by John Creasey
Great Britain’s reserve of armaments and ammunition was practically non-existent!
19
Kerr is talkative
It may have been the whisky, or perhaps simply his innate inability to accept defeat, that gave Kerr new strength. At all events for three hours after the death of Benson and his men, he grilled officials and others of the Potter Cotton Mills. But he learned nothing, and was finally convinced there was nothing to be learned from them.
Twenty men—some English, some Continental but most of them American—who had lived in the quarters beneath the large canteen, had returned to meet Benson, as they had thought, and instead found the police ready and waiting. Half a dozen of them made a fight for freedom; none escaped. But all of them maintained—even under pressure that made Kerr hate himself—that they had come to the factory for instructions that evening. They had no idea what those instructions might have been. It seemed the secret had died with Benson and Marlin.
Kerr asked the questions. Few of the answers were satisfactory; most of the men, even though they knew Benson was dead, were remarkably faithful to him. Kerr knew this type. Each man he interrogated was a killer, who bought and sold life without conscience or compunction. They were certainly not the kind to remain faithful to an idea.
‘So,’ Kerr summed up—he and the others were still using Jeremy Potter’s office------’they’re afraid of trouble coming if they talk. They know Marlin and Benson are dead. So the someone else must be Mayhew.’
‘Or Potter,’ Timothy Arran offered.
‘I wonder,’ murmured Kerr, ‘whether by any freak of chance, Potter and Mayhew are one and the same? It’s useless to go by the fact that Jeremy Potter’s servants pretended they didn’t know him; they were Benson’s men.’
‘The women weren’t.’
‘As far as we know,’ Kerr corrected.
‘Then the butler, Oakwood, wasn’t,’ Davidson reminded him. ‘And he claimed he’d seen Mayhew without recognising him.’
‘Thick glasses, a moustache and a limp,’ said Kerr, ‘are more or less effective as a disguise. Oh, blast this business! I’m tired of repeating the names. Mayhew—Potter—Penelope------’
‘Here, hang on!’ protested Timothy.
‘Oh, don’t be a fool!’ Kerr’s temper was fraying. They’re the only names we’ve got! And a fat lot of use they are to us. If I could only see what’s behind it! Why should anyone want us to quarrel with the States? There has to be a motive—what the hell IS it? Who the hell is------’
He stopped suddenly and stared blankly at Wally Davidson, who wondered for a moment if the thing had finally gotten Kerr down. Wally was not to know that inspiration had dropped on Kerr from the skies: two motives at once. Two motives to make one...
He moved as he was wont to move, and Timothy Arran jumped away from the desk on which he was lounging as Kerr grabbed the ‘phone and called Whitehall 55055.
‘Kerr,’ he said. ‘Craigie—who’s the biggest private armaments manufacturer in England to-day?’
Craigie, puzzled and tired, frowned at the other end of the line.
‘Dickers-Leestrong, of course.’
‘Of course. Find out who holds most of their shares, directors and/or otherwise. Remember, Marlin brought and sold armament shares? See who he did most work for. You might find—just might—that Wishart and other members of the Government dealt in those shares, some time or other. Find anyone who stopped buying and started selling about the same time that Mayhew started buying.’
‘Good God!’ said Craigie, who rarely blasphemed.
‘And think on this,’ Kerr spoke tensely, but every word reached the men in the room as well as Craigie. ‘This shouting about the States is eyewash. Eyewash, Craigie. Nobody but a pack of born fools would ever have thought twice about it. Of course we’re not going to fight America! But we’re so damned busy thinking we might, that we’ve forgotten the folk who might fight us.’
‘There isn’t another country strong enough,’ Craigie interrupted: ‘They’re too busy with internal affairs.’
‘Internal—and other things,’ said Bob Kerr. ‘Think of the mid-European Entente. Bounded on all sides. Agitation for colonies. Wanting mandated territories back—bellowing for them! We won’t let ’em have them and the League won’t. So—damn it, Craigie, you can see?’
‘Go on,’ said Gordon Craigie, very softly.
‘So they pay Benson and Marlin to raise the Anglo-American scare. They keep us busy—and they’ve done it damned well. And then they get at our armaments. Supposing the Entente start a flare-up to take the mandated territories—how could we stop it, right now?’
‘We’d find it difficult,’ Craigie agreed, drily. Inwardly he was wondering whether Kerr was talking nonsense, or whether at last things were taking shape. For he knew that until the American scare, the one thing that might have caused trouble had been the natural desire of the mid-European Entente for a share of the mandated territories and colonies. And he knew that if the Entente started trouble, Italy (again) and Germany for the first time would probably join them. A common cause, for both democratic and dictator-ridden countries. Yes... It seemed to be making some sort of sense, at long last.
‘Difficult!’ Kerr echoed, and swore eloquently. ‘We’ve been kept so busy we haven’t had time to think what the European countries are up to. Now they’ve got us. The Entente will demand certain territories; and soon Hitler and Mussolini will start bellowing, too. And if we say they can’t have them, they’ll turn nasty. They’ll invite us to stop them. And we haven’t the arms, Craigie—we couldn’t do it!’
‘You know, Kerr,’ said Craigie quietly. ‘If you’re anywhere near right, they can start when they like.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Kerr told him. The idea that had dropped on him seemed like manna from the skies; he had to get it out: ‘With England and America at loggerheads, the one country that might help us is off the books. Right? Get rid of the loggerheads, let the U.S. and Britain show a united opposition, and the Entente’s plan is scotched—because America’s got arms and to spare, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Then all we’ve got to do,’ Kerr wound up cheerfully, ‘is to show America that the whole thing—from the Akren onwards—has been a campaign to blind both countries to the truth. It isn’t a question of actual fighting; it’s only a question of being able to say: ‘We’re too strong for you! Isn’t it?’
Craigie’s dry grin came and went. Solemnly, he conceded: ‘It looks like it. Er—how are we going to show America who’s behind it? You haven’t found Mayhew?’
‘Not yet,’ said Kerr, ‘but I daresay we will. You’ll have those gentry who have trafficked in arms shares and such looked after?’
‘I’ll have them watched.’
‘Good!’ Kerr’s cheerfulness was beginning to puzzle the other Z men. ‘See if you can find one of them with access to all the Government-owned and controlled arsenals. How many places met trouble to-night?’
‘About a dozen.’
‘You see? Benson was clever and Marlin was clever, but neither of them could have located a dozen strongly-guarded places like that. And deposit time-bombs to start the damage. Whoever gave them the information knows it from A to Z. Look for someone closer to Whitehall, Craigie, and your troubles will be over.’
Gordon Craigie’s voice was bleak. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised,’ he said slowly, ‘if you’re right. I think I see what you mean.’
‘I thought you would,’ said Kerr. ‘All you want is a man who’s going to make two or three million profit out of re-fitting us with armaments, whose factories are going to start working overtime and who can’t account for his movements on the days Mayhew was seen about. Someone with Fascist convictions, you can be pretty sure.’
‘Perhaps we’ll know by the time you get here,’ said Craigie, drily. ‘Goodbye.’
Robert McMillan Kerr turned from the telephone and regarded Carruthers, Davidson and Timothy Arran. All wer
e looking dazed.
‘Who the hell are you driving at?’ asked Timothy.
‘You ought to know.’ Kerr’s unexpected smile lingered longer than usual. ‘You certainly should know.’
‘What’s on that piece of paper?’ Davidson demanded.
‘What, this?’ Kerr unscrewed the sheet he had been glancing at when the idea had flashed across his mind. ‘It’s a letter from the Potter Company’s London office—or Mark Potter—to the Lancashire management. About an export order for cotton fabric to Europe, I think.’
Davidson, suspicious, read it for himself, but gained nothing from it. ‘You think we’ve run to the end of it, then?’he asked, still baffled.
‘I do,’ said Kerr, ‘but I want to get to London, pronto. I wonder if they carry petrol here?’
‘I suppose,’ said Timothy, witheringly, ‘you will tell us all about it in the air?’
‘You’ve seen just as much as I have,’ Kerr baited him, then chuckled. ‘Still, it won’t hurt you to know one more thing: Mark Potter’s dead.’
‘Dead!’
‘Nothing’s surer. Tim, who did we find at Wimbledon?’
‘Marlin and Benson and some hoodlums—but what’s that got to do with it?’
‘Who ought to have been at Wimbledon, according to Penelope?’
‘Now look here,’ began Timothy irritably, ‘you’ve played on that girl long enough, old son.’
‘Wait a minute,’ interrupted Davidson. ‘Mark Potter. You reckon he’s one of the men who was killed there? One of the gunmen?’
Kerr shook his head. ‘Describe Benson,’ he invited—and headed for the door.
In the minds of all three there sprang a picture of a thick-set florid-faced man of perhaps fifty, with a heavy black moustache and a harshly unpleasant voice...
From the doorway, Kerr grinned.
‘Think of Mark Potter,’ he said, and went out.
By the time the Hawk was re-fuelled, Mark Potter’s body had been identified beyond all doubt. But the three Department men were still dazed as they started back for London.
It all seemed so obvious, now. Benson had never been seen without that heavy moustache, and when Penelope had seen her uncle in the car going towards Wimbledon, and there had been no sign of him there, but ample evidence of Marlin and Benson—the thing should have struck them then. Or those of them, Timothy thought thankfully, who had been on the job at the time; thank heavens he hadn’t been. Then there was the ease with which Mark Potter could ensure refuge for the gunmen at the factory: Jeremy had probably discovered it and threatened disclosure, and the woman Trentham warned his brother. No stranger had been seen to enter the house, that day: Mark Potter had a key and could come and go as he liked. Again ‘Benson’ had entered The Larches by key. And ‘Benson’ must have known the lay-out of the factory thoroughly. Oh, it was maddeningly obvious, now!
Timothy thought of the shock Penelope would have, and scowled; thought of Penelope in other circumstances, and smiled. He closed his eyes and his thoughts were very pleasant.
David Wishart refused to believe what Craigie had to tell him. But as he examined the evidence, he slowly came to see the truth. And Craigie realised that the truth was in fact a bigger blow to Wishart than the thought of war with America itself.
‘The important thing now,’ Craigie emphasised, ‘is to convince America. I’ve an idea of how to do it, but I’m by no means sure you’ll like it. I hope you will.’
‘If we can convince them,’ Wishart said, ‘anything is worth trying. We’ve got to get them friendly. We must.’
‘Good,’ said Gordon Craigie. ‘Well, here it is...’
Wishart listened; at the end of five minutes he nodded. He was not smiling; he felt he would never be able to smile again, although Craigie knew better.
‘About mid-day here, is a good time,’ Craigie wound up.
‘To-morrow?’
‘My dear David,’ Craigie protested, ‘This is urgent! To-day. In a couple of hours’ time.’
‘But I’ve got to call them together...’
‘Call all you can,’ advised Craigie.
In this nightmare business, so many unprecedented things had happened that there were times when Wishart felt guilty of breaking Constitutional rules as well as traditional ones. Even when he had agreed to follow Craigie’s suggestion, there was still approval to be obtained from a higher source.
It was granted without question, and Wishart felt more cheerful as he returned to Downing Street and joined with his secretary in calling those members of the Cabinet who were in London. In the next hour, too, certain people who had visited Downing Street before, were there in greater numbers.
Craigie was the last to arrive, with Robert McMillan Kerr, who had never seen more than two of the assembled company together in his life before, but was neither impressed nor over-awed. He knew Halloway, of course, and Yelding, the Air Minister; they were good friends, and shook hands warmly. Lee-Knight recognised him and waved; Sir James Cathie stared at him critically and confided to his neighbour that it was coming to something, when policemen could be brought into the Cabinet Room. As Kerr caught the aside and chuckled, Cathie’s stare grew frigid, and his dislike crystallised.
‘Now, gentlemen!’ The Prime Minister eyed each man in turn. ‘We have neither the time nor the need to worry about preliminaries this morning. One of the chief reasons I have called you here at such short notice is to let you hear some—er—remarkable theories elucidated by Mr. Kerr, who will need no introduction and who is, as you know, an Intelligence Department agent. May I say first, that it was thanks to Mr. Kerr’s warning that the arsenals and surrounds were evacuated last night, in consequence of which, it can safely be claimed, at least ten thousand lives were saved. I might add that it is his opinion that there is little or no immediate danger of war with America. Mr. Kerr?’
Kerr stood up and looked about him slowly. He could change the tempo of this meeting, and he needed no telling that he would be received reasonably and favourably. The evacuation order had earned him that. He smiled and started...
It took him ten minutes to elaborate the theory he had outlined to Craigie, the previous night. He worked up to his point slowly, first stressing the obvious interest of countries without colonies. ‘The only sound reason,’ he emphasised, ‘for any country to risk war today, is for the winning of new territory—new guaranteed markets, new guaranteed sources of supply, new commercial or politically strategic bases. In a word, gentlemen: colonies. Someone—some body of men is prepared to risk war with us. I am going to submit that the motive is envy of our territories, mandated and otherwise.’
‘No evidence,’ interrupted Cathie, belligerently.
‘None at all,’ agreed Kerr, with an easy smile. ‘But before we discuss evidence, I want to tell you of several interesting discoveries—all made in the course of investigations into the various disasters which culminated in last night’s chaos.’
He talked of the attack at Wimbledon and the death of Marlin. He pointed out the likelihood that whoever was backing Marlin was a client of his in the normal way. He switched over to the dual-personality of Jacob Benson and Mark Potter, elaborating it so that even Cathie had all the evidence he wanted. He touched on Mayhew—so far completely unknown—and he began to prove, slowly and convincingly, the obvious interest behind the upheavals.
‘Someone in England,’ he said, ‘is prepared to take the abnormal risks involved in securing war, for money! No one with ample resources would do it; the risks would be too great. Therefore it is someone whose resources are low. Gregory Marlin, naturally, would know which client, interested largely in the manufacture of armaments, would be prepared to give him information about the location of the more important arsenals and take an active part in their destruction.’
‘Are you seriously suggesting,’ protested Yelding, ‘that anyone would start these outrages simply to obtain the orders for new supplies?’
‘Partly,’ said Kerr. ‘
For that sole purpose, no. But with an additional bribe for Marlin—representing certain foreign interests, whose main object is to weaken Great Britain’s armed strength—yes. It would work like this: Marlin would be approached by those interested, and he would know of a man whose resources were low—and who was in a position to help him—who would benefit from a demand for armaments.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Yelding, bluntly.
‘No.’ Bob Kerr flashed that unbelievably engaging grin. ‘But someone has tried to inflame opinion here and in America. The circumstances are clearer, now. Mark Potter and Marlin definitely did so; the proof is ample. Now we have that proof, I think we can safely rely on more amicable relations between this country and America, with the resultant safeguards these can ensure. For the rest: someone did go on board the Dukor, did visit the various arsenals during the past two or three days and deposit time-bombs. Someone has been to Kalshot and arranged for the blow-up there. Someone whose presence at all those places, either publicly or privately, would not be queried. Someone, gentlemen, now in this room!’
Robert McMillan Kerr turned towards David Wishart, it seemed in accusation.
The silence in the room was electric. All eyes were, on Wishart, now, as shocked incredulity gave way to wonder. All of them realised that Wishart had lost heavily in his monetary transactions, had been a prominent client of Gregory Marlin’s—and had continually recommended Marlin to other members of the Cabinet, as well as friends.
Wishart, who had disappeared from time to time in the past few days, ostensibly on business with Craigie...
Wishart!
‘I think I should add,’ said Bob Kerr, calmly, ‘that I first suspected who was with Marlin and ‘Benson’ in this business when I discovered who was on the Board of the Potter Cotton Mills. I was blinded for a while because the Potter connection seemed so different from what it was.’ He eyed Wishart steadily, and every other eye was turned on the Prime Minister’s pale face; Wishart looked as though he could not stand the strain a moment longer. ‘Well, Mr. Wishart?’
