by John Creasey
It did not.
He opened the door and stepped into the grounds.
Chapter Sixteen
The Irishman
It was not often that Detective-Sergeant Gill saw the Assistant Commissioner alone, and Gill stood somewhat in awe of Chatworth. Yet during the past few days, normality had gone by the board at Scotland Yard, and after reading a report with more than usual interest, Gill got up from his desk and was soon at Chatworth’s door, giving a tap which sounded peremptory because he was so nervous.
Chatworth looked surprised at the sight of him, but was affable enough.
‘Good morning, sergeant. What can I do for you?’
‘If you can spare me five minutes, sir.’
‘Yes. What’s it all about?’
Greatly encouraged, Gill approached the desk.
‘I’ve just read that an old lag named Dempster came out of prison a fortnight ago, sir. Inside for putting on the black. Suspected of working for Carosi, too. He was a footman at Sir Mortimer Grant’s house for a while. Do you remember him, sir?’
‘Vaguely,’ said Chatworth. ‘What’s he been doing?’
‘He’s the only man who ever had any dealings with Carosi whom we’ve been able to trace lately. I arranged for a special watch—there’s a chance that he’ll try to contact Carosi pretty soon. And he’s gone to Ireland—arrived there late last night on the last ’plane from Croydon. Batten, the man following him, managed to get on the same ’plane. Dempster hired a car in Dublin, and drove through the night to Killarney. Batten’s just telephoned from there, sir. He couldn’t follow by road, but managed to get a morning ’plane to the Shannon airport, and then went on by road. He had a word with the Civic Guards, who knew Dempster was in Killarney early this morning but don’t know where he went.’
‘Dempster got any relatives or association with Killarney?’ Chatworth demanded.
‘None that I can trace, sir,’ said Gill.
‘Hm,’ said Chatworth. ‘Very long shot to think he might have gone to Carosi, but you’re even more desperate to find him than I am. Bad thing about West. His wife—’ Chatworth broke off. ‘Well, we mustn’t miss a chance. Think Batten is lonely at Killarney by himself?’
‘I don’t think he ought to be left on his own,’ said Gill, ‘and I thought you would like to ask the co-operation of the Civic Guards—they’re very touchy over there.’
‘So would I be if they came here!’ said Chatworth. ‘I’ll speak to Dublin police right away. It’s a bit thin, but we don’t want Batten being chivvied across Eire.’
‘No, sir. There’s one other thing. Dempster was released on the same day as Willie the Squealer, who—’
‘Even I know Willie the Squealer,’ said Chatworth.
‘He and Dempster were in the same squad at Parkmoor,’ Gill explained. ‘You know how it is in stir, sir—they talk much more freely than they do outside. Dempster might have talked to Willie. So I thought if I tackled Willie—’
‘Let me know what he says,’ said Chatworth. ‘And what about Mrs West, Gill?’ He was very gruff. ‘Would it help if I went to see her again?’
‘She’d appreciate it, sir, and she’s taking it on the chin. Nothing will persuade her that Handsome—that Mr West is dead, sir.’
Divisional DO’s picked up Willie the Squealer in his single-room ‘apartment’ in a dark hovel near the Hundred Arches. Willie protested whiningly when he was taken to the Wapping Police Station. He was going straight. Why, he hadn’t lifted a finger since he’d come out.
He looked surprised to see the massive Gill, who stood in the charge-room at the Wapping Station, a very different man from the nervous sergeant at Scotland Yard.
The other detectives went out.
‘Now what’s this?’ demanded Willie edgily. ‘I haven’t done nothing and I ain’t got anything to say, you needn’t think I have.’
‘We’re not trying to pin anything on you, Willie, take it easy,’ said Gill. ‘Anything you say is for my ears alone—that’s why I sent the others out. I’m at the Yard now.’
‘You never deserved promotion,’ muttered Willie.
‘You don’t deserve this,’ said Gill, offering cigarettes, ‘and you ought still to be inside, but here you are, free as the air. Meet any nice boys in jug?’
Willie lit the cigarette.
‘There ain’t none,’ he declared.
‘Not even you, Willie? Some are worse than others, though. Hear anything about Carosi?’
Willie’s face twitched.
‘Oo?’
