by John Creasey
‘Darn you!’ he exploded, viewing the agent of destruction – the large and untidy Martin Best, now doubled up with laughter. ‘That’s the kind of senseless horseplay you would shine in. Look at my trousers!’
‘I am looking,’ stuttered Best.
Storm was realising that beer soaking into one’s nether garments was not only sartorially ruinous, it was cold. He had just reached the point of remembering that he had left his heavy cases behind him, and carried not even a spare pair of breeks, when a mournful voice broke into his gloom.
‘Your blue, sir, or your grey? I brought – ’
Storm leapt into the air with relief.
‘Horrors,’ he said emphatically, ‘believe me, I’ll lend you half-a-crown one day. Grey, boy, and quickly. When did you arrive?’
‘By the eight-twenty train.’
‘Poor devil had to walk,’ grinned Righteous Dane. ‘That wall-eyed cab horse in the village rolled over when he saw the bags.’
‘You walked?’ queried Storm.
‘Unfortunately yes, sir. It wouldn’t budge – the horse I mean. So – ’
‘Go to bed,’ grinned Storm. ‘I’ll get my own trousers.’
At one o’clock, reclad and happily demolishing cheese and biscuits, Storm and the other members of the company discussed affairs with considerable verve. The rescue of the girl had put new blood in their veins and a mild murmur from Grimm to the effect that it might be wise to make a call at Whitehall was cried down.
There was some justification for their attitude. Storm saw the move as asking for trouble while Redhead was still at large. As soon as they could make sure of getting Redhead and, possibly, Zoeman, they would chat readily enough with the Men Who Mattered. But not before.
Nothing had happened to disturb the peace of Ledsholm Grange since the murder of Harries, suggesting that Zoeman had followed Wenlock out of the neighbourhood. But they could not count on this.
Although every door apart from that in the main hall had been locked and every window shuttered and barred, the task of making sure that there was no forced entry was as near impossible as made no difference. Storm, who had secured a rough plan of the Grange earlier in the day, drafted out a scheme for defence. It might be needed only for one night, but one night might be enough to put paid to their earthly accounts.
Ignoring the existence of the two upper storeys he concentrated on the ground floor. The servants’ quarters, now occupied by the two gardeners only – Mrs Harries having gone to relatives until such time as Mr Frank wanted her again – and Horrobin, were to be shut off entirely from the main hall. The stairs leading to the upper part of the house were reached through the passages dividing the main hall from the servants’ quarters.
Against the doors leading to the west wing and those of the upstairs rooms a barricade of furniture was erected speedily and solidly by the energetic bodyguard.
In the words of Storm the east wing was occupied by the main army. It comprised four sizeable rooms, including a dining-room and an extensive library, and two which were utilised as bedrooms.
The chapel, which Granville told them had not been opened for five years, was connected with the east wing by a small passage, while the electrical plant was installed in a brick-built shed adjoining the servants quarters in the courtyard at the back of the Grange.
Weary-eyed as the first streaks of dawn began to force their way across the skies, Storm looked across at the others.
‘There’s some talk of underground passages, Granny. Know anything about them?’
Granville managed a weary smile.
‘There’s a cellar, of course; the door just behind the hall leads to it, but apart from that they’re fairy tales.’
‘What’s that about fairy tales?’ murmured Martin Best, waking up suddenly.
‘There passed a whole day when you didn’t talk,’ Storm told him. ‘Go back to sleep, Nosey.’
He stood up, stretching his arms.
‘I’m going to turn in, you fellows. Roger – you’ve been asleep longer than anybody, keep awake until seven and make Best stay with you. Then you’d better call Righteous and Dodo. They can dig the twins out at nine.’
‘What about you?’ demanded St John Dane aggrievedly.
‘I,’ said Storm sweetly, ‘do the brainwork, Righteous. I need more sleep. Chin-chin, chaps!’
But Storm was fated to one completely sleepless night. As he stepped across the door leading to the newly-made bedrooms the light from the great hanging chandelier flickered.
Then the room was swallowed in a black cloud!
