by John Creasey
‘Just one of ’em,’ Kerr said with satisfaction. ‘All right, Jeremy, I’ll make it.’
Jeremy stood aside from the door which he had been guarding. Kerr turned the handle and pushed the door open a fraction of an inch. No sound came. He widened the gap and caught a glimpse of a pink slipper. He smiled more widely than he had done for a long time, and said very softly:
‘Make a sound and I’ll blow your head off.’
There was a moment of tense silence and then the rustling of the paper as the one occupant let it fall. Kerr saw a typical bruiser’s face, scared for the moment, with small blue eyes widened in fear. The man uttered a single gasp as he saw the automatic and then kept motionless and silent.
‘Fine,’ said Kerr, ‘you’re sensible. Get up.’
The bruiser stood up and turned round. Kerr took two steps forward and used the butt of his gun. The man went down without a sound, and Kerr was already tying his wrists when Lucas recovered from his surprise.
‘Fast moving,’ he said.
‘Take his tie and do his ankles,’ said Kerr. ‘Yes, we have to move fast. There are two possibilities, Jeremy. One, that the gentleman’s friends have gone on a raid; two, that they’re at the house. I’m backing a raid, and I’ve a feeling that——God! What the devil’s that?’
There was some excuse for the blasphemy and Kerr’s startled expression. For from somewhere outside there was a bellowing, a man’s voice raised in a red fury. And then fast upon it the sound of shooting, quick and fast. Kerr swung towards the window, dragging the curtains to one side, and as he did so he saw the yellow flashes of flame, in a semicircle, not more than fifty yards from the bungalow. There were four consistent flashes, a positive fusillade, with the guns cracking loud and clear through the keen night air.
‘What the devil——’ began Lucas, but Kerr cut him short. Kerr’s eyes were gleaming, and Lucas was astonished by the smile on his face.
‘Burke—this way! This way!’
Lucas was still dazed when he heard the thudding of heavy footsteps in the grass and three or four voices raised in anger. The shooting veered round towards the bungalow, and bullets were pecking into the stucco outside. Kerr was on his knees by the window, taking aim. Lucas stopped thinking and acted. Both men fired towards the flashes of flame, and as clearly as Burke’s bellowing came two sharp cries of pain.
To Jeremy Lucas everything was mad and confused, but there was something real in the vast figure that loomed up against the window for a moment and then gasped:
‘Where’s the door?’
‘Turn right!’ snapped Kerr, and the shadow that was Jim Burke dropped away. Two guns spoke again. Kerr aimed at one of the gunmen, invisible save for a moment against the glare from the shot from his gun. But he heard the cry, and he knew there was only one useful gunman left in the grounds.
The front door had been left open, and Burke’s heavy footsteps seemed to shake the little building. Lucas saw Burke, a few seconds later, for the first time in his life, and Lucas had a shock. For the man was a positive giant; his hair was dishevelled and hanging in his eyes, matted with fresh blood. There was a gash in his chin from which the flesh was hanging jagged, and his waistcoat was a reddish brown mess. Burke, breathing like a buffalo, stopped in the doorway and brushed the hair from his eyes.
‘Nice to see you, folk.’
‘Good God!’ gasped Jeremy Lucas.
‘Got a spare gun?’ asked Burke, without heeding him. He was used to others’ reactions when they met him for the first time, and he was prepared to admit that he looked a fright just then.
‘Here’s one,’ Kerr said, handing over his second automatic and reloading his first. There was no sound now from outside. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’ll keep on my feet,’ Burke said. ‘How many of you?’
‘You can see the outfit.’
‘H’m! How many did you pick off?’
‘Three.’
‘Three, b’god!’ exclaimed Jim Burke, and his eyes flamed. ‘The devil you did, and there are only six there. Kerr, what about it?’
‘Raid the house you mean?’
‘Raid the house. Come on, man, don’t stop to argue.’
Kerr chuckled, and again he had reason to understand why Jim Burke had been so invaluable an agent to Department Z. There was something devastating in the man’s actions, his voice and his complete disregard of danger or his own wounds. They went quickly from the bungalow, their eyes wide to catch the slightest movement, while Burke was talking in an undertone to Kerr. Lucas, a yard behind them, heard and yet failed to understand. Lucas felt more than a little out of his depth.