‘Carosi. Chap who was causing some trouble before you went in,’ said Gill casually.
‘Never ’eard of him!’
‘Haven’t you?’ asked Gill, softly. ‘Dempster had his knife into Carosi, didn’t he?’
‘What?’ screeched Willie. He jumped up, dropping the cigarette, tried to save it from falling, and burnt himself. ‘Dempster always said—now, listen,’ he added, bending down to retrieve the cigarette, and refusing to meet Gill’s eyes. ‘I don’t know nothing about Carosi. Forget it.’
‘Willie, you’re a poor liar,’ Gill said. ‘You were working at the same bench as Dempster. Carosi shopped him, and Dempster went to get his own back.’
‘It’s no use,’ declared Willie stubbornly. ‘I dunno a thing.’
‘Willie,’ murmured Gill, ‘there was a little bit of bag-snatching in Mile End Road three days ago. You were seen near the incident. And you’ve just come out, so you’re stranded. I don’t say j’ou did the job. That’s up to the court. But you’d have a job to prove you—’
‘You ruddy, lying copper!’ snarled Willie. ‘I wasn’t anywhere near, wouldn’t touch anyfink with a bargepole; you can’t pin it on me!’
‘What did Dempster say?’ asked Gill.
Willie drew a deep breath, and then capitulated.
‘S’matter o’ fact, ’e did ’ave it in for Carosi,’ he muttered. ‘Said ’e knew where to find ’im, an’ as soon as ’e could get enough ready together, ’e’d be arter ’im. But I told ’im ’e was a fool, ’e’d never get nowhere with Carosi.’
‘And you’d never heard of Carosi, hadn’t you?’ asked Gilt, with heavy sarcasm. ‘All right, Willie, scram.’
Gill was met at Rynnenna airport next day by a huge, red-faced Captain of the Civic Guard, who rejoiced in the name of Mulloon, a tremendous thirst, and a professed admiration for any and everything English, including the representatives of Scotland Yard. And he had a car – what a car! It was a huge glistening Chrysler, and roared along the poor road from Rynnenna to the south.
Mulloon told story after story of the villainies of the English. Whenever he spotted a ruin, he would stop the car and invite Gill to gaze upon it, and remark that it was the finest ruin in the whole of Kerry, and if it hadn’t been for the man Cromwell, now, it would still be a fine castle.
‘’Twould and all,’ said Mulloon. ‘The damage that man did, ye’d never believe.’
‘I didn’t know him,’ remarked Gill, blandly.
‘Och, it’s no use pretending ye wouldn’t do the same today if ye had the chance,’ said Mulloon, ‘but don’t mistake me, Sergeant, I like the English—och, yes, I like the English, they’re the finest creatures on God’s earth if ye forget the Irish. And the Americans. And maybe one or two others of the lesser races—come, man!’ He slapped Gill across the shoulders and started the car off again. ‘It’s only jokin’ that I am. A fine time I’ve had with your man Batten.’
They tore into Killarney.
It was market day, and the three main streets were still crowded with people and cattle. Soon they drew up outside the Great Southern Hotel, near the railway station. Mulloon jumped out as soon as the car stopped, and rested a hand’on Gill’s arm.
‘’Tis a fine hotel ye’re comin
g to, Sergeant, the finest in all Ireland!’
He led the way across a large hall and then to a gloomy staircase; next across a large hall into a large double room with twin beds, where big and burly Detective-Officer Batten was poring over a map spread out on a small table.
Batten jumped up.
‘Anything Dick?’ asked Gill.
‘Not much,’ said Batten. ‘I’ve marked a dozen big, private houses, but they all seem to belong to Americans!’
‘That needn’t worry us,’ said Gill. ‘Carosi would probably call himself an American. Any with dogs?’
‘Now, what would a man in a big house be doing if he hadn’t some dogs to keep him company. If it’s a greyhound ye want, I’ve a friend who has the fastest—’
‘Alsatians,’ said Batten.
‘I wouldn’t be trusting the brutes,’ said Mulloon.
‘Does anyone near by have a private aeroplane?’ asked Gill.
