by John Creasey
“Then why isn’t she back?” cried the maid.
Ross said: “Don’t worry, I’ll look after everything.” He left her on the bed, knowing that the tears in her eyes were of anxiety, and went back to the drawing-room. He used the telephone, holding it with a handkerchief; there was always a chance that the men had left prints.
Craigie answered.
Ross reported.
“This is a job for the Yard,” Craigie said. “They’re at the bungalow, too. Stay until someone arrives, will you?”
“Who will it be?”
“Miller himself, I expect.”
“Good.”
“Any ideas?” asked Craigie.
Ross said: “It seems crazy, but it’s connected with Conway. I think I might have an idea, too.”
Craigie said: “When you’ve finished there, come and see me, Peter.”
He rang off.
Ross surveyed the chaos. It would take hours to get the room straight, whoever had come had been looking for something small, and they had been in a fierce hurry. They’d made their own task more complicated by using tear-away methods. He couldn’t guess whether they had found what they wanted, but he could guess that they’d kidnapped Mae.
Kidnapped ...
He lit a cigarette, and went into Mae’s bedroom. Drawers had been emptied and their contents strewn about the floor. Mae’s clothes were in heaps on the floor by the wardrobe. He went across to her jewel-box.
Several rings, a pearl necklace, ‘some earrings, and two diamond pendants were there.
That cut out simple robbery.
What did they think Mae had?
The telephone bell rang.
He stubbed out his cigarette and went across to it; probably this was Craigie again, with a forgotten query. He didn’t even think it might be Mae, and he wasn’t really surprised to hear a man.
“Mr. Ross?”
Ross said: “So it’s you, is it?”
“You recognise me?” The faintly amused note was in the man’s voice; a note of mockery. “I thought you would like to be reassured, Miss Harrison isn’t hurt.”
“You’re making quite a collection,” said Ross.
“Two very fine pieces,” said the other, and actually chuckled. “Quite different, of course, Miss Harrison has much more spirit than Miss Conway. They’re not together. They’re both puzzled about my motives, though.”
“Are they?”
“Aren’t you?”
“They’re so obvious I couldn’t miss them if I were shortsighted,” said Ross.
“Oh. What are they?”
Ross said: “Pressure on Conway, through his girl. Pressure on me, through Miss Harrison, plus the possibility that she had some dope on me, at the flat.”
“How right!”
“Let it come,” said Ross.
“I just want you to do nothing,” said the man at the other end of the line. “Have a little rest. I’m sure that it will do you good, and you can be spared from your duties for a few days.”
“My Boss might not agree.”
The man laughed again.
“Don’t be foolish, Ross. You know that you can’t be forced to work on this case or any other. You can stand aside. You might be thought wise, too — you’re confused because of the personal angle, aren’t you? I want you to be confused, I want you to start trying to think ten ways at the same time. But most of all, I want you to take a holiday.”
“And if I do?”
“The time will come when Miss Harrison will return to you, and when Miss Conway will go back home.”
“I see,” said Ross. “Nothing else?”
The man said: “Ross, I mean what I say. I want you off this case. If you stay on it, then I won’t answer for what happens to the girls.”
“One day I’ll get a lot of pleasure,” said Ross, “in breaking your neck.”
“I’ll give you twelve hours,” said the other. “If you haven’t withdrawn by then, I’ll send you a little souvenir. You’ll know that to get it, I had to cause the girls a lot of discomfort. Miss Harrison has beautiful finger-nails, hasn’t she?”
Ross didn’t answer.
“You sound suitably impressed.”
“Oh, I’m impressed,” said Ross. “Last night you were full of high ideals and good deeds, you were anxious to help. What’s happened to change your mind?”
“I don’t want you helping.”
Ross said: “If you hurt either of those girls, the day will come when you won’t know what hit you.”
He put down the receiver.
He did not feel that he had been bright or clever; or see any way in which he could have been. He was angry; furious enough to feel the sweat on his forehead and his upper lip, to be hot when he ought to be cool. The personal worry was pressing hard; he couldn’t be as dispassionate as he needed to be.
There was a ring at the front-door bell.
He answered it, to see a big man, dressed in light brown, with fair hair and a fair moustache which were turning grey. The caller looked at him from large, tired eyes. His eyelids drooped, he moved slowly as if all movement were an effort. He was Superintendent Miller of Scotland Yard.
“Good morning, Mr. Ross.”
“Hallo, Super. Glad to see you.”
“Everything happens at once,” said Miller sorrowfully. “It’s always the same. Some days we sit on our fannies and do damn-all, and the next few days we ought to be in five places at once.” He turned round to look at the three Yard men who were with him. “Having a nice sleep?” he asked nastily.
The men passed, one of them smiling. One carried a small suit-case, another a camera. They went into the drawing-room, the door of which was open, and Miller followed them; he was slightly flat-footed.
“And you people always choose a day when we don’t want you,” complained Miller. “One bank robbery, one smash-and-grab, then there was the chap who cut his wife up into little pieces, and we haven’t found all the pieces yet. And if that isn’t enough ...”
Ross said abruptly: “It’s too much.”
Miller’s eyes widened; they were mild and grey.
“Have I said something I shouldn’t?”
“No.”
Ross went into the drawing-room, and watched one of the men opening the suit-case; it contained innumerable oddments, all the impedimenta of investigation, and he selected a bottle of grey powder and two camel-hair brushes; for finger-prints. Miller stood in the doorway and looked round.
“See that?” He pointed. “They didn’t take that picture off the wall, only turned it back to front. Why didn’t they make a job of it?” He sniffed. “Know what they were after?”
“No.”
“No help at all,” complained Miller. “It’s always the same. What about the maid?”
“She’s in her bedroom, and should be fit to talk by now. Not that she knows anything.”
“I shouldn’t expect her to,” said Miller. He looked hard into Ross’s set face, and then added in a quieter voice: “Don’t worry, Mr. Ross, we’ll find your young lady. Sims!”
He roared, and turned and hurried off, as if he were ashamed of his concession to sentiment.
Ross held out his right hand; it was quite steady, he couldn’t detect any tremor. But he felt as if it were shaking. He went across the drawing-room to the picture on the wall; a painting of Mae. He’d known what it was when Miller had pointed to it, although it faced the wall. He turned it. The artist had brilliance, Mae might have been on the wall, looking down at him, with a smile which the unthinking would call inscrutable or alluring, and which was exactly the way Ross liked her best.
He turned away.
“Going?” asked Miller.
“Unless you want me?”
“No, thanks — only too glad to get on without you people hanging around and telling me how to do my job,” grumbled Miller.
Ross forced a laugh, and went out.
It was warmer, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
The porter, who looked harassed and worried because a uniformed policeman now kept him company in the hall, said that it was an even better day than yesterday, wasn’t it? Ross agreed, and went to his car. The seat was hot. He drove off, but did not go immediately to Whitehall — he spent fifteen minutes driving round the side streets of London, and it helped him to make his decision. He drove to the parking-place near Whitehall, and then walked to the little door. He watched, carefully, and was quite sure that he wasn’t followed.
He went in. The usual procedure was necessary, and after he had pressed his finger-nail into the slit in the rail, he waited for the door to slide open and reminded himself of what the man on the telephone had said about Mae’s nails.
Craigie was alone in the office.
“Hallo, Peter. You haven’t lost any time.”
Ross went in, the door slid to behind him, he took out his cigarette-case and tapped a cigarette on the monogram; it was gold — a present from Mae.
“I’ve lost too much time,” he said. “Gordon, I’m as sorry as hell about it, but I can’t go on.”
10
OFFER REFUSED
CRAIGIE did not answer, but led the way across the room to his desk. There was an arm-chair at each side of it. He sat down and picked up one of his meerschaums. Craigie always looked exactly the same — morning, afternoon, evening, and the middle of the night he gave the impression that he could drop off to sleep at any moment. At close quarters the myriad little lines on his forehead and round his eyes and mouth showed up. He seemed at once old and ageless. There was a droll expression at his drooping lips, and his eyes always seemed ready to smile. He carried a weight of responsibility which Ross knew was almost more than any one man could really bear. He had built up the Department from nothing; had been its leader during the last world war and the first few years of uneasy peace. He was inured to surprise, nothing really shocked him.
In this room and in others nearby there were records, many written in code; but the records were really kept in Gordon Craigie’s head. He turned the still life of the written word into the vitality of the spoken one.
He sat here, day in and day out, seldom leaving the office, sifting reports from agents all over the country and all over the world. Some he passed on to associated departments; everything that had to do remotely with counterespionage in England came here. Once he had read a report, he memorised it — the trick was almost subconscious. The most remarkable thing about him was his memory. It made Loftus, his chief aide, give up in despair when trying to rival him. It made him the nearest thing to an indispensable man working at Whitehall — and with it all, he was mild-mannered, amiable, and filled with a deep human understanding.
“Like a drink, Peter?”
“It’s too early, thanks. I’m not as bad as that.”
“Mae’s disappearance upset you?”
“That and the rest.”
“Anything I don’t know about?”
“Nothing you can’t guess,” said Ross, and laughed. “Gordon, I’m no more use to you.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Until this job, I could put everything else out of my mind. It was like closing a door. This was the work I wanted to do and was doing, and everything else was outside it — fun and games. I know why you used to bar married men, and why you wish you still could. Since last night I’ve been doodling like a callow youth in love for the first time. I even get my women mixed up!”
He paused.
“Go on,” said Craigie.
“Look at it this way. My job is to keep Conway free of trouble, and to find out who’s getting at him and this air-defence business. Well, I’ve had jobs as sticky. They’ve been the beginning and the end of existence. Oh, I’ve had fun between and taken an easy spell or so, and hit the tiles pretty hard. The objective has been as clear as the sun on a warm June day — sorry if I sound like a sentimental rhymester! This time, I can’t see the objective properly. It’s hiding behind something — someone — else. I’ll go a long way to find Mae and as far to find Alice Conway, but not because it’s part of the job. They’re objectives in themselves. I’m going to run into trouble in that frame of mind, and you know it.”
Craigie was fiddling with his meerschaum.
“Isn’t that enough?” asked Ross abruptly.
“No.” Craigie smiled, and his eyes twinkled.
Ross laughed, shortly.
“What do you use for eyes? X-ray lenses? All right, there’s something else. The mysterious merchant telephoned me again this morning — with orders. I am to take a holiday, and leave everything to you. No, he didn’t mention you by name, but told me to clear out and leave it to others. He added that if I didn’t, I’d get a souvenir. One of Mae’s finger-nails, or such like.” Ross’s voice was brittle. “Now, stop me thinking more about Mae, if you can.”
“I don’t know that I want to. Find Mae, and you’ve probably found this man.”
“Try to find him and fail, and what will happen to Mae and the other girl?”
Craigie seemed satisfied with the big pipe, and lit it. His calm should have been irritating, but Ross found it oddly soothing. Craigie wasn’t amused, impatient, or intolerant, he gave the impression that he knew all the different tensions in the other’s mind.
“Listen, Peter. I don’t think I’ve a man on the books who hasn’t handed in his resignation, sooner or later. Most of them make it pretty soon — you’ve lasted a long time. Even Bill Loftus ...”
“No!”
Craigie smiled. “Loftus ran into a packet rather worse than yours. His wife — his first wife — was killed. It knocked him to pieces, and he didn’t think he’d ever be any good at the game again. But he held on by the skin of his teeth, and the Department would be in a poor way without him. There are others, by the dozen. Men you know, men you’d think had never known a moment’s weakness, once nearly cracked. This job demands something more than the ordinary human being can stand. You have to be slightly inhuman to get through; you have to reject the ordinary human emotions and passions part of the time, and when the clash comes — and it’s bound to come — the human-being side comes on top first. Usually, the other side soon gets restive. For instance, if you were to throw your hand in, and do what Mr. X wanted — what do you think you’d be feeling this time next week?”
Ross didn’t answer.
“You’re probably thinking that provided Mae and Alice were all right, you’d be glad you’d washed your hands of it. Well, you wouldn’t. And every time you looked at Mae, you’d have a sinking feeling inside you, and you’d wonder why you didn’t feel as you used to. For your own sake I’d say — don’t be an ass, carry on.”
Ross said: “Well, supposing you stop thinking about me, and think of the Department.”
Craigie said: “I see.”
He opened one of the drawers in his desk and took out a book. It was a slim volume, in black covers, about six inches by eight. He opened it and scanned one or two pages; even upside down, Ross saw that the writing was Craigie’s, neat and impeccable. Craigie smoothed his forehead and turned the book round, pushing it towards Ross.
“See that?”
There were names and brief biographies. The last entry was at the foot of the page, and the ink on it was paler than most of the others. It read:
Henry Michael (Harry) Marshall. Born 1916. Married. One daughter, Sarah. Entered Department’s service July 1943. Died in Department’s service May 195 ...
By the side of the entry was a number ‘117’.
Ross closed the book and handed it back.
“With a few exceptions, it takes years to train an agent,” said Craigie. “Even when he’s been vetted and passed into service, he has years of donkey work to do, and only one in four get right past the stage after which he can take charge of missions. One in ten, maybe, is outstanding. Loftus is the one you know best, but you’ve met several of the others. The casualty rate is shockingly high — since I started that register,
I’ve had three hundred and nine different agents, and, apart from the fatal casualties, at least fifty aren’t fit for the job any more. That’s how it is, Peter. When a man reaches your stage in the Department, I want to keep him. I know there’s a risk — you might be the exception who would really fall down because of Mae, but I don’t think so. I think you’d find that you could put the Department first — and without being naïve, remember that means the country — and the rest second. And once you’ve managed that, you’d be all right.”
Ross didn’t speak.
Craigie went on mildly: “When the clash between the agent and the man comes for the first time, it makes hell for them both. After that things settle down. You’re two people — sometimes the agent, sometimes the man, and the two don’t mix easily.”
“I see,” said Ross, heavily.
“It’s up to you,” said Craigie. “You know yourself better than I do, if you’re sure that you ought to back down — no one will blame you. Certainly Bill Loftus and I shan’t. We’ll be sorry, but we’ll find someone else. Loftus might take it on himself.”
“No one else available?” Ross asked abruptly.
“Not without taking them off another job.”
“Well, I’ve warned you.”
Craigie smiled again.
“We cover everyone we can, you might fail, and if you do someone will have to take over. You could fail because of the human element, or you could simply be shot or be run over — replacement would be necessary in either case, and I’d have the job of finding the replacement.”
“I see,” said Ross, abruptly. “And how often do you feel like telling bumptious little squirts like me where to get off?”
Craigie chuckled.
“We haven’t much to go on,” Craigie said a few minutes afterwards, “but we do know that Mr. X is very anxious to have you out of the game. That means that he knows you’ve something on him ...”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“... which you don’t realise,” Craigie went on as if there had been no interruption. “Or else he judged from what happened last night, and thinks you’ll probably cause him a lot of trouble. There’s one odd thing ...”