‘They keep a dozen or more here,’ Burke was saying, ‘but a swab named Branner and five others went off on a raid. I don’t know just where. Griceson’s at home; a cove named Jeffs——’
‘Jeffs?’
‘Heard of him? No, don’t talk, he’ll wait. And four others. Jeffs is the nearest thing to human among the lot of ’em. I was trussed like a chicken, and I asked him to untie my wrists for a few minutes.’ Burke chuckled. ‘He did, and I was almost sorry to have to hit him. I made a break but couldn’t get a gun, and the whole horde made for me. Fists and guns don’t mix,’ added Burke informatively, ‘and was I glad to hear you?’
Kerr asked simply:
‘Why the bellowing?’
‘In the hope someone’d hear me,’ said Burke.
All the time they had been moving towards the house. There was no sound but the wind. Kerr was looking in all directions but could see nothing. The single light glowed from the porch of ‘Red Acres’.
And then suddenly the silence was disturbed by a roar of an engine. For the second time that day Kerr saw an aeroplane, now only a dark shadow against the sky, rise and take off. Kerr stood dead-still and swore, for he had badly wanted to stop that getaway, while Jim Burke said:
‘I’m not so sure I’m sorry, seeing they’ve left me behind this time. Feel like tackling the house?’
‘I’m going back to London,’ said Kerr slowly. ‘You’d better come, Burke. I’ll leave Lucas here to look after the house, and I think we can safely send for the police; they will not know the Mueller connection. All right with you?’
‘You’re boss,’ said Burke.
Lucas viewed the situation with a jaded air. He preferred action, and protested.
‘If the police can come, let ’em do the whole job. I’ll come with you——’
‘Sorry,’ said Kerr briefly. ‘We want a Department man here. Your first job is to get to the house and look round it for papers. I’ll leave my friend Bert, so that you’ll have company, and Burke and I’ll go in the post-van. All right?’
‘Blast you,’ said Lucas cheerfully. ‘But orders are orders. I’ll look after the police and what not.’
‘Handle everything as best you can,’ Kerr said, ‘but get someone out quickly. And when I send Bert, round up the fellows who are shot. Some of them might be alive, and you’ll want a doctor in any case.’
Burke made a tentative suggestion.
‘Supposing that raiding party gets back, Kerr?’
‘With a car-load of police due any moment, Lucas will be able to hold them off,’ Kerr said. ‘I’m damnably anxious to get to London——’
‘Why?’ Burke made the question sound affable enough. But Kerr realised there was something at the back of the big man’s mind.
‘To see Craigie.’
‘Can’t you telephone?’
Kerr chuckled.
‘What’s biting you?’ he demanded, and Burke plunged in quickly at the opportunity.
‘Just an itch to see the house and look through it,’ he said. ‘We might pick something up that’s really worth while. We certainly can’t get on the track of that blasted aeroplane whatever we do, but we can ‘phone Craigie and ask him to send out a general call. It’s a Fokker 60.’
‘I recognised it this morning,’ Kerr said. He hesitated for a fraction of a second, an
d then nodded.
‘All right, Burke, we’ll look through the house. But I am still anxious to get to London.’
Lucas was cheered, but gloomy again when he was despatched to tell the postman and Bert that the shindy was over. The postman was to go as quickly as he could for police, from Bradford-on-Avon, and Bert was to be asked if he could make coffee. If so, his services were wanted.
Lucas went off through the near darkness. Burke and Kerr went quickly towards the house. There was little chance that there were any of Griceson’s men left on the premises.
Jeffs, it seemed, had been a positive fount of information. He had been the only talkative man in the bunch. Jeffs was the third character who had been in the affair, to Burke’s knowledge, and Jeffs rivalled Branner and Griceson as a character.
They had seen Kerr’s three victims on the way to the house. Two were dead, and the other was likely to be unconscious for a long time. Jeffs was not among them.
