by John Creasey
‘Gordon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know anything of a girl named Dacre?’
Craigie frowned.
‘No, the name’s not familiar. A girl, you say?’
‘Yes. She just telephoned, I’m told, and she asked for an interview with me, or a Mr. Craigie. Says it’s about Kerr. I’ll bring her over as soon as she comes—she might be interesting.’
Had he known where the grey-eyed Miss Dacre was, Bob Kerr would have considered it more than interesting, but Kerr was a long way away.
9: Points of Contact
It was usual in the affairs of Department Z for a dozen things to be happening at one and the same time. In a case like that of the murdered Ambassador, the trouble was that they only started to happen: before they were finished something cropped up to spike the Department’s guns, and although that had happened before it had never been quite so general as it was this time.
Kerr was only half-way to Bradford-on-Avon, after the address of the man—or woman—who had written a lot of letters to Mr. H. J. Griceson. Arran had not even got half-way, and he was feeling grim as he travelled on the Underground, in the same carriage as the swarthy-faced driver of the Rolls which had crashed him. Arran had had no easy task to placate the policeman, but he had learned that the Rolls-Royce was owned by Sir Julian Crabtree.
Toby Arran had worked for the Department throughout its ten years of activity, and consequently he was of a suspicious turn of mind.
But he could not bring himself to suspect Sir Julian Crabtree.
Sir Julian was old—seventy-two years and a few weeks. Arran—and most every man and woman in England—could have given his age, for a month before, Sir Julian had staggered the world, which had considered him in his dotage, by marrying. Lady Crabtree was just fifty years her husband’s junior, which accounted for the front-page spreads after their surprise wedding. Moreover, she was beautiful, and an acquaintance of the old knight for only six weeks. Lydia Crabtree—née Marency—came of a good family, and her relatives and friends were aghast at such an alliance. It was permissible, even laudable, to acquire a wealthy husband, but to marry a doddering, senile, thrice-widowed reprobate was to carry matters to a dangerous extreme.
Crabtree was not really as bad as that. It was true that his youth had lasted until his fortieth year, and his period of wild oats had been a long one; but in time he had mellowed, given out continual and arbitrary statements on the misconduct of the average young man and woman, lived in seclusion and seemed likely to grumble and grouse to his grave. It remained to be seen whether the lovely Lydia would rejuvenate him.
But Crabtree in this—no, it wasn’t feasible.
Arran continued to follow the chauffeur. He succeeded until the man went into the rear door of the knight’s St. John’s Wood house in Greytor Street. He waited there for half an hour, and went to telephone Craigie. Craigie said, simply, that he was to keep waiting and watching, and Arran confounded his luck, for a slight drizzle had started and he had not brought a mackintosh.
A lone newsboy delivering evening papers had a spare copy of the Evening Cry. Arran, sheltering where he could just see Crabtree’s house and keep an eye on anyone coming or going, glanced at the headlines. He glanced once and swore. No wonder Craigie had told them to look at the evening papers!
Sprawled across the top, in three-inch letters, were the words:
SHOVIAN AMBASSADOR DISAPPEARS
UNREST IN SHOVIA
The Evening Cry learned late this morning that Herr Gustav Mueller, Shovian Ambassador to Great Britain, disappeared from the Embassy late last night and has not yet been found. Rumours, following the recent frustrated attempt to assassinate Herr Mueller, suggest that foul play must not be discounted. The Shovian capital is a hotbed of rumours and suspicions, and the Evening Cry understands that Count Enrich von Retta, Shovian Secretary for Foreign Affairs, has been in touch by telephone with Sir Ralph Campion. The police are making every possible effort …
‘The perishing lunatics!’ he muttered under his breath. He saw the Rolls-Royce passing him, and he glanced at it curiously, although it was not the car that had crashed him in Chiswick. He stifled a yawn, saw the man lean forward in the tonneau of the Rolls, but did not see anything else move.
