by John Creasey
“Had any luck in spotting the bad men?” asked Rollison, sotto voce.
Bishop was so startled he nearly slipped. He turned his head, with the binoculars hanging round his neck, his face red as much from the sun as from annoyance at being caught out.
“You’ve got a nerve !”
“Don’t blame me, it was hereditary,” said Rollison, and went on almost in the same breath : “Two things, quickly. I’ve dug up a safe and it’s over in the kitchen of the farmhouse now. Lay on someone to force it, will you? And I’m expecting the notorious William Brandt at the farmhouse before long. Will you give me half an hour alone with him and the others?”
“Goddammit man, there’s a warrant out for you !”
“I could save myself by pushing you off the roof,” said Rollison, “but I’m going to risk being charged.” He saw the small walkie-talkie radio set standing on a ledge close to the detective. “Check with Grice, and ask him if it isn’t worth a smile. If you hold Brandt before he gets here and I’ve had a talk with him, let failure be on your own head.”
He dropped out of sight.
For fear Bishop would be over-zealous, he lowered the rooflight and latched it from beneath, and moved the steps. By the time he had finished, Bishop was talking to someone on the radio. Rollison hurried downstairs, went out the back way, then to the trees and the tunnel. He reached the farmhouse as M.M.M. was being admitted by Gillian.
“Hallo, folk,” greeted Rollison, making M.M.M. look round with a frown. “It shouldn’t be long before the bait brings the bad men. Seen the safe, Monty?”
“I don’t believe it exists.”
“Come and look,” invited Rollison, and took them both in to the kitchen. M.M.M. stood and stared, and looked as if he didn’t really believe what he saw. If that was an act, he did it very well indeed.
He swung round on Rollison.
“Now what makes you think that Brandt will come here?”
“I invited him.”
“You’re the biggest bighead I’ve ever met in my life ! You think you’ve only to snap your fingers, and people come running. Why, you’re crazy. He’ll never come here, and you know it.”
“I told him I’d unearthed the deadly secret,” declared Rollison in overtones of drama. “If anything will make him take a chance, that’s it.”
M.M.M. found nothing to say in reply, but poked at the safe with his walking stick.
“I’d like to know what’s worth two lives and all this fuss,” he said. “And I’ve been thinking. I’m not a bit sure that it’s any use waiting for this murderer, Brandt.” He shot an almost vindictive glance at Gillian. “He’s a smooth-tongued devil and will probably try to persuade us that black’s white. I think we ought to get out, and let the police wait here for him.”
“I think we ought to hear what he has to say,” said Gillian.
“Oh, no doubt you’ll get your way,” growled M.M.M. “I wish to God I’d never had anything to do with this. I wish I’d never fallen in love with you, too.” In that moment, he sounded almost as if he hated Gillian.
Rollison bumped against M.M.M. a moment later, taking the gun out of his pocket. It was a moment’s work to empty it.
They heard a motor-cycle outside, its engine roaring. M.M.M. turned with surprising agility towards the window, and hobbled towards it and wrenched the curtain aside. Gillian followed him. Rollison slipped the empty gun back into the other man’s pocket, then watched from the side of the window, and saw the motor-cyclist coming towards the farm, slowing down. He stopped at the gate, jumped off, and propped the machine up against the hedge. He was very tall, and his uniform suited him.
“Well, it looks as if I’m going to get my way for a change,” said M.M.M. “But why have the police sent a copper on a motor-bike ?”
“I wonder where Tex the Texan got that police constable’s uniform,” Rollison murmured.
Gillian exclaimed : “It’s Tex!”
Rollison was behind them, and saw the light which leaped into Gillian’s eyes, and noticed the glint in M.M.M.’s. Of hatred ? He saw the one-legged man drop his right hand into his pocket, and keep it there. He moved forward towards the door, glancing sideways at the bulge in M.M.M.’s pocket. He felt sure that the man was holding the gun out of sight.
How did that square ?
