by John Creasey
‘Loftus!’
As the second call came Oundle came hurrying from the main hall. He was smoke-grimed and dishevelled, and his big eyes were no longer ingenuous.
‘A gent outside wants a word with you, Bill.’
‘I heard,’ said Loftus. ‘Where is he?’
‘Somewhere near the front door. If we had a stick of dynamite, we might do some damage.’
‘If you had a mind you might do some thinking,’ retorted Loftus with acerbity. He led the way towards the hall, and as he reached it the Cartwrights came down the stairs. Several of the clerical staff of that evacuated department were standing by, scared but controlling themselves well. From somewhere upstairs came a hysterical crying, probably from a maid.
Cartwright’s ascetic face was pale and tight-lipped.
‘Loftus, there’s to be no bargaining with him.’
‘No?’ asked Loftus. ‘I...’
For the third time—‘Loftus!’ came the cry.
Loftus stepped forward towards the barricaded front door, and the light shone vividly down on him. As he reached the settee which had been upturned he vaulted lightly so that he perched himself on top of the barricade, and peered into the semi-darkness beyond. As though idly, he put on his glasses.
The semi-darkness took on that bluish tinge, while he could see everything crystal celar. There was a Lagonda drawn up outside the front door, while on a tripod beside it was a Lewis gun. No men were in sight and on their feet, but two were stretched out, motionless.
‘Speaking,’ called Loftus.
Forster’s voice came from the car, but Loftus doubted whether the man was in it. Probably he was speaking from some distance off, and the words were relayed by loud-speaker.
‘It’s time you came,’ called Forster, and, behind Loftus, Mayhew, Oundle and Thornton listened tensely. ‘I don’t mean to waste words. I can see as well as you can in daylight, and no man or woman comes out of the place alive until I say so. Fire has started in three places, and you’ve no water to put it out. Do you understand that?’
‘Perfectly,’ said Loftus, and he still seemed unconcerned.
‘You don’t seem to.’ The man spoke so colloquially that he might have been English, but for the sibilance of his ‘s’. ‘You can go, and the others—except the Cartwrights. Send them out—that’s all I want from you this time.’
‘Oh,’ said Loftus. ‘You want the Cartwrights in exchange for our safety, is that it?’
‘And what Cartwright is carrying,’ said Forster.
‘H’mm. It might be possible,’ said Loftus. ‘I’ll ask them. What happens if you don’t get what you want?’
‘We wait until the place is gutted.’
‘While it gets gutted people will come,’ said Loftus, ‘and when it’s gutted everything you want goes with it. Wouldn’t you call that short-sighted?’
‘Don’t imagine that I’m not serious,’ said Forster. ‘If I don’t get the thing, no one else will. And I’ll get Grafton, he’ll find it sooner or later. If you don’t send those two out, you’re finished. All of you. Understand?’
‘I’ll call you again in five minutes,’ said Loftus.
He did not wait for an answer, but jumped down.
Mayhew was looking bewilderedly at him. Oundle and Thornton were eyeing the Cartwrights, and James Cartwright was standing quite still, with his hands clenched at his side. Garry was smoking a cigarette, and except for Loftus she seemed the most unconcerned there.
‘He’s very definite,’ said Loftus. ‘I—Mayhew, you might get the hall cleared.’
Mayhew hesitated, and then obeyed. All of his men were with him now, and the half-dozen members of the staff were ushered into the billiards-room, which was as safe as anywhere in the house. As they went it was possible to hear the increasing roar of flames. Loftus knew that the three fires were rapidly gaining a hold, and he knew that the lull in the battle could not last for long.
Mayhew turned back from the billiards-room door.
‘Now then, what is all this? What’s Cartwright got that the madman outside wants?’
‘A moment,’ said Loftus. ‘Put the lights out, Ned...’ He waited until darkness descended, darkness broken only by the faint flicker from the fire in the kitchen quarters. Then he put the glasses on Mayhew’s face.