No one spoke. The darkness seemed to demand silence.
After a full thirty seconds Timothy Arran’s plaintive voice disturbed the heavy silence, but his second word was hardly out of his mouth when he stopped as though struck by a knife!
From somewhere at the back of the Grange came a long, eerie, blood-curdling scream, a scream of human terror, a scream which froze the very blood in their veins as it screeched through the black silence.
Chapter 12
Mr Benjamin Cripps Confides
As the last vibration of that terrible shriek died away, Storm’s voice, no more than a whisper but plainly audible through the great hall, sighed through the unnerving darkness.
‘Have any of you men got a torch?’
Two voices, ghosts of their real selves but emphatic enough, answered affirmatively.
‘Trust me,’ asserted the easy-going Martin Best, whose casual attention to his clothes was more than countered by his general usefulness in filling his pockets with a host of gadgets likely to ‘come in handy some time’.
‘Call here,’ murmured Timothy Arran.
‘You stay where you are, Tim,’ said Storm quickly, shaking off the effect of that ghastly cry. ‘Granville, you come with me. Righteous and Best’ll come too. The others will stay with Tim, and for heaven’s sake keep your ears open and your eyes peeled. There’s an outside chance that it’s a stunt to get us all to the back of the house.’
With the bright beam of Martin Best’s torch to guide them Storm, Granville, Dane, and Best moved towards the servants quarters. The eeriness of the great hall, the sudden change from brilliance to abysmal darkness and the awful, quivering horror of that one cry gave them all a chilled uncertainty as they moved.
The white moon of the light shone on the handle of the door leading to the passage in front of the servants quarters. Storm turned it softly and stepped into the gloom, followed quickly by the others, their cold hands gripping the steel of their guns.
Storm tried the wall-switch in the large, bare kitchen, but nothing happened.
‘The main switch has gone,’ muttered Best, the only one likely to have sufficient technical knowledge to put the trouble right – always providing the trouble was accidental; the possibility of intentional damage loomed uncomfortably large.
But who had sent that terror-stricken cry quivering through the night?
‘Better go straight to the electric plant,’ said Storm as they stepped towards the door leading into the courtyard. ‘Do you keep it locked, Granville?’
‘I don’t know,’ muttered Granville, keeping his voice steady with an effort. ‘Smithers, the under-gardener, looks after it.’
As Storm unlocked the kitchen door, all of them were chillingly aware that somewhere beyond them would be the explanation of that awful shriek. What was it? Who was it?
The courtyard, lit with the eerie grey streaks of dawn, shewed bare and clean as they stepped on to the flagstones, turning towards the small, brick-built shed which sheltered the dynamo and electric plant of the Grange. Best switched off his light.
‘The door’s open,’ muttered Righteous Dane.
Storm went first, taking the torch from Best. As he directed the sudden stream of brilliant white light towards the inside of the shed his lips tightened and the glint in his eyes was like steel.
Sprawling across the floor of the power-house was the horribly twisted bod
y of a man, a man dressed in a suit of pyjamas which was revealed by the open folds of a great-coat obviously flung round him as he had left his bedroom in some emergency and alarm.
That he was dead, there wasn’t a shadow of doubt. As Storm peered down into the distorted face he felt a surge of rage run through his veins.
The bloodless lips were drawn back over bared teeth in a ghastly snarl, and the features were twisted almost beyond recognition. The eyes, staring horribly from their sockets, shewed such fear of the agonising death which had struck him that a shivering wave of nausea gripped Storm’s stomach. He reached out his hand to touch him.
‘Stop!’ roared Best. He gave a grim, mirthless smile.
‘The poor devil’s been electrocuted. If he’s still touching the live point you’d get a nasty shock.’ He looked round the small power house quickly, grunting with satisfaction as he pounced on a pair of rubber gloves.
He drew them on, then kneeling by that terribly distorted body, gently turned the man over. Granville cursed between his teeth.
‘Recognise him?’ demanded Storm.
Granville nodded, white to the lips.
‘It’s Smithers. God! This is ghastly.’
