by John Creasey
He was very light on his feet, but seemed to make a lot of noise that morning.
Seale watched the policeman, who was looking straight at the house and would have seen him but for the net curtain. A milk float passed; Seale could actually hear the rattle of the bottles.
Then the policeman turned towards the main road, only a hundred yards away. He didn’t hurry. His, helmet moved along the top of the hedge at an even height and speed. He did not look round.
A minute later, Seale saw a small man pass the gate – a man named Freddy, who had a dossier at Scotland Yard and would have been recognised by Bristow as one of the men on the Highly Dangerous list. He was too low for the wall, and was hidden completely, but in a second or two, the helmet stopped, and turned round.
Then it began to move in the opposite direction.
Seale was sweating …
Freddy wasn’t sweating. He had a job to do, and he knew exactly what it meant and what the risks were. He felt an excitement which he had strictly under control, but was there. He took a pride in his craft. It did not occur to him that killing a man was really more reprehensible than killing a pig; he knew the consequences of being caught were much greater, but that was all. He had, in fact, killed at least a dozen times; had first discovered the excitement and the sadistic satisfaction in it during the war.
Now, it was a battle of wits.
In all respects except his ‘craft’, Freddy had