He felt the stinging pain in his forehead: just a sudden, sharp, red-hot pain, and he cried aloud. The cry echoed in his throat as he dropped in a heap to the pavement, and the Rolls went silently on. The rain came down more heavily, soaking the outstretched body, but Greytor Street seemed completely deserted. The only sound was the pattering of the rain, the only colour in a drab pavement the red that was colouring the water near Toby Arran’s forehead.
And night was closing down.
• • • • •
At dusk that night Tobias Arran was sprawled unconscious in Greytor Street; Bob Kerr was nearly unconscious on a couch in a cottage near Staines; Jim Burke was conscious and fuming, tied hand and foot to a bed in an attic at a house near Bradford-on-Avon; Gordon Craigie was waiting for Sir William Fellowes and the mysterious Miss Dacre, who wanted to see the comparatively unknown head of the Secret Service Special Branch Z; Mr. Jeremy Lucas was catching an express train for Bath, and several young men were doing a level best to pretend there was no reason for feeling gloomy.
Patricia Burke was with them.
She hated being alone, to think about Jim. The odds were heavily against her seeing Jim again, and she hated to admit it.
Carruthers, with his fair hair awry and looking odd with his singed eyebrows and lashes, was sprawling in a chair opposite her, his hands deep in his pockets. Wally Davidson, lean, long and lethargic, was opposite Carruthers and making knots in a piece of string. Beaumant—whose name was Arthur and who preferred being called Bo—was looking through a gap in the window curtains. He could see the garage from there, for an electric lamp illuminated the door, and the moment a shadow crossed it he would start the others moving.
Outside, cold and damp in the rain that had come that evening, was Dodo Trale. No one knew why they called him Dodo. He was a handsome young man with a punch like the kick of a mule in both hands. He could shoot two-fisted, and it was said that he knew which end of a knife to use, for throwing or for stabbing. Dodo Trale was a man of action.
A hundred yards from the gates of Rose Cottage was a bus shelter. Trale was using it. He was able to keep the cottage in view through a crack in the wood, which incidentally admitted rain and wind, and the road opposite—with the copse where Burke had first seen Pedro—through the doorway of the shelter. Now and again he glimpsed the lighted room where Carruthers and the others were probably swilling beer, and he cursed the luck that had given him the outside watch. Why the hell was anyone likely to attack Patricia?
Dodo Trale, it happened, did not then know of Herr Mueller.
Trale kept yawning, waiting and watching. He looked at his watch. At six o’clock he blessed the fact that in an hour Beaumant would relieve him. At two minutes past six he saw the Rolls-Royce pass the shed, appearing with a suddenness that startled him. It made only the slightest sound, drowned by the rain and wind.
He saw it pull up, twenty yards from his shelter, and his weariness disappeared. His right hand closed about the butt of a gun, for there was no reason in the world why the car should stop that distance from Rose Cottage. He saw two men pile out quickly and the Rolls move on. They moved towards the shelter. Trale slipped the silencer from his gun and squeezed as far away from the doorway as he could. He was hoping the men would pass. They stopped by the shelter, and one of them entered, ducking low to avoid banging his head. Trale heard his words:
‘Filthy blasted night. What the hell Branner wants——’
‘Shut up!’ The second man was shorter, a brawny individual with an arrogant manner. ‘Branner’s in good with the boss, and——’
Dodo Trale uttered a preliminary cough and said gently:
‘Hands right up, gentlemen. I can see your silh
ouettes, and I always shoot high.’
There was a moment of tense, electric silence. And then the shorter man swore. Trale saw his hand move towards his pocket, and on the instant Dodo weighed in. A shot just then would have warned the other men in the Rolls, and he didn’t want that to happen. He crashed the butt of his gun across the short man’s face, hearing the gasp of agony. He felt the air of the tall man’s fist whistle past his nose, and sent a pile-driver with his left towards the big fellow’s stomach. He hoped it was his stomach, and his hopes were justified. In the space of three seconds both newcomers were gasping, reeling back against the small shed, and Trale’s voice was like a whip.
‘I’ve warned you once! Now turn round!’
