by John Creasey
‘Tell me,’ he began, in that curiously gentle voice he could adopt. ‘You’ve no idea of anyone with a grudge against Mr. Potter?’
‘None at all. I can’t understand it, I just can’t.’
‘So,’ said Kerr. ‘But there’s an explanation somewhere and of course we’ve got to find it. You don’t think the motive was robbery do you? I mean, Mr. Potter had not a great deal of extra money in the house to-day?’
‘No—I’m positive he hadn’t.’ Mrs. Trentham smiled wanly, but Kerr noticed she tucked a wisp of hair into the thick braid about her head—a sign that she was beginning to think of her appearance again. ‘He hasn’t been well for the last few days and I’ve been to the bank for him. I usually go, so that’s not very different, in any case.’
‘He’s not been laid up, has he?’
‘Oh, no. Just out of sorts. After all he was sixty-five and more, and he’s always worked hard.’
Kerr nodded. ‘Was he off-colour before Miss Smith left here?’
He hardly knew whether to be pleased or sorry when she answered:
‘No. He was well enough, then.’
She looked curious, and Kerr could understand it.
‘I happen to know Mr. Arran,’ he explained. ‘I believe Mr. Potter wrote to him about Miss Smith?’
‘That’s right,’ said Mrs. Trentham. ‘I typed the letter.’
‘I see.’ Kerr smiled grimly to himself; that would cheer Timothy Arran, even if it burst the bubble of a plausible enough theory. ‘Now—Mr. Potter hasn’t seemed worried, lately?’
‘Certainly not. I’ve noticed nothing different at all. Except...’
She broke off suddenly, and Kerr said quietly:
‘It doesn’t matter if the thing seems irrelevant, Mrs. Trentham. We’ll have to go over a lot of useless details before we learn the truth.’
‘Of course.’ She flashed a smile that was wholly artificial. ‘I was going to say he quarrelled with an old friend about ten days ago, but it was purely a personal matter...’
‘Not on business?’
‘Not as far as I know. It was with a Mr. Mayhew, an old friend, as I said.’
‘And Mr. Mayhew’s address is?’ asked Kerr.
‘He’s—he’s now living at a Manchester hotel, I think. He was a fortnight ago, anyhow, because I posted a letter addressed to him. Mr. Potter wrote most of his private letters himself.’
‘I see,’ said Kerr. ‘You didn’t notice the name of the hotel?’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t. In any case, I think May—Mr. Mayhew’s gone abroad. I did hear some mention of it. He’s interested in cotton production—he was going to Egypt, if I remember rightly.’
‘I see,’ Kerr repeated, and frowned. This Mayhew lived in an unknown hotel and was believed to be on the way to Egypt—or anywhere that cotton was grown. It was hardly helpful, and he went on more brusquely:
‘Now, do you know of any other callers lately?’
‘Well—Mr. Potter had a great many, particularly those days when he didn’t go to the office.’
‘Any strangers?’
‘None to my knowledge. Of course, he occasionally opened the door himself.’
‘Why?’
Kerr’s abruptness seemed to disconcert her.
‘I—I don’t know. There were some callers, he preferred to admit to the house. I can’t give you their names, I’m afraid.’
‘Can’t—or won’t?’ wondered Kerr. Aloud, he asked:
‘Did they come by appointment, do you know?’
‘They must have done. I was always asked to keep to my room for an hour when—when anyone was coming. I heard men talking to Mr. Potter, and I heard him let them in and show them out. But he was particularly anxious no-one else should be present, and I had to do just what he wanted, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Kerr echoed politely. This was discovery, with a vengeance.
‘You’ve no idea what business they came on?’
‘No—not the slightest idea.’
‘I see.’ Bob Kerr rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
‘Well, Mrs. Trentham, I’d like you to let me have a list of all the people who have called, to your knowledge—and please, the names and addresses of anyone he’s corresponded with. You can get that?’
‘Most of it,’ she nodded. ‘Although as I’ve said, he did write some letters himself, without keeping copies.’
‘Do the best you can,’ Kerr urged, and opened the door. ‘Thank you, Mrs. Trentham.’
