by John Creasey
Macauly felt more hopeful than he had ten minutes before.
‘Glad to see you looking so well, sir,’ he said, as Riordon was ushered through the door by a respectful commissionaire.
Sir Basil shrugged his shoulders.
‘I’m getting old, you know, Macauly. I can’t last for ever—got to make room for these younger fellows, I’m afraid.’
As the doors closed behind the two men, the three loungers outside converged on the bank. A large touring Daimler drew smoothly and silently into the kerb and, as it pulled up, the chauffeur, a flat-faced, brutal-looking man with colossal shoulders, sent the electric siren on the car screeching into the air.
A dozen passers-by looked round, startled.
They saw the three gangsters make a sudden dash through the door and heard a sudden babble of voices from inside the bank, a woman’s scream quivering high above them.
Through the half-closed door came a high-pitched cry of pain. The door flew open, forced by the dead weight of the commissionaire, who fell headlong into the street, his face ashen grey, blood pouring from an ugly wound in his neck.
Inside the bank, a dozen cashiers stood behind the grilles, their eyes distended in terror, their hands held stiffly above their heads. In a fraction of a second four tight-lipped men who had been inside the bank for five minutes past, on the pretext of business, had moved towards the counter; ugly, snub-nosed automatics pointed threateningly at the terrified clerks.
Macauly saw the attack, realising in sudden horror what it meant. Yet it seemed macabre, unreal.
Two of the gunmen jumped swiftly on to the counter and over the grille. Holding their guns in their right hands, they grabbed packet after packet of treasury notes, throwing them into a valise which one of them had left on the other side of the grille.
‘My God!’ cried Macauly. ‘We must...’
As he started to speak, he moved forward, forgetting Riordon in the urgency of the moment. White-faced, he leapt at the nearest gunman.
The man snarled viciously and touched the trigger of his gun. Bullets spattered out, with little zutts! telling of silenced automatics, and Macauly reared, staggered, then dropped heavily to the floor.
The little crowd of men and women in the bank stood staring in horror. A woman screamed, another collapsed in a heap on the floor, while the four gunmen, working with the speed of lightning, filled the valise. Three more gunmen—those whom Macauly had seen but not noticed outside—stood by the door, their guns trained threateningly on the stupefied clerks.
One of them rasped out a command.
‘That’s enough!’ he snapped. ‘Beat it, all of you!’
The gangsters acted on the instant. The two on the inside of the counter vaulted up and over the grille, grabbed the valise, snapped it shut and threw it to the men by the door, who caught it dexterously and disappeared.
The others backed towards the door, holding their guns in front of them. Apart from the one command, none of them had spoken. They moved quickly, silently, but there was the threat of death in their eyes for anyone who tried to interrupt them. The great building was filled with a low, barely audible surge of sound as the tension of the men and women inside it slowly relaxed, but the shadow of that awful death seemed still to stupefy them.
The last of the gunmen slipped out of the door, and as he went, Sir Basil Riordon, who had crouched back against the wall throughout the attack, staring down at the huddled body of the general manager, fell forward in a dead faint. A cashier, the first to force himself out of the paralysing grip of the outrage, ran towards him. He seemed to release the others, as though he had galvanised them into action. In a moment, clerks, cashiers, and customers made bedlam, pushing, jostling and shouting.
Outside, the gunmen streaked towards the waiting Daimler and another car which slid behind it, leaping over the still body of the commissionaire.
A policeman, whose whistle had been blasting for the past two minutes, bringing a rush of people towards Bleddon’s Bank, made a determined but foolhardy rush at the foremost gangster. Two yards away from his quarry he threw up his arms, spun round, and fell to the pavement.
Someone screamed. A well-dressed man, carrying an attaché-case, hurled it towards the killers, shouting at the top of his voice and rushing forward. Once again the gunmen fired.
Then the raiders crammed themselves into the two cars, which slid into motion.
As they moved, half a dozen policemen converged on them, hurling their truncheons in a forlorn hope of hitting the drivers, but another rattle of firing drove them back. The cars surged forward at a tremendous pace, accelerating with the sudden power of super-charged engines, and in thirty seconds they had disappeared from sight.