‘Well, now, if there aren’t three or four,’ said Mulloon. ‘’Tis a fine country for flying, they tell me, and only a step across the water to America itself. Alsatian dogs, now. And aeroplanes. And what else would ye be looking for? This Carosi man. If so, it’s the wrong place ye’ve come to, Sergeant; we wouldn’t have a wicked criminal like Carosi in a fine part of Ireland like this. Would we, now?’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Gill. ‘You had Cromwell.’
Mulloon’s big eyes rounded, his full lips parted with a hiss. There was a moment of utter stillness before he roared with laughter, slapped Gill boisterously on the back, and went off into another paroxysm.
When Mulloon recovered, he said weakly: ‘Sure and that’s the finest crack I’ve heard from an Englishman in all me nach’ral, Sergeant. It’s a smart man ye are, and ye’ll get everything from Pat Mulloon that he can give ye. Och, we had Cromwell!’ He went off into another paroxysm of laughter, while Batten watched him exasperatedly. ‘Now where are we?’ he demanded at last. ‘’Tis a man named Carosi with an aeroplane and Alsatian dogs ye’re looking for, and it’s the glamorous Inspector West who is alive if he isn’t dead.’
‘That’s right,’ said Gill, quietly.
‘Och, we can’t have men going about Ireland, with a famous English detective as a prisoner, it wouldn’t do at all. Pat Mulloon looks a bit of a fool, no doubt, but he knows what goes on in Killarney. It’s an idea I’m having. Ye wouldn’t be liking Michael O’Leary.’
Batten stirred restlessly.
‘No, that man Michael O’Leary had a great-great-grandfather whose great-great-grandfather owned a castle which became a Cromwell ruin, that’s the truth as I’m standing here,’ Mulloon declared. ‘And Michael O’Leary is the fine upstanding officer in charge at Kerry. A great one for talking, is Michael O’Leary, for all he’s a man with a remarkable keen sense of observation, and only a week ago he was talking to me. “Pat,” he said to me, “ye’ve heard me talk of the American millionaire who bought Kinara?” “Yes, Michael,” I said, and I didn’t remind him I’d seldom heard him talk of anything else; this American was a great man who bought Kinara five years ago, or would it be six? I’m trying to think of his name, now.’ Mulloon struck an attitude of deep concentration. ‘Och, that is it, Pyne!—Jacon C. Pyne, as ever was, and so rich you would never believe. He bought Kinara, the house and the grounds and the wood, and all, did ye ever see such woods? In a circle they are, surrounding the grounds of the house; och, they must stretch for miles. And the old Earl of Kinara had a great high wall built around it, and oak trees planted both sides of the wall; ’tis a lonely spot and haunted by the Devil himself, if ever there was such a place in all of Ireland. And Michael O’Leary was telling me that this Pyne has a private aeroplane, och, yes I And the grounds stretch down to the coast into the bargain. All manner of boats he had, from yawls to yachts and steam-launches and—were ye saying something, Sergeant Gill?’
‘No, no,’ said Gill, hastily. ‘You go on, Captain.’
‘There isn’t much more to tell ye,’ declared Mulloon. ‘Michael O’Leary never wearies of telling me how often the man Pyne goes up in his aeroplane; why, ’tis even suggested he has a pair of them. And ’tis said that the shopkeepers never go inside the grounds, they deliver everything at the lodge, and I have heard talk of big dogs.’
‘Dogs!’ cried Batten, unable to restrain himself. ‘Now, don’t get excited,’ cautioned Mulloon, ‘’tis well known that the Irish often exaggerate. But there’s another small thing, maybe it will help ye. By the strangest coincidence I spoke to O’Leary on the telephone early this morning. “Mike,” said I, “I’ve a fine, powerful Englishman from Scotland Yard taking the air at Killarney, who says he came after a man named Dempster who left Killarney early yesterday morning; a little dark-haired fellow, this Dempster. Did ye see the like of him near Kinara?” I asked, and would ye believe it, Mike O’Leary said to me: “There was talk of a dark-haired man who didn’t look like an Englishman and went towards Kinara yesterday morning, and climbed the great wall—and after that he wasn’t seen again.”’
Batten exclaimed: ‘We’ve got him!’
‘Now don’t get excited, me boys,’ cautioned Mulloon again. ‘’Tis an English habit to get excited when there’s no reason and to go to sleep when they’ve every cause to wake up. This Pyne isn’t your Carosi. According to the description in the newspapers, Carosi is a short, square kind of man, and Pyne is tall and thin. If ye take my advice, ye’ll consult O’Leary and make arrangements with him to visit Kinara, and if ye take my advice again,’ added Mulloon solemnly, ‘I’d telephone Scotland Yard and have Scotland Yard telephone Dublin and have Dublin telephone O’Leary, to tell him what to do, or he won’t do it. And if this Mr Pyne is giving sanctuary to your Carosi, it would take a small army to raid Kinara. I’d be very careful if I was you.’
A hundred eyes seemed to be watching Roger that night, but he reached the pitch-darkness of the nearest oak tree without an alarm being raised. He looked back. All he could see was the dark outline of the great pile – there was no crack of light anywhere.
He listened tensely for the sound of patrolling men, and the night seemed filled with the lurking shapes of wild dogs. They were loose by night, he knew, and were his greatest danger. And in this darkness he could go round and round. He must wait at least until dawn.
Unless …
A dog began to bark, not far away.
At him?
He walked on, every step an ordeal. The howling and barking stopped, but it seemed to Roger that above the sound of his own footsteps there was the padding of the paws of twenty straining beasts. The fringe of trees, with the moon behind, gave a deep shadow.
The dogs began again, and now he knew that it was not at him. Hope surged. He still went on, telling himself that the wall of the grounds could not be far away.
Then dogs began to howl behind him. He glanced round and saw the wolf-like shapes heading towards him in a pack, with two or three strung out in the lead.
Then he heard a sharp crack of sound, and a flash lit up the darkness ahead.
Roger saw a high wall, and a man sitting astride it, bright in another flash. Then a powerful light lit the whole of the grounds near here, dazzling Roger, dazzling the dogs. He blundered on, then heard a voice he had almost lost hope of ever hearing again: ‘This way, Roger!’ bellowed Gill. ‘This way.’
‘Now this is going to be a fight, me boyo,’ said Mulloon to O’Leary.
Mulloon and O’Leary were still astride the wall. Gill and several others had jumped down. A group of Carosi’s men was fleeing across the parkland, with as many Civic Guards in full cry after them, but the shooting was spasmodic.
Roger stood near the wall.
He had hardly grown used to the fact that Gill and Batten, with a strong company of Civic Guards, had been waiting to raid it when the dogs had started howling and the shooting had beg
un. And now the fighting near the wall was all but over. At least a dozen of Carosi’s men were dead or captured. Most of the dogs were dead; no live ones were in sight. Little groups of men were standing about and talking. There were still no lights in the house.
Gill’s hand rested on Roger’s arm.
‘Feeling all right, Roger?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Roger. ‘Gill, I’ll never be able—’
‘Well, now, if it isn’t the great Inspector West!’ boomed Mulloon, bustling forward from a group of men. ‘It’s a proud man I am to know ye, Inspector!’ He thrust out a great hand. ‘And it’s glad ye are to see me, ye needn’t be telling me, a fine hearty night it’s been. Meet me friend, Captain O’Leary of County Kerry; it’s O’Leary ye have to thank.’
‘Will ye keep your great voice quiet a minute, we cannot hear ourselves speak,’ said O’Leary. He shook hands vigorously. ‘’Tis a pleasure to meet Inspector West,’ he declared, ‘and a good night’s work, ye’ll be agreeing. Will ye come and help us raid the house itself?’
‘It can’t be soon enough,’ Roger said, ‘we should find all of Carosi’s records and—’
A sheet of flame lit up the grey night, and the great house was suddenly a blaze of light. There came the roaring boom of an explosion, then a blast which carried them off their feet.
As they recovered, a dull, red glow showed through a glassless window of the house.
As they ran, Roger realised that there was no hope of saving Kinara.
He heard aeroplanes taking off, and knew that Carosi had escaped.
And how he would hate, now.
Chapter Seventeen
Carosi Proposes
Julieta sat in a deck-chair on board the motor cruiser. On the bridge, the little Captain, Marco, looked down at the bows where Carosi stood, his hands clasped behind him like a pocket Hitler, surveying the empty waste of water. There was no other ship in sight; no land.
