Go Away Death

by John Creasey

  Loftus shouted: ‘Get clear, Mike!’

  As he did so he swung open the glass door opening on to the balcony, stepped outside, and tossed the round object towards Lewis.

  He heard the man take in a deep breath, then, as he backed away, Loftus saw the explosion. He had no time to get at a safe distance. The flame, the blast, followed in quick succession. Loftus was thrown against the side of the balcony. He felt a dreadful pain in his legs, and when he tried to get to his feet he could not do so. He heard shouting, but it was vague and confused.

  He was lying on his side.

  He saw Christine come from the room, and step towards him. Behind her was Goss. He saw Mike Errol appear, suddenly; Mike had come up by a fire escape, and was climbing over the balcony. He said in a low voice:

  ‘Watch all doors, Mike, make sure we get him.’

  Then he tightened his lips against the pain.

  22

  Go away death

  Christine was conscious only of the fact that Loftus was lying hurt. She saw that he was conscious, saw him close his eyes suddenly, and clench his teeth. She swung round on Goss.

  ‘If you’re a doctor, do something!’

  But Goss was staring at Lewis.

  There was no chance at all that he would live; there was little that he was still alive. Goss’s lips were working; but he swung round on Mike Errol, and raised his gun.

  He began to swear.

  Errol, also armed, fired without wasting time and Goss’s gun went flying from his grasp. He stooped to get the gun, but Mike reached across and clubbed him. Goss gasped, then went down, quite unconscious.

  Mike stepped through the casement windows.

  On the bed was the bandaged figure, the eyes closed. There was no indication that Hoppermann had been disturbed, although there was broken glass scattered across the room, pictures had been thrown from the walls, everything which had been on the dressing-table, chest and mantelpiece, was now lying smashed on the floor. But Hoppermann remained quite still.

  Mike muttered: ‘Is—is he dead?’

  Then he heard almost the last thing he expected, or it was Loftus’s voice, from the balcony.

  ‘Mike—Mike—’

  Christine appeared, then came a heavy knocking on the door. Mike ignored it, and ran back to the balcony.

  ‘Hurry,’ said Christine urgently.

  Loftus, sweating from the pain, looked up into Errol’s eyes, and muttered:

  ‘The thing—on the bed—a dummy. Hoppermann’s—about—somewhere. Get him. Try—next door—Lewis’s room.’

  Mike Errol waited just long enough to take the words in. He saw Christine opening the door, to Grey, Mark and Martin Best—Martin had arrived, it transpired, a few minutes before.

  ‘Hoppermann’s about, get him!’ he snapped.

  He went along to the piece of masonry across the balcony which separated Lewis’s room from Hoppermann’s, climbed the balcony, and reached the next window. He saw a man sitting in front of a dressing-table, doing something to his hair; a dark-haired man. He put an elbow to the window, and cracked in the glass.

  The man at the dressing-table spun round.

  There was a gun near his hand, and he snatched at it, but Mike Errol was ready for that and fired from the hip. He struck the other’s gun, sending it spinning out of the man’s hand. He went through after breaking the window open. The man had grabbed at a chair with his left hand, raised it, and flung it at Mike. It missed by inches. Mike fired again, saw the man clutch at his right forearm.

  He said in a low-pitched voice:

  ‘Keep right there, or you’ll get one lower down.’ He raised his voice: ‘Grey—this room. Grey!’ The sound died away, but in a few seconds Grey, Best and Mark were crowding into the room, where the man still stood by the dressing-table. His dark hair was a little on one side; he was a big man, Mike saw.

  Mike stepped across and pulled at the dark hair; he was not surprised that it came off, and he saw the iron-grey hair of Cyrus K. Hoppermann. The eyes, too, were unmistakable, and when the grease-paint was washed from his face Mike knew that he would show a healthy freshness of complexion. Mike had expected it from the moment Loftus had spoken, yet it was still a shock, an almost unbelievable thing.

  Hoppermann, here. Hoppermann, affecting a disguise to try to get away. Hoppermann, in Lewis’s room.