And then bedlam was let loose in Lombard Street.
13
Hugh Devenish Gets a Message
In the carefully-guarded room at Whitehall, known to a select few as ‘Z’ Department, Gordon Craigie sat in an easy chair, listening to Hugh Devenish.
Devenish looked worried, and there was a furrow of anxiety on his forehead. He smoked incessantly, and picked his words with more care than usual.
‘I know it sounds fantastic,’ he said doggedly, ‘but it’s my opinion, Gordon, and all the flatfoots in the world won’t make me alter it. That raid on Bleddon’s was staged by Riordon.’
Craigie took his meerschaum from his thin lips.
‘It is a tall story,’ he commented non-committally.
‘It’s all a tall story,’ retorted Devenish. ‘From start to finish—as far as we’ve got, anyway—it’s been a nightmare. Tony Carruthers was murdered, and the only reason we can see for it is fear that he might have told someone who it was who advised him to buy Marritabas. Remember, we know Riordon, the son, was concerned with Carruthers ...’
‘We don’t,’ protested Craigie. ‘We only guess he was.’
‘I’m not talking logic and rule of thumb,’ Devenish said, ‘I’m talking horse-sense. Riordon let slip the “neck” business and tried to kill me afterwards.’
‘He might have done both,’ said Craigie. ‘On the other hand, the running down business at the Admiralty Arch might have had nothing to do with Riordon.’
‘It was his chauffeur, darn you!’ snapped Devenish irritably. ‘Stop being cussed, and listen to reason. We know, near enough, that Riordon was behind Carruthers’s murder, and we know that he’s been doing some funny business down at Wharncliff Hall.’
‘We’ve only got the girl’s word for that,’ said Craigie cautiously.
Devenish snapped his fingers.
‘Marion Dare’s word is good enough for me,’ he said decisively. ‘This is how I see it, Gordon. The Riordons, father and son, are behind Marritabas, and Marritabas is one of the biggest swindles we’ve had for a long time. Carruthers was murdered because he could have given a clue that the Riordons were behind it. If Bleddon’s Bank was concerned at all, Macauly probably knew as much as Carruthers. So Macauly had to be put away as well. Is that logical?’
‘It’s all right,’ admitted Craigie, cautiously.
‘Thank the Lord for that!’ muttered Devenish, crossing one leg over the other and settling back in his chair. ‘Now it’s reasonable, too, that there mustn’t be a chance of connecting the murder of Macauly with Riordon. If he’d simply been bumped off, the police would have put two and two together and the Riordons would have been in queer street. So they staged the hold-up, calculating that the police would never link the raid on Bleddon’s with Sir Basil, who virtually owns the bank.
‘Remember,’ he went on, as Craigie stirred, ‘Marcus might know that I, and even the police, suspect him of being concerned with Carruthers, but he can’t know that we believe he’s hand in glove with his father. That’s the strong point of my reckoning. Riordon senior is still above suspicion, and visits the bank for a conference with his general manager, who invariably meets his boss on the bank steps. Now we’re all set. The ruse is to make us believe the raid, coinciding wit
h Riordon’s visit, was accidental. Actually, the raid was timed when it was known Macauly would be on view. The actual robbery, the shooting, was just a blind, to make us believe that Macauly was killed more or less because he was in the way, instead of being killed because he was as dangerous to the Riordons as Carruthers was. And,’ went on Devenish grimly, ‘from what I can gather, no one apart from myself doubts that Macauly’s murder was incidental. Even you . . .’
Craigie interrupted.
‘I’m only giving you the official point of view,’ he said. ‘Nobody, so far, thinks I’m right about Sir Basil Riordon—they all think I’ve a bee in my bonnet. Even Bill Fellowes—though Bill does admit that things look bad against the Hon. Marcus.’
Devenish gave a brief, one-sided opinion on the mentality of the Police Commissioner. ‘All right,’ said Craigie, with a fleeting grin, ‘Bill might be all that, but he’ll still take a lot of persuading that the bank raid was staged just to kill Macauly. So will the Home Secretary. And before we can get them to move at all seriously, we’ve got a great deal to prove, Hugh.’
‘A raid on Wharncliff Hall would prove a lot of things,’ growled Devenish.
‘At the moment,’ said Craigie, ‘it wouldn’t be justified. Before we could do it, we’d have to get the nearest thing to Cabinet approval that we know—and for the time being we couldn’t show reason for it. All the same,’ he added, tapping the bowl of his pipe against the bars of the grate, ‘I’d like to see the inside of Wharncliff Hall.’
Devenish cocked an eye at his Chief.
‘You mean I ought to have a shot at it?’
‘I mean,’ said Craigie carefully, ‘that I’ll let you have half a dozen men to do what you like with, Hugh, but on the usual terms. It’d be unofficial. Riordon senior may be unpopular because he has kept quiet recently, but he’s still got a lot of influence.’
Devenish’s eyes glistened. He knew, better than any man, the peril of working for ‘Z’ Department, and in this particular case, when he was pulling hard against police opinion, an unofficial raid on Wharncliff Hall with negligible results would undoubtedly land him in queer street.
On the other hand, he was convinced that the affair was coming rapidly to a head. At the moment he constituted an acute danger to Riordon, and it was as much by luck as by judgement that he was still alive to shout about it.
Whatever the Riordons were planning, they could not bring it off until he was put away. They dared not—he knew too much, and guessed more. It was a duel between himself and the Riordons’ organisation—and there would be no quarter, no time lost.
In consequence he jumped at Craigie’s offer of unofficial support. There were a dozen young, alert, seemingly indolent but actually energetic young men ready to take a chance on anything hectic that he, or ‘Z’ Department, could put in their way.
But before he acted he wanted to learn more of the two directors of the Marritiband Development Company. Octavius William Young and Samuel Benjamin Martin were well worth immediate attention.
He threw a half-finished cigarette into the fire, and leaned forward, tapping Craigie’s knee.
‘I’ll take a chance, Gordon—and you can kick me if it goes wrong. By the way,’ he added, leaning back in his chair, ‘did you get any more news about the Aston Martin smash?’
Craigie smoothed his chin thoughtfully.
‘Not much,’ he said, ‘but I persuaded Bill Fellowes to have a look at the wreckage before they carted the poor devil who was burned up to the mortuary. And—’ Craigie leaned forward with a grim expression in his eyes— ‘Fellowes told me that he could have sworn it was you.’
Devenish whistled.
‘Did he, then! And even that doesn’t make him see sense?’
‘All that it did,’ said Craigie, with a grimace, ‘was to convince him that you’ve hit a hornets’ nest somewhere. He isn’t prepared to admit that the hornets’ nest is Sir Basil.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Devenish, with an airy wave of his arm. ‘We’ll let it pass. Now listen to this....’
Craigie listened intently while his agent related the story of his canvassing for photographic enlargements.
‘You’re getting hot,’ he admitted, when Devenish had finished. ‘Rickett wants watching.’
‘That’ll be a job for the army you’re giving me,’ said Devenish cheerfully. ‘Who is it to be, Gordon?’
‘I’ll send all six of them to the Carilon Club at nine o’clock,’ Craigie said. ‘If I can get hold of them all, that is. You’ll know them, Hugh.’
‘That suits me,’ said Devenish, feeling more cheerful than he had done since the news of the bank raid and the merciless killing had reached him two days before.
He heaved himself out of the chair.
‘Well,’ he said, patting Craigie on the shoulder, ‘I’ll be going.’
Craigie did not smile. He knew that Devenish was preparing to take the biggest risk of his life.
Hugh Devenish made his way through devious routes until he reached Whitehall, and eventually found himself in the courtyard of Scotland Yard.
A tall, middle-aged man, exquisitely turned out and walking with a peculiar thrust forward on his right foot, was coming down the steps of the building as Devenish reached the foot of them.
‘Hallo, Bill,’ greeted Devenish. ‘How are you?’