The next hour passed slowly. With Inspector Moor, he questioned all the servants, and the story of the mystery callers was repeated over again. From time to time, the servants would all be required to remain in their own quarters for specified periods, while the master’s visitors came and went. It was distinctly odd, and Kerr told himself it meant one of two things. Either Potter had been blackmailed, or he was working on some project in which he was particularly anxious his colleagues should not be recognised.
Kerr and Moor did their best to get some sort of timetable of the various calls, but it was useless. Sometimes it would happen once a week; sometimes daily. Three weeks before, the calls had been more frequent than usual, but no reliable dates were forthcoming. Oakwood, the butler, confirmed the quarrel between his late employer and the man Mayhew, but knew no more about the man than Mrs. Trentham. He was a cotton broker of some kind, Oakwood believed, who travelled a great deal.
‘He’s travelled a great deal too far for my liking, this time,’ Kerr told Moor. ‘Well, I’ll leave it to you. A Superintendent Miller will be along before too long, and one or two others. I wonder if I could find something to eat?’
Moor said that he too would be grateful for a sandwich, and Oakwood provided an excellent impromptu snack. But as he ate, Kerr had an uncomfortable feeling that he should be somewhere else. Searching for the man Mayhew, for instance, he suddenly realised.
‘Dammit!’ he choked, from the midst of a sandwich. ‘Sorry, Moor. But—do you know the Manchester police?’
‘Yes—very well.’ Moor, a burly Northcountryman, looked a query.
‘Can you get them to find out what hotel a man named Mayhew was staying at, ten days ago?’
‘There’d be more than one Mayhew.’ Moor smiled stolidly. ‘But they’ll get them all for you.’ He went at once to the telephone in the study—the only instrument in the house, Kerr had learned. The airman smiled at the speed with which Moor worked: in a different way, he was as effective as Davidson and the others in London.
Davidson and Trale, in point of fact, were dropping from leaden skies to the Preston airfield about the time the Manchester Police started their enquiries for the man named Mayhew. They reached the Larches at about half-past twelve, and one of the first things Davidson said was:
‘If you don’t get some sleep, Kerr, you’ll fade out before this job’s finished. Have some sense, man!’
‘Thanks.’ Kerr grinned tiredly. He could not deny the wisdom of that, and had no real desire to. So that at last, on the premises, the police looking after all straightforward work and the search for Mr. Mayhew proceeding satisfactorily, Robert McMillan Kerr sat in an easy chair and lit a cigarette.
Dodo Trale took it from his fingers two minutes later: Kerr was already fast asleep, and didn’t stir even when Trale tucked a blanket around him.
If there was activity in Manchester and Preston that night, London was as busy in a different way. The affair at Pockham had been in the later evening papers and was already causing a stir among the public. That stir was nothing to the alarm it caused among certain members of the Cabinet, who met at 10 Downing Street soon after nine o’clock, and were still talking at one.
Some of them were irritated because Sir William Fellowes, who was present, claimed that nothing could be done and no useful decision reached without Gordon Craigie. But he was supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. David Wishart, and by Halloway, so none of the irritation was loudly expressed. No one present seriously thought
the calamity was accidental.
Craigie’s arrival, just after one o’clock, put new life into the meeting. Some of the Ministers had been in office for years but had never seen Craigie before; he was something of a legend in the House as well as Whitehall. His gaunt, rather hatchet face, his drooping lips and his serious grey eyes seemed in keeping with his reputation.
He nodded all round and sat down opposite Wishart; a thin, ascetic-looking man with sparse, silvery hair, who many people said would have decorated a chair at Oxford admirably but should never have reached Chequers or 10 Downing Street. Craigie knew better.
‘Well, Craigie,’ Wishart began, pushing cigars across the table: ‘this is a terrible business. You told me you would like to see us.’
‘Yes—thank you sir.’ Craigie took a cigar and cut it slowly. ‘Of course, this is part of the general sabotage; I needn’t tell you that?’
‘I suppose there’s no doubt?’
‘One thing is absolutely certain,’ Craigie said incisively. ‘The others might conceivably have been accidents. This one was deliberate.’
