Liquid Death And Other Stories

by John Russell Fearn

  "Have your men do what they can to examine this house before it all caves in. There must be traces of the counterfeiting apparatus somewhere. Then get us to your car, and give me your phone."

  "Right!" Thompson turned and save his orders. By the time he had done so, the fire engine was sweeping up the driveway.

  "Look after them, Mason," Thompson ordered, and then quickly led the way to the nearby squad car. Harriday and Gwenda tumbled into the back whilst Thompson took up his position beside the driver.

  As they moved off, Harriday wasted no time in getting through to Whitehall—and Dawson. In silence the Chief-Inspector listened to the story Harriday had to tell.

  "I just can't understand it," Harriday finished in perplexity. "I can concede that you appointed Ensdale to supervise things here for you, but I can't fathom why he gave an order which led all our men off trail, and nearly cost Gwenda and me our lives."

  "Time you tumbled to the truth, Bob—as I did some time ago," Dawson replied briefly. "I never gave Ensdale any sanction to act on my behalf. I've quite sufficient faith in you. What you have told me simply confirms what I have suspected for a long time. Namely, that Ensdale and the Chief of the counterfeit racket are one and the same person."

  "What? That's stretching things too far, sir…"

  "Not at all. Why did Ensdale persistently claim that all the snake-bites were genuine? Why did Maudie Vincent die so suddenly after Ensdale had called to see her—and probably slipped her something that finished her? Why did he insist on being present at our final conference to see how things were going, as he put it? Lastly, he's one of the cleverest physicists we've got. There's a host of reasons why it must be he, Bob, and I rather expected he'd betray himself tonight, which is one reason why I kept out of the picture. Anyhow, I can't explain more now. I'm acting immediately to have him arrested. He'll probably be at his home, satisfied that he has rid himself of all danger. See you later."

  With that, Dawson rang off, and looked at Gwenda.

  "Well?" she asked quickly, as she settled herself beside him. "What did the Inspector say?"

  "Plenty—but the main thing is that he's going after Ensdale. He's the man we've been looking for all this time!"

  "Mr. Ensdale?" Thompson repeated, turning sharply in his seat. "But surely that's wrong? He's…"

  "Dawson's satisfied, Thompson, so there's nothing I can say. Look, Gwenda; have you ever seen Mr. Ensdale yourself?"

  "No."

  "Then—what did the Chief look like when he burst in upon you tonight?"

  "Oh—middle-aged. Hair going a bit gray. Spare build. Very piercing gray eyes. Quiet way of talking, but very purposeful. Oh, yes—he had a little imperial."

  Harriday smiled wryly. "Ensdale to the life—except for the beard. Presumably he wears that as a slight disguise. I assume he had no beard when he spoke to you and the boys, Thompson?"

  "No, sir."

  "No wonder he knew so much," Harriday mused. "However, maybe we'll learn more at the Yard. Carry on, Thompson, and let's see what's happened. I have the feeling that maybe 'Mopes' McCall will settle everything for us. He'll be the last person Ensdale will expect to see."

  "And 'Mopes' won't even have to search for him," Gwenda put in. "You probably heard him say, over the mike, that he knows the Chief's real identity?"

  Harriday nodded and relapsed into moody silence as the car got under way again—and, at about this time, another car, driven by 'Mopes', the one he usually used, was drawing up at the corner of Endersby Place in Central London. Some distance along Endersby Place was the Georgian-style home of Boyd Ensdale, as the ex-convict very well knew.

  Alighting from the car, 'Mopes' locked it and then moved with purposeful strides down the street, pausing when he came opposite to number seventeen. It lay on the opposite side of the street so, well out of range of the nearest street lamp, 'Mopes' pondered the house carefully. It was solid, as became its period, and was one of a row.There was light behind the curtains of the downstairs room and the front door came flush with the street.

  'Mopes' eyes rose to the upper rooms. No lights came from there, but there was a network of solidly built drainpipes, with the main drainpipe connected between numbers seventeen and nineteen.

  "Easy," he muttered, "'specially at this time of night."

  He glanced once more up and down the street, noted that it was deserted, and then sped swiftly across it. Shinning up a drainpipe, especially such an easy one, was no task to 'Mopes' and, in thirty seconds, he had reached the bedroom window. The old-fashioned catch responded instantly to his penknife and, hardly making a sound, he slid into the room and closed the window softly.

