Carriers of Death (Department Z)

by John Creasey

Timothy Arran had done many things in that two minutes. He had told Heggson to telephone Scotland Yard and ask Superintendent Miller to get to the Middlesex Hospital as quickly as possible, and to explain that Toby was hurt. Heggson was then to telephone Bob Carruthers—a fair-headed, cheerful, occasionally naïve, but always willing young man—to come and take charge of the girl, and to make sure that no one but Carruthers or other well-known callers entered the flat.

  Timothy’s actions were automatic as he hurried to the garage and took out his Frazer Nash. He had worked so often with Toby that the thought of either of them dying seemed fantastic, although together they had been near it often enough. The one thought that filled his mind was that Toby was lying in hospital with two bullets close to his heart, and only hours to live. Two hours...

  His only hope was Chadwell: the most eminent surgeon of the day, the man who came closer to working miracles than anyone else. He’d told the hospital he wanted Chadwell—who was a friend enough of the Arrans to get there if he possibly could. But...

  Two hours to live...

  One of the reasons Gordon Craigie had never felt he could put the Arrans, singly or jointly, in charge of a job, was that they both lacked the little extra something that makes the born leader. They had admitted it often enough, themselves. Give them a man to tell them what to do—more important, what to avoid—and they were very nearly unbeatable: working entirely on their own, their limitations were revealed. None of Craigie’s best men would have been knocked so completely off-balance, whatever the excuse. Whereas Timothy certainly had been—and so went blindly to the garage and thence towards the Middlesex Hospital, never once even considering the possibility that as one effort to get him had failed, another would come.

  He was in a traffic jam in Fleet Street, cursing himself for not travelling by Underground, when the attempt came with devastating suddenness.

  For a moment, he had no idea where it had come from; he knew only that three bullets had pecked into the seat behind him—and that a sudden jerk of the Frazer Nash as he crept nearer the car in front had saved him from getting them through the head. Then he realised they had come from the top of a bus.

  Two men fought in Timothy Arran: the Department agent and the brother of Toby. The former wanted to investigate, the latter to get on, to see Toby—of whose two hours to live, twenty minutes had already gone. He looked upwards; the bullets might have come from any one of three buses; others might come at any moment...

  A sudden surge forward of the traffic forced him to release his brakes, to avoid being bumped from behind. A gap between two buses ahead of him was large enough to let him squeeze through, so he did—telling himself it was hopeless to try to find his man, anyway, as he raced onwards. He reached the hospital without further hold-up, and within minutes was standing at Toby’s bedside, staring down at him as if through a mist.

  Toby’s face was very pale, his eyes closed. His breathing was so faint that it seemed almost non-existent. Only the house-surgeon kept Timothy going at that moment.

  ‘Sir Keith Chadwell will be here in ten minutes,’ he encouraged. ‘And if anyone can pull him through, Sir Keith can.’

  ‘I see.’ Timothy’s voice was strained. ‘Has he been conscious at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When will he—?’

  The surgeon rested his hand on Timothy’s shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Arran, but I can promise you nothing. Rest assured that everything possible will be done. You’d better come with me, for the moment—the nurses will be moving him in a few minutes, anyhow. Come along, now.’

  If Timothy Arran had been told an hour before, that he would ever need talking to like a frightened child or a shock-stunned woman, he would have laughed the idea to scorn. Nonetheless, the house-surgeon handled him like that, as he led him to his office. A wise man, he found a neat whisky—and after it, Timothy managed to throw off that terrible depression: the helplessness that seemed too acute to be real.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Well, I suppose there’s nothing I can do but wait.’ He made an effort: ‘Where was he found?’

  ‘Somewhere in Bethnal Green, I think.’ The surgeon was too experienced to be rattled. ‘The policeman who came with him in the ambulance is still downstairs, I believe. There was a telephone call from Scotland Yard, telling him to wait.’

  Timothy’s eyes brightened for the first time.

  ‘So Miller’s coming! I’d like to see this chap downstairs, if I may?’

  ‘By all means,’ said the surgeon.

