The Day of Disaster

by John Creasey

  Crayshaw said: ‘You appear to have an attack-fixation.’

  Hammond chuckled. ‘They say that experience makes fools wise.’

  On his words the door opened and the old servant announced lunch. Marion was aware that Crayshaw appeared to have anticipated the man’s coming. It was uncanny, she thought; and then she told herself that she was being a fool, that Crayshaw had given instructions for luncheon to be served at a precise moment. He was not likely to allow unpunctuality, even to a matter of seconds.

  They went into a large dining room, the long table set at one end only. The rest of the room was dark and shadowy, the windows covered with anti-splinter net, the furniture old enough to have seen a dozen generations of men live and die. This strange combination lent an air of unnaturalness to the room and to Crayshaw.

  The food was good and the conversation during the meal light and unimportant; yet all the time Marion felt that there was an unseen presence. She knew the two men were fencing for an opening, that Crayshaw was a little perturbed, for Hammond’s defence was so quick and his answers unflagging.

  Coffee was to be served in the other room, and Marion rose with relief at the prospect of leaving the shadows and the gloom behind them, yet the tension stayed.

  Marion knew one thing; these men were enemies, and each of them was aware of it.

  Crayshaw lit a cigar, leaning comfortably back in an easy chair. ‘Now, Mr. Hammond, we can really try to discuss the matter and reach a mutually satisfactory result. It is a fact, you know, that I do indeed realise the possibility of danger to myself, and am therefore always accompanied, although not ostentatiously, by a man who can take care of any emergency.’

  Hammond smiled: ‘Point to me, you know. The danger is admitted.’

  Crayshaw spoke a little sharply.

  ‘Any man in my position is always in some danger, particularly in these days, when a share in the nation’s war effort is important, and enemies of the state abound.’

  ‘It is precisely because of that,’ murmured Bruce, ‘that I want to make sure that your bodyguard doesn’t go wrong, sir.’

  ‘Surely I should be the Judge of what is necessary?’ said Crayshaw, and Hammond’s eyes narrowed as he smiled.

  ‘We can’t always be sure of what’s good for us,’ he murmured.

  Crayshaw withdrew his cigar, staring at the tip speculatively: ‘Mr. Hammond, you may be justified in what you are doing, but at least I am entitled to know why you are doing it. To say the least, I find these constant attentions irritating.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Hammond. The tone in which he uttered the words was clearly calculated to annoy the millionaire, and what little of Crayshaw’s cheeks were visible above his beard, coloured.

  ‘I don’t like your manner, Hammond.’

  ‘We—ell,’ said Hammond, ‘that’s understandable. But supposing we really get down to business Crayshaw? You know as well as I do that I don’t trust you. I don’t trust a lot of people, although that’s no proof that I’m right; but while I have my particular job to do, I’ll go on doing it as I think best. Of course, I could change my mind——’ he paused.

  ‘Explain yourself,’ snapped Crayshaw.

  ‘If you would tell me just why you are so anxious to make sure that your Dorset house is used for the coming conference, and just why a Dr. Brice was frequently in attendance on you there, if you would tell me why you really employed Ferdinand to watch your daughter—well, with a satisfactory explanation of those things, I might withdraw. I’d like to withdraw,’ Hammond added earnestly. ‘Only you are stopping me, you know.’

  He stopped; and Marion felt her heart racing. This was a challenge, tantamount to a direct accusation.

  19

  ‘Snatch’

  Crayshaw’s body appeared to have shrunk. He leaned well back in his chair, his right hand drumming a ceaseless tattoo on the arm. The tick-tock-tick-tock of a clock in one corner of the room reminded Marion of the interval signal of the B.B.C. before a speech from some significant broadcaster.

  Crayshaw spoke at last. ‘My dear fellow, you are paid—if you will forgive me mentioning it—to suspect the whole world. But suspicion is one thing, mania another. I must warn you that, however sympathetic I may be towards this remarkable example of your rather excessive zeal, the consequence of further annoyance will be serious.’

  ‘Oh, come,’ said Hammond. ‘I don’t let go that easily.’