Rollison opened the door. Tex Brandt stood there, with his crash helmet making him look very tall indeed, a striking figure in the policeman’s blue. He smiled warmly at Rollison as he came in, and then saw Gillian. He was about to take off his helmet, but he stopped with his hand at his forehead, just to stare at her. He did not know that M.M.M. was in the room, just behind him.
“My, my, my,” he breathed. “I remembered you as beautiful, but I’d forgotten just how beautiful beauty could be. Did anyone ever tell you that you’re the most beautiful woman in the world ?”
Gillian said : “Don’t fool, Tex.”
“I’m not fooling,” he assured her. “I mean every word I say.”
He went forward.
It looked as if he would take her in his great arms.
“Don’t you touch her,” growled M.M.M,, and he drew his hand from his pocket. His automatic pistol covered the American. “Take your murdering hands away from her. If you so much as lay a finger on her, I’ll shoot you.”
Gillian exclaimed : “Monty, put that gun away!”
The Texan turned round, very slowly.
Hatred was undoubtedly the word for the look in M.M.M.’s eyes, but there was something else, for which Rollison had been looking. He found it, but as a negative. These two men did not know each other, or their reaction would have been entirely different.
“What’s all this?” Tex asked, in a calm voice. “Who’s calling me a murderer?”
“Your record is all over the newspapers. The police know you killed two men and they won’t care whether they get you alive or dead,” said M.M.M. and that viciousness was still in his voice. “Get away from her.”
“I think you must be mad, Monty.” Gillian’s voice could not have been colder. “Please put that gun away, and stop play-acting.”
“Play-acting I’ll show you who’s play-acting!” The maimed man’s eye glinted, he raised the gun a fraction, and there seemed nothing but death for the tall Texan.
“Monty!” screamed Gillian, and flung herself forward.
There was a little click; no sharp report, no flame, no bullet. The girl would have fallen had Tex not grabbed her, while Monty stood looking foolish, with the gun in his hand.
“I took the bullets out when you were poking at the safe,” explained Rollison mildly. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t do anyone any harm.”
M.M.M. didn’t speak, but all the colour drained away from his cheeks. He looked round, as if for somewhere to sit; as if he was afraid that he couldn’t stand up any longer. Then he moved to the wall and leaned against it, looked towards Gillian, and said:
“You’d even protect him with your life. Why is it? Why can’t you feel for me like you do for him ?”
The Texan was holding Gillian lightly, an arm round her shoulders.
“I just don’t know,” Gillian said, in a husky voice. “I just don’t know.” She looked up, twisting her head round so that she could see the tall man, and it seemed to Rollison that there was genuine bewilderment in her voice. “I felt exactly the same the moment I set eyes on him, although I know it doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes sense, honey,” said Tex Brandt. “It makes the kind of sense that leads to a marriage licence. Some folk wouldn’t believe it, but I felt just that way about you. I’ve been running from the police and looking for the biggest load of trouble I’ve ever known—and you were in my hair all the time, I couldn’t get you out.”
He held her more tightly.
“But he’s a killer! He’s got a reputation for killing!” M.M.M. looked and sounded desperate. “You can’t feel like that about a murderer.”
“Maybe I’m not
the murderer,” the Texan said. “Maybe you know who they really are, Mome.”
“Hold it,” said Rollison. “Monty, how well do you know the man Littleton ?”
“Little what?” asked M.M.M., as if blankly.
“A man named Littleton.”
“I don’t know anyone named Littleton,” denied M.M.M. in the same taut, hopeless voice.
“You’ve been acting oddly since I came into this job,” Rollison said. “You’ve been with the Selbys nearly all the time in recent weeks, you could have been the man watching them, reporting what they were doing, keeping Littleton and his employer informed all the time.”
M.M.M. said in a husky voice: “Are you crazy? I didn’t kill anybody, and as for spying on Gillian and Alan—no, I haven’t spied on anyone. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but if you think I’m a crook, you’re wrong.”
“Someone’s been getting at Alan,” Gillian said, and turned to Rollison. “But I told you I couldn’t believe that it was Monty. I just couldn’t believe it of him.”
