by John Creasey
‘The truth,’ said Burke gravely, ‘will stand for ever.’
He had his man guessing, for the alabaster brows moved in a frown.
‘We will pass it. Your business, Mr. Smith?’
‘A little private matter with Pedro——’
‘Pedro?’
‘Branner called him Duval,’ said Burke easily. ‘He upset me, and I’m afraid I——’
‘You really must not try to imagine this is a place for joking, Mr. Smith.’ The steady, colourless words were depressing. ‘I know what happened to Duval. I saw him die. But I am not particularly concerned about a man’s death. I have killed many, and arranged for many others to go. Murder is an effect; I want the cause.’
Burke drew a deep breath, and his smile was set again.
‘Duval interfered,’ he said.
‘With you?’
‘With me.’
‘A purely personal matter?’
‘Please yourself,’ said Burke.
‘I see. Well, Mr. Smith, you have interfered somewhat abruptly and uncouthly in my affairs. Can you expect any other reward than Duval has had?’
‘I try not to expect anything,’ Burke said, and then he walked calmly to a chair and sat down. He was smiling now, for he felt that he had the measure of this man.
The pink lips moved in a smile.
‘You may call me Griceson.’
‘Thanks,’ Burke said with heavy sarcasm. ‘Your real name, of course.’
‘Aren’t you afraid of death?’ asked Griceson slowly.
‘I haven’t been yet,’ said Burke.
‘No. Now I think we have bluffed enough. You killed Duval because he knew where the body of Gustav Mueller was.’
There was no quickening in the pace of the words, and that very fact gave Burke time to guess what was coming, to save him from the surprise and the mistake of showing emotion.
‘Did I? Who’s Mueller?’
‘You make an excellent fool,’ said Griceson, ‘but I will be patient. Mueller was the Shovian Ambassador to England. He was murdered at my instruction last night. This evening the story of that murder should have been in all the papers. Thanks to you, and others who interfered, it will not be published yet.’
‘Interesting,’ said Burke, ‘but why tell me? I do not want to hear that you’d killed Mueller. It is risky to let too many folk into a secret like that.’
‘I will remember that,’ said Griceson. ‘Now, Mr. Smith. You were not one of the men who carried Mueller’s body away …’
Griceson paused. Burke kept his expression without alteration, but the words came as a shock. How did Griceson know that? How could he know it?
Griceson went on to answer the unspoken question.
‘I was telephoned, and told just what had happened at Thornton Lodge, Mr. Smith. Your description does not tally with either of the men who were reported. So you met them afterwards.’
‘This makes an excellent bed-time story,’ said Jim Burke.
‘I see. A bed-time story, eh? Well, you may be right. I will give you the benefit of knowing how I look on this development, Mr. Smith. For a few days Mueller will be listed as missing, instead of murdered. Eventually he will be discovered. Whoever has held the body will, I think, be English. Perhaps indirectly connected with Whitehall. It will make my murder much more effective, will it not? Any doubt that it was committed by an Englishman, for the English Government, will be gone. You follow me?’
Burke grinned.
‘I don’t know much about the English Government, but I think they’ll be wiser than that,’ he said. ‘Besides, what mad dog will think we killed Mueller?’
‘The Shovian Government,’ said Griceson imperturbably.
‘I know they’re crazy, but——’
‘You may know a lot of things, Mr. Smith, but you don’t know that the Shovian Government has been told that Mueller has learned of certain British diplomatic activities hostile to Shovia. And when he disappears, when his dead body is found—well!’ Griceson moved his hands for the first time. They were as white as his face, the fingers long, slender, sensitive. ‘What would you think if you were a loyal Shovian?’
Burke could see with appalling clarity the cunning of the whole affair. The moment Mueller was discovered missing, stories of the earlier message—that he had made discoveries of British hostility—would be in the Shovian Press. That hotheaded, mercurial people, with its government ready to go whichever way the wind blew, would never stand for it.
War.
Burke saw it as clearly as he could see Griceson’s alabaster face. War, suddenly blasting the face of Europe.