‘He wouldn’t be,’ Burke said, ‘as he was piloting the ‘plane this morning. Hey-ho! I didn’t think I’d get away with it, Kerr.’
‘Lucky we were here,’ Kerr said shortly, ‘and for the love of Mike go steady in future; your wife must have been feeling like hell.’
They reached the house, to find the front door standing open. Like ‘Wilton’, earlier in the day, ‘Red Acres’ was completely empty. Five minutes sufficed to prove that—or so Kerr thought, for they looked in every possible hiding-place except the cellar. Five minutes also brought Lucas and Bert, who shied nervously at Burke’s blood-saturated figure, even more frightful than Kerr’s had seemed earlier in the evening. But he said that he could make coffee, and darted for the kitchen.
‘A useful lad,’ Kerr said. ‘Well, has the postman gone?’
‘He thinks the place is full of murderers,’ said Lucas, ‘and he almost went before I could tell him to send the police.’
‘The place is empty, but we’ll go through the papers. I still don’t know why you were so anxious we should come here, Burke.’
‘Don’t you? Just because there’s a chance that we can find where Griceson’s gone. I’ll tell you about him as we look around, but hadn’t we better try the cellar?’
‘Maybe it’s the burial-ground,’ Lucas said optimistically.
The cellar was approached through the kitchen. The door was not locked, and Kerr went downstairs first. The place was whitewashed and clean, the walls gleaming with the glow from an unshaded electric light. The first two rooms were empty but for odds and ends of furniture. The third showed that Jeffs had known what wines were, and that others on the premises had liked beer.
There was a small door leading from the third room, and Kerr reached it a yard ahead of Burke. It was locked, and there was no key. Lucas said airily:
‘The skeletons, my sons; go steady.’
Kerr used the pick-lock on the door of the fourth room. He had it back in a few seconds and pulled the handle. The door was heavy, and it came back sluggishly. Ahead of them was a dark cavity which seemed full of shadows. And there was a smell, more than musty, more than damp. A smell which made Lucas retch and Burke swear, and which made Kerr hold his breath as he switched on the light inside the small cellar.
There was the body of an old man, huddled in one corner of a room that was no more than a cell. Despite the smell the body was only in the early stages of decomposition, and there was still an expression of terror on that bearded, swollen face.
For the second time that day Bob Kerr looked at a dead man and used identical words to his companion.
‘Recognise him, Burke?’
Burke shrugged his vast shoulders and grunted:
‘Who wouldn’t? The playboy of England, isn’t he? So that’s the end of Julian Crabtree.’
• • • • •
‘It is,’ said Kerr. ‘And this is a new angle for me at all events. We had better go through his pockets, but I don’t think we’ll find anything.’
To Jim Burke in particular it was a bizarre fact that the only thing to be found in the pockets of Sir Julian Crabtree, who had been dead for three or four days, was a photograph of his wife, née Lydia Marency. Burke had had only a photograph to identify him, and there was something infinitely pathetic in the discovery.
They found one other thing that set them furiously to think. There was evidence that a woman had been at the house, and one who spent a lot of money on beauty preparations. Even Burke had not seen so comprehensive a collection of powders, creams and pomades before.
They also found a letter, written but not posted, to Mr. Arnold Marency. It was sharp and to the point, and the vital passage ran:
… I just can’t stand him, and that’s final. I’ll never go back to him and there are times when I would like to see him dead. Anyhow, don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me for some time.
As ever,
Lydia
Burke’s eyes met Kerr’s.
‘What do you think of that?’
‘Not the obvious thing,’ said Kerr thoughtfully. ‘Lydia’s tired of the old man pretty quickly, but I would not call this evidence that she shot him.’
‘Although she has been here—or the letter would not be on the bureau. And he was shot. Anyone can shoot, even a woman.’
Kerr smiled.
‘How long has Crabtree been dead?’
‘Three or four days, but what has that got to do with it?’
‘You’re tired,’ Kerr said, apparently apropos of nothing. He tapped the letter. ‘Judging from the ink, that has been written today. Other things go to show that she has been here today. Well, the inference is …’
‘I’m not tired,’ Burke said, his eyes narrowed. ‘I’m blind in both ears. He’s been dead some days, and today she writes to her father to say she wishes her husband were dead. Sorry.’