They waited for a minute while Best searched the body for the mark of burning. He found it across the palm of the right hand.
‘Touched the control switch,’ vouchsafed Best without hesitation. ‘It can be done but it’s not safe to try it without gloves. I reckon he slipped and made a circuit.’
‘So it might have been accidental?’
‘It probably was,’ admitted Best. Then grimly: ‘But that wasn’t.’
He pointed to a contact-bar and plate which had been smashed and dented into a shapeless mass of metal. The brief hope that Storm had held passed; the death of Smithers might have been accidental, but beyond a shadow of doubt someone had been in the grounds apart from the gardener, someone who had not only wanted the lights put out but had meant to make a repair impossible without several hours’ work.
Twenty minutes later the twisted body of Smithers was lying in a room which already contained the murdered Harries. Perriman, the head-gardener, shaken and white-faced, told them that Smithers had remembered that the safety catches had not been put on, and that he had gone to the power-house to make sure no damage was caused.
‘How long ago?’ demanded Storm.
‘Mebbe an hour, sir, mebbe not so long.’
‘Hump,’ murmured Storm. ‘Well, we’ll have to have the police in, now. How d’ you feel?’ he queried.
‘I feel shaken, sir. That’s two in one day.’
‘Make sure you don’t move without Horrobin,’ said Storm quietly. ‘It’s safest. Later in the morning we’ll see what can be done. Fit enough to carry on for a bit?’
‘I’ll manage, sir, thank ye.’
Twenty minutes later the full party of eight was in the large hall, infinitely more aware of the horror of the thing against which they were pitting themselves. It was Storm who voiced the general sentiments as he repeated soberly:
‘We’ll have to tell the police, you men. It’s gone too far.’
There was a short silence of reluctant consent.
‘I’ll write to the great Sir William Divot,’ enlarged Storm. ‘He’ll get the letter tomorrow morning, leaving us another full day to work.’
‘Still think it might have been murder?’ demanded Grimm.
‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ admitted Storm. ‘I’ve a nasty idea that the servants might know more than they said they did, and that they’re getting bumped off to make sure that they don’t talk.’ He put a friendly arm along Granville’s shoulder. ‘The next thing is a little chat with Perriman now that he’s steadied down a bit.’
But he met with another rebuff when he reached the large kitchen. Only Horrobin was there. The expression of uneasy relief on his chubby face made Storm more keenly aware of the creepy atmosphere of fear at Ledsholm Grange.
There was more than enough excuse for it. Two deaths, both brutal and unexplained, a pitched battle and the preparations for a seige were enough to give any normal, life-loving human the willies.
‘What-ho!’ greeted Storm with cheering intent. ‘Seen Perriman, Horrors?’
‘You mean the head gardener?’ queried Horrobin, trying to make amends for his jumpiness with fastidious exactitude. ‘He left less than five minutes ago, sir.’
‘Say where he was going?’ demanded Storm abruptly.
‘No sir. Just said he wouldn’t be long.’
‘Did he, indeed,’ snapped Storm. ‘Grab anything you want and get into the front of the house with the others, and don’t go anywhere about the house by yourself. Hurry!’
Horrobin gathered his few belongings together with admirable celerity. He had been jumpy and nervous, and the prospect of staying alone in the great, bare kitchen had not cheered him.
The party in the hall was subdued, but jerked into action as Storm clattered towards the door.
He said abruptly: ‘Perriman has deserted. It’s plenty light enough now. Travel in twos, you men, and bring him in somehow.’
But Perriman had vanished completely from the face of the earth. There was not the remotest possibility of his having made his way on foot, for the country around was bare and comparatively low-lying.
Storm’s question was whether it was desertion or abduction. He could have understood the former and he feared the latter. But one fact stood out starkly.
Zoeman or Wenlock had a hiding place somewhere near the Grange itself!
‘Pipped,’ mourned Timothy Arran plaintively. ‘I knew we were making a hash of things when we let Wenlock go, Windy. Really, if only you’d done – ’
‘What I told you,’ mimicked Storm with ill-humour, ‘we’d have been blown out of Sussex by now.’
