Panic! (Department Z)

by John Creasey

  Loftus frowned.

  ‘Damn it,’ he murmured, ‘they can’t do anything as simple as this—it’s far too easy! Sure about the door, Martin?’

  ‘Positive, William. It’s one of those self-locking gadgets that...’

  ‘Later,’ Loftus stopped him, firmly. His smoky grey glance travelled swiftly around the room. ‘I wonder if they can see us, in here? Di, you and Fay retreat gracefully to the bar—get behind it. Are there bottles?’

  ‘Underneath, yes.’ Diana nodded, investigating.

  ‘Fine. Pour something out—anything will do. If they can see us, it’ll look as if we’re helping ourselves. Wally, wake yourself up for ten seconds, and wander round the room with your usual aimless gait. Looking,’ he elaborated gently, as Davidson stared, ‘for another door. Girls, if anything happens, get down behind that bar and stay there.’

  ‘What are you expecting?’ Fay whispered.

  ‘Anything,’ Loftus scowled. ‘It was all so easy; so very easy—but the simple things are apt to get through. I’ve a feeling that it’s just as well Carrie stayed outside. How long have we been here?’

  Di, pouring beer, glanced at her watch.

  ‘It’s just turned nine.’

  ‘Getting on for an hour, then,’ murmured Loftus. ‘No luck, Wally?’

  ‘No door,’ Wally reported, mouthing the words.

  ‘No windows,’ added Dodo Trale quietly, taking a glass. ‘Here’s how, folk! Bill—all joking apart, what do you expect?’

  ‘Stebber’s other clients,’ said Loftus, softly. ‘Not without guns. Martin, take the corner on the right of the door—Wally, the left. Dodo, get the girls. If there’s ducking to be done, there’s room for you three there.’ He sauntered casually across to the remaining corner, picking up a chair as he went; then sat down, resting his arms on the back of it. The others took up their positions; equally casual, equally calm.

  Yet each of them in fact was sharply on the alert, and prepared for anything. Loftus had an uncanny sense of danger, and they knew it …

  Dodo started an inane patter which kept the girls laughing; Wally smoked, Martin Best smoothed his untidy hair and tucked in his recalcitrant shirt-front and wanted to know in a loud voice how long the Stebber beggar would be in coming. If they could be seen or heard, no one would dream that they were prepared for an attack.

  Then, sharply, footsteps echoed outside the door.

  Footsteps of half-a-dozen men, at least …

  Loftus slipped his right hand negligently into his pocket. The others did the same, but Diana and Fay looked, deliberately, away from the door.

  It opened suddenly.

  Loftus caught a glimpse of Stebber, in the background—and more than a glimpse of the lanky Dodge, who stood there with a tommy-gun in his hand, and an evil grin on his face …

  * * *

  ‘Hallo, Loftus,’ Dodge taunted, softly. ‘You didn’t expect us, did you? Take your hand out of that pocket, or we’ll drill the ladies—that bar’s made of matchboard, and these little fellas will slice right through it. Move damn you!’

  It had happened with a bewildering suddenness, despite their readiness for danger. Even Loftus, had not expected a move on such a scale at quite such a speed.

  He drew his hand from his pocket, and said easily:

  ‘You do like trouble, Dodge—I should have thought one narrow escape would be enough for you. Mind if I smoke?’

  ‘You just get over to your lady-friend,’ Dodge snapped. ‘You other two do the same.’

  Loftus remained seated.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Never mind about that!’ snarled Dodge.

  He was flanked by two other hoodlums, both carrying automatics. Loftus guessed at the rest of the party in the passage. More, he knew what was coming—knew Dodge aimed to get them all in one corner and open fire.

  Could this really happen, in Kensington?

  He felt a quick chilling fear, for in Dodge’s eyes there was murder, cold and callous.

  Loftus was used to the fantastic, but this was something beyond even his experience.

  ‘Move!’ snarled Dodge. ‘If any one of you is thinking of shooting think again! Every corner is covered …’

  Loftus, in his, the girls and Dodo in theirs, were faced by the tommy-gun. Best and Davidson were covered by automatics.

  Loftus stood up slowly.

  His face was set, and the tightness about his lips told the others that he knew how close they were to death. The girls were rigid. Loftus looked at the baccarat tables, wondering if they were of wood or iron …

  His right eye, towards Best, moved imperceptibly.

