog howled again, the guard reached for his pistol.
Will Barton and Snowey be discovered before they penetrate the mysterious quarry? What lies behind the forbidding fence erected by Hetherington on these innocent Welsh hills?
Read the next chapter of: Dick Barton – Special Agent.
Chapter Seven
Dick, Jock and Snowey have succeeded in rescuing Virginia Marley from the cellar in Hampstead where Melgarnik and Hetherington were holding her captive. But they still hold her brother, crooner Rex Marley, and have taken him to a mysterious quarry in Wales. Barton and Snowey try to gain admittance to the quarry but find that it is heavily guarded.
Now read on...
The second Alsatian now joined the first, and they both began to whine in unison, and strain towards where Dick Barton and Snowey White lay concealed in the heather. All that separated the special agent and his friend from discovery was a ten-foot high barbed wire fence.
‘Sounds like Saturday night at the dog’s home, don’t it, sir?’ Snowey said softly.
‘As long as they don’t imagine it’s feeding time,’ Dick Barton replied.
The tense moments ticked away slowly. Neither Barton nor Snowey dared to look up. Then they heard the guard say a few sharp words in a foreign tongue to the dogs. The whining subsided as the three formidable looking opponents moved away.
The ten-foot high barbed wire fence loomed up in front of them. At the top, it angled out slightly towards them. The guard was safely out of sight. Their problem was now more immediate.
‘Climb it do you reckon, sir?’