  Crayshaw’s eyes glittered. He paced the room in front of the fireplace, then paused and shrugged. ‘I am willing to humour you to a certain extent, but don’t go too far, Hammond. Well then, it is true that I should like my house to be used, but I have done nothing to try to ensure that. I have been attended by a young doctor in Dorset because my regular medical adviser there has been called up. I employed Ferdinand as a mentor for my daughter, on the advice of her doctor. You appear to have affixed some highly coloured explanation to facts which are simple and quite lacking in mystery. Where is my daughter?’

  ‘Where you won’t get her,’ Hammond assured him. He stood up abruptly, waiting for Marion as Crayshaw approached him, hands clenched by his sides. Hammond pressed the bell at the fireplace, and was at the door when the servant came.

  ‘Our coats, please,’ he said brusquely.

  Crayshaw said nothing, but continued to stare at them his eyes glittering, as they prepared to go. The servant opened the door, and they stepped on to the porch.

  ‘Hurry,’ Hammond said, and gripped Marion’s arm.

  She was alerted by his manner, by the sudden haste of his movements. He glanced swiftly up and down, seeing a Bentley at one end of the street and the Errols beside it. He half-ran towards them, still gripping Marion’s arm.

  It was when they were barely half-way, that another car turned into the street, travelling at considerable speed. Hammond stopped running and his voice was sharp and peremptory: ‘Get down, quickly.’

  The car passed them, but nothing appeared to happen. Marion raised her head and looked behind her: she saw something fly from the window of the car to Crayshaw’s house.

  Hammond said hoarsely: ‘Keep down!’

  The explosion came on his words, fierce and deafening, making her ears ring, flinging her against the wall under which they were crouching. She felt the jar as she hit the rough surface, then felt Hammond move by her side. He had leapt up, and was running back towards Crayshaw’s house.

  The front of it was blown in; the windows gaped, and through them he could see the wreckage of the room where, with Marion, he had been sitting less than five minutes before. He climbed over the debris, heedless of the gathering crowd.

  Half of the ceiling of the room was down, leaving a fringe dangling crazily. The coals had been sprayed about the room, while flames were already shooting from the seat of one of the chairs.

  Hammond stepped carefully through the doorway and into the hall, meeting the old servant shaking in fright.

  ‘Where’s Sir Noel?’

  ‘He——’ muttered the old man, ‘he——’

  Then Hammond saw Crayshaw stepping from another room at the far end of the passage.

  Hammond said slowly: ‘So you’re all right?’

  Crayshaw opened his mouth with an odd clicking sound.

  ‘Yes, I—what happened? James, what——’

  Hammond said: ‘The front room was blown to nothing. Anyone in there would have gone the same way. It’s lucky I moved when I did, isn’t it? And now——’ he paused, ‘perhaps you’ll admit that you’re in danger.’

  He did not wait to say anything more, or to hear what Crayshaw said, but hurried down the steps again.

  It took him and the Errols twenty minutes to reassure the police who were at first distrustful of their cards. A cordon had been put about the house, and already the debris was being cleared away by men summoned from a nearby demolition squad.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ said Mike Errol, ‘the bus is all right, so I can give you a lift so
mewhere.’

  ‘Ye—es,’ said Hammond. ‘The flat, I think, but——’ he paused. ‘Who’s watching the back of the house?’

  ‘Wally Davidson and Carruthers,’ said Mike promptly.

  ‘They ought to be all right,’ Hammond deliberated, turning some coins over in his pocket. ‘Yes, they should be all right, but I wouldn’t like to swear to it. You’d better back them up,’ he added at last. ‘Keep an eye on Crayshaw wherever he goes, and remember you’re expecting a snatch.’

  To the Errols the word apparently had some meaning. To Marion it was Greek. She turned it over in her mind until they had pulled up outside the Jermyn Street house in a taxi.

  ‘An abbreviation, I suppose?’ she asked.

  Hammond smiled. ‘Certainly an abbreviation, being shorter than kidnapping and less reminiscent of the Lyceum.’

  He helped her out, paid the cabby and then went upstairs with a hand on her arm.