  His training as a housebreaker led him to keep quiet for several seconds, 'smelling' things out, as he called it, and accustoming his eyes to the gloom. By degrees, he made out the room's detail in the reflected glow from the lamp further down the street. There was the bed, the usual furniture—and that was that.

  "No antidote likely to be 'ere," he told himself. "On your way, feller!"

  He drifted to the door, opened it, and peered out into the passageway. Everything quiet and dark. He passed along it, crept down the stairs, and finally paused at the door under which there lay a bar of light—the room he had seen from the street. Listening outside it, he heard the rustle of paper now and again, and a slight cough.

  Finally, he looked through the keyhole, and could see part of an armchair, a glowing fire, and the lower half of a man's profile. There was no doubt that it was Boyd Ensdale, minus his torpedo beard, and also minus the white surgical coat that he had been wearing earlier.

  "So you sit there and read, calm as you like, after tryin' to kill me, huh?" 'Mopes' whispered, straightening again. "You're in for one helluva shock, believe me!"

  Satisfied that his victim was alone and just 'asking for it', 'Mopes' prowled again until he came to the door that led to the cellar, a region inseparable from the house architecture. Below there might be that which he sought.

  He crept down into the darkness, taking care to shut the upper door behind him. For light he used what few matches he had with him and presently discovered he was in a cellar that had been converted into a scientific laboratory.

  "Just as I'd 'oped," 'Mopes' murmured and, using up his precious matches, he began a search of the shelves, peering at the neatly labeled bottles. He was commencing to fear he would never find that which he was seeking when a bottle apart from the others, quarter full of a transparent liquid, caught his eye. The label said: 'Anti-Ser-Rat', which, to 'Mopes' ponderous brain finally suggested 'Antidote-Serum-Rattlesnake', or something like it.

  "Chance it, anyway," he murmured and, taking the bottle from the shelf, he poured its contents down the sink and re-filled it with water. Replacing the bottle in the exact spot, he crept silently back up the stairs and re-opened the door into the hall.

  To his horror, the full-bodied glare of a torch struck him in the eyes and, from behind it, came a faint gasp of surprise. Instinctively, he slammed the door shut again and flung himself down the steps as a gun exploded in the hall, whanging a bullet clean through the door panel.

  'Mopes' reached the cellar floor and half fell over. He had a pretty good mental impression of his surroundings, and quickly fled to one of the far corners, behind the staircase. Here he worked rapidly in the darkness, bringing out his double blowpipe and loading it from the capsule. It was no easy job in the dark, but long practice with the fiendish darts had made him a past-master.

  Then the lights came on full blaze and there were cautious footsteps on the stone steps. 'Mopes' still waited and, at length, the voice of the Chief reached him:

  "No use your skulking down there, 'Mopes'. From upstairs I can operate a switch that will fill this basement with chlorine gas and choke the life out of you. Before I do that, though, be kind enough to enlighten me as to how you come to be here. I fully believed I'd finished with you."

  'Mopes' did not answer. He was watching and listening
keenly, his blowpipe ready for action.

  "A pity you won't explain it," the Chief said in regret. "I have to think I miscalculated. However, since you won't talk to me, I may as well talk to you—perhaps cheer you on your way to the Eternity to which you are certainly going. This evening, whilst engaged with the delectable Gwenda Blane, you probably found your emotions were out of hand, that you were even more bestial than usual. In case your dumb brain has been puzzled by that, I should explain that I prepared a special drug to create just that effect on your nerve-centers, and I'm sure the resourceful Miss Blane would find a means somehow to add the drug to your drink."

  'Mopes' eyes narrowed as he remembered the incident of the girl's fallen glass. Less clearly, he recalled his own queer feelings and the subhuman promptings that had assailed him.

  "I flatter myself I calculated everything very nicely," the Chief continued. "I reasoned you would go berserk, that Sergeant Harriday would break in to the rescue of the lady, and that you probably would get yourself arrested. Things did not happen quite that way—but at least I achieved my main object, which was to have you so out of hand that you would not tell that girl anything. I hope you didn't become sentimental and save them from the fire which I started?"