The man with the arrogant voice was moaning. The big man swore with a vileness that taught even Trale something, and opened his mouth as he lunged forward with his foot. Trale saw both things clearly against the dim glow from Rose Cottage. He took the kick on the shin, but as he took it his left drove again, into the big man’s chin. He felt the neck jerk back, saw the man stagger. His shin was a crying fury, but he bent forward again, swinging the man round with his left hand, bringing the butt of his gun crashing with the right. It smacked into a bullet-head. The unfortunate man groaned and crumpled up, and Trale swung round on the thick-set fellow.
‘Shut up, you blasted moaner!’
‘I—I——’
Trale hit him, with his right this time, and the thick-set man followed his companion into the doldrums. Trale hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then very deliberately fired a single shot into the air.
The sharp explosion seemed to blast through the silence of the night. No other sound came as Trale bent down, whipped the ties from the men and bound their wrists. He wanted to get towards Rose Cottage, but he didn’t want these fellows on his tail. He worked quickly, and all the time he was looking towards the Rolls, pulled up on the far side of the cottage with its rear lamp glowing red through the darkness. The other men must have heard the shot, but they seemed otherwise engaged.
• • • • •
‘I was saying,’ said Bob Carruthers, ‘that Kerr is the most perishing quick worker I’ve ever known. What he can’t do in a couple of days doesn’t——’
‘I’ve just remembered,’ interrupted Patricia Burke suddenly, ‘that there’s some beer. Would you——’
‘Would we!’ Davidson seemed to wake up, and he half jumped from his chair. ‘My dear sweet maid, we’ve been waiting for them to open for an hour past, and you’ve got it on the premises. Can I get it?’
‘No, I’ll ring for it. I …’
Patricia stopped.
She looked at Davidson, and he saw the way her eyes narrowed, and the light in them seemed to fade. Davidson’s did not move, although the report came, sharp and clear, through the silence outside. Carruthers jumped to his feet.
‘That’s Dodo! Watch the garage. Wally, you and me upstairs. Patricia, get the servants upstairs, this might mean trouble. See anything, Bo?’
‘Not a sign,’ said Beaumant. ‘All right, move!’
Patricia was already half-way to the kitchen quarters, and Carruthers followed her, to make sure that the servants did not lose their heads. Davidson, no longer lazy-looking, was jumping up the stairs. He reached a front room, flung the door open and jumped to the window. A single glance outside showed him the Rolls-Royce waiting near by, and the four vague figures crawling towards the house. And another man was hurrying towards a bus shelter in the opposite direction.
Wally Davidson did a strange thing, for he chuckled.
‘Well, well, if they don’t meet trouble half-way!’ He pushed up the window, slowly and silently, and a gun seemed to leap into his hand. He did not seem to take aim, but flame suddenly leapt from the muzzle, and the sharp zutt of the silenced automatic echoed through the room.
The single man hurrying towards the shelter threw up his arms and pitched forward, a shadowy blur in the darkness. Davidson saw the other four dive without hesitation for the shelter of the shrubbery. He sent a bullet to help them move, and as the flame stabbed Patricia’s voice came from behind him.
‘How many of them, Wally?’
‘You’re a cool card,’ said Davidson. ‘There were five, but they’re like the nigger-boys.’
Carruthers appeared then. ‘How many are there, Wally?’
‘Four left, as far as I can see, although there might be others. It looks as though Kerr was right, and they did find a clue.’
‘Kerr’s always right,’ said Carruthers. ‘Blasted man never puts a foot wrong. What about returning fire, Wally?’
‘Plenty of time,’ said Davidson.
A shot snapped out from the garden as he spoke, hitting with a thud against the wall. Another and another followed.
Carruthers edged round the room towards the side of the window. Patricia was standing well out of the range of fire, and Davidson was watching from an oblique angle. His gun was poised, and as he saw another stab of flame he touched the trigger. He could just see the blurred figure of a man jump from the bushes, and hear the gasp.
‘Hot work,’ he said. ‘Do you know, I don’t think they expected a welcome. Funny kind of thing to happen at a country cottage, Patricia.
