by John Creasey
Griceson’s lips were working. Griceson’s eyes were dilated, his body trembling. His collar was torn at the neck, his tie hanging loose, his shirt-front burned and black. There was nothing of the immaculate, slow-speaking man Burke had known.
He did not speak.
Kerr’s eyes suddenly blazed, and he stepped forward, his left hand shooting out. He grabbed Griceson’s scorched shirt-front and pulled the man close against him, hearing the shirt rip beneath his fingers. Griceson tried to shrink back, but he could not, even when Kerr stopped pulling and just gripped the shirt, with one side gaping open. Kerr was staring at that gap. Kerr’s eyes had lost that blaze of anger, and were filled with blank amazement. He muttered, like a man who could not believe his own eyes.
‘God, it’s a woman! A woman!’
• • • • •
There was no chance of getting information from the woman who had been known as Mr. Griceson. For her eyes rolled suddenly and she slumped from Kerr’s grip in a dead faint. Burke took her from Kerr and sat her in an easy chair. All of them felt the same stupefaction as Kerr had experienced, but Wally Davidson spoke with an effort.
‘Then who the devil——’
Kerr grunted.
‘There’s only one other woman in this game besides Lois, and it’s not Lois. Lydia Crabtree. It explains the paint and powder we found at “Red Acres” and “Wilton”. It’s a make-up that it’s damned impossible to see through. Oh, it’s Lydia Crabtree all right, and it explains her terror now, explains what she’s been up to. The drugs keep her up, but when she can’t get them she drops like this.’
Burke said in a strained voice:
‘So she was in it with her father.’
‘Probably he forced her into it,’ Kerr said. ‘She caught Mueller and Crabtree, poor devils: Mueller to start this thing, her husband probably because he learned something of it. Jeffs, did Crabtree ever give you any idea that he knew of something else at the Tiberran Hills?’
Jeffs shook his head slowly, his eyes far-seeing now.
‘No, but he decided suddenly to come out of his retirement,’ he said. ‘Just before his wedding. He found the stuff all right, but said nothing.’
‘And his wife learned of it, Marency got at it through his daughter, and so Crabtree was murdered. That’s fine,’ Kerr said very heavily. ‘We’ve got the whole racket now, except two things. Who was paying Marency?—and my bet is Shovia—and what are the chances of stopping Shovia acting? Unless we can find supplies of the gas, Craigie, we’ll have to go over there and try and get it.’
Craigie shook his head.
‘Oh, you can try, but it won’t work; they’ll be guarding their supplies like grim death. But there must be some in England, if it’s been pushed through the factories and towns. Just what did Marency say?’
‘That it was everywhere,’ Kerr said. ‘Every big city, every big factory, just waiting to be touched off. Oh, it’s Shovia all right. For all we know they’ll start as soon as they learn that Marency began a fire in Chelsea. A nice demonstration of their power, Craigie. They’ll give us one or two more, and—blast that telephone!’
But he didn’t blast it thirty seconds later.
Craigie took the receiver. He listened, and snapped at last:
‘Right, thanks, we’ll get there.’ And then he turned to Kerr and the others, and for the first time Gordon Craigie showed an all-devouring excitement.
‘For God’s sake, hurry! That was Lois Dacre from Kerr’s flat. There are packages of stuff in the cellar at Crabtree’s house in Greytor Street. If we can find it—if it’s the gas.’
But Craigie didn’t finish, for Burke was by the opening door and Kerr on his heels, with Jeffs, Carruthers and Wally Davidson. Craigie waited to ‘phone the Yard to rush men to the house in Greytor Street, and then he hurried after the others.
And at the same moment a man named Brunster, living in the St. John’s private hotel, was finishing a telephone conversation with a man in Kristak, the capital of Shovia. The orders were straightforward. The man named Brunster was to go to Crabtree’s house in St. John’s Wood and light a fuse that was built into the bottom cellar door—on the same lines as the fuse that Karl Branner had lighted at ‘Wilton’.
Brunster had a five minutes’ walk, Kerr and the others had a twenty minutes’ journey.
And Brunster hurried. As soon as the job was done, he had to get out of England. Brunster was anxious to get away, but he knew it was wise to get his job finished first.