  Mike said sharply: ‘Get an ambulance, and hurry. Bill’s on the balcony. I hope to God—’

  His voice tailed off, and in that moment each Department man forgot Hoppermann, and thought only of Bill Loftus. In that moment, too, Hoppermann seemed to realise it, for he made a move towards the door. But he reckoned without Best, who hit him, sending him reeling against the wall. He did not try to move again.

  It was one hour before they had finished searching, but they found nothing of great importance. Hoppermann had been taken to the local police station, Loftus to the nearest hospital.

  Christine had gone with Loftus; now she was waiting while they operated, and going over what Loftus had said in the ambulance. In a peculiarly automatic way she made notes of it; his words seemed to be ourned into her mind.

  ‘I thought it was your father, Christine. Sorry. I think there were two motives. Hatred—of England, And greed.’

  ‘How, Bill?’ she had asked.

  ‘He had control of Nu-Steel, and he wanted control of the other firms, Atlantic Coast Shipping, Radio—he wanted them all. He started this terror-campaign in America against the other magnates, although serving on their Committee and organising them against co-operation. He put the terror-campaign down to English agents, worked up feeling against Britain, and all the time he schemed to get control of their companies.’

  ‘I—see.’

  ‘He tried to buy up all possible Nu-Steel shares, too. He wanted absolute control of all the companies which were engaged in armaments, or dependent industries. It was—’ Loftus paused, and drew a deep breath, then went on ‘—a grandiose scheme. Complete control. He’s rich, he could afford to buy a lot, he could squeeze shares out of the companies whose directors were frightened for their lives. More steel—more goods—more of everything. His profits would pile up, every extra day of international tension meant extra profits. And he saw himself as industrial dictator of America, I think. I can’t see—any other—solution.’

  Christine said: ‘He—had dreamed of it.’

  ‘You knew that?’

  ‘I thought it was just talk. I couldn’t conceive of this.’

  The ambulance had reached the hospital, and Loftus had been carried on a stretcher to the operating room, but he talked all the way to those doors quickly, feverishly, and she knew that he was talking thus because he thought he was going to die, and wanted to make sure that someone knew exactly what was in his mind.

  ‘It’s—bad. But—I must finish. It wasn’t altogether—succeeding. He decided—to come here. Ostensibly, to see for himself. Actually, to make arrangements. He sent a stooge, who was killed in the airways-crash. He knew it would happen, he planned it to make it look like an attack on him. He arranged the same thing at the office. Guggleheim tried to tell me that he hadn’t gone to kill Hoppermann officially, that actually he was to make a show and then get away, but Guggleheim happened to be a genuine anti-American, so he tried to do the job properly.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Christine.

  ‘We shall be ready in five minutes,’ said a nurse.

  ‘I must finish,’ said Loftus urgently. ‘Everything was planned to make it look as if the Lewis organisation was aiming to get Hoppermann—it was a perfect cover. Hoppermann gave Sell the buying orders through Lewis, Sell thought he was working against his employer, and that caused quarrels. Lewis was here, with the organisation ready and the big bluff also set—the Manfrey-Pellisser-Gott bluff, intended to get us thinking one way while they worked in another. Leathercraft enabled Lewis to keep in touch with his agents, as well as a host of fools who think that England to-day can stand alone as
she did a hundred years ago. The Embassy riot was to put the Hoppermann angle well over and to cause the trouble in the States; and by God it succeeded! But I’d let Hoppermann know, or guess, that I suspected him. I let him think that, when I talked to him at the Embassy. I knew we couldn’t get him unless he showed his hand.’

  ‘Which he did, aiming to get me there by sending for you, I saw that thing on the bed was a dummy, there was no sign of breathing, and the face was too waxy white even for a dead man. In any case, Goss was too devoted to him to act as he did if he was in real danger.’

