by John Creasey
She was quite sure of one thing: she was glad of the way her life had changed. She saw now, that for a year or more her vision of things and people had been jaundiced, embittered; she had been close to becoming self-centred, self-pitying. All that was gone.
The Talbot sped relentlessly on through the darkness. Then suddenly the driver pulled off the main road into the car-park of an inn.
Hammond said flatly: ‘Well, here we are.’
They climbed out, Loftus slipping on the cobblestones of the inn yard, and uttering a mild curse which sounded very loud through the silence.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Hammond. ‘Let’s get on the roof and bellow out to all and sundry that we’ve arrived!’
‘For that,’ said Loftus darkly, ‘I’ll repay you, my son.’
As they moved on into the foyer of the inn, Marion stopped abruptly.
Hammond smiled at her.
‘Yes, we’re nearly all here,’ he said. ‘We’ve hired the place for the night.’
The bar, a large one, was crowded by men who for the most part were too tall for the oak beams and the low, whitewashed ceiling. She recognised the Errols, Carruthers and Davidson, several of those who had been at the Lamplighter, and at least a dozen others.
The din which greeted them subsided as if by magic as Hammond spoke, his voice casual and unemphatic.
‘Now chaps, you know your positions, but there are one or two other little odds and ends to keep in mind. We’re half a mile from Crayshaw Grange, and we’ll be within a couple of hundred yards of the house when we start in. Half a mile beyond you will see a cordon of police and Home Guard, but—’ he paused—‘the Home Guard won’t be in uniform; they’ll be wearing white armlets. The same applies to us, and to the police.’ He took a strip of white linen from his pocket and slipped it over his wrist; Marion saw the others doing the same, and was startled at the ease and yet the thoroughness of that plan against fifth-columnists.
Loftus was handing her an armlet, and she looked up at him with a smile. Her heart was beating quickly, her cheeks were flushed with excitement.
‘Nice work,’ said Hammond as the rustle of movement subsided. ‘The password is “Three Blind Mice”. Crown anyone who doesn’t know it, but don’t hit too hard; we’ll want them for interrogation afterwards. All right?’
Twenty-odd voices replied.
‘Good,’ said Hammond briskly. ‘Bill, the Errols and Davidson will be going straight to the house, and we’ll be there in half an hour. If we’re not out again in the same period, in you come, after sending word back to the police and Home Guard that you’re on the move.’
He finished, drained his tankard, and grinned cheerily about him.
‘Happy landings,’ he said. ‘And don’t get hurt.’
They went out in twos and threes, smiling and cheerful, men who might be on their way to a cricket match for all their expressions indicated. Just where they were going and what was likely to happen they did not know, but Marion could imagine that had they realised it was to face a panzer division, they would have been as light-hearted; she was getting to know these men.
The Errols, Davidson, Hammond and Loftus alone were left with Marion in the room.
‘What about me, Bruce?’
‘You’re coming with us, of course,’ said Hammond, as if surprised. ‘Unless you’d rather stay here?’
‘Good Lord, no!’ Marion spoke quickly, and yet she felt there was a reason which she could not understand. It did not seem part of the normal methods of Loftus and Hammond to take a woman into danger. She wished she knew the reason.
‘Of course she doesn’t want to stay behind,’ said Loftus. ‘What about another spot of beer before we go?’ He turned to the bar, while Hammond and the Errols followed suit. Their tankards emptied, they waited for Hammond to move towards the door. In two cars they left the inn, and in a few minutes they had turned into the drive of Crayshaw Grange.
In the Grange, Sir Noel Crayshaw sat in an upstairs room, while in a big downstairs one a man who looked remarkably like the Prime Minister was sitting with a brandy glass in one hand and a cheroot in the other.
He was the Foreign Office man, Fenn.
He knew that the crucial test was coming soon, when for the first time he was face to face with Crayshaw. He was so like the Prime Minister that at a casual glance he would have passed muster anywhere; but at close quarters and with electric lighting, he was by no means sure that he would succeed in bluffing Crayshaw.
Loftus had given him a full resumé of the situation, and he knew the danger, but had accepted it unhesitatingly.