  The policeman was sitting somewhat unhappily on a bench in the out-patients’ waiting-room. He was a young man, and inexperienced enough to be startled by the order from Scotland Yard. When the little, good-looking man entered the room and made for him, he drew himself up in instinctive recognition of authority.

  ‘Just where did you find him?’ Arran demanded, his manner forcing the policeman to respond without even realising he was talking to a stranger who had offered no evidence of his identity.

  ‘In the arches, sir, up by the Lamb. A kid came ‘ollering for me. I never lost a minute—not a second, sir.’

  ‘See anyone about?’

  ‘Couple of men was with him, sir. I know them well—they wouldn’t have done it. They never saw no one...’

  Perhaps it was as well that Superintendent Horace Miller entered the waiting-room at that moment, and took charge. He was as large and as carefully-dressed as ever, and his sandy skin and moustache still looked as though they had been dusted with flour; no Miller was ever called Dusty with more justification.

  He was as stolid and dependable as he looked, too; his warm handshake seemed somehow to lend Timothy strength.

  ‘Very sorry to hear about this,’ Miller said.

  ‘It’s the devil,’ muttered Timothy.

  ‘They tell me Chadwell’s here,’ the Superintendent added, and was rewarded by the gleam in Timothy’s eyes, ‘Now—care to stay, while I ask a few questions?’

  The interrogation, although it yielded little, helped at least to take Tim’s mind off the thing that was happening upstairs. Alone he would have tortured himself with thoughts of the surgeon’s knife, so close to Toby’s heart as Chadwell tried to get the bullets and yet save Toby’s life.

  Miller asked two or three pertinent questions and quickly realised that five minutes would make no difference, one way or the other. The local men were at the scene of the crime, photographs were being taken and the usual formal investigations were already started. He could, he decided, afford to stay here with Tim Arran until the verdict came from upstairs: he proceeded to question the constable at greater length.

  Ten minutes later he and Tim knew what there was to know about the discovery of the wounded man. A barman on his way home after the mid-day opening had discovered the body—as he had thought—and sent an urchin scuttling for the nearest policeman. Two other men had arrived before the constable, and one had gone to telephone for an ambulance. No one had admitted to hearing the shot: no one remembered seeing anything unusual, or anyone strange to the neighbourhood. Miller conceded grimly that it was a neat job—a much tidier job than shooting a man and then trying to dispose of the body. As for motive...

  There was as much use worrying about motive where the Department was concerned as trying to keep the Press off a murder if once they scented it. Miller dismissed the constable, and turned to Timothy as the door closed.

  ‘Has Craigie been busy?’

  ‘Yes.’ Timothy explained the cable, and then snapped his fingers impatiently.

  ‘I forgot to tell you, Miller. They had a shot at me, too.’

  ‘You forgot it?’

  ‘Yes. Someone tried to run me down. God, but I wish Craigie was here!’

  ‘You’re not the only one,’ Miller said bleakly. ‘Who are you after? Anyone you know?’

  ‘A man named Marlin. Lives—or works—at eighty-eight Warritter Street. You might get busy there, Miller,’ Timothy was on his
toes; the possibility of making progress had cheered him more than anything else could have done; his mind was beginning to function properly again. Toby was at Warriter Street this afternoon, to watch Marlin. Probably he found something, and—oh, damn! What the devil’s the use of probably, probably, probably...’

  ‘Steady, old man,’ said Superintendent Miller.

  Arran stared at him for a moment, and then smiled, sheepishly, and without humour.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but I feel like nothing on earth. I wish to heaven the doctors would hurry up.’

  ‘They won’t be long.’ Miller glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes since the operation had started.

  ‘When’s Craigie due back?’

  ‘On the fourteenth. I...’

  The door opened and Timothy swung round like a jack-in-the-box. The smile on the house-surgeon’s face was not enough reassurance for him.

  ‘Well?’ he snapped.

  ‘Successful, we think,’ said the other. ‘Sir Keith’s waiting to see you, Mr. Arran.’

  Tim was out of the door in a flash, and the surgeon and Miller smiled at each other as they hurried after him.

  The specialist was still in his surgical gown as he greeted Timothy—and if he still could not guarantee the result, he was obviously hopeful.