  "No, I…" 'Mopes' checked himself, annoyed that he had broken his silence, but it was too late now. He heard the feet coming lower down the steps. He stood crouching and waited, blowpipe ready.

  "Incidentally, 'Mopes'," the voice added, "you ought to have more sense than enter the home of a scientist, and imagine you are safe. I have quite a few photoelectric cells scattered around to protect myself against intruders, an essential precaution to a man of my—er—unorthodox pursuits. Several times the warning light flashed in my drawing room, so there is no mystery about my knowing you were present—or at least, that somebody was…"

  The voice stopped suddenly and, in an opposite corner of the basement, something clattered noisily. The gangster swung towards it, his heart pumping and, in a matter of seconds, he saw it was a golden cigarette case, which had been thrown to distract his attention. He grasped all this in split seconds, but in those split seconds lay a fatal gap. Boyd Ensdale jumped the remainder of the steps, swung his gun, and fired. Once—twice—three times.

  'Mopes' twitched and gasped as the bullets bit into him. He fell on his face, the still loaded blow-pipe in his hand underneath him. He could still think in a hazy kind of way, but his body would hardly respond. It was clamped in the steel vice of an ever-increasing pain.

  "No mistake this time, my friend," Ensdale said in cold tones. "And floric acid can very soon take care of your complete elimination. I only wish I knew when Harriday and Gwenda Blanc died—or if they did. They can make things somewhat difficult for me if they have the chance to speak to Thompson and his group of dolts…"

  By this time, Ensdale was half talking to himself. He took a final look at the motionless 'Mopes as he finished speaking, and then turned away towards a guttapercha carboy which evidently contained the floric acid he had spoken of.

  'Mopes' was subconsciously aware of the movements, of the scrape of feet on the floor, and it penetrated his dying brain that he had left his scheme of revenge unfinished—which gave him just the necessary urge to finish the job.

  With a stupendous effort, he raised himself on one elbow and fixed Ensdale's back with malignant eyes. Shakily, he put the blowpipe to his lips and, with deliberation and literally his last breath, blew the darts. Then he was dead, the blowpipe clattering from his hand.

  Ensdale turned, clutching the back of his neck as he felt the vicious sting of the poisoned icicles. He wrenched them out and stamped on them, stared at 'Mopes', then again brought out his gun and fired twice into the corpse. This done, he turned swiftly, took the snake-bite antidote from the shelf and filled a hypodermic syringe as quickly as possible.

  The syringe loaded, he whipped off his jacket and rolled up his shirt-sleeve…

  "Stand right where you are, Mr. Ensdale!"

  He looked up with a start. So preoccupied had he been in his own physical danger, he had not thought of, nor heard, anything else. Now he beheld the grim-faced Chief-Inspector Dawson on the steps and, behind him, were three constables. But none of them appeared to be armed—a fact which made Ensdale smile rather bitterly. He hesitated for a second, deciding whether to use his gun or not; then his natural coolness came to his rescue.

  "Well, gentlemen—I'm standing. What's the matter?" Dawson finished the journey from the steps and came across, as Ensdale slowly lowered his shirt-sleeve again.

  "Not much use my wasting time, Ensdale," Dawson said. "You're under arrest. I'll complete the formalities at the station. Meantime, it's my duty to warn you…"

  "Don't recite that rubbish to me, Dawson." Ensdale adjusted his cuff-link. "For what am I under arrest? What's the charge?"

  "Murder, attempted murder, counterfeiting, and arson." Dawson gave a dry smile. "Practically everything in the book, I'd say."

  Ensdale leaned casually against the bench, trying not to show in his expression the pain he was commencing to experience as the snake venom bit through the bloodstream.

  "You know, Dawson, I've always had quite a respect for your abilities, but I'm becoming discouraged. When you creep into my house and indict me as a common criminal, you're laying yourself open to plenty of trouble. I'm sure the Assistant Commissioner won't approve what I tell him."

  "You can stop bluffing," Dawson said briefly; then, reaching forward suddenly, he removed the bulge from Ensdale's right-hand pocket and handed it to the constable behind him. Ensdale watched, and his eyes were straying to the dead 'Mopes' in the corner.

