by Desmond Cory
Author - Critical Acclaim “There is a comparatively slender band of first-class writers who are producing thrillers worthy of serious attention — among them authors like Margaret Allingham, John Creasy, Carter Dickenson, David Dodge, Ellery Queen, Simenon, and, of course, Agatha Christie. Among them, too, is Desmond Cory, a man whose ingenuity, imagination and good humour pervade his works with an agreeable excitement and readability.”
Bristol Evening Post
"Readers who like their thrillers to complement their intelligence must on no account miss Mr. Cory."
The Times, 1960
"You hear that there was a Goldern Age of thrillers in Britain between the wars. When you read Cory you realize that it hasn’t ended."
Echo, 1993
"I am an incorrigible aficionado of crime and spy novels, especially those written between the 1930s-60s. Hammett, Deighton, Fleming... these are names that will strike a sympathetic chord with enthusiasts of the genre. But for me, the Holy Trinity is Cheyney, Chandler and Cory."
Amazon Book Reviewer, 2011
"Desmond Cory continues to impress. His novels are as good as when they were first released. It's just a matter of time before they are made into a major TV series."
Top 500 Amazon Book Reviewer, 2016
On Johnny Fedora
"Johnny Fedora is the 'thinking man's James Bond' who spends his life 'dealing with the cold-bloodiest bastards on this earth."
Books and Bookmen
"Desmond Cory seems to me to accomplish precisely what Fleming was aiming at. This is a sexy, colourful, glamorous story, written with finesse, economy, humour, and full and inventive plotting."
New York Times
"For my money, Johnny Fedora, professional killer for British Intelligence, more than deserves to take over James Bond's avid audience."
New York Times
DEAD MAN FALLING
BY
DESMOND CORY
The third novel in the Johnny Fedora Espionage Assigment series.
Previous titles:
Secret Ministry
This Traitor, Death
For more information, please visit the website at: www.desmondcory.com
Copyright : Desmond Cory.
First published on Kindle 2011
FOR
PENNY
TO PASS THE TIME
ON A TRAIN
Part I -The Journey
GENEVA
MR. SEBASTIAN TROUT was a large, heavily-built young man of pleasing appearance and considerable quiet charm. His hair was fair and close-cropped, his eyes blue and suggestive of a gentle and humorous temperament; and Mr. Trout’s sense of humour was indeed remarkably well-developed. This was fortunate in that it enabled him to regard his name as an amusing whimsy, rather than as a quite insupportable affliction. He did, as a matter of fact, spend much of his time answering to various other aliases; but this was due to the exigencies of his profession rather than to any desires of his own.
At seven-thirty on a certain Sunday evening, late in the month of March, Mr. Trout arrived by taxi at a house in the Avenue Blanc. He emerged blinking into the cool crepuscular light, handed the driver a substantial sum of money, and listened dubiously to the squeals of merriment that floated down towards him. The house before which he stood was a pleasant detached residence with cheerful green-painted window shutters; while he was still regarding it, a very young man came out of the front door, fell heavily down four stone steps with an air of solemn dedication, and landed at Mr. Trout’s feet.
“Dear me,” said Mr. Trout, eyeing him nervously. “Are you hurt?”
The young man rose to his feet, scrutinised Mr. Trout’s features from a range of about nine inches, and uttered the most horrible epithet. He then bounded into the taxi, sneered at the driver and was whisked away, like a latter-day Proserpine.
Mr. Trout was shocked. It was not that he never used bad language himself; at one period in his life, when engaged in the impersonation of a certain notoriously foul-mouthed officer, the vividness and fluency of his vocabulary had aroused the admiration of an entire Panzer Brigade. But, under normal conditions, Mr. Trout disapproved of obscenity; he was, after all, the son of a bishop. Shaking his head sadly, therefore, he mounted the four stone steps down which the young man had precipitated himself, transferred his walking-cane to his left hand, and gently depressed the doorbell.