  ‘We’ve got the bullets,’ he explained, ‘and with a little luck, he’ll pull through. No worrying him with questions if he recovers consciousness, though.’ The last words were for the benefit of Miller, whom Chadwell knew slightly. ‘He might be able to talk in forty-eight hours, but not before.’

  ‘I’ll have a man near him,’ Miller said. ‘But he won’t be worried, Sir Keith.’

  ‘There’ll be a hell of a lot of trouble if he is,’ snapped Timothy. ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘Yes—for a minute or two.’

  By the time Timothy returned from the private ward where Toby lay, he had recovered sufficiently to apologise to Miller for his earlier brusqueness, and to thank the surgeon gratefully. Then, satisfied that there was now more than a fifty-fifty chance, and assured that the hospital authorities would communicate with him every hour and as often as he cared to telephone, he left with Miller.

  ‘These arches, first?’ he asked, ‘Or Marlin?’

  ‘Marlin, I think.’ Miller spoke gruffly, shooting a quick glance at the small man. ‘But I’m not sure you ought to come, Arran.’

  Timothy grinned as he pressed the self-starter of the Frazer Nash. ‘Would you tell Craigie he couldn’t come? This is official, Horace, and don’t you forget it.’

  ‘I won’t. But listen, old man. If you really think this fellow Marlin is in it anywhere, it’s not wise for you to see him. You’ll be losing your temper...

  ‘Not me,’ said Tim with an assurance that revealed the depth of his faith in Sir Keith Chadwell’s skill. ‘No more arguing, Horace—or you can walk!’

  In the event, Timothy kept his temper admirably—much as he disliked Gregory Marlin, and instinctively certain as he was that the stockbroker knew something of the shooting. Neither he nor Miller, however, had forced even a hint out of the man, and they left his office convinced that they were up against a stiff job and a tough customer.

  On the face of it, so much was obvious. Within three hours of receiving the cable from Craigie, three attempts had been made on Arran lives, and each attempt had been unpleasantly close. Tim was prepared now for further trouble at any moment and he was relieved when he reached his flat to find Penelope safe and sound with Bob Carruthers.

  They both jumped up as he opened the door and both fired the single question:

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘I think he’ll pull through.’ Tim grinned lopsided reassurance as they eyed him closely: he had no idea how startled they were by his pallor and obvious weariness. ‘Chadwell’s managed to get the bullets out. Any trouble here, Bob?’

  ‘Not a sign.’ Carruthers smiled wryly: ‘Apart from Miss Smith.’

  Timothy raised a questioning eyebrow at Penelope. ‘Being awkward, eh?’

  ‘Obstreperous is the word,’ Carruthers corrected, cheerfully. ‘Wanted to come to the hospital, and was annoyed with me when I threatened forcible restraint.’ He shook his mane of blond hair in mock sorrow. ‘These women—oh, these women!’

  Heggson chose that moment to bring tea, and not even Carruthers could continue to paint Penelope Smith as obstreperous as she presided demurely over the large silver tray. And before tea was finished, she was introduced to two more young men; one a tall, languid and remarkably lazy gentleman by the name of Wally Davidson, and the other broader-shouldered but equally lofty, by the name of ‘Dodo’ Trale.

  ‘Dodo,’ Davidson explained, ‘because he ought to be dead.’

  Penelope marvelled at the cheerfulness of these men, Timothy included. There was clearly real trouble in the offing and clearly any or all of them might run into danger, just as the Arrans had done. Yet here they were, ragging each other with lazy good humour.

  ‘The thing is,’ Timothy said, serious now, ‘there’s just a chance that Penelope, through being with me, might meet trouble. Thank the Lord she’s going to Cannes! Bob, will you look after her until tomorrow—see her on to the boat?’

  Carruthers beamed.

  ‘Will I not!’

  ‘You will not,’ said Penelope, with equal emphasis. ‘It’s nonsense to say I’m in danger, and—’ she glanced at Timothy—‘You’re going to be busy, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m going to make someone else busy,’ Tim corrected grimly.

  ‘Well, you’re not going to waste time with me,’ Penelope told them all firmly. ‘If it will make you happier, Tim, I’ll stay at the Éclat until I leave to catch the train from Victoria.’

