by John Creasey
Lois Dacre, until lately with Jeffs and Griceson, standing in Kerr’s bedroom in her own night-clothes, and looking as though she were a long-suffering wife welcoming her errant spouse home. Was it possible?
• • • • •
Gordon Craigie had once said of Robert McMillan Kerr that Kerr was the most steady man he had ever used, that he had never seen Kerr badly surprised, and had never seen him completely bowled over by any unexpected development.
Gordon Craigie would have lost a record had he seen Kerr that night.
The star agent of Department Z just sat and stared, his glass in his hand, his oddly lop-sided features blank with amazement. Burke recovered much more quickly, and perhaps the reason he did not draw his gun was the fact that both the girl’s hands were showing.
Burke beamed at her, for he was an impressionable man.
‘All joking apart,’ he said, ‘you look lovely. Been here for long?’
Lois Dacre smiled, and the smile was what Kerr had needed to jerk him together. He drew a deep breath and stood up, displaying an unsuspected power of irony.
‘It’s a pleasure indeed, Miss Dacre. We keep meeting, don’t we?’
‘Coming events cast their shadows,’ murmured Burke, who was not too tired to enjoy this.
‘Do they?’ Lois Dacre asked, and she smiled again. ‘Mr. Kerr, I’m——’
‘If it’s the same to you,’ said Kerr, ‘I’ll just ask the questions. Item: Where did you get this rig-out?’
‘I brought it with me,’ said Lois Dacre easily.
‘Knowing you were going to stay here?’
‘Perhaps I should say hoping so,’ said the girl.
‘You certainly should,’ said Kerr heavily. ‘That’s fine. How did you get in?’
‘The door was on the latch. I don’t think anyone knows I’m here.’
‘I hope they don’t,’ said Bob Kerr. And then his smile came, the transfiguring smile that took the woodenness and heaviness from his features. ‘Damn it, this is funny! I wish you’d come and sit down, Miss Dacre.’
Lois Dacre sat down in a chair opposite the large man and Robert McMillan Kerr. She had been self-possessed before, and she was doubly so now, but to Kerr the most significant thing was that she did not seem the slightest degree afraid. To Kerr that meant one of two things. She had information to offer or else there were others in the flat and she knew there was no need for alarm.
‘Fine,’ he said, still smiling. ‘Why did you come?’
‘I couldn’t think of any other place,’ said the girl frankly. ‘I had to get somewhere in a hurry, and I wanted to talk to you. So here I am.’
‘Where did you leave Griceson and Jeffs?’
Her expression tightened a little, and her fingers gripped the arms of her chair.
‘Soon after we left Crabtree’s house. Jeffs said it was wiser to split up, and so we went different ways.’
Kerr fastened on to the thing that he considered most significant.
‘Jeffs did? Didn’t Griceson have anything to say?’
‘Not much,’ she said. ‘Griceson has always been the same since I’ve known him. When he’s faced with action, he just gives way. Jeffs is far more competent, but Jeffs can’t organise like Griceson.’
‘Quite a family history,’ interpolated Jim Burke.
‘Isn’t it?’ she flashed. ‘Do you find it boring?’
‘He’s not in this party at the moment,’ said Kerr. ‘How long have you known the Jeffs-Griceson outfit?’
‘Well—not long. Three or four months.’
‘You’ve been working with them all that time?’
She nodded without speaking.
‘Thank you,’ said Kerr heavily. ‘And did you know of the attempted murder of Mueller? And the actual murder?’
‘Not until the one was attempted and the other finished,’ said Lois Dacre. ‘They are not very communicative people, Mr. Kerr, and I was wanted only for a few odd jobs.’
‘Your alibi being that you didn’t know how serious their game was?’ said Kerr, his smile disappearing completely. ‘I doubt whether it’ll work. But for you, neither of them would have escaped tonight, and that’s unfortunate. We might have saved the trouble with Shovia if——’
Kerr didn’t finish, for Lois Dacre interrupted him with a sudden exclamation, and her eyes were flashing.
‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ she said, and Burke gasped with Kerr, for that was nerve sublime. ‘You heard Griceson say that he had received instructions, and that’s true. You should realise it. If we had caught either Griceson or Jeffs—or both of them—we’d have been no further ahead. Neither man would talk, you can be sure of that. And somewhere the man behind it all would still be laughing at us and still working to fix this trouble with Shovia. Can’t you see that?’