Kerr grinned.
‘No need to be. Anyhow, she may be cleverer than we think, for I don’t know the lady, but she may have written this deliberately, knowing the fact that it was written today would make it seem unlikely she knew he was dead. Do you know her father?’
‘Slightly. I know he was peeved when she married Crabtree.’
‘He should not have let her,’ said Kerr. ‘But he might know something to help. Did he know Crabtree, I wonder?’
‘Yes.’ Burke’s knowledge of London’s élite was considerable. ‘They’ve had mutual business interests for some time, or they did have. Marency retired before Crabtree, and he’s doddering. They’re not dissimilar in appearance,’ he added slowly.
‘For God’s sake don’t add a new trail like that,’ said Kerr, and they dropped the subject.
By the time they had returned to the kitchen Bert had coffee, and the hot drink was welcome. Lucas, moreover, showed that he had not forgotten the rudiments of first aid, and he did his best to patch Burke up.
‘You’ll do,’ said Kerr.
He had already tried to telephone Craigie, but the office ‘phone was engaged. He had, however, telephoned to the nearest airfield—just outside Bath—and arranged to have a small ‘plane waiting for him within half an hour. Craigie was out when he ’phoned again, and he decided to get back to London as quickly as he could.
Burke raised no further objections. There was nothing, as far as they could see, to tell them where Griceson was now.
Using Bert’s Morris, they went to the airfield, leaving Lucas at the house with half a dozen policemen rushed from Bradford-on-Avon, and aghast at what had happened. Only Kerr’s authoritative manner and his identification card—used by all Department agents, and showing them to have an honorary position at the Yard—convinced them that Kerr and Burke should be allowed to go.
The ‘plane was a three-seater cabin machine, and Kerr was more than satisfied with its speed. He presented Bert with twenty-five pounds, and left the pawky one gasping and watching the ‘plane leave the ground.
The flight to Heston was uneventful but for talk. Burke gave his version of the af
fair, and Kerr reciprocated. They had a deep satisfaction at knowing that Griceson had been smoked out of two of his hide-outs, and they had three men—Jeffs, Branner and Griceson—to watch, with the fact that somewhere in this affair was Sir Julian Crabtree, and his wife.
They did not know the various trails that had converged on Crabtree, but they were to learn a lot of things in the near future. Burke lost five minutes at Heston to telephone Patricia. He heard the tremendous relief in her voice when she heard him, and she forgot to tell him of the shindy at the cottage until he was about to ring off. Kerr saw his eyes glistening, and waited impatiently until Burke finished. Then:
‘What was it?’
‘Branner’s fixed,’ said Burke with a tremendous satisfaction. ‘There was a fuss there, but Carruthers and Davidson pulled through. Beaumant’s badly hurt. Trale’s all right. Carruthers is staying at the cottage, and Davidson and Trale are on the way to London with a wagon-load of Griceson’s men. Kerr, I’ve a feeling things will happen.’
Kerr saw the powerful Wolsley waiting outside the offices and looked around for Burke who had gone for a paper.
Burke was immersed in the evening paper, and did not at first hear Kerr’s first call. He held the paper so that the other could see.
Kerr read:
BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO SHOVIA ATTACKED
ENGLISH OFFICIALS LEAVING
SHOVIA WANTS WAR!
13: Kerr Clears the Decks
Kerr sent the car in and out of the traffic, desperately anxious to get to London. Craigie was not at the office, and Miller was away from the Yard, which suggested both men were out on the game that had started moving with such devastating speed. There was a fixed determination in Bob Kerr’s mind to get to the house of the late Sir Julian Crabtree before making any other calls, and Burke agreed.
‘We’ve perhaps twenty-four hours,’ said Burke. ‘Those blasted people will start moving troops towards Gibraltar, taking advantage of Spain being quite helpless at the moment.’
‘They can’t reach Gibraltar in less than twenty-four hours,’ Kerr said. ‘Do you know them in Shovia?’