War!
There was a mist in front of Burke’s eyes, and he had to keep his hands in his pockets, gripping the palms tightly with the finger-tips. He had to set his teeth and narrow his eyes, while through the mist was the smiling, mocking face of the man who called himself Griceson. And then suddenly the mist cleared away, and Burke said with astonishing affability:
‘You’d be surprised to know how nearly you died then, Griceson. Do you know how to break a man’s neck with one punch? It’s difficult at first, but it comes easily with practice. Well?’
Griceson’s face showed no expression. He leaned across his desk, his slate-grey eyes unwinking.
‘Where is Mueller?’
Burke smiled, his right eye screwed up to stop the smoke getting into it.
‘I really don’t know.’
‘Where is Mueller?’
Burke did not answer this time. There was a tensing in the other’s expression, a quickening of his voice for the first time. And then, with a movement so fast that Burke hardly saw it, Griceson snatched a hunting-crop from the desk beside him and slashed Burke across the eyes. Burke ducked instinctively. The blow cut across his forehead, bringing a livid weal as it dropped away. The sharp, stinging pain was excruciating.
‘Where is Mueller?’
Burke drew a deep breath.
‘If you want to try fancy tricks,’ he growled, ‘I’d make sure that I can’t move first. Griceson, if you lift that crop again I’ll come for you, Branner’s gun or not. And I will get you.’
There was a savagery in his voice that was appalling. Even Griceson seemed to wilt. Certainly the man did not lift the crop again.
‘In the circumstances, Mr. Smith, my eagerness can be understood. I have no desire to force unnecessary pain on you. The discovery of Mueller will be only a matter of time. Why not talk, and save yourself pain and me trouble?’
Burke laughed.
‘That’s an idea.’ He was deliberately offensive now, for he was prepared to do murder—if Griceson lost control again. ‘But it will need brains, not hunting-crops, to find Mueller.’
‘You underrate me,’ said Griceson. ‘I can trace you in a few hours by your car.’
‘You underrate me,’ Burke said. ‘It’s a hired car, and the garage-folk don’t know me. They have never seen me before, and, as they will not be likely to again, identification will be a problem.’
Griceson’s lips tightened.
‘If that’s true, you are cleverer than you look.’
‘What a pity!’ mocked Burke. ‘I would return the compliment if I could, Griceson, but——’
‘If you are deliberately trying to anger me——’
‘Oh, don’t start ranting. You can try to find where Mueller is until you’re croaking like a frog, but you will get nothing from me. Nothing. You will not have the time.’
The last words sent the fury flying from Griceson’s face, and the man leaned forward, off his guard for once.
‘Time? What do you mean?’
‘My poor, bewildered fool,’ said Burke wearily, ‘do I look like a man who’d come alone to find the gang that killed Mueller? I may know I’m good, but there are limits to vanity. Besides, it’s company to work in pairs.’
For a moment there was dead silence, and Burke knew his bluff had worked.
No one in the room broke the
silence.
The interruption came from outside, a sharp, urgent tapping on the door. Griceson opened his lips to speak, but the man outside beat him to it, and his words came, frantic, urgent.
‘Boss, the Z men are ten minutes away, both directions. Driving like fury. Condin’s just reported. We can’t get away by road—we can’t!’
And Burke, his eyes suddenly alive with a tremendous elation, knew that somehow Fate had made his bluff a fact. The Z men were coming. He was so excited that he forgot two things. One, that he would almost certainly be shot before Kerr or the others could arrive, and second, that Griceson’s men could recognise Craigie’s agents.
Both facts were sickening. What would Griceson do?
5: Give and Take
The silence could not have lasted more than ten seconds, but it seemed an age before Griceson moved a muscle. Burke was smiling, as though he cared not a damn what happened to him now that this news had come.
‘Are you believing me, Griceson?’
Branner swore, and his gun-hand moved.
‘Quiet, you. Shall I …?’ The last words were addressed to Griceson, and there was no mistaking what the thin man meant. A nod from Griceson would send a bullet humming, and Jim Burke’s interest in life would promptly disappear.