  Dawson saw the movement and strolled over to the corpse. He examined it briefly; then, pulling on his gloves, he carefully took up the blowpipe and dropped it into the cellophane envelope that he withdrew from his pocket.

  "Your very active snake, I assume?" he asked, coming back to where the scientist was half crouched by the bench, biting his underlip to keep control of himself.

  "Stop—stop jumping to conclusions," Ensdale said. "You can never do anything to me, or anybody else without absolute proof—and that you haven't got! You can find a man over a corpse, the knife still gripped from the fatal blow: but if you haven't seen the fatal blow, and got witnesses to prove it, you're lost. Or do I need to remind you of that loophole in English law, known as 'the reasonable doubt'?"

  "You always did know how to talk, Ensdale," Dawson said curtly, "but on this occasion I've no time to waste. Take him away, boys, and one of you phone for an ambulance to remove our lamented friend on the floor there…"

  The constables began moving—and so did Ensdale. He turned abruptly and, from the shelf over the bench behind him, snatched down a phial of what appeared to be glycerine. With it upraised in his hand, he faced Dawson again.

  "No you don't, Dawson!" he snapped. "I'll not be ordered about by you, your confounded men, or anybody else! Lay a hand on me, and I'll drop this—and that will be the finish for the lot of us. It's mercury fulminate, in case you're wondering, and there's enough here to blow this house and its immediate neighbors to Hades."

  Dawson tightened his lips, signaling the constables to make no further move. For a moment or two there was silence, and Dawson was the first to break it.

  "You know as well as I do that you can't keep this up indefinitely, Ensdale! Put that damned stuff down and behave with some sense!"

  Ensdale winced as a spasm shot through him. His face went a sickly shade of gray.

  "Stop giving me orders, Dawson! I'm the one who can afford to do that at the moment, and I'm telling you to get off my premises, and take your men with you. I'll give you half a minute, and if you don't, I'm going to drop this bottle. I'd prefer we all get blown to bits than that you should nail me."

  "Which is as good as admitting that my accusations against you are correct?"

  Ensdale did not answer. He bent slightly under the tightening anguish of the snake v
enom. Dawson moved forward slowly until he had reached the bench.

  "What's the matter with you?" he demanded. "You feeling ill?"

  "Mind your own business!" Ensdale straightened up again, his upraised hand quivering dangerously.

  "I'll make one guess," Dawson said, abruptly snatching up something from the bench. "You're hoping to use this!"

  Ensdale breathed hard as he looked at the hypodermic, ready filled for use, in Dawson's hand.

  "Give that to me," he whispered. "I'm going to drop this bottle if you don't!"

  Dawson took a step or two back, shaking his head. "I don't think you will, Ensdale. You love life as much as anybody else, and you'll not kill yourself as long as you can overcome that snake-bite venom. That's obviously what's wrong with you. The blow-pipe on the floor beside 'Mopes'; you with your shirt-sleeve up as we came in; this hypo, ready filled…"

  "Give—it—to—me!"

  "I'll give it to you on two conditions. One of them is that you give me that mercury fulminate, and the other is that you admit the facts I have already outlined. We can save a lot of time that way, and I have my witnesses right here."

  "That's damned unethical, Dawson—and you know it full well! No policeman can enforce a confession under duress."

  "Technically, no—but I'm entitled to use any means I consider advisable to get at the truth—and that's what I mean to do."

  Ensdale glowered, perspiration commencing to trickle down his face. Then, after a few seconds, he handed over the mercury fulminate, which Dawson promptly gave gingerly to the care of the officer nearest him.

  "Well?" Dawson raised an eyebrow. "You are the man we're looking for, aren't you?"

  "Yes." Ensdale did not make any attempt at denial this time. "And I'd have got away with it, maybe for years, if that bonehead 'Mopes' hadn't gummed things up…"

  "Your statements about the snake-bites were necessarily false, because you wanted to safeguard yourself?"

  "Naturally. You'd have done the same."

  "I'm not concerned with what I'd have done. I'm concerned with the fact that you never proved the presence of saliva, the one thing which would have proved the claim of genuine snake-bite. I was also struck by the surprising coincidence of Maudie Vincent having a relapse after you called to see her at the hospital. Obviously, you fixed that relapse very neatly."