‘Good—God!’
‘Excusable,’ said Loftus dryly. ‘Cartwright has the secret of that, and Nazi Forster wants it. Do you subscribe to letting Forster have the Cartwrights?’
‘God!’ repeated Mayhew, and as the lights were switched on again he looked startled out of his life. ‘No, a thousand times no! But we’ve got to get help. I...’
A man came running down the stairs, voices were raised on the first landing. Loftus stopped the man as he reached the hall.
‘What is it?’
‘We—we can’t—stay up there.’ It was one of the clerical staff who had been sent round to block the windows. ‘There’s a fire on the second floor, three rooms are blazing. Get us out of here for God’s sake!’
‘What are the others doing?’
‘Trying to stop it.’
‘Nice work,’ said Loftus. ‘Mayhew, there’s your job. Organise three parties, and have each party attack one of the fires. Cartwright, you’re all right for the time being, we don’t propose giving you away.’
Cartwright said: ‘That’s as well.’
‘And there isn’t time for argument,’ snapped Loftus.
‘There’s time for this,’ said Mayhew, and his voice was steadier than it had been a minute before. ‘I’m going to try to get through. I want a volunteer from one of you...’ He stared at the three uniformed policemen, and one of them stepped forward promptly, the others after only a moment’s thought. ‘All right, Meeson, you can come.’
‘Don’t be a damned fool,’ said Loftus. ‘There isn’t a chance at the moment.’
‘We’ve got to try,’ said Mayhew. ‘You’re doing a hell of a lot of talk, but nothing else. We’ll start from the morning-room window, Meeson. Keep low, and once we’re outside we separate.’
Loftus gripped his arm.
‘Leave it to me, will you? There’s one way of getting through this, but you haven’t found it. I...’
Mayhew wrenched his arm away. He was a burly specimen, and he could use his fists. He used them then, on Loftus. The punch took Loftus in the stomach, and doubled him up—and at the same time a gun flashed into the inspector’s hand.
‘Stop anyone moving.’ He handed the gun to one of the other policemen. ‘Take this.’
The man obeyed.
Oundle and Thornton hesitated, not sure whether to try to reach the morning-room first. They were not carrying their guns in sight, and the burly policeman looked as if he would shoot if there was a single movement.
Mayhew and Meeson went into the morning-room. There was a short pause, and then the squeaking of a window. Another pause, and a whisper:
‘All right—come on.’
Mayhew’s voice, and it suggested that he was outside. There was a moment’s hesitation, and then a smothered curse, as if Meeson had banged his knee climbing out of the window. Silence: and then:
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
‘Oh, my God!’ muttered Thornton.
Loftus straightened up, his face pale, his stomach uneasy.
‘Poor devils,’ he muttered. He looked at the other policeman, and Oundle spoke for him.
‘Still think that’s the way to try and make it?’
‘No, sir.’ The Robert with the gun was staring towards the morning-room door, and he took a step forward. Oundle pushed his way ahead, going through first. Loftus rested for a moment against the wall, with the Cartwrights and Thornton the only others in sight since Oundle and the two policemen had gone into the morning-room. Oundle had switched on the lights.
Oundle could see Mayhew and Meeson stretched out on the ground not two yards from the window. Both men were riddled with bullets, which had caught their fac
es.
Garry Cartwright said: ‘Loftus, is there a way out?’
‘What was that about gas?’ asked Loftus.
‘Useless here,’ said Cartwright abruptly. ‘I’ve only a couple of grenades, and there’s too much wind for them to be used effectively.’
‘What is it?’
‘Chlorine.’
‘Nice fellow,’ said Loftus. ‘I...’
Crash!
They did not know what it was, but it crashed against the stairs and exploded—but not with a detonation loud or forceful enough to make them lose their balance. There was a second, and a third, and Loftus roared:
‘Gas grenades! Get out—get out of the hall!’