The immediate result of this action was that an inadequately-clad young lady jerked open the door and fled screaming in the direction of the Parc de l’Ariana. Mr. Trout blanched visibly. The next moment, however, there appeared in the door a forbidding-looking maidservant, who – in spite of a malevolent squint – was obviously both sober and conventionally attired. Mr. Trout addressed her with manifest relief.
“I say. This is Mr. Dolan’s house, I suppose?”
“Sn’f,” said the housemaid, surveying him bleakly. “What name, sir?”
“My name is Trout.”
“Oh yes, he’s expecting you. Won’t you come in?”
“Why, thank you, thank you,” said Mr. Trout. He entered; and the housemaid, sniffing loudly, accepted his hat, his cane and his light overcoat. She then said,
“He says go straight into the study, Mr. Trout. The door at the end of the hall.”
“Oh, right. Thanks so much. Nice party, eh?” said Mr. Trout jovially. The housemaid vouchsafed no comment other than a final penetrating snuffle; and Mr. Trout, chastened, proceeded to the door of Dolan’s study, upon which he tapped lightly.
“Come in,” said Dolan.
Mr. Trout obeyed the injunction. “Good evening,” he said politely. “Mr. Dolan? My name is Trout.” And added the necessary deprecatory giggle.
Dolan, who was reading Spicy Love Stories and had his place firmly marked with a banana-like forefinger, hurriedly dog-eared the volume and advanced his hand across the desk. “How d’you do, Mr. Trout. Very pleased to see you. Do sit down somewhere.”
“Thank you.” Mr. Trout raised his trousers a couple of inches and seated himself demurely. “What a delightful study you have.”
“You like it?” said Dolan, surprised. He looked round the room. “Um,” he said, depressed.
“Well now, Trout. Very glad to have you with us, I need hardly say. We have these little shake-ups in the organisation from time to time; causes a little trouble, of course, but we soon settle down smoothly again.” He looked nervously at Trout, as though expecting an immediate and heated denial; Mr. Trout, however, merely pursed his lips and nodded very sagely.
“Right.” Dolan took a large dossier from the side of his desk and opened it with a professional flip. “Let’s see, you were last in Hamburg?”
“Just so,” said Mr. Trout. “Taking an interest in philately?”
“Exactly.”
“And you think that’s how they’re transferring their capital?”
“I’m sure of it.” Mr. Trout closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and dreamily addressed the ceiling. “Golling is the gentleman responsible. The diamonds are being sold in Amsterdam, Antwerp and Brussels, the money acquired is spent on valuable stamps, the stamps smuggled practically anywhere.” He spread his hands eloquently in the air. “Very simple.”
“And, apparently, very hard to stop.”
Mr. Trout hung his head in shame.
“Oh, not blaming you. Not blaming you for a moment. It’s just that our present system doesn’t seem likely to get us any results. Frankly, Trout – what do you think our chances are of nobbling the fellow at any of th
e towns you’ve mentioned?”
“Not too good. He’s a wily customer. Not too good at all.”
“No. He knows you pretty well by now, of course; or should do.” Dolan studied the file morosely. “Let’s face it, then. The dates on which these large stamp transactions have been recorded are in July and August of 1946; the same months in 1947; June, July and August in 1948 and the same again in 1949. Your theory is that the diamonds are taken from the cache yearly in the early summer; those dates seem to bear you out.”
“They’re taking care not to overrun the market, you see.”
“Quite. Well, it’s now March of ’50. So, if you’re right, we can expect another attack on the market in three months’ time. And this time, we must do something about it. I mean it, Trout. We absolutely must.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Trout, blinking rapidly and placing his fingers tip to tip; this to indicate his appreciation of the situation’s seriousness.
“Well, we’ve got two lines of attack. The first is the one we’ve been trying – or rather, you have – this last six months: cordoning off the market. And as you say, prospects there aren’t exactly hopeful. Alternatively, we can go right to the root of the matter and try to discover where the hell it is they’ve got those diamonds hidden… There’s the third line, of course, of trying to trace Mayer, Golling and the lesser fry directly; but that’s the pigeon of Buster’s mob and they haven’t much hope. Well – what do you think?”
“The second,” said Mr. Trout firmly. “Oh dear, yes; the second every time. Firstly, if we find the diamonds we finish the business for good and all, not merely temporarily. Secondly, the diamonds are Mayer’s affair; and it’s Mayer we want more than any ten of the others. Oh, I’m all in favour of the second.”
“What you say is very true,” said Dolan, with a touch of impatience. “On the other hand, we do know that the diamonds are being sold in Belgium and Holland, and we’ve finally got on to their stamp racket. But the diamonds can be just about anywhere in Europe.”
“I – er – I rather fancy Austria.”
“I know you do. Yes, I know all about that. That so-called ‘lead’ of yours to… What’s the place’s name?”
“Oberneusl.”
“Yes, of course. Oberneusl. Some poor blasted crackpot of a P.O.W. suggests it to you; and you’ve got the place in your bonnet.” Dolan paused, evidently considering the soundness of this metaphor. “You’ve been there two years running now, disguised in shorts and a funny hat, and you’ve found damn all. Everybody else has given it up as a bad job.”
“For all that,” said Mr. Trout mildly, “I’d like to try again.”
“Oh Lord, oh Lord. I was afraid you would.”
“It’s not really any less hopeful than the cordoning method, you know,” said Mr. Trout, with some spirit. “Of course, if we find Golling again, it’ll be a different matter; we can hang on to him like grim death. But he does seem to have given us the slip rather extraordinarily neatly.”
“Golling. Where was he last seen”
“Geneva,” said Mr. Trout restrainedly. “About three hundred yards from here, as a matter of fact. It’s that which explains my presence in this beautiful town, you may recall.”
“Yes-yes-yes. Remember perfectly now. That was a month ago, of course.”
“Just over five weeks.”
“Yes-yes. Let’s not quibble.” Dolan turned over a page of the file with a sharp crackling noise, and there ensued a few moments’ silence; which Mr. Trout passed pleasantly in attempting to blow a smoke-ring upwards as far as the ceiling. His air of concentration was so intimidatingly intense that Dolan felt a certain diffidence in interrupting him.
“H’rrrum,” he said eventually. “Well, Trout. My instructions in this matter are perfectly clear. So if you wish to spend another summer pottering around this Oberneusl place, you’re at perfect liberty to do so. And I wish you the very best of luck. If you have no objection, though, I’ll put a couple of men on the Belgium-Holland side.”
“An excellent idea,” Mr. Trout murmured. “When were you thinking of leaving?”
“As soon as I possibly can.”
“Good,” said Dolan. “Good. I’d appreciate it if you could have a chat with those two fellows before you go, though; just to take them over the ground. I’ll arrange it and let you know.”
Mr. Trout bowed his head in acknowledgement, and crushed out his cigarette in an adjacent ashtray.
“I suppose you’ll want to arrange your own passage? And alias and cover story and what-have-you?”
“That has been the usual procedure.”
“Right,” said Dolan. He clapped the file shut, and a little cloud of dust rose protestingly into the air. “Then all I need do is inform Central Office of your decision. Mind you, I don’t quite know whether they’ll… However. Good luck, Trout.”
They shook hands with no great display of enthusiasm, and Dolan escorted the other to the study door. “Of course,” he said hopefully, “there’s always the chance of your picking up Golling again.”
“I hope not; the feller keeps trying to shoot me.”
“Oh? Oh, does he?” said Dolan, even more hopefully. “Well, don’t let him do that, ha-ha.”
Mr. Trout smiled a prim, tight, episcopal little smile and made no other reply. He was duly escorted down the length of the hallway, handed his hat, coat and cane by the housemaid, and pushed gently out of the door, which closed behind him. A singularly loud whoop from the front room coincided with his departure.
The housemaid, having seen Dolan retire to his study, hurried down the hall and made a telephone call to a Genevese suburb. “Trout has just called on Herr Dolan,” she explained hurriedly. “I… No, I was not able to overhear their conversation; but Trout is going to Oberneusl. Yes. Oberneusl. Thank you very much.”
In the front room, the party continued unabated.
PARIS
THE DRAWING-ROOM WAS cosy and comfortably furnished; the carpet was thick and soft underfoot, and a fire burnt cheerfully in the grate. The windows, which were narrow, looked out on to the river Seine and the cathedral of Notre-Dame; directly before them was a large table, strategically placed to catch a maximum of the morning light, and over the table there was spread a huge map of Europe, much marked by dirty fingers. The room had two occupants. A slim dark-haired girl with a figure of breath-taking perfection was bouncing up and down on a suitcase, persuading it to shut; and a tall young man was leaning over the table, studying the map and adding several indistinct smudges to the lower half of Herzegovina.
“… Johnny,” said the girl pausing in her labours and breathing heavily. “You might just as well roll up that thing as keep on staring at it. It’s giving me the willies.”
“Um?” said the young man abstractedly.
“We know perfectly well where we’re going, darling. It’ll be quite all right on the night.”
“Um,” said the young man again. His forefinger moved stealthily across Croatia, Slovenia and Karawanken; it had an air of not knowing quite what it was doing. “… That’s all very well.”
“You’re not scared, are you?”
“Scared? Good Heavens, yes.”
“Oh,” said the girl. And added, as an afterthought, “Me, too.”
The name on the girl’s passport was Marie-Andrée Videl. She was twenty-six years of age and had been, in rapid succession, a University student, a private secretary, a Maquis courier, a fashion reporter, and finally… well, Marie-Andrée Videl. By which it is implied that, while the name on the young man’s passport was also Videl, that was not exactly his name and Marie-Andrée was not exactly his wife. The Intelligence Departments of most of the countries of Europe knew him as Johnny Fedora.
“You’re right about the map, of course,” said Johnny eventually. “We’d better burn it. And that wretched brochure. That amusing young man of Holliday’s will come rooting round here after we’ve gone, and we don’t want him to earn his pay too easily. Things
were very different in my day. Where is the brochure, anyway?”
“You’ve got it in your pocket.”
“So I have.” Johnny extracted from some recess a gay but badly crumpled pamphlet, and regarded it dubiously. “Vacances ensoleillées,” it stated. “En AUTRICHE. Voyez les montagnes d’Autriche, surgissants de l’éternité des siècles.” Johnny blinked. “I don’t know,” he said, “that it’d give away all that much after all,”
He threw the document on to the fire, and watched the amply-busted young lady on the front page dissolve into ashes. “Venez à Innsbruck!” she screamed, in the last throes of combustion. Johnny stooped down and laid into her unmercifully with a poker.
“You know,” he added gloomily, between thrusts, “I can’t help feeling this thing may simply not be fun. Sunny holidays, indeed.”
“Never mind,” said Marie-Andrée, who had finally locked her case and was now bearing it triumphantly from the room. “At least we’ll get a healthy tan.”
Johnny turned to watch the door close behind her, abandoned his sadistic pursuit of the glamorous Austrian’s ashes and strolled over to the window; where once again he bent over the map. He measured with the span of his hand the approximate distances between Paris and Zurich; Zurich and Munich; Munich and Vienna… He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Somewhere in all that distance,” he said to himself, “we should be able to shake ’em off. After all… they’re only amateurs.”
Then eventually, inevitably, his eye wandered downwards from the Austrian capital, downwards and to the south-west; past Wiener Neustadt and Gloggnitz and into the province of Styria. There the hachures on the map tried to convey an impression of rolling hills, of forests and of rivers, of deep blue lakes huddling beneath the last white mountains of the European backbone…