He had been alone for some ten minutes when the door opened and Crayshaw came in. Fenn half-rose, but Crayshaw raised a hand and approached smilingly: ‘My dear Prime Minister, don’t get up, don’t get up!’
He shook hands, and Fenn felt the man’s eyes on him, saw the gleam in them, knew that Crayshaw was filled with an unholy excitement, one which he could not altogether conceal. Fenn held his breath, half-expecting a shrieking denouncement. Then Crayshaw went back to a chair and sat down, stretching his legs luxuriously.
‘I was delighted that you could come today instead of tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Really delighted.’
‘Ah,’ said Fenn, and cleared his throat. ‘Come for a special reason, y’know.’
‘Have you ever done anything without a motive?’ asked Crayshaw, playfully wagging a finger.
‘As a matter of fact, just before I left London,’ said Fenn confidentially, ‘I heard a rumour that you’d been found badly injured on the road. I ‘phoned through, to find out, and was profoundly relieved to learn it was false.’
‘Rumours, rumours,’ said Crayshaw ruefully. ‘Far too many of them. But they pass, my dear Prime Minister, they pass!’ He leaned forward. ‘But you look tired,’ he added anxiously. ‘D’you think you’d better have an early night?’
Fenn did indeed feel tired, although before he had sipped the brandy he had felt almost abnormally wide awake. He suspected the brandy, but knew that at all costs he must not allow his suspicions to be known.
‘Early bed?’ he muttered. ‘Ye—es, perhaps you’re right.’ He yawned, while Crayshaw watched tensely the heavy-lidded eyes closing for longer and longer periods.
Then Fenn slept.
Crayshaw stood up, an eager, satisfied, anticipatory violence in every gesture. He pressed a bell, openly triumphant.
‘I’ve got him, I’ve got him!’
He was at the door when it opened, and two men appeared, dressed as servants. Both were heavily built, both remarkably young for wartime civilian male employees.
‘Take him up to Craigie,’ Crayshaw said.
Three minutes later the door of Craigie’s room was opened. Craigie put his book down and looked across at the door. He saw Crayshaw enter, then another man carrying an inert body over his shoulder.
Craigie’s heart leapt.
He stood up abruptly, as Crayshaw said: ‘In spite of your men, Craigie, here he is, here he is.’
He rubbed his hand together, while Craigie watched the newcomer being dropped into an easy chair. Craigie’s face was stiff, every muscle in his body tense.
‘The Prime Minister!’ cried Crayshaw. ‘You thought it was impossible, but I’ve got him, I’ve got him. And now I can tell you more, Craigie. This was planned in the first place to coincide with the manoeuvres, to get you and Hershall away while the manoeuvres were taking place. We changed our plans.’
Craigie was staring at Fenn, his muscles relaxing.
‘You had to change them,’ he said sharply.
‘Never mind why! We changed them. I was always very careful to have a secondary means of escape, Craigie, and of course my interest in aeronautics and my influential position enabled me to keep a small private aeroplane here. Did you know that? I had it assembled officially as an experimental ‘plane, but it will be more than experimental tonight. The sensation over the flight of Rudolf Hess will be as nothing in comparison
with this—and I shall have contrived it, I shall have succeeded, no one in Berchtesgaden believed it possible.’
Craigie said: ‘Crayshaw, if you——’
‘Ah-ha, you are cracking!’ exclaimed Crayshaw. ‘You are beginning to realise what is happening, Craigie. So, you can know more, you can——’
He stopped abruptly.
A man had entered, breathing heavily, his shoes wet from treading on the dew-covered grass outside. Crayshaw swung round towards him.
‘Well, Hillier?’
The man Hillier stared at Fenn, then at Crayshaw, then back at Fenn.
‘There—there’s a car-load of people coming up the drive,’ he muttered. ‘Two cars—I think it’s Hammond and the others.’
Crayshaw snapped: ‘Hammond? Are you sure?’
‘I think it is, Boss, I couldn’t see all that well, but I think it is.’
‘I’ll come down,’ said Crayshaw. ‘Stay inside the room, and keep your gun in sight all the time. If Craigie tries anything, put him out.’
‘Okay,’ the man said.