‘Does that mean,’ demanded Sir James Cathie, the Scottish Nationalist member, ‘that you have actually traced something, Craigie? You’ve found the person who committed this dastardly outrage?’
‘I can tell you what he looks like, but not his name. He was traced to Pockham but escaped an hour or two before the explosion.’
‘He shouldn’t have escaped.’
‘We’re not dealing with shoulds or should nots,’ retorted Craigie. ‘The man did escape. It was very nearly a miracle that we traced him at all.’
‘I think,’ said Cathie acidly, ‘we should have an explanation. Gentlemen?’
‘I really don’t think,’ Wishart soothed—he disliked disruption in Cabinet ranks, and knew the Scotsman could be a Tartar—this is just the moment for that, Jamie. We’re more worried about what’s going to happen than what’s already happened.’
Cathie subsided, but began to fidget again as Craigie sat smiling quietly to himself before saying:
‘Yes, indeed—we’re wondering what’s going to happen. Well, I don’t need to list the different crimes already committed but I will tell you that, including to-day’s disaster, some two hundred men have lost their lives—in this country alone. The Akren disaster, closely allied to it------”
‘Proof, proof!’ Cathie muttered.
‘I think we can take it for granted that the Akren disaster was part of a general campaign of sabotage,’ said Craigie. ‘But if you prefer not to, Sir James, that’s entirely up to you. Some two hundred lives lost in England alone, serve to show you the ruthlessness of the organisation involved.’
‘Well, of course, man!’ said Cathie testily.
‘And,’ proceeded Craigie, aware that the rest of the meeting—seven Cabinet Ministers including the Home Secretary and the secretaries for War and Foreign Affairs, as well as Halloway, and Fellowes, the Chief Commissioner—were in sympathy with him, ‘makes it clear that further disasters might come at any time. There’s a direct motive, but we haven’t found it.’
‘My dear Craigie,’ said the Scottish Minister, ‘Russia—’
‘Russia, Italy, Germany, Japan—all four possibilities!’ snapped Craigie. ‘We haven’t had a direct line on any of them. The only thing we know is that a certain Gregory Marlin...’
‘Who?’ demanded Cathie, startled out of his pomposity.
Craigie smiled: he had learned that Sir James Cathie was one of Marlin’s most influential clients.
‘Gregory Marlin, Sir James. You know him, of course. He is connected with the organisation, and he has disappeared. We believe another man named Kelly is also connected, but we are not sure that is his real name. Marlin is our one definite hope. Every effort to trace him is being made, and his photograph will be in to-morrow’s papers, together with the only available description of Kelly. For the rest—I don’t need to tell you the position is serious. The Pockham catastrophe gives you an idea of what might happen. I am not exaggerating when I say that similar disasters—and very probably on a larger scale—are likely to come at any time. With one object in view, gentlemen: the inflaming of public opinion. Supposing, for instance, three other explosions should occur to-morrow. How would you keep the country quiet?’
Wishart eased his collar, and the faces of the others were grave. There was something ominous in Craigie’s quiet, measured words:
‘Frankly, gentlemen, I have an idea that before long we shall have more trouble—and soon after that, with the people incensed, we shall be told who is behind it.’
‘Told?’ echoed Wishart, incredulously.
‘What I suspect,’ said Craigie quietly, ‘is that evidence will be put before the Government that a certain country has been responsible for the outrages, and public opinion will be so inflamed that there will be a general demand for war. I also think------’ Craigie looked around the assembled company grimly, ‘there would be a majority in the House in favour of it. Don’t you, Mr. Wishart?’
‘It would be a grave decision to take,’ Wishart countered. ‘But—if the incitement were great enough-----’
‘That’s just it.’ Craigie’s voice sounded louder because of the hush. ‘There will soon be agitation for war, gentlemen; I am as sure of it as I sit here. Now, you know the trouble has been world-wide. You know which countries have suffered most.’
‘Don’t beat about the bush, man,’ snapped Cathie.
‘I want you to see it for yourselves,’ Craigie retorted coolly. ‘Gentlemen—can’t you see?’
The silence in the room was almost unbearable. It was broken at last by Wishart. The Prime Minister’s face was very pale, and his eyes were fixed on Craigie’s, as he spoke.
‘You mean—America!’
‘I mean America,’ said Gordon Craigie.
10
Downing Street finds trouble
Only Craigie, Fellowes, Wishart and Halloway were silent in the outburst that followed the Chief of Z’s assertion, and Craigie’s lips drooped familiarly as he listened. He had known that most of them would say that even talk of war between Great Britain and America was absurd.
He could have named almost any other country in the world and been heard with respect. But he had made a suggestion that warred with every preconceived idea in the minds of these men, and he knew they would not heed him. Unless...
Unless he could marshal words enough to show them how and why. Unless he could frighten them and pierce their smug complacency. Unless he could show evidence. And that was what worried him. He had none.
Wishart raised his hand for silence and as the indignant babble died down, nodded to him to continue.
‘It seems absurd, gentlemen?’ Craigie suggested. ‘Well, perhaps it is. So was the start of the “Fourteen-Eighteen” war—but I am in more recent history. I want you, please, to think back to the last American Presidential Election.’
He could see he had their attention, and he went on quickly: ‘You will remember the fierceness of that campaign, the fact that the country was at near fever-pitch throughout, that riots were quelled with difficulty in every state—and above all, that the issue was fought on foreign policy. As you know, the President was elected on a policy of isolation, after one of the closest votes ever known—although fully forty per cent of the American public voted against it. I could quote you a hundred instances where the late President Hafford was howled down for his insistence that America should not mix herself in European affairs. There were two strong voices in that, gentlemen: that of the Jews, and that of the Socialists—both groups incensed by the oppression prevalent in mid-Europe. Correct?’
There were murmurs of assent all round—even grudgingly, from Sir James Cathie. Craigie drew a deep breath: ‘The election is over,’ he continued quietly. ‘And we have pretended that the issue is safe for the next four years. I doubt it. But that is only one aspect of the situation. Few men, if I may be permitted to say so, gentlemen—’ Cra
igie’s dry smile excused the unarguable claim—’have studied American politics more closely than I have: my agents over there, after all, report in detail on minor items that would not ordinarily come to light. They confirm what you and I can see, if we care to look, on the surface of America today: a tendency towards fanaticism as typified by those leaders who use mass hysteria to work their listeners to a pitch of almost religious fervour. On a dozen issues, that fervour has been evoked—most importantly, over foreign policy and national prosperity.’
He grimaced. ‘You can see the dangers if a man of the late Huey Long’s type succeeds in getting a wider power than Long ever had, and goes to the country on such issues as, one: Britain has committed an act of war—as with the Akren disaster, say. Two: America’s isolation from European politics. And three: Fascism versus Jewry...’
But at this point, Wishart interrupted him. ‘Surely,’ he protested, ‘those three issues are contradictory? I mean that if America wanted to interfere with European politics on the side of Jewry or anti-Fascism, she would naturally be with us—with Great Britain?’
‘That’s assuming, Prime Minister,’ Craigie said, ‘that there was reason behind the cry for interference—which means war. I’m putting it to you, gentlemen, that the only possible circumstances in which either Britain or America would declare war against each other would be a state of frenzied nationalism in which all grievances would merge together. There is no reason in a demand for war, but the unsettled state of American politics and mass-feeling would be the danger.’
‘Yes...’ Wishart agreed reluctantly. ‘I’m prepared to admit there might be something in that. But Britain—my dear Craigie, there isn’t much likelihood of an outbreak of fanaticism here! We haven’t the same mixed population. We’re not an easily-swayed people.’
‘With respect, Prime Minister—you might have said the same thing in 1914,’ Craigie pointed out. ‘Although even then there was a general agitation against Germany; a deeper one than most of our politicians realised. Today, there is an equally strong agitation simmering—at the moment, directed against three things. First, the actions of the mid-European Fascist countries in the African war and the Spanish rebellion. Second, the repression of the Jews by the same regimes. And third, the reported activities of the Soviet Government. All three factors are being carefully nursed by sections of the press, and many of the editorials and front-page headlines are inflammatory to a point I consider both criminal and insane. Add to that the outcry when the Baertin business was published, and you can see that the public is being spoon-fed on American propaganda.’