  Once in the flat, he turned urgently towards her: ‘Are you all right?’ His voice was gruff.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘You’re sure? You——’ He released her suddenly, with a short laugh. ‘Yes, of course you are. I’m going crazy. You’ve scratched your chin.’ He did not refer to the urgency in his voice, or explain the expression in his eyes when he had asked whether she was all right; but she believed she knew the answer, and her heart was singing as she went into the bathroom, finding that a piece of debris had cut her just beneath the chin. Hammond entered the room and dabbed at it with cotton wool. He insisted on dressing it, saying as he did so: ‘Yes, I expect a snatch, I think they’ll try to handle it that way.’ He smiled bleakly. ‘It would be clever, but then the whole plot’s damnably clever.’

  ‘Bruce,’ said Marion quietly, ‘stop dabbing at my chin and tell me what you mean. Stop talking in riddles and acting as if you had second sight.’

  ‘Second sight?’ he repeated. ‘Nonsense, my sweet, first was good enough. I made it clear to Crayshaw that I didn’t trust him, so clear that he knew he had to act quickly. He had a pre-arranged plan; I should have known that was likely. I think,’ he added musingly, ‘that I did. Put your head over a bit, I can’t see what I’m doing with this plaster.’

  ‘I don’t want——’

  ‘Hush, don’t interrupt! I might be on the verge of some amazing revelations, you never know.’ He finished putting on the sticking-plaster, and then said: ‘It was simple. A car was waiting at the back of the house. Crayshaw leaned against the mantel-shelf and at the same time pressed the button of the service bell. I knew something was coming then, and decided that we should beat it.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, fill in the gaps!’ pleaded Marion.

  ‘But that’s just what I’m doing,’ said Hammond in genuine surprise. ‘Crayshaw had the car waiting, with the H.E. stuff. The press on the bell told the old servant to pass a message to the driver of the car, which was driven off at once. Crayshaw would have slipped out of the room, as he did—I found him in a back room when I returned—and you and I would have been adorning the railings in pieces. Not nice, is it?’

  Marion sat down abruptly.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Of course,’ mused Hammond, ‘it was very clever indeed. You and I would be off the writing-list, and the whole show would have seemed like an attempt on his life. He must have thought of that well ahead of me, but I think I encouraged him to believe I’ve assumed he’s in danger, don’t you?’

  Marion said: ‘Ye—es. But you virtually told him he was a rogue.’

  ‘I let him know that I thought he was up to funny business, but that someone else was after him. Involved, perhaps,’ he added, ‘but I think he got it. The attack on us, of course, he had already planned; he wanted to appear the lucky man to escape assassination. Now he’ll let himself be kidnapped. I want the boys to stop him once, and then he can go.’

  Marion raised her hands.

  ‘Are you sane?’

  ‘Good Lord, no!’ exclaimed Hammond. ‘Did you ever think I was? Any nurse worthy of the name should have seen the symptoms by now.’ He paused, then went on: ‘Seriously, I think Crayshaw knows that his one way of escape and success is to disappear as if involuntarily. I want him stopped once, so that he’ll be really nervous about the Department. I’ve wanted him nervous, I’ve worked at his nerves for three days with just that one object in mind.’

  ‘It’s beginning to make sense,’ said Marion.

  ‘That’s something.’ His smile was boyish. ‘Well, what’s the next question?’

  ‘If you’re going to let him get himself kidnapped,’ said Marion, ‘how is it going to help?’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ said Hammond. ‘We’ll be watching and he’ll be followed. You see, Marion, if I hadn’t played on his nerves, if I hadn’t made him realise he was being closely watched, he could have slipped away somewhere in the country and directed operations from wherever he chose, by telephone, personal contact, half a dozen different ways. Now I’ve forced him to go somewhere where he can’t be easily traced. Accent on “easily”. The obvious place for him to go is——’ he paused, ‘the hideout or what-have-you from which the operations have been directed right through. The place, I hope, where Craigie is being kept.’

  Marion said: ‘Then everything depends on you following him successfully?’

  ‘Everything,’ agreed Hammond slowly.

  Marion looked at him evenly. ‘What do you think is behind it, Bruce?’