Craigie watched the door close on Crayshaw, and then looked across at the unconscious man. He had recognised Fenn. His heart was racing with anticipation, it was clear that Crayshaw’s scheme had been anticipated.
What he did not know was that Graham Hershall was at that moment in the grounds.
Hammond saw the door open, and with his right hand closed about a gun within his pocket, stepped into the well-lighted hall. Marion, Loftus and the Errols followed him. Davidson was to stay by the porch, in case of unexpected emergency.
They were shown into the room where Fenn had been sitting so shortly before. His unfinished cognac was at a small table by the side of an easy chair, and from his cheroot smoke was curling upwards.
Marion said sotto voce: ‘I suppose this is the right way to go about it?’
‘Not a doubt, my sweet,’ said Loftus, ‘not a shadow of doubt.’ He, too, had his right hand in his pocket. The Errols strolled, as if aimlessly, to strategic parts of the room.
Footsteps sounded outside.
The door opened, and Crayshaw stepped through.
His expression was severe and more than a little portentous. He closed the door deliberately behind him, bowed to Marion and then said sharply:
‘Well, Hammond, what is it you want now?’
Hammond smiled easily.
‘You,’ he said.
Crayshaw snapped: ‘I have had enough of this idiocy! I had hoped that when I left London——’
Hammond interrupted quickly: ‘When you were taken from London, you mean? When you allowed it to appear that you had been kidnapped and brought here? When you even went to the extent of having a dead man, disguised to look like you, thrown out of the kidnappers’ car? How much longer do you think you can keep it up?’
Crayshaw stared at him for some seconds, and then very slowly smiled. The way in which his beard and moustache separated was fascinating. His red lips and white teeth were very bright against the dark hair.
‘Not very much longer, my friend,’ he said softly. ‘There is no need to maintain it much longer. But Hammond, how glad I am that you came. I thought the body thrown out near here would be a glittering bait you couldn’t resist. Loftus is with you, too. And Miss Caroll. A charming party, not to mention those two earnest young men, the Errols. All of you, Hammond, who share suspicion of my activities.’
Hammond said: ‘All except the Prime Minister.’
‘My dear fellow,’ said Crayshaw, ‘didn’t you know? A very good friend of mine, Graham Hershall. He is here now.’
Hammond stiffened.
Marion saw Loftus and the Errols stiffen also, and she realised that they wanted to make Crayshaw think that they were startled by that information. Dimly, too, she comprehended the reason she had been brought with them; or thought she did.
‘Quite a shock to you all, I see,’ said Crayshaw. ‘You really are nothing like as good as you think you are, Hammond, nothing like as good. I intended tonight to deal with all of you, if you did oblige me by coming. I have an aeroplane waiting, in which Hershall and Craigie will travel to the Continent, and on the Continent they will be well cared for, believe me.’
Hammond snapped: ‘You won’t get away with it!’
‘My dear fellow,’ crowed Crayshaw, ‘of course I shall get away with it. I have a number of forceful young men here. Until you arrived they were in the cellars, but now they are spreading about the house, some of them even going outside, to make quite sure that you don’t get away.’
He paused, and the door opened.
Hammond remembered from Audeley Street how well Crayshaw’s pauses were judged, and he was not surprised to see the man who entered was carrying a tommy-gun at the ready.
Marion’s teeth clamped together.
‘I don’t want to be violent,’ murmured Crayshaw, but I do want to make sure that you all realise the impossibility of escape. A pity really—for you, I mean—that you interfered!’
Hammond said harshly: ‘We haven’t stopped interfering yet.’
‘You have very nearly done so,’ Crayshaw assured him. ‘One burst from the machine gun will silence all of you for ever. If I were you, gentlemen, I should take your hands from your pockets and drop your guns.’
Hammond said: ‘All in good time. Did you know that the house was surrounded, that the grounds were packed with police and Home Guard as well as my men? Or did you think that the body from the car really deceived us?’
Crayshaw halted in the middle of a step, and stared towards him. Marion knew that Hammond and the others had stopped bluffing; they had got what they wanted, but she could not understand just what it was.
Crayshaw shouted: ‘That is a lie!’