  ‘I believed they would try to kill me. The most obvious thing seemed that Lewis was already at the hotel, that he would act and Hoppermann would contrive to get away after pretending to be injured. He could have gone into a nursing-home, or what was supposed to be one, and “recover” at leisure. Lewis, who worked for him, had one job left—to kill me. It worked much as I expected. The final scene, throwing a bomb into the room where Hoppermann was supposed to be, was intended to kill two birds with one stone—put Hoppermann in the clear and finish me off. It was a delayed action bomb to give Goss, who knew it was coming and what it was, time to take cover. I, not expecting it, would have been killed, Goss would have hidden the dummy, and Hoppermann would have nipped back into bed. They didn’t think—I’d throw it back at—Lewis.’

  The nurse reappeared. ‘We’re ready now, I’ll just—’

  ‘A moment,’ interrupted Loftus sharply. ‘Christine, outline all that to Craigie. Your father must be made to confess, somehow. Tell the other fellows, and—’

  He paused, his face twisted in a spasm of pain. Then he said slowly:

  ‘Tell them, thanks. It’s been a good run. Odd, so soon after Diana—’

  ‘Bill,’ said Christine slowly, ‘don’t give up. No matter what happens, don’t give up. Diana wouldn’t want it; I didn’t know her but I’m sure she wouldn’t. Hold on, Bill.’

  He looked at her, wonderingly.

  ‘It’s not—up to me. Oh, Christine—you broke with your father because you married an Englishman. My first clue. He hated Englishmen, and his daughter married one. And he fell into a simple trick, by getting into a waiting cab. Goss as a bodyguard, would have taught him better than that. And—Hoppermann was allowed to escape at Putney to—to “prove” he wasn’t implicated. One other thing: You. You could have told of his hatred of England, you were dangerous beyond all people. And—you helped me, all along. You started me on the right angle, and I stuck to it. I—thanks, Christine.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the nurse, ‘we really must get the patient ready.’

  What spirit there had been in Hoppermann was crushed by the fight at Southampton, and within twenty-four hours he had made a full confession. He confirmed Loftus’s theories, and elaborated them. For years he had been getting control of the big corporations and he had most of them in his hands. As Loftus had surmised, by inspiring anti-British feeling in America, he both increased his profits, and at the same time, worked off an inborn hatred of all things British.

  He had not been in touch with any foreign agents.

  The German papers were planted at Conway to create that impression, and Lewis had always tried to do the same—but he was answerable only to Hoppermann.

  Goss was in it, of course; Goss, who also hated all things British.

  Loftus was out of the operating room after two hours, but had not come round. The same message was received hour after hour.

  Christine, in constant touch with the hospital, was white-faced, hard-eyed. Oundle talked very little, for it seemed there was nothing to say.

  And then, after thirty-six hours, a message: ‘The patient has recovered consciousness.’ Christine took it, on the phone, and turned to Oundle, her eyes suddenly bright and moist.

  ‘He’s come round. There’s a chance.’

  Oundle said: ‘If he’s conscious and wants to come out, he’ll make it. He must make it, Christine, we can’t do without him. But—’ he too looked pale. ‘What he’ll do when he knows, that’s beyond me. Bill forced to keep sitting down; Bill, when he knows he’s had a leg amputated—’

  ‘Stop it!’ snapped Christine tensely. ‘Stop it!’

  In another six hours there was a message from the hospital; Loftus could see Mrs. Weston and Mr. Oundle for a few minutes. He was weak, but stronger than he had been, although of course, he must not be excited.

  They hurried there, and were taken to the small private ward. Loftus was lying on the bed, with one leg, his only leg, strapped up and slung above body-level, so that the blood should not run into it. His face was almost as pale as the sheets, but his eyes were open. He turned his head slowly, and a faint smile curved his lips.

  Close to the bed, they heard:

  ‘Hallo, you two. How’s tricks?’

  Oundle said: ‘Everything’s all right, Bill. America, I mean.’

  ‘Of course, it is. Sound people, Americans, when they know the truth. Anyone else hurt?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We were lucky.’ He was quiet for a moment, then he went on: ‘Well, it’s a fine do. Better order me a very good new leg.’

  Christine exclaimed: ‘You know about it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Too bad. But I’ll hold on, and Craigie’ll find me something to do somewhere. Tell—tell young Mayo I’ll be seeing him. Er—Christine.’

  ‘Yes, Bill.’