  Timothy hesitated a moment.

  ‘You mean it?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘All right, then’ he conceded, with something suspiciously like a sigh of relief. ‘I’ll let you go.’

  Miss Penelope Smith left the Arran flat twenty minutes later, convinced that she was thereby cutting herself off completely from something she would have given the world to have seen to the end. She did not dream that Dodo Trale was behind her, that he stayed at the Éclat in a room in the same corridor as her own, and that he followed her to the boat next morning and watched it out of sight.

  About the time she stepped on board, Timothy Arran and Superintendent Miller reached the Middlesex Hospital. Timothy was a different man, that morning. Toby, incredibly, was progressing well and would almost certainly pull through.

  It was a pale Toby who smiled wearily up at them when they reached the ward, and his voice was little above a whisper. A few minutes passed before Miller asked casually.

  ‘Remember anything, Toby?’

  Toby turned his head slowly to meet the Super’s gaze. His eyes were tired, but they held a gleam.

  ‘See Marlin,’ he said. ‘Another fellow—who shot me. About five-ten—very dark—red-faced. Bushy moustache. Was in a cab with Marlin.’

  Exhausted by the effort, he closed his eyes. The nurse stepped forward, frowning and shaking her head. Timothy pressed his brother’s hand for a moment, then followed Miller out. As the door closed, Miller’s eyes were shining.

  ‘That’s tied it on to Marlin,’ he rumbled. ‘Another talk with that gentleman won’t do us any harm, and the sooner the better. Coming?’

  They saw Gregory Marlin forty minutes later. Miller did not beat about the bush. He answered the suave and sardonic inquiries of the stockbroker with a question;

  ‘You were in a taxi with another man yesterday afternoon, Mr. Marlin. I’d like all the information you can give me about him, if you please.’

  Timothy Arran, holding a watching brief, saw Martin’s eyes narrow and sensed that he had had a shock; but there was no alteration in the even voice with its faintly guttural accent, nor any sudden colour in the odd, parchment-like skin.

  ‘And what man was this, Superintendent?’ Marlin
smiled, and Timothy saw his teeth for the first time; they were small and very sharp, almost as if they had been filed. ‘I was in several taxis with several men, yesterday.’

  ‘Can I have their names and addresses, Mr. Maria?’ Miller replied, politely and with deceptive calm. He waited, pencil poised.

  ‘My dear Superintendent, my clients...’

  Miller drew a deep breath; he could use the heavy hand when he chose, and long practice had taught him how to time the use of it.

  ‘Come, Mr. Marlin. I don’t want to be unpleasant, but this seems seriously like deliberate evasion. I’m making inquiries on a serious case and I want all the help you can give me. One of your clients...’ Miller pushed his head forward an inch as he went on... ‘probably shot Mr. Tobias Arran yesterday afternoon, and the consequences will probably be fatal. Mr. Arran was working for our Special Department, as I told you yesterday. The law is no thing to trifle with, as I am sure you know.’

  Marlin gave way so quickly that Timothy was suspicious, but for the rest of the interview the stockbroker appeared to offer all the help he could. He submitted a list of names and addresses of people with whom he had been on the previous afternoon, and wished the Superintendent every success. Miller, glancing down the list, did not like the look of it; there were several distinguished names and he needed no more telling that Marlin was a man of considerable reputation. But for Toby Arran’s muttered words, he would have told himself that suspicion of Marlin was not justified.

  He would have thought differently if he could have heard Marlin talking to Jacob Benson on the telephone twenty minutes later, but in all likelihood he would have smiled dourly and told Timothy that thieves always fall out. For Marlin did not mince words.

  ‘Miller’s after you,’ he snapped. ‘And he’s traced my connection with the shooting. My God, Benson, if you’ve let them get at me. I’ll smash you!’

  ‘They can’t get at you,’ retorted Benson. ‘If anyone’s got a grouch, it’s me. I...’

  ‘You started this,’ Marlin warned, ‘and you’ll finish it on your own. I’ve not given your name—yet.’

  There was a moment’s pause; Marlin was smiling unpleasantly: this was the kind of blackmail that gave him exquisite pleasure. Benson broke the silence at last.