‘No, no,’ said Hammond testily. ‘We haven’t time to spend in lying. When you “died”, Crayshaw, you expected us to come here, of course. You knew we would want to look round, but you thought that being convinced that you were dead we would take no particular precautions. Instead, we took a lot. We didn’t believe you were dead, my dear chap.’
Crayshaw drew a deep breath, half-turned towards the man with the tommy-gun, who was staring towards him. Mike Errol took an automatic from his pocket so slowly and nonchalantly that he might have been drawing out a cigarette-case. The moment was so perfectly chosen that neither Crayshaw nor his henchman knew what was happening until the sneeze of the silenced automatic sighed through the room. The bullet took the man holding the tommy-gun in the shoulder. He spun sideways, and Mark Errol, nearer than Mike, moved towards him with such speed that he had the tommy-gun before it reached the floor.
‘Surprise and effect,’ murmured Hammond. ‘Crayshaw, you have the unmistakable defects of your race. Excellent planners all, but so lacking in imagination. I’m almost disappointed in you.’
Crayshaw shouted: ‘You are mad, you are crazy! Everyone knows that Sir Noel Crayshaw is an Englishman!’ He was completely unprepared for failure, so sure, so very sure that everything would work out as he had planned.
Hammond said amusedly: ‘Oh yes, everyone knows that. But then, you see, you’re not Sir Noel Crayshaw.’
22
The Truth about Crayshaw
Only Marion made an exclamation of astonishment.
‘You—you are mad!’ The voice rose upwards. ‘I am Crayshaw, I am——’
Hammond said wearily, ‘Oh, don’t be a fool. You think Hershall is here. You’re supposed to be a lifelong friend of Hershall’s but you don’t recognise an understudy when you see one.’
Crayshaw gasped: ‘What? What is that?’
‘I think you heard,’ said Hammond. ‘Lord, the mistakes you’ve made in this show! But I’ve suspected the truth about you for a long time, from the moment you acted differently from the way Hilary expected. You didn’t think of that, did you? You knew the story of the cross, you even arranged for her to lose it so that it would explain her “suicide” at my flat. Your first mistake was to s
tage it there and not in Ferdinand’s. You thought you would confuse the issue, you thought you would draw the fire to Ferdinand and Fryer, that you would be all right yourself. That was mistake number two. I suspected the calm way you received Hilary, when she expected you to be so ramping mad she was almost afraid of her life. Do you follow the error in psychology, Crayshaw, the typical German error?’
‘Crayshaw’ licked his lips.
‘By making another attempt on Hilary’s life you told me one thing quite clearly. You didn’t want Hilary to see you again. It took me about five minutes to find a reason: because she would recognise you. Ferdinand was killed because he was in love with Hilary, and because he too could give you away.
‘You kidnapped the real Crayshaw,’ Hammond went on, ‘and took his place. Officially you were immersed in business, actually you were keeping out of the limelight. You had your three colleagues—the only men, excepting Hershall, who knew you really well—murdered, and Hershall himself you avoided, getting in touch with him only through the telephone. You planned to get the conference staged here, which is why Cavendish’s place was burned down, and you hoped with the help of your own Home Guard unit to get Hershall and perhaps several others safely away. But once we had the letter, you knew that we would be warned about the twenty-first, which is tomorrow, so you changed the day. I asked the Prime Minister to alter nothing, solely to keep you confused, and you swallowed the bait whole, assuming that no one—except perhaps me—had any idea what you were planning.’
‘Crayshaw’ was breathing so hard that he appeared to be struggling for breath, as Hammond continued: ‘There was just the possibility that I was wrong, and so we arranged to have Fenn sent, instead of Hershall. Then we followed up, and you said your little piece. It was easy, wasn’t it? He paused for a moment, and then went on more quickly: ‘It was clever, too, up to a point, even the killing of the real Crayshaw, whose body was thrown out of the car this evening. You thought that once Hershall and Craigie had gone out of the country, you could continue to impersonate Crayshaw, even to the point of attending the conference, which would have to be held eventually. You could then get information of vast importance and pass it on. There was little chance of detection, for Crayshaw’s circle of intimate friends numbered only three, and these you had killed.’