The Police Commissioner smiled. He had a face, Devenish had once assured him, that had been incubated in an ice box. The features were regular rather than good, always set in the same cold expression, as though completely disbelieving everything that he was being told. The expression was affected, not characteristic, for William Fellowes had a keen, if dry, sense of humour, coupled with an ability to reach the essentials of a situation quickly and surely.
‘I’m all right,’ Fellowes said dryly, ‘excepting when I’m being pestered by a wagon-load of loonies with a fantastic idea that...’
‘Less of the loonies,’ grinned Devenish. ‘We’re on a hot job, Bill, and all the flat-foots in London won’t make us drop it.’
‘Then mind your step,’ warned Fellowes. ‘Marcus Riordon might be a bad lot, but the old man’s all right.’
‘There are times,’ said Devenish rudely, ‘when I wonder what you’ve got behind your thick skull. When I’ve got everything worked out in simple arithmetic, I’ll have another shot at convincing you.’
Fellowes chuckled.
‘And I’ve warned you,’ he said. ‘Mind your step. You’ve hit a packet of trouble, Hugh, and you’re working it from the wrong end. I’ll give you one hint,’ he said, as his car drew up to the kerb.
‘If it’s anything like your general conversation this morning,’ grinned Devenish, ‘I don’t want it.’
‘Take it or leave it,’ commented Fellowes as he sat back in the car and the chauffeur pressed the self-starter. ‘Be careful if you meet a lady called Lydia Crane. She’s a friend of Marcus Riordon.’
Devenish assimilated this item of information as he walked briskly towards his flat. Lydia Crane. Surely that was the name Marion Dare had mentioned.
When he reached the flat, Marion had just returned from a shopping expedition with Pincher’s married sister. Devenish had insisted on advancing the girl enough money to fit herself out with necessities until she could get her clothes from Wharncliff Hall.
A pleasant odour of grilling steak assailed Hugh’s nostrils, and through the open door of the living-room he could hear Pincher arguing resignedly with his sister on the way in which onions should be fried. Occasionally the pugilistic Wiggings’s voice came through.
Devenish threw himself in a chair and grinned at Marion Dare.
‘The family’ll get bad-tempered before we’re much older,’ he chuckled. ‘Feeling all right, Marion?’
She smiled warmly.
‘Thanks to you,’ she said.
‘Anything happened of interest?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Marion. ‘Not here, anyhow.’
; Devenish stuffed his pipe thoughtfully.
‘By the way,’ he said quietly, ‘what can you tell me about Lydia Crane?’
He saw Marion’s eyes cloud over.
‘Marcus Riordon’s friend,’ she said.
‘The regular visitor to Wharncliff?’ queried Hugh.
‘Yes.’
‘What’s she like to look at?’
Marion gave a brief but vivid description, and Devenish had little fear of not recognising the exotic Lydia Crane should he meet her.
It was more than interesting, he thought, that the Police Commissioner had warned him of the woman—Fellowes obviously knew something of Marcus Riordon’s activities.
‘It beats me,’ said Hugh, who had slipped into the habit of discussing sidelights on the affair with Marion, ‘that the police won’t believe Sir Basil’s a bad boy. If they know about the Crane woman they must know Marcus spends a lot of his time at the Hall.’
Marion looked worried.
‘Perhaps they don’t want to believe Sir Basil’s mixed up in it,’ she suggested evenly.
Devenish looked at her sharply.
‘You mean—graft?’
Marion nodded.
‘Yes. Riordon knows almost everybody who matters, from the Home Secretary downwards. I used to write to him regularly.’
‘What about?’ snapped Devenish, wide-eyed.
‘Just little things—I wondered, sometimes, whether...’
She broke off uncertainly.
‘Wondered what?’
‘I don’t know anything definitely,’ said Marion, ‘but there didn’t seem any need for the letters unless they were a code of some kind.’
Devenish leaned back in his chair, frowning. All things were possible, of course, even graft on a grand scale in England. But the thought that Riordon was buying security from close investigation of his affairs needed more than a pinch of salt to make it palatable. The more he thought over the situation, however, the more he disliked the look of things.
But there was no need to worry Marion unduly. .