  And Best, his right hand still in his pocket, opened fire.

  As simply as that.

  It would be a shambles, either way, and they did not propose to die without fighting. Best’s bullet, muffled by a silencer, struck Dodge’s arm before anyone realised it had been fired, and as Dodge dropped the tommy-gun with an oath, Davidson fired from the right. One of the gunmen at the door staggered, and Loftus leapt for a table between the girls and the door. A bullet tore through his coat as he reached it and upturned it, shoving it towards the door with a force that sent it crashing against Dodge.

  There was uproar!

  Three of four men came running: the guards Loftus had rightly guessed to be on hand. Loftus was shooting fast now, with Trale following suit—they were the only men who could see into the passage itself.

  ‘Wally’s corner, Di!’ Loftus yelled, and the girls obeyed.

  Bullets sprayed round the room, riddling the bar as they raced for the one corner temporarily out of range.

  Davidson sprang for another table, upturned it and thrust it, with less force than before, towards the door. Best was leaning on the wall, his arms limp, his mouth set tightly and perspiration bathing his forehead. He staggered towards a chair two yards away, and dropped on to it: had the others been looking, they would have seen the blood already seeping through the front of his shirt …

  So far, not a shot had been fired without a silencer: the noise of overturned tables and falling men had been louder than the reports of the guns. Loftus snatched the silencer off his Webley, suddenly: the more noise, the better. There was a fierce exultation within him. The first devastating attack had failed. Dodge was very still on the floor …

  But it was not over, by a long way.

  The men in the passage seemed to be playing for safety. But there were more ways of causing death than by gunfire—a single stick of dynamite would blow that room to pieces. They were still alive, and might still have a fighting chance: but hemmed in as they were, the odds were weighted against them.

  And then, clearly from the far end of the passage, came a man’s voice:

  ‘What the hell is going on?’

  It was the voice of Richard C. Anson—and fast upon it, came Myra’s imploring:

  ‘Dickie, Dickie—get away, get away …!’

  10

  Anson Acts

  Any moment, Loftus had known, an explosive could be flung into the room—gas could be used on them. To try to fight their way out—to enter a passage filled with armed men—was to invite suicide.

  The sound of Anson’s voice brought unimagined hope. For a moment, there was absolute silence. Then Loftus fired at a hand which appeared near the door—and the roar of the unsilenced Webley shattered the tension-filled calm.

  A shot, from outside—and:

  ‘Come on!’ roared Loftus.

  He leapt over the tables and Dodge, and Wally and Dodo were only feet behind him. From the doorway, they saw Anson and three others down on the floor, fighting—and the two remaining gunmen momentarily off-balance as they stumbled free of the sprawling, mauling heap at their feet.

  Loftus sent three shots towards them.

  As the first came, one fired back. The bullet took Trale in the shoulder and he spun round, but Davidson and Loftus escaped unscathed—and watched the two gunmen crumple up.


  ‘Get the guns,’ snapped Loftus. ‘I’m …’

  ‘Help him, Wally,’ called Diana. ‘We’ll get the guns!’

  She was close behind them, with Fay. Both girls held their automatics at the ready as they moved swiftly towards the fallen gunmen—and as one moved his hand towards his fallen gun, Diana fired a shot through his forearm. Fay covered the second wounded man, who made no attempt to move …

  Loftus and Davidson had already flung themselves at Anson’s attackers.

  At the head of the stairs, Myra Clayton stood watching, her eyes wide and fear in her heart. Loftus caught a glimpse of her—and of a big, pale-faced man who came rushing down from the top floor. And although he had no time to see more, he heard the man’s deep, frantic voice:

  ‘Get away, Myra—get away!’

  Loftus and Davidson tackled one man apiece. Despite the odds, Anson had dragged himself to his feet and was slogging away doggedly as they came to his aid. One man felt himself spun round, saw Loftus’s face …

  Loftus hit him, once.

  The man thudded against the wall and slithered down, his eyes rolling. Davidson had jabbed his man in the back—and as he swung round, hooked him hard in the solar plexus. He lacked the devastating force of Loftus, who shouldered him aside now and cracked his giant fist to the unguarded chin.

  The man crumpled up.

  Anson had just ripped a right to the third man’s stomach, and now followed it with an uppercut that sent him crashing back against Loftus—who calmly dropped him, senseless, with a clout on the head.