‘We might telephone Craigie; he’ll be interested. Bo’s locked in that room downstairs, and he’ll keep the garage in view all right, although I doubt whether they know where the body is. Hell of a fuss,’ added Davidson aggrievedly, ‘over a Shovian amorist, but it can’t be helped. Will you phone, Bob?’
‘And I’ve just walked all the way round the room,’ complained Bob Carruthers. ‘I——God!’
The blasphemy seemed forced from his lips, and he ducked instinctively. From the Rolls he saw a dozen flashes of yellow flame, and he could hear the tap-tap-tap very clearly. Davidson muttered:
‘Machine-gun, eh? They mean business. Get Craigie and local police as quick as hell——’
‘Can’t call the police without Craigie’s O.K.,’ said Carruthers. ‘Once they’re here that body’s found, and—the line’s probably cut anyhow.’
‘Try it for Craigie!’ snapped Davidson.
He was on tenterhooks now, for the bullets were stabbing into the walls. The gunman was sitting in the rear of the Rolls, but it was impossible for anyone in the house to try and shoot at him. Carruthers bent almost double as he crept out of the room, and then they heard him jumping towards a telephone in Burke’s small study. They heard him jabbing the receiver up and down, and then his mild oath.
‘The line’s cut all right, folk. And the swabs’ll be here any second. Doors all locked and bolted?’
‘And of course the glass won’t break,’ murmured Davidson, gently sarcastic.
There was silence but for the tapping of the gun and the biting of the bullets. In all their minds was the same thought. Under the cover of the machine-gun the men could get to the house, and once they were inside anything could happen.
Very suddenly came the crashing of glass from somewhere downstairs. It sounded like the room immediately beneath them. Davidson said slowly:
‘They’re here. Patricia, you’re for the attic. Carry, haul some furniture across the top of the landing. They’ll come upstairs, thinking Mueller’s here, and it won’t be long before someone outside hears the rumpus. I hope Beaumant comes up soon. He understood he was to come if things grew hot.’
He was talking as he moved across the landing, with Patricia a foot ahead of him and Carruthers dragging an arm-chair after him. A single glimpse over the banisters showed Beaumant leaping for the stairs, and a second glimpse showed the two men outlined against the doorway of the drawing-room—the room through which Griceson’s men had entered. Davidson touched his trigger twice and the two reports echoed like one. A man gasped and staggered forward, but at the same time Beaumant threw up his arms and dropped. Bullets were flying as they reached the foot of the second flight of stairs, but they crouched low, out of range.
The chair proved a godsend. Davidson crouched behind it, shooting, but without being able to see who he was aiming at, although he could hear the footsteps on the stairs. Carruthers was hurrying to the attic rooms for heavier furniture, and in Davidson’s mind was one great fear.
If they brought the machine-gun inside …
It was a nightmare: nothing seemed reasonable, nothing seemed possible, but it was happening.
It might have occurred to Davidson that this was absurd, in a country district of an English county, but he knew it had happened before and might well happen again. Just for the moment he had two concerns: to try to save his party, and, more important than anything else, to stop the men below from finding Mueller’s body.
He caught a glimpse of the top of a man’s head, fired, and wished Kerr were here. Then he heard the whip-like voice of a man he had never heard before, but whose name was Branner.
Branner said:
‘I’ll give you three minutes to come down, arms in the air. Otherwise I’ll blow the place up. Understand?’
10: Fast Work
Jim Burke would have recognised that voice in a flash, but the others needed no telling that the man meant what he said. And it flashed through Wally Davidson’s mind that he had said a mouthful. For the man below talked of blowing the cottage up as though he were suggesting lighting a cigarette.
There was a dead silence following the words. Or, at least, a silence from all those who were fully conscious, at the head of the stairs or waiting in the hall with Branner. Through it came a heavy sound of breathing, that of a man who was suffering agonising pain. Carruthers and Davidson knew that it was Beaumant. The knowledge made Carruthers’ lips tighten, and put the thought in his mind that at all costs they should go for the fellows below.
Davidson was an older hand in the game, and he knew the value of prudence.
‘That sounds grim,’ he said, and his voice was gently conversational. ‘You’re a bloodthirsty lot of lads, I’ll say that for you.’