  Hammond hesitated. She felt a tremor of excitement at the very thought that he was going to tell her. He began to speak slowly: ‘I think the conference is the first essential factor, and the manoeuvres the other. I think that——’

  A sharp knock on the door interrupted him. ‘Go on,’ Marion urged. ‘Don’t answer for a moment. Bruce, please——’

  She broke off as another knock sounded, louder than the first. Hammond shrugged. ‘That perisher outside is in a hurry, isn’t he?’ He stepped to the door, opening it, standing back and smiling. ‘Hallo, old chap, what brings you?’

  Marion saw Loftus entering.

  She had wished him to perdition a moment before. Now the half-smile he sent towards her brought an answering one from her. She watched him walk laboriously across the room with the help of his stick, and sink with relief into an easy chair. She wondered whether he would want her to hear what he had to say, but it did not, apparently, cross his mind that she should go.

  ‘What’s the trouble with Crayshaw?’ he asked as soon as he was settled.

  Hammond smiled. ‘Trouble via the Prime Minister?’

  ‘Well,’ said Loftus, ‘trouble isn’t exactly the word, but he wants to know whether I’m quite sure that you know what you’re doing. He said he was quite aware that there are some things best kept to oneself, but in the circumstances he felt that some degree of confidence might be reposed in him.’ Loftus smiled crookedly. ‘As sarcasm it wasn’t even gentle, but it made itself felt.’

  ‘The upshot?’ asked Hammond quickly.

  ‘He wants a full report by mid-day tomorrow. He’s going to Dorset in the late afternoon and I’ve promised him he shall have the report on time.’ Hammond looked relieved.

  ‘Good man,’ he said. ‘He’s given us the extra time we need, Bill, just those few hours.’

  Loftus looked at him squarely. ‘Why don’t you loosen up?’ he asked.

  ‘It hasn’t worked itself out thoroughly yet,’ said Hammond, ‘but it’s coming. Bill, I think with a little luck and a lot of effort we could prove a case against Crayshaw. I think we could get the connecting link between him, Fryer, Esteven and the other bunch clear enough to detain him. If I were to tell the P.M. what it is, he would have to have Crayshaw detained for questioning. He positively couldn’t let a man in that position go free if he knew what we know.’

  ‘Go easy,’ said Loftus. ‘We’re not as sure as all that yet.’

  Hammond raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re not? Bill, the tommy-guns lif
ted from the Home Guard were passed through Crayshaw’s place; the Dr. Brice whose record proves he was constantly in touch with spies frequently met Crayshaw and others at Crayshaw’s house. Both these things are interesting factors, though not damning ones. But I’ll guarantee one thing. If we put Crayshaw and his daughter face to face for an hour, we would get information that would make Crayshaw’s detention imperative.’

  Loftus said: ‘I’ll have to take your word for it.’

  ‘You can,’ said Hammond. ‘But Bill, I may be wrong. I could pass on what I think to you, and you would probably act on it. If I’m wrong and you act on what I say, you’re going to get a hell of a packet. I’d rather keep the kicks for myself, if there are any coming. But we’re talking round the subject,’ he added more sharply.

  ‘Yes,’ said Loftus dryly. ‘Why not have Crayshaw hauled in, if you’re as sure as that?’

  ‘Precisely the point,’ said Hammond. ‘I don’t want him taken yet, I want the whole show to break, I want——’

  He stopped abruptly, interrupted by the shrill ringing of the telephone.

  Marion, who had believed that he was getting to the point where he would tell Loftus as well as herself what was in his mind, confounded this second interruption as she had confounded the first.

  Hammond answered the ‘phone, and she saw him stiffen.

  ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘Yes, he’s here too ... you’re sure ... good man, Mike, good man!’ He replaced the receiver, and swung round, his eyes shining. ‘Another step forward,’ he went on, his voice on a high key. ‘Crayshaw just left the house on foot, and an attempt was made to kidnap him in Piccadilly—my God, he’s getting desperate!’

  Loftus said dazedly: ‘Kidnap him!’

  Hammond gave a brief résumé of his conclusions, then went on: ‘The Errols baulked it, Crayshaw was full of thanks and gratitude, then took a taxi to his City office. The Errols are there, with Davidson and Carruthers. Bill, get to that ‘phone, send at least another six of the boys there. We mustn’t let him slip away without being followed.’