  Diana was on hand again.

  ‘We can handle these …’

  Loftus nodded, and Anson stared, bewildered, as the two men headed off down the stairs. He looked at the girls—then followed Loftus. On the main floor, screaming women and frightened men were rushing for the door: among them, but not screaming, were Myra Clayton and her big companion. Loftus glanced sharply around and recognised Korrel. But to shoot, in that crowd, was unthinkable. Loftus fought his way through to the door—but it was open, and Myra and her companion were already through it.

  And then Loftus smiled broadly, as he saw Carruthers and three uniformed policemen …

  He stopped short and Anson, cannoning into him, snapped:

  ‘What’s the matter? Why the devil …’

  ‘Easy,’ said Loftus. He waved an explanatory hand. ‘There’s efficiency for you!’

  For Carruthers, with the policemen in tow, had made straight for Myra and Korrel. As Carruthers gripped the man’s arm, a policeman touched Myra’s shoulder …

  She flung herself at him like a wild-cat.

  Scarlet talons raked his face, and as he staggered back, Myra ran. Loftus, able to see but unable to get clear of the crowd, had never seen a woman run like it. She easily dodged a policeman hurrying from the far end of Moorton Road, reached Queen’s Road, and disappeared.

  But Carruthers had Korrel in an inescapable grip, and Korrel was quivering like a jelly. And Carrie kept him that way, as he searched unsuccessfully for Neil Clarke among the crowd being shepherded by the police.

  * * *

  Richard C. Anson, his jaw plastered in three places and the knuckles of his right hand bandaged, gazed at Loftus in bewilderment.

  ‘Look here, man—what was it all about? I heard the shindig and shot up to have a dekko, but …’

  Loftus grinned.

  ‘It’s as well you did—it helped a lot. You were just the diversion we needed.’ He felt warmly towards Anson, who could just as easily have joined the general rush for the exits. Anson gave the impression of being a man who acted first and thought afterwards; he still managed to look as though he owned the world and all there was in it—but Neil Clarke’s remarks that at bottom the man seemed a good type, appeared to be more than justified.

  The fight was an hour old.

  Summoned by Carruthers, via a sergeant on duty nearby, the police had arrived in force. Of the twenty-odd people who had been at the Ten Club, eighteen were under arrest, and the discovery of gaming-tables—roulette and chemin-de-fer, as well as baccarat—made a charge easy for the authorities.

  But Clarke had not been seen. And Merkle, Myra, and three of the men with Dodge had managed to make a getaway.

  On this, Loftus felt that he could look with equanimity.

  Dodge was badly wounded; so were four other men—and although on their way now to hospital, they would all be well-guarded and, in the near future, well-questioned. Korrel, not physically hurt, had at Loftus’ request been taken to Cannon Street. A general call had gone out for Myra, under the useful charges of ‘doing bodily harm’ to a policeman and of impeding the course of justice. The policeman’s cheeks had been clawed from his eyes to chin, and he would be on sick-leave for a week or more.

  Best and Trale were in a nursing-home.

  Neither of them was likely to be more than a few weeks out of action, and Loftus had to admit things had worked out considerably better than he had had any reason to expect. At one time, a massacre had seemed inevitable; and hard-bitten though he was, the memory of that moment when Dodge had appeared with the tommy-gun persisted. The man’s monstrously cold-blooded intentions had been all too plain.

  He would come to answer for it, thought Loftus, grimly—and in good time be convicted for the murder of Benotti. Once the League was finished, eradicated …

  It did not occur to him that the League would flourish much longer, for in Loftus there was a confidence little could undermine, and an absolute conviction that right would triumph …

  He sat now in the small room at the top of the house in Moorton Road, where Korrel had been earlier in the evening. Diana and Fay had gone home, under police escort. Carruthers, Davidson, Loftus, Anson and Superintendent Miller, who had hurried to the scene from the Yard, were sitting about the room—relaxing, now, with their beloved tankards of beer.

  ‘So O.K.—I helped!’ Anson sounded impatient. ‘Now what about telling me what it was I helped with?’

  ‘All in good time,’ smiled Loftus. ‘For the moment, old son, you ought to be satisfied to know that you saved several people being convicted for murder. It was a holdup—with me and mine the victims.’