There was a dead silence in the room for thirty pregnant seconds, and then Kerr said a strange thing.
‘Did you say “we”, Miss Dacre?’
‘I did,’ said Lois Dacre, standing up suddenly and smiling more widely than before. ‘And I’m glad you picked that point out, Mr. Kerr. I’ve Craigie’s permission to tell you, by the way, and one of the reasons I came here was because of it. I’m working for Craigie, and the Department.’
15: The House in Chelsea
The silence positively seemed to hum after Lois Dacre’s words. Kerr’s eyes were narrowed, but he took this shock better than Burke, who simply gaped, and Burke gaping was a thing to see. Lois Dacre saw him and laughed lightly, and Burke’s expression changed comically.
‘My dear girl——’
‘What he means,’ said Kerr, ‘is that he’d like to see your identification cards.’
‘I haven’t any, any more than you have,’ said Lois Dacre. ‘Supposing you telephone Craigie, and find out?’
‘Your job, Jim,’ said Bob Kerr, as though he were anxious not to let the girl out of his sight. ‘We’ll assume that it’s true, Miss Dacre. You were at Crabtree’s house, but you wanted Griceson to get away because he will lead us to the man up top. That’s it?’
‘Of course.’
‘Supposing we hadn’t arrived?’ demanded Burke.
‘I should have turned a gun on Jeffs and Griceson,’ said Lois. ‘I didn’t want to, for it would have spoiled my game entirely. I’m working with them, you see, and they’ve no idea that I’m with Craigie.’
‘Smart,’ said Kerr, smiling. ‘Was it Craigie’s idea that you should work for them?’
‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘It’s a long story, but I can give you the essentials quickly. I know Lydia Marency—Crabtree—fairly well, and since her marriage with Sir Julian I’ve been at the St. John’s Wood house quite a bit. One or two things I heard there, from Jeffs——’
‘Is he in Crabtree’s employ? I mean was he?’
‘He was Crabtree’s major-domo,’ said Lois with assurance. ‘He’d been working for the old man for a long time, and Crabtree trusted him thoroughly. But when Griceson started coming to the house, I heard rumours. I didn’t like them, because the name Mueller was mentioned several times, and I knew that Mueller, who was a lady’s man, was interested in Lydia.’
‘The devil he was!’ exclaimed Kerr, while behind him Burke was trying to get Craigie’s number and catch everything that was said between Kerr and the girl. The situation was beautiful in the eyes of Jim Burke, and Craigie had put one across his agents again. Why hadn’t the sly dog told them when Fellowes had been there?
Lois Dacre went on.
‘Yes, Mueller and Lydia were—well, we’re not children.’ That flash of reserve amused Burke, who chuckled when Craigie’s ear reached the earpiece at the other end of the wire. For once Craigie was explosive on the telephone, but Kerr was too intent on learning more from the girl to notice anything. She went on, ‘I think that Lydia was in love with Mueller at one time, but he went somewhere else for his affections and she hated him for it. That was one of the reasons why she married Crabtree.’
‘Before we go
any further,’ said Kerr, ‘what’s your opinion of Lydia?’
‘She has been a friend for a long time. I wish I needn’t say this, but I’ve got to. Lydia’s been taking drugs for three years. You don’t need telling much more.’
‘I don’t,’ admitted Kerr.
He realised that any woman who had been a drug addict for as long as that was capable of doing anything. And she had hated Mueller, after marrying Crabtree. She was just the type to be used, in fact, to get Mueller to Thornton Lodge on some pretext or other. Lydia Crabtree was looming much larger in this affair.
‘Well,’ said Lois Dacre, ‘I can’t really say why I took so much notice of the things I heard from Jeffs. They were all very vague, for the most part, but I know the European situation fairly well. Ralph Campion’s my cousin, and perhaps it gets in the blood. Anyhow, I’d heard Ralph mention Craigie as a hush-hush man—no, he didn’t give any real information away!’ Kerr’s expression caused her words, and Kerr smiled. She was very quick.
Before she could go on, Burke had finished telephoning, and he was smiling. Kerr glanced at him, and Burke nodded.
‘Craigie gives her a clean bill, old man. He wanted to keep it from us all until the last minute. She is still working for Griceson and Jeffs.’
‘In short,’ said Lois Dacre quietly, ‘when I get away from here, and if you meet me again, we are on opposite sides. That was why Craigie decided not to let anyone know he was using a woman agent.’
‘For the first time, I believe,’ said Kerr. ‘How did you get in touch with him?’
‘As it happens, I live next door,’ said Lois. ‘He doesn’t spend much time at Clarges Street, but he was at home about three weeks ago. I slipped in to see him, and told him what I knew.’
‘So Craigie knew that the Crabtree ménage was in it!’ exclaimed Burke. ‘Damn it, I thought we had made discoveries.’
Lois spoke quickly.
‘He didn’t know! I didn’t tell him that it was Crabtree’s house where they were staying until tonight. I had an absurd idea that I could help Lydia, and I didn’t think the house was important.’ The girl added: ‘Well, Craigie forgave me, and I don’t think it would have helped a great deal had he known, for Jeffs and Griceson hadn’t been to the house for ten days until tonight.
‘As far as I knew, Lydia and Sir Julian had gone on their honeymoon. Until tonight, when Lydia called on me, I’d no idea they were not at Cannes.’
‘Lydia Crabtree in London!’ exclaimed Kerr. ‘We’re learning. I wonder if Craigie knows? Did you——?’
‘I told him,’ Lois assured him. ‘Well, there isn’t a great deal more——’
‘Oh no?’ demanded Burke. ‘There’s one mighty big thing. How did you get in with Jeffs and Griceson?’
Lois smiled.
‘Oh, it was easy enough. It was just after I’d seen Craigie for the first time, and he had asked me to try and work with them until something of importance happened. That was ten days before the wedding. I was talking to Lydia one day in Jeffs’s hearing, and bemoaning my bank balance. Lydia was so touched that she lent me a hundred, and within an hour Jeffs had offered me a hundred a week.’
‘Good God!’ exclaimed Kerr. ‘What for?’
‘I trust,’ said Burke amiably, ‘that Jeffs isn’t an amorist?’
Kerr scowled, and Lois Dacre laughed with an enjoyment that Burke fully approved.
‘He certainly isn’t, for I took the job,’ she said.
‘I was to move to Greytor Street, and live there while the Crabtrees were away. I was to send certain letters to forwarding addresses, make sure that he—Jeffs—and Griceson were admitted whenever they called, and take telephone messages. Secrecy was the main thing. It had been arranged,’ the girl said, ‘that I should not get in touch with Craigie at all until I had something worth while, for we had to make sure I wasn’t suspected. The first thing I did get was the attempt to murder Mueller at the Embassy. I managed to get a warning through.’
‘That’s where Craigie learned of the attempt, is it?’ said Kerr. ‘I thought Davidson had found it.’
‘Davidson did, a short while after me,’ said Lois. ‘One of the three men who were to do the job talked rather carelessly at a café, and Davidson overheard him.’ She stood up suddenly. ‘That’s everything. I’ve learned very little, I’m afraid, and I’ve bungled a lot, but I’m still in Jeffs’s employ.’
‘There’s a meeting-place appointed?’
‘A house in Trite Street, Chelsea,’ said Lois Dacre. ‘I’m to be there at ten o’clock the day after tomorrow.’
‘We will be,’ Kerr said, but Lois Dacre shook her head.
‘No, I’m still playing a lone hand. Unless Craigie gives other orders, of course. But there’s one thing you’ll be glad to know. Nothing, as far as Jeffs or Griceson can tell, will happen until Friday morning. They’re expecting a message or a visit from the someone higher up.’
Kerr’s eyes were gleaming with admiration.
‘You think Jeffs or Griceson will lead us to the Big Shot?’
‘I do.’
‘Pity we have to keep saying Jeffs or Griceson,’ said Burke. ‘It’s a tongue-twister at this time of night. Who’s tired? Er—which room are you choosing, Miss Dacre?’
‘I took the one with a single bed,’ Lois said, ‘there are two beds in the other room.’
‘Deuced considerate of you,’ said Burke cheerfully. And then he grinned, cocking a brow at Kerr. ‘Or was it?’
Miss Lois Dacre retired, with a somewhat heightened colour and a laugh that had a considerable effect on Bob Kerr.
‘I wonder who’s backing Shovia,’ said Kerr, and he was still wondering about it when, just after four o’clock, he fell asleep. Burke had been dead out for ten minutes, and in the next room Lois Dacre was sleeping the sleep of the just.
She had told the whole truth, and she knew now that she had made a big mistake when she had not given Crabtree’s name to Craigie, and another when she had driven one of Griceson’s men past the police car at the corner of Greytor Street. She shuddered when she thought of what might have happened. But Craigie, as she went through the latest developments in his mind, was telling himself that for a new agent and a woman she had done wonderfully well.
He had been surprised when he had seen her at Crabtree’s house, but while Griceson had been upstairs, not knowing of Craigie’s presence, she had passed on all the information.
Then Jeffs—who had piloted Griceson from ‘Red Acres’—had arrived, and shortly, on his heels, Fellowes and Miller.
Craigie had deliberately decided to let himself and Fellowes be trapped. Fellowes knew nothing of Lois Dacre’s real activities, and could therefore make no slip. Fellowes had given Miller orders to go while Griceson and Jeffs had been in the room. At that time neither Craigie nor Fellowes had officially known Jeffs and Griceson were in the affair, but Griceson had demanded Miller’s departure. After that Griceson had declared his hand, and Fellowes had hoped to God that Miller would read between his words.
Lois Dacre had been prepared to show her real hand if necessary. Thanks to Kerr and Burke, the need had not arisen.
Craigie, of course, had helped Griceson, Jeffs and the girl to escape, although no one had suspected it. And he had still decided to keep everyone but Kerr and Burke ignorant of Lois Dacre’s identity.
In Craigie’s mind, a pretty mix-up, was the hope that the house in Trite Street, Chelsea, would show results on Friday.
• • • • •
The question that had been in Kerr’s mind was in a dozen—for that matter a thousand—others. But the dozen concerned perhaps more directly were the members of the Cabinet, meeting in Downing Street in the early hours that morning.
Wishart was there, hardly knowing whether to put his trust in Craigie or whether to face the inevitable fight. Campion had a sheaf of cablegrams in his hand. Craigie, who had arrived only ten minutes before, was his usual quiet self. His meerschaum dwarfed Campion’s cigar an
d offended a gentleman next to him. Jonathan Scott, the Minister for War, liked everything about Gordon Craigie but his pipe and tobacco.
Campion was talking quickly, waving his papers.
‘We’ve got to find Mueller!’ he raved. ‘And we’ve got to find who killed him. It’s the only way to stop the trouble; don’t you understand?’
Craigie’s lips turned downwards, for Campion still managed to enrage him. Wishart pushed his hand through his grey hair.
‘My dear Campion, everything possible is being done. But whoever killed Mueller was deliberately trying to cause this breach with Shovia. But far more important than that is the power behind Shovia.’
‘So we come to the same point again,’ said Jonathan Scott somewhat wearily. He was a short, red-haired man with fiery blue eyes. ‘Don’t tell me, Campion, that Shovia would dare this off her own bat. And you’re Foreign Minister. Why the hell can’t you tell us who’s backing Shovia?’
Campion went a beetroot red. Of all the members of the Cabinet, Scott was his bête noir. The trouble was that Scott usually hit the nail on the head. Campion ought to know. He didn’t, and he glared at Gordon Craigie.
‘Anything through yet?’ asked Scott of that gentleman, his voice much calmer than when he spoke to Campion.
‘Nothing from abroad,’ said Craigie. ‘Things are moving in England, and I hope to have something by noon on Friday, but I can’t promise its importance. We’ve cleared out a couple of bunches of the men …’ Craigie was talking to them in his quiet, conversational tone. ‘I’ve told you there are two fellows—Griceson and Jeffs as far as we can name them—in it. They’ve been driven out of a house near Dorking, and another in Wiltshire, and they’ve lost eleven or twelve men altogether.’
‘A sizable crowd,’ Scott said. ‘Know how many others are left?’
‘I haven’t any idea,’ Craigie admitted. ‘I can tell you that they were using Julian Crabtree’s house for a while, but we’ve cleared them out of there.’
‘Crabtree!’ exclaimed Scott. ‘That old devil? He’s——’
‘Dead,’ said Craigie. ‘Murdered.’
There was a silence in the Cabinet-room. Every eye was turned on Craigie, who told them everything he knew except the part that Campion’s cousin was playing in this game, and that she had an appointment at a house in Chelsea on the Friday.