“Do we have to talk about it any further?” asked Tex Brandt, and he flashed a grin at Rollison; it could not have been more friendly or more likeable. “The first thing is to find out where the cache is. We can talk when we’ve found it.”
“He’s found it already,” M.M.M. declared, and Rollison saw the tension spring into Tex Brandt’s eyes. “Why don’t you make a deal? Why don’t you buy Rollison off? He’s buyable.”
“Monty,” murmured Rollison, “I don’t think anyone could buy anybody off with the contents of that safe. I don’t know for certain what is in it, but I don’t think anyone would fight the way they have done for jewels. I don’t think they would commit murder so recklessly. I don’t think the police would allow Tex Brandt to get through the cordon thrown round this farm if they really thought he was a bad man. What’s in the safe, Tex?”
Tex was grinning more broadly than ever.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to get up earlier to fool you,” he said. “You’re dead right, Mr. Rollison. That safe contains an atomic radiation unit which was stolen from research laboratories in New York a year ago. It’s a new kind of unit, much smaller than any in use yet. It’s in a special kind of radiation proof container which weighs pretty heavy but isn’t made of lead. In that safe it’s harmless, but out of that safe it would kill anyone if they were exposed to it for long. It operates like a death ray. Sure, it’s that bad,” he added, when M.M.M. gasped and Gillian gripped his arm very tightly. “Does anyone object if I go and have a look and make sure it’s the right one ?”
“Yes, I object,” Rollison declared. “Tex, you forgot to tell me about the jewels you handled for Freddie Littleton and others in the U.S.A.”
“You’re thinking of someone else,” said the Texan slowly. “There’s a man from Texas, a real bad man, who once called himself William Brandt. He posed as me in New York, and it suited me to let him get away with it.”
“Maybe,” Rollison said, hopefully, and then added to M.M.M. : “Keep our American friend covered with this gun, will you?” He took his own small automatic from his pocket, and handed it to the crippled man. “I won’t be five minutes. Gillian, don’t make Monty get careless with the gun, this time it’s loaded.”
M.M.M. looked savagely delighted.
The Texan smiled, as if he hadn’t a fear in the world.
Rollison ran up the stairs and into Littleton’s room, slicing the cords from the man’s ankles, helped him off the bed and then unsteadily down the stairs. Littleton kept gasping as the blood began to circulate again, but he reached the doorway of the downstairs room inside the five minutes that Rollison had stipulated.
“Which of these is your boss?” Rollison asked, still supporting his prisoner.
Littleton took one glance.
“You kidding?” he demanded. “Neither of them. Brandt is a fat guy. I don’t know the tall guy, and I’ve seen Morne around, that’s all.”
The response was too spontaneous for anyone to doubt it’s truth. This Tex Brandt was not the man the police were after: was not Littleton’s employer. He had not killed Lodwin or Charlie.
The killer was a certain fat American . . .
M.M.M. looked almost regretful.
“Try walking about,” Rollison said to Littleton, “you’ll be all right in a minute.” He turned to Brandt. “Hi, Tex! You’re okay, apparently. I did wonder about you and tried to get a picture of the real Brandt, but it didn’t arrive in time. It’ll come soon. Monty, he’s the wrong man to shoot, but we still need the right one.”
Gillian was looking intently into the tall American’s eyes.
M.M.M. turned away, as if he couldn’t bear the thought of them together. Littleton began to hobble of his own accord.
“You want to know something?” the Texan asked Rollison : “I knew I wasn’t such a bad guy. Mr. Rollison, I know the other William Brandt only too well. I’m in England to hunt for him. I took an interest in this farm because of him. I do have a principal in New York, but he’s not a private individual.”
“Let me guess that he’s also represented in Washington,” said Rollison mildly. “F.B.L”
“That’s right.”
“All right, I agree that you had to fool me,” said Rollison, forgivingly. “Put me out of my misery in another way, too. The police know what you are really doing, don’t they?”
“I had them informed, today.” Tex said. “They’ve been mighty kind, since they recovered from the shock.”
“Don’t ever say the British aren’t co-operative,” Rollison said.
“I don’t know anyone who could co-operate more,” declared Tex. “Will you make a real job of it, and let me look at that safe now?”
“Just follow me,” said Rollison.
He turned towards the kitchen, the hole, and the safe. The tall Texan followed him, and Gillian was just behind. Littleton kept hobbling, much easier now, and M.M.M. stared bleakly out of the window.
There was everything as Rollison had left it, with two exceptions.
The back door was open.
The safe was open, too.
23
CAUSE FOR DREAD
ROLLISON heard the sound of approaching men as he stared at the empty hole. Several detectives were near, and in the distance there was the hum of several car engines. He felt the Texan’s hand heavy on his shoulder, and Brandt said in a taut voice:
“Where is it, Rollison?”
Rollison said : “When we were here before you arrived, the safe was locked.” He saw shadows at the doorway, and knew that the police had arrived in strength : there would be others at the front, the house would be surrounded. “How bad is it?”
“If anyone keeps the container taken from that safe for twenty minutes without putting it inside a protective box, it will kill everyone within fifty yards of it,” declared the Texan. “I wasn’t fooling you about that. It’s death in a box.”
Bishop came in, looking more massive than ever. He didn’t smile as he looked at Rollison and then at Tex.
“You’ve had all the time I’m going to give you,” he said to Rollison, and looked at the Texan. “Are you William Thomas Brandt ?”
“Bishop,” Rollison interrupted, “I don’t know how much you’ve been told, but a small container has been taken out of this safe, and this man says that it contains a radiation unit which would be deadly to anyone exposed to it. Have you stopped everyone who’s left the farmhouse?” Rollison looked bleak and pale. Tex Brandt, a card in his hand, was like a figure of doom. Bishop looked from one to the other, and said sharply:
“Don’t try to scare me.”
“Anyone exposed to that radiation unit for long will die,” Tex said. “I’m not scaring anyone. I’m terrified of what will happen if we don’t find it and put it back in that safe.”
Bishop said heavily: “No one has left the farmhouse in the past half hour. We’ve allowed everyone to come in, none to go out.”
There w
as silence which lasted for a long time. Then suddenly Freddie Littleton broke in, bursting into a nervous cackle of a laugh.
“So the Boss has beaten you,” he said, and his voice nearly crackled. “He’s got away with it under your noses! Cops ? I’ve trodden on cleverer things than you !”
The Texan’s hand gripped Rollison with frightening force.
“We’ve got to get that container back,” he said. “If it’s in this house, none of us will live for another week.”
Swift, frightening thoughts flashed into Rollison’s mind. Someone had got into the farmhouse by the apple store-cupboard, had crept across, opened the safe and taken the unit out—but he hadn’t gone out by the back or the front door; they had been too closely watched.
There was only one way he could have gone.
He spoke in a clipped voice:
“Bishop, this is a job for one man. I started it. I have to finish it. There’s a tunnel leading from the house to that copse of trees. If you’ll watch the entrance in that storeroom, I’ll go and seal off the other end.”
“You won’t,” Bishop said, tautly. “You’ll tell us where the other end is.”
“There’s no need to risk your men.”
“You can come, but you’re not going alone.” Bishop snapped orders to several men who were now inside the farmhouse. They went to the tunnel door. Rollison, Bishop,
Tex and three plain-clothes men ran towards the copse. The speed with which the police surrounded the trees was startling. Bishop and Tex kept close to Rollison, and he led them straight to the far end of the tunnel.
The cover was pushed to one side.
The tunnel was empty, except for police who came hurrying through it.
• • • • • •
“He can’t have got away,” Bishop said.
“He got away,” the Texan stated flatly. “Inspector, you have to send out an alarm warning. Everyone, policemen and every newspaper wants to know about this. If that unit was taken on a train or a bus, or on an aircraft, it would kill everyone aboard,”