Already the papers were screeching news of the fire at Trite Street, and bellowing against Shovia.
21: A Bottle of Wine
Kerr had been right, Craigie knew, when he had said that the only way of fighting back was to be able to show the same weapon to Shovia as Shovia was to show Great Britain. The power of the burning gas could not be doubted. Craigie, knew the narrowness of the issue now. Kerr would try, if all else failed, to raid Shovia for supplies. But that would be no more than a forlorn hope.
Craigie saw the car disappearing with the five men crowded into it. And then suddenly he turned back to the office. He would be more use there than at Greytor Street, although he would be on tenterhooks longer than if he went after the others.
Craigie lifted the telephone. He spent five minutes talking to Wishart, and he suggested that Wishart himself should speak to the Shovian capital. For Craigie saw that bluff might help, with some plain speaking.
Shovia might hold her hand if she thought England had the stuff. Proof would be wanted, though—proof that could only come if Kerr and the others found the gas in Greytor Street. The question was—would they? Craigie waited, tense and drawn, for the telephone to ring.
• • • • •
There was nothing unusual about Mr Adolph Brunster. He talked and acted like an Englishman, for an excellent reason. His mother had been English and his father naturalised. But Adolph Brunster had developed a streak of loyalty to his father’s native country when Shovia had offered him an excellent retainer for gaining certain information. Mr. Brunster was able to get it easily enough, for he was a travelling representative of the English Aero Company at Hendon. In addition to the information, Brunster had known that the instructions about Greytor Street would come sooner or later.
Brunster arrived at the house in Greytor Street and let himself in with a key. He stood for a moment in the hall, but no sound came.
‘Empty,’ said Mr. Brunster to himself. ‘Excellent. Now, the cellar is through the kitchen, I remember.’
He might have been going to a secret assignation for he walked on tip-toe, his heart beating fast as he reached the kitchen and the head of the steps leading to the cellar. The door was closed, but not locked. He pulled it open and switched on the light.
There was a passage at the foot of a short flight of stairs, and Brunster knew that the main cellar, with the fuse in the door, led to the left. Brunster reached the passage and turned left.
He had one of the shocks of his life.
There was a woman standing there, against the door. She looked very cool and confident, and the gun in her right hand was unmoving. Brunster was so shocked that all he could do for a moment was to stand and gape.
Patricia Burke’s lips curved a little.
‘A surprise?’ she asked gently. ‘Step back, or this might go off.’
Brunster’s eyes widened, but now the effect of the shock was past, and he was thinking very fast.
‘My dear lady——’
‘Don’t “dear lady” me,’ said Patricia, as though she had recently been taking lessons in small-talk from her husband. ‘Get back to the stairs, and go up.’
Brunster’s cheeks were pale now, but he started to back away. He backed too far. His heels kicked against the bottom stair, and he stumbled. Patricia was alert for the slightest trick, but she thought Brunster was simply scared.
‘Be careful,’ she said, ‘I’m touchy.’
Brunster was on the floor now, but scrambling a
s though to get to his feet. Patricia kept well away from him, her gun pointing downwards.
He reached his knees, and Patricia thought she had never seen a man so scared. Her tension relaxed, and the gun wavered for a fraction of a second. At the same moment Brunster stumbled again.
He stumbled forward, arms outstretched, and Patricia saw the danger too late. She fired once, but the bullet went wide, and then Brunster’s hands were about her ankles. He pulled hard, and Patricia fell backwards helplessly. Her head cracked against the cellar door, and she felt Brunster snatch the gun from her nerveless fingers; felt his foot crash into her ribs. The pain seemed to flash through her, and she groaned.
Brunster brought the gun down on the back of her head, and Patricia Burke was unconscious, hardly knowing pain. He prised out a small piece of wood from the door and pulled a fuse-wire, and struck a match quickly, but a sudden wind from the open door blew it out. He swore, more from irritation than because he was scared.
While Kerr and Burke were eight minutes away, in the Edgware Road.
Brunster took more care with the second match. The flame flickered up. He touched the fuse and smiled to himself as the sparks began to fly. He had no idea how long the fuse was, nor how many minutes it would take to burn to the explosive inside, but he guessed he had no time to lose.
With the fuse still fluttering this side of the door, he turned away. Patricia Burke was lying close to the door, an ugly bruise on her temple, her face colourless.
The car with Kerr and Burke was six minutes away.
Brunster reached the kitchen, flung the first cellar door to, and hurried to the front door. The latch caught, and he wasted precious seconds getting it open. He was filled with a dread now, that the explosion would come before he reached the end of the street. He hurried out of the house in a panic.
He made a dash for the corner in the middle of the road. As he reached it he saw a car, over-loaded with men, taking the corner at a mad speed. Brunster was right in its path.
Burke, at the wheel, saw the man and knew it was impossible to avoid him. One moment Brunster was standing like a maniac, a gun in his hand, and the next he was underneath the wheels. But Kerr was bellowing:
‘He had a gun—our man!’
‘God!’ thought Burke, without an idea that Patricia was unconscious near the store of burning gas in Crabtree’s house. ‘He’s been there!’
The hundred yards from the corner to the house seemed to disappear in a flash. Kerr was behind the others getting out, for his back was painful. But by the time Burke had the door open he was up with them. They raced through the house at Greytor Street, knowing that any moment the place might go up, for they guessed what Brunster had been doing. Burke reached the kitchen cellar door first, opened it, and almost fell downstairs.
And then he stopped, every muscle in his body rigid, as he saw Patricia.
So it was Kerr who saw the blackened marks on the door ahead, Kerr who guessed what it was, and flung himself like a madman at the wood. Carruthers and Davidson followed him, but the door was strong, and it hardly bulged. Kerr was muttering under his breath, his face a mask; Davidson was sobbing with anxiety; Carruthers’ lips were turned back, while Burke was on his knees beside Patricia.
He lifted her up, and as he did so keys jingled from her hands. Kerr knew the sound and swung round. Burke felt the keys brush his hand as Kerr grabbed them, and tried desperately for the one that fitted the lock. Three failed, but the fourth turned it. He thrust the door open …
It seemed impossible for them to get through.
For the fuse was very close, a fraction of an inch away from the lid of a small box in the middle of the cellar. Other boxes were all about it, boxes containing the fire-gas, and the room was thick with smoke. Kerr didn’t wait. He saw the fuse spluttering and jumped forward, hand outstretched. He felt the burning at his fingers; he pressed hard on that fuse, but even when most of it was out he saw the red spark inside the hole through which it led.
And then Carruthers saw the bottles of beer and wine about the cellar. He jumped across the room, grabbed a bottle of burgundy and broke the neck against the wall. He swung round, dashing the wine into the small hole, while Kerr and Davidson and Burke watched him, dread in their eyes.
The wine spilled over the side of the box, dark and red. Nothing else moved, but the seconds ticked by. And then, with a sigh that was half a sob, Kerr said:
‘It’s out, thank God, it’s out!’
22: Kerr Makes a Proposal
It was fitting that Bob Kerr and Jim Burke—ex officio—were the only members of Department Z, except for Gordon Craigie, who knew just what happened between Shovia and the English Government. It was Wishart who, talking over the long-distance telephone, told Count Enrich von Retta, the Shovian Foreign Minister, that aeroplanes carrying the stuff were waiting to start for Shovia at the first sign of further trouble, and who heard von Retta say desperately that he was anxious only to avoid war, that the explanation of Mueller’s disappearance would, of course, satisfy his Government.
‘Which means he knows the power of the stuff, and isn’t fond of it,’ Kerr said when Craigie told him.
‘Small wonder,’ said Burke. ‘Can we call it safe, Gordon?’
Craigie was smiling and cheerful.
‘I think so.’ He stood up from the fire in the office of Department Z and reached for his meerschaum. ‘I’ll learn as much as I can during the day. You’d better get back to the flat.’
‘Will you ‘phone us?’
Craigie nodded, and the large man went with Bob Kerr out of the office.
When they reached Kerr’s flat Patricia Burke was on her feet and cheerful, although her ribs were bruised as well as her head. Lois Dacre was convalescent.
‘And now,’ Burke said, ‘some explanation from you, Pat. What the blazes were you doing in Greytor Street?’
Patricia smiled.
‘It’s really simple. I couldn’t wait at the cottage, so I came to Kerr’s flat to see if you were in. I arrived just after Dodo Trale brought Lois. He seemed anxious to get off again, and I promised to nurse her. Well—Lois came round. I told her of the fire—Dodo had told me, of course—and what started it. She remembered the packages at Greytor Street, and she had a front-door key. I ’phoned Craigie from a kiosk saying it was Lois Dacre speaking, to save confusion. Then I waited by the cellar with a gun; you know the rest.’
‘Well,’ Burke said grimly. ‘We’d have been in a hell of a mess if you hadn’t come up, Pat. I’ll forgive you.’
‘Nice of you,’ grunted Kerr, as he went to see Lois Dacre. The bullet in her shoulder had been taken out, and no great damage had been done.
‘Time enough to decide whether you’ll work for Craigie again,’ Kerr said, standing at the foot of the bed and looking down at her. ‘Want to? Or is that other job more promising?’
‘What other job?’ demanded Lois.
‘Damn it,’ said Kerr, ‘can’t you understand a proposal when you get one?’
‘If you talk like that before we’re engaged, what will it be like when we’re married?’ asked Lois Dacre. And when Kerr, his eyes widening with a full realisation of what she meant, went towards her, she added: ‘But we won’t hurry it, Bob. There’s a lot to do for Craigie yet.’
• • • • •
It was never admitted, but it was known that Shovia, with the knowledge of fire-gas, had worked through Marency to bring things to a head with England.
‘It’s enough to be sure it was a fact,’ Craigie said, two days after the affair at Greytor Street. ‘He reckoned to fire Trite Street and get away in the confusion, of course, but Jeffs had found the alarm-wires and cut them, and you were able to get in.’
‘What’s happening to Lydia?’ Kerr asked.
‘She won’t live two months,’ Craigie said. ‘She’s been on the verge of complete collapse for weeks. We’ve got Shovia scared,’ he continued with a grim smile. ‘Fire-gas will be just about the biggest arg
ument for peace we’ve ever had, and it might even prove a lasting one. It’s a simple thing to prepare, but only the stuff from the Tiberran mines will make it. As far as we know at present, of course.’
‘It seems to me,’ Kerr said, as he lit a cigarette, ‘that Shovia’s still got the whip-hand, if they’ve a supply like that available.’
Craigie rubbed his Punch of a chin.
‘It looks like it, on the surface. But the Tiberran Iron Corporation is English-owned and controlled. Von Retta’s over here at the moment, completing peace talks. Except America—through our friend Jeffs—no other country knows the power of fire-gas—or even knows of its existence.’
‘And that reminds me,’ Burke added, apropos of nothing, ‘where’s Jeffs? He played the hell of a double game, didn’t he?’
Craigie’s eyes were smiling.
‘He did. He was operating in England, for America, working for Sir Julian Crabtree at the same time. And through Crabtree he guessed there was something new at Tiberran Hills. He just carried on, and when Griceson offered him good money to help in certain arrangements, Jeffs agreed. But Griceson—under Marency’s orders—kept everything very quiet. Jeffs could do nothing to stop the murder of Mueller, or what followed it. He had the choice of telling us the position or waiting until he could find who was backing Grice—Lydia Crabtree. He chose the latter.
‘Jeffs knew nothing about Thornton Lodge until after the murder of Mueller—the Lodge was owned by Marency, by the way.’ Craigie went on. ‘Jeffs knew one or two things—for instance, that Griceson had bribed a man to interfere with your ‘plane at Heston. That the Rolls tried to stop you from reaching Heston. By stopping that, though, he might have given himself away. But Jeffs did let you go, Jim, at “Wilton”; he released the burglar-alarm at Chelsea, and when I first met him at Greytor Street he would have interfered if you and Bob had not arrived. If he had not been with us, we might have been in a bad mess,’ added Gordon Craigie.
‘I’ll say,’ admitted Jim Burke cheerfully. ‘Where is Jeffs?’
‘At the Greytor Street house, clearing up.’