  ‘You were quite right. Women often are, bless ’em. It’ll be worth it.’ He smiled again, and then a nurse came in and ushered them away; but they were no longer afraid.

  A man in a bath-chair and a young boy with ginger hair were together on the courtyard of Buckingham Palace, on a day when the King was decorating many men and women for bravery. It had taken Hershall a long time to persuade Loftus to accept the decoration, which was the highest ‘civilian’ honour; Jimmy Mayo, also to be decorated, probably weighed the scales.

  Ned Oundle pushed the chair, and Christine, the Errols, Best, Dunster, Grey, and a dozen others, were outside, watching the ceremony.

  Christine saw Loftus smile, and talk for a few moments with a gracious sovereign, saw Jimmy Mayo salute stiffly, saw Oundle begin to push the chair away. Christine forced her way to the gates, and reached them as the chair came out. Loftus was looking about the crowd, saw her, and smiled widely. The sun glinted on the medal on his chest.

  ‘Wasn’t it won-derful!’ exclaimed Jimmy, low-voiced. ‘Isn’t he grand?’

  Christine said: ‘Yes, isn’t he?’ and looked at Loftus.

  The Day of Disaster

  John Creasey

  1

  The Fugitive

  He was a youth, no more than twenty, but the fear of death was in his eyes.

  He crouched in a ditch at the side of the road, grateful for the inky darkness as the convoy roared and rumbled past. The ditch was clammy from recent rain; the April night bitterly cold. The only light came from the dimmed headlamps of motor-cyclists weaving in and out of the heavier vehicles; demons of light and speed whom the fugitive feared, that night, beyond all things.

  The youth had been in England before, but only in time of peace. Since then, he had learned the bitter way, how differently a stranger was received by a country and people swept by breath of war. Crouching there in his hiding-place as the ground quaked and trembled beneath the wheels and tractors of the machines of violence, he re-lived a night impossible to forget. A night when the men in the machines had been clad in field-grey, and the roadside and the hedges had been littered with the dead and dying.

  A part of the British army was on manoeuvres, but this he did not know, unable to associate this unceasing roar with anything other than murder and pillage and the cursing of the wounded. Lying there he heard those sounds again, throbbing through his mind, his heart, his very being.

  There came a time when no tanks or lorries or motorcycles passed him. As their noise faded slowly into an unknown distance he dared to stand up, gasping as cramp shot through his limbs, causing h
im to fall helplessly over the lip of the ditch. He straightened up slowly, the agonising contraction of his muscles giving way to the lesser pain of cold and hunger.

  He was obsessed, his mental vision distorted by privation and hardship.

  He had spent two months in Belgium and another in France representing himself as a refugee from Alsace, and thus gaining sympathy, and enough food and drink to get him to the coast. In a small motor-boat with three Frenchmen he had set out for England, but a Messerschmitt had sighted them. The boat had been riddled with bullets, overturned and sunk.

  He alone had survived, and with the help of a lifebelt drifted towards the English coast. Exhausted and unconscious, he had been thrown ashore. Coming slowly to life again, he had found himself repeating one name, monotonously, incessantly.

  Loftus.

  He had heard it from the lips of a man dying in a fever, and he remembered the other words, which made sense only in phrases.

  ‘Loftus. Spell it backwards. S-u-t-f-o-l. Spell it backwards. See you through. Tell him anything you know. See you through. Loftus.’

  The man who had uttered these words had befriended the fugitive. A burly, gruff-voiced socialist-Frenchman, he had behaved like most of his countrymen, cursing the Nazis and blessing the English, careful not to be overheard.

  Then it had been said that this Frenchman was a spy.

  He had been shot at and wounded by the Germans, and the fugitive had helped him get away. Beyond recovery he had lapsed into feverish rambling, muttering of England, always England. Then suddenly, in startlingly clear tones, the dying man had cried:

  ‘Loftus. Spell it backwards.’

  When it had seemed that he was on the point of death, a letter for him had reached Emile, since there were ways in which letters could be delivered without passing through German hands.

  The spy, if spy he was, had read the letter, then fallen back, staring towards the sky.