He meant what he said: that until Redhead’s gang was rounded up there was the possibility of a bullet spitting out from any corner. In spite of his faith in the discretion of Sir Joseph Grimm, he was also worried about Letty. Added to the murders at the Grange these fears were making him irritable.
He spoke quickly to Toby Arran.
‘Trot round to the garage, Toby, and get the Bug out before I knock this blithering idiot’s head off.’
‘Whaffor?’ demanded Toby.
‘A trip to the village, no less. And you’re not coming with me. I’ve another little game for you to play.’
‘And that is?’
‘A search for secret passages,’ said Storm. ‘All of you tap the walls in every room we’re using. You might find some part hollow. I’ve a nasty idea that we’re sitting on top of a mine, and I don’t want it to go off.’
During the ten minute run into Ledsholm village, Storm was deciding on his next step. He intended to send a brief and uninformative note to the Assistant Secretary from the post office, knowing that he would have a full twenty-four hours to work out his own plans. But would Wenlock and Zoeman show up within a day? And what, if they didn’t, would be the consequences of reporting to the police?
He was fully aware of the danger which threatened from Redhead. But whatever the Home Office and the police thought, he was in the affair to the end, if only to make sure that Letty Granville was clear of danger.
The first place Storm called at was the Four Bells. Here he was received with a welcoming smile by Benjamin Cripps, for Storm was a nine days’ wonder in the village to all but the local constable, who viewed the interference from – said rumour – Scotland Yard resentfully but without open protest. For it had happened several years before that P.C. Gummer had been very severely censured for interfering with C.T.D. work. In consequence, frigid with disapproval, he made nothing but his customary daily report to the Lewes headquarters, and as he had not learned of the outrage at the post office until that very morning, Lewes knew nothing of it until the following day.
Once in the cosy hostelry, Timothy Arran and Storm immediately buried their noses in tankards of beer.
‘
Here’s your very good heath, Mr Cripps. More like weather today, what?’
‘Ye’re right, sir,’ acknowledged Benjamin heartily. ‘Be ye likely to stay hereabouts for long, sir?’
Storm shrugged his shoulders.
‘It all depends – ’ He leaned forward, lowering his voice to confidential undertones, very thrilling to the amateur detective secreted within the innermost heart of mine host. ‘It all depends on whether I can get the information I want, Mr Cripps.’
‘If I can help – ’ breathed Benjamin.
‘Splendid,’ whispered Storm. ‘Now – have there been any strangers around lately, Mr Cripps? Apart from those two vagabonds we caught yesterday?’
Benjamin adopted an owlish expression of deep thought.
‘Well, sir, there have and there haven’t, in a manner of speaking. Mr Granville knows all about it, so maybe he could tell ye more.’
‘You make a start, anyhow,’ said Storm, concealing his surprise. Granville knew strangers, did he? The possibility staggered him, bringing the doubts he had once harboured back in full force.
‘It’s that there wireless thingummy,’ said Benjamin. ‘Not that I’ve any objection to wireless, sir, but they do say that Mr Granville is having what you might call a set that sends out. Trans – something or other.’
‘Transmitting station,’ supplied Storm, flabbergasted.
‘That’s the word, sir!’ Mr Cripps viewed his detective client with deepening respect. ‘Well, there’s been a goodly number of men building the station, sir, at the back of the Grange – underneath it, they say. Mebbe ye’ve seen it. Love-a-duck! The loads o’ thingummies they did have to make it with! They might have been building another house, what with bricks and rubber and steel – ’
‘How long ago was this?’ demanded Storm.
‘A week, sir, was the time I last saw them, though they were about the Grange for a month or more. Old Tom Harries – ye’ll know him, sir, up at the house – was only talking to me about it yester morn. He asked me, if ye’ll excuse me saying so, sir, not to let on to Mr Granville that I knew about it.’ Mine host delivered himself of an expressive wink. ‘Mr Granville, ye’ll understand, was going to have it as a surprise for Miss Letty, and Harries shouldn’t ’ave told me about it. But Tom and I being pally it kind of got out.’