He grabbed Garry Cartwright and moved for the billiards-room, but fast though he went he was too late. Something clutched his throat—something potent but unseen, making him gasp and splutter, bringing tears to his eyes, a furious burning to his nose and mouth. He staggered, and then pitched forward—and one after the other the gathering in the hall went down before the gas which Forster had used while Loftus and Cartwright had been thinking it out.
The gas worked in the house, even though it would be useless outside.
There was a moment of silence, but for the burning that was coming from the domestic quarters and from the second landing. And then a man vaulted over the front-door barricade. A short, thick-set man wearing a military gas-mask.
A second—a third—a fourth.
They hurried towards the outstretched figures on the hall carpet, and they did not waste time. Two of them lifted Cartwright, and the third raised his sister as easily as if she were a feather-weight. They went back, making no effort to injure Loftus or the others.
Forster, also wearing a mask, met them outside.
‘You’ve got them both?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ex-cellent,’ said Forster very softly. ‘Excellent indeed. Now fire the hall.’
And as he spoke a man at his side tossed a small grenade into the hall—a bomb which burst with a deafening explosion, and then spread liquid fire all about it. A second, a third. The fire ran slowly about the carpet, smoke billowed through the doorway, while Forster and his men and their prisoners made for their cars.
Loftus and the others remained unconscious.
14
Says Mark
‘Here it is,’ said Mark Errol. ‘They’ve turned off the road. I... Gosh, Wally. Something’s burning.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ drawled Mr. Wallace Davidson.
It was Davidson who had crashed his car when trying to help Oundle earlier in the day, Davidson who had afterwards located Mark Errol, and had been at the Cliff Royal Hotel when Forster—presumably—had attacked, using gas and getting away without difficulty and with the person of Professor Grafton. Davidson who had recovered first and telephoned Craigie, and Davidson who had been told that Craigie had tried to telephone Grayling Manor without success.
‘Get there quickly,’ Craigie had said. ‘I’m warning the local police to stand by in case of need, but look round first. If there’s no sign of Loftus, or any suggestion of trouble, get the local men busy at once.’
And now the police patrol car which had led Davidson and Mark Errol to the Manor swung off the road into the drive. Ahead of them they saw the flames which were coming from the first-floor windows. The police car ahead pulled up, and Mark Errol jammed on his brakes.
A peak-capped policeman came up at the same time.
‘Fire ahead, sir, and...’
‘Cut back to the nearest telephone,’ said Wally. ‘Have the fire-brigade from Winchester, and tell Police Headquarters that the warning from London takes effect. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir. You’d better get past us.’
‘Right,’ said Davidson.
But he waited long enough to lean over the headlamps, and wrench off the covers. The brilliant lights that shot out were strictly against regulations, but they showed the trees, skeletons without their leaves, the shrubs and the banks on either side of the drive. Farther ahead they seemed to shine on men moving between the trees.
And as Mark backed the Talbot he was driving, to get past the patrol car, there came the loud reports of three separate explosions.
There was no longer the slightest doubt about the shadows being men, while a machine-gun opened fire without a second’s warning. The police car had backed towards the gates, and Mark trod on the accelerator of the Talbot.
Bullets rattled against the sides but rebounded, for the car was armoured. Both men crouched low; both were worried far more than they were ever likely to say by the possible fate of Loftus and the others.
Men were moving about on all sides.
The machine-gunning stopped, although now and again a revolver shot rang out, and it was not safe for them to raise their heads. The drive seemed never ending, although as they drew nearer to the house they could see the flames more clearly—and the Lagonda with several men nearby.
Other cars were hidden along the drive.
One after the other they started off, but Davidson and Errol paid no heed to them. Their one concern was to get to the house. They were able to look ahead, and in the blazing headlights of their car they saw two men carrying another—and one man with a body flung fireman fashion over his shoulder.
‘Business,’ said Davidson, and used his gun.