  ‘But why the devil …’ Anson, surrounded too long by toadies and yes-men, was used to prompt answers to his questions.

  ‘All that comes later,’ said Loftus, calmly. ‘Give the man another drink, Wally—keep him quiet.’

  ‘I’m damned if I’ll keep quiet!’ roared Anson. ‘I demand to know …’

  Wally approached him from one side, Carruthers from the other: Wally demanded, in sympathetic tones, just where it hurt? Anson, out of his depth with their nonsense and their utter irreverence for his worldly standing or his whims, stared in puzzlement from one to the other and saw something in their eyes which made his lips relax, at last.

  ‘It’s all very well,’ he said, more quietly. ‘But, hang it …’

  Wally pressed his replenished glass to his lips.

  Richard Anson spluttered, and then grinned.

  ‘Oh, all right …!’

  Loftus turned to Miller:

  ‘We’d better have a good look through this room, Dusty—and the rest of the house, for that matter. I’d rather the Divisional men didn’t try it, yet.’

  Miller was the liaison officer between the Yard and Department Z. A stolid, almost completely humourless man, there had been a time when the antics of Craigie’s men had annoyed him, for they were not always seemly. He had long ago come to understand, however, the reason for their apparent facetiousness, and even to appreciate their peculiar brand of humour. Moreover, he had developed a respect for them which nothing could shatter.

  ‘All right, Bill, if you want it that way. Let’s start.’

  Loftus turned to Anson.

  ‘Will you amuse yourself for half-an-hour with that beer, while we have a look round?’

  ‘Why, surely.’ Anson was finding himself strangely at ease with these unlikely chara
cters. ‘You carry on. Can I help?’

  ‘Afterwards; a lot, I hope.’

  Anson lit a cigar, and leaned back in the only easy chair. Loftus and Miller went painstakingly through the small room, while Davidson and Carruthers searched, unsuccessfully, every crevace on the floor. It was some time before Loftus—when all the papers they had found had been exhausted, when every cupboard, safe and drawer had been searched—kicked along the wainscoting, more for the sake of it than in the hope of getting results. He felt the wood give to the pressure.

  ‘Half a mo’, Miller!’

  Anson watched, fascinated, as the big man went down on his knees and tugged at the panel.

  Suddenly, there was a loud click! and in front of their eyes, a section of the wainscoting came slowly outwards. It was a yard long, and inside it was a shallow drawer.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ said Richard C. Anson.

  Neither Loftus nor Miller even heard him.

  There was a file of papers in the drawer …

  Five minutes’ examination was enough to establish beyond all doubt the importance of their find. Loftus took an emptied brief-case from the desk—a case bearing the initials of the unfortunate Abraham Korrel—and pushed the papers inside.

  ‘This is going to help,’ he commented, drily.

  ‘Yes.’ Miller was equally phlegmatic. ‘You’ve found something about the League, at last. You’ll be wanting to see Korrel, of course?’

  ‘I’ll go into these, first. But look after him at Cannon Street, Dusty! All right, Anson—we’ll get along to my flat and see what we can do about that curiosity of yours.’

  It was in the best of faith that Miller had suggested Loftus would want to see Korrel. But one trouble with everything concerning the League was the devastating swiftness with which each incident occurred.

  For as the open police car, with Korrel and two policemen as sole occupants, drove along Victoria Street towards the Yard, a closed Daimler overtook it. There was not much traffic about, for the theatres at that time were only in mid-performances, and in the sweltering evening heat, pedestrians preferred the Embankment or the parks.

  The window of the Daimler opened.

  The police-car driver turned his head—and saw the gaping mouth of the machine-gun. Desperately, he swung the wheel but he was seconds too late. The rat-tat-tat of machine-gun bullets sounded, sharp and clear. What few people were about, turned and stared in blank amazement. A man and woman walking arm-in-arm, on a level with the two cars, suddenly crumpled up. The police-car, out of control—for the driver was slumped over the wheel, his head spilling blood—crashed across the pavement and into the vast window of a furniture showroom. As the plate-glass smashed with a noise like an explosion, the car came to rest against the piled-up furniture it had carried before it. And as Abraham Korrel half-fell into the shop, a dozen bullets in his head, the Daimler sped noiselessly along to Parliament Street, up Whitehall, round Trafalgar Square, and safely away towards Bloomsbury.