Griceson did not move. The man outside started again, his voice at a frenzied pitch of anxiety.
‘Did you hear? Are you there, Boss?’
Griceson started to tap his long fingers on the desk in front of him, an oddly irritating gesture even to Burke. But the lips in that alabaster face moved now, each word deliberate. Burke knew that from the moment the news had come Griceson had been thinking fast, without showing the slightest emotion. He was a man to be reckoned with.
‘Numbers Ten and upwards,’ Griceson said, ‘go across country at once. Numbers Eight and Nine will wait for me at the shed.’
There was a scraping of footsteps outside, a clattering down the stairs. Burke looked into the pale eyes of the man called Griceson, a qualified admiration in his mind for the other’s imperturbability.
‘Everything on a numerical basis,’ he said gently.
Griceson smiled: an odd, tight smile.
‘Everything by numbers, Mr. Smith; it is so very simple. Jones——’ He moved his eyes so that he was looking at Branner’s companion. ‘Get across country, with the others. You know where to meet again. Branner——’
Griceson had hardly uttered the thin man’s name before the gunman was at the door. Burke grinned at the man’s speed, and smiled again when he thought of the fear that the Department brought to Griceson’s men. Then he realised, with a sudden sinking at his heart, that the Department men had been easily recognised. Half their strength lay in being unknown.
‘Have we room for Mr. Smith?’
‘Yes,’ Branner said. He was controlling himself well, although he was obviously itching to get away.
‘Then take him. Mr. Smith, be warned and don’t try to escape. A bullet in the back can be most uncomfortable.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ Burke said gently.
His eyes met Griceson’s, and he saw an astonishing change. A look of almost animal fury came into those cold grey eyes. Griceson’s lips, curled back, showing his fine teeth, and as he stood up slowly he was trembling from head to foot.
‘You interfering fool! Branner!’
Burke did not even know what was coming. Branner was just behind him, and he moved his right hand with lightning-like speed. The butt of his gun crashed on the back of Burke’s head, and the big man grunted once before he slumped across the desk.
Griceson moved quickly towards the door while Burke was falling. He had realised by the other’s expression that Burke would make a getaway attempt it he could, and Griceson’s rage had flared. But now he was self-controlled and as deliberate as ever.
‘Drag him as far as you can, Branner. I’ll send one of the others to help. Close the door, and light the fuse quickly. We have less than eight minutes, by my reckoning.’
Branner needed no second telling. Griceson hurried downstairs, and by the time he reached the bottom Branner had dragged Burke’s unconscious body out of the room. Leaving Burke spreadeagled on the floor, Branner closed and locked the door. He took a knife from his pocket and dug the point into the woodwork near the handle. A small round piece of wood came away quickly, and a frayed end of cotton-wool came with the knife-point.
Branner pulled at the wool, revealing a foot-long length of lighting-fuse. Moving quickly, but without panic, he struck a match, applied it to the fuse, and waited until it started spluttering. By that time a heavy-featured man was hurrying up the stairs. He asked no questions, but grunted:
‘I’ll take him on my back.’
The fuse upstairs was still five inches long when the two men passed through the open back door.
Five inches …
• • • • •
‘For the love of Mike,’ snapped Bob Carruthers, ‘tread on it man! I’ll never look Pat in the face again if——’
‘Stop worrying about Mrs. Burke,’ said Kerr evenly. He spoke between clenched teeth, and there was something in his expression that Carruthers had never seen before. ‘We’ll get the swine.’
‘Will we get Burke?’ asked Carruthers slowly.
Kerr did not answer, and it was not because the hum of the engine made hearing difficult. The closed car, with two other members of Department Z in the rear, was hurtling at seventy miles an hour along the road that led past Griceson’s house. Kerr took a corner, braked, and as it turned the men saw the house.
They could not mistake it. Set well back from the road, it had the dilapidated appearance that Patricia Burke had described forty minutes—it seemed like a day—before. And as if by magic the road straightened for more than a mile, with one car approaching them, dust spewing wildly from its wheels.
‘Davidson and Arran.’ Carruthers muttered the names of two other agents of Department Z who had approached from the other direction, to close the exits from the house.
‘We’ll reach the gate first,’ said Kerr. ‘Hold tight!’
The second Department car was less than twenty yards away when the nose of Kerr’s bus reached the open drive gates. Kerr swung the wheel viciously, the car heeled over on the left, tyres and brakes screeching in mad medley. It settled down and leapt along the drive, with the second car on its tail.
Kerr stopped ten yards from the front door, and he had not pulled the brake properly before Carruthers was out of his seat.
‘Steady!’ snapped Kerr. ‘They might be waiting.’
He followed in a flash, an automatic showing in his hand. There was no time for half-measures if what Pat Burke had told him was true. But the front door of the house was gaping open, evidence of a negative kind, and Kerr’s eyes narrowed.
‘They’ve flown,’ he muttered to himself.
Kerr knew the situation on the instant.
Somehow the men at the house had been warned. They were running across the field, but Arran and Davidson would look after them. Already the second car was bumping over the uneven ground at the rear of the house. Kerr, with Carruthers and the other two men—by name Beaumant and Trale—could handle inside.
Kerr expected to find none of Griceson’s men. He did expect to find Burke, quite dead. As the others reached the hall he stood still for a moment. Slowly:
‘Trale, watch the back door. Beaumant, stay here. Carry, we’ll go up.’
Trale and Beaumant did not argue, and Carruthers was half-way up the stairs before Kerr reached the bottom tread. Kerr was still holding his gun; Carruthers had pocketed his. As they reached the landing, where a large window opened to the back garden of the house, two things happened that were enough to drive them mad.
A fraction of a second in the lead was the roar of an aeroplane engine. Kerr could see Davidson’s car outside, two hundred yards from the house. Between him and the car he saw the nose and wings of the ‘plane moving forward fr
om a shed with its door pointing away from the house. The machine rocketed forward, and Kerr could see its five occupants, although he recognised none of them. More in rage than anything else he lifted his gun and touched the trigger.
The shot seemed to bring the very house down.
There was a boom! that came with a deafening force, and the floor seemed to shiver, the walls to shake. A hundred panes of glass bulged outwards and then smashed with a crash that made the first shot seem a pin-drop. Kerr saw a door, just behind him, bulging at the middle as though it was made of rubber and being blown out. From inside the room came a further rumbling, a series of short, sharp explosions. And Kerr was less than two yards from the spot where he had fired.
Carruthers was just ahead of him.
‘You loosed a hell of a lot with that shot, Bob. What’s gone wrong?’
‘That, for one thing.’ Kerr poked a finger towards the aeroplane, now dwindling against the blue sky. ‘And the beggars obviously didn’t mean us to look round much.’
‘Destroyed the room, eh?’ Carruthers rarely worried about what could not be prevented. ‘I wonder if Jim’s up there?’
‘Don’t wonder about anything,’ snapped Kerr. ‘Put a shoulder to that door. Trale. Trale!’
From the door of the stairs Dodo Trale’s voice came upwards.
‘Hallo? Want me?’
‘Not yet. Get to the nearest telephone and send a warning out for that ‘plane. Monoplane XAL 138, looked like a Fokker 60. Heading due south, by my reckoning. General lookout, but no one’s to stop it. Right?’
‘Right!’ called Trale, and his footsteps echoed out of the hall.
Carruthers was thudding his full weight against the door, which was still bulging like a pot-bellied shell. Kerr added his efforts, thinking nothing of the instructions he had just bellowed, hardly realising that not one man in a thousand would have picked up the number of the ‘plane and the type of it in the few seconds he had had at his disposal.
They went together, three times, at the door. On the third effort the lock, weakened by the explosion, gave way. And as they lurched into the room, red flame seemed a very inferno in front of them, and the heat was enough to blast them off the face of the earth.