His bullet brought the man down, while whatever he was carrying thudded to the ground. The Lagonda’s engine started, and as it passed the Talbot Errol swung the wheel to the left to avoid a collision. Davidson saw the masked figures inside. Even had there been a chance of crashing the car he would not have taken it. Someone inside might be a prisoner.
Flames were leaping from the front door.
The headlights were lost in the glow, now, while the noise of burning and occasionally the crashing of furniture inside was deafening. Smuts and smoke were all about them, and it was difficult to breathe.
‘Respirators,’ called Errol.
Both men carried the service type, and both fitted them as they hurried towards the porch. The barricade offered an obstacle far more difficult to surmount now than it had done earlier in the evening, for the wood was scorching.
Davidson made the jump.
He touched the top of the sideboard, staggered in mid-air, but steadied himself as he reached the hall. Mark Errol scrambled after him, and they saw the leaping flames, with the whole of one wall ablaze, and a part of the parquet flooring charred and red-hot.
They also saw Loftus, Oundle and Thornton and two policemen, near an open door—and others whom they did not recognise. As they hurried towards Loftus, the soles of whose shoes were actually curling, and likely to catch fire at any moment—they saw the greenish tinge on the faces of the men.
‘I’ll lug these out,’ Wally said. ‘Look around.’
Errol started off, and by chance reached the billiards-room first. As he burst in, a dozen startled men stared anxiously. They had been brought back from the cellar. All of them knew that the place was on fire—but none of them knew what had happened to the men in the hall.
Errol banged the door to, and took off his mask.
‘Outside, all of you—that window there.’
A man shouted.
‘But we can’t, the guns...’
‘They’ve gone. You’ve been rescued,’ said Mark Errol, and grinned. ‘Anyone else about?’
‘On the first and second floor,’ said a sturdy youngster who seemed to have himself in hand more than any of the others.
‘All right. I’ll fetch ‘em. Keep out of the hall.’
‘Why?’
‘Gas,’ said Errol.
He readjusted his mask and went back into the hall. Wally was dragging a policeman into the morning-room, which had so far escaped from the flames, but the heat was increasing, and he had stripped off coat and waistcoat. Errol hurried up the stairs, and on the first landing saw five men, all stretched out.
&
nbsp; Each had a greenish tinge on his face.
‘Gosh!’ exclaimed Mark Errol, and for a split second he paused.
Then he carried one man downstairs, and then a second.
Wally joined in. They were sweating, and beneath the masks their faces were beaded in perspiration. Most of the time they worked blindly, sweat in their eyes and smeared across the goggles of the masks.
Then, abruptly, there came the clanging of a fire-engine bell. A second, a third. Through the morning-room window three steel-helmeted A.F.S. men burst, and they did not need telling what to do.
Davidson stretched up, and leaned for a moment against the wall.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is that. I could do with a drink.’
• • • • •
There was little chance of saving the building. The place was searched as thoroughly as it could be for men, but no more were found. Some filing cabinets and three or four safes were brought from the main offices, but most of the papers there went up in smoke.
Every fire-engine for miles around came, and pipes were laid to a stream which went through the outlying grounds. A.F.S. men and regulars played their part, while the lurid glare made mockery of the black-out, and was seen as far away as Winchester and Basingstoke and the villages around.
Davidson and Errol visited Winchester Hospital. Loftus, Oundle, Thornton and the others who had been gassed were there under treatment—together with a girl who had been picked up by the rescue squads just outside the front door of the Manor. Near her had been a man shot through the knee—and Davidson remembered the shooting, realised when he was told where the girl had been found that he had prevented her from joining the men in the Lagonda.
‘She won’t be sorry,’ Errol opined.
Both men were washed, and refreshed, and their thirsts were slaked. But their eyes were red-rimmed, and they still showed traces of that desperate fight against time.
A short, dapper man came out of a room near the passage in which they were waiting, and Davidson asked with as little concern as he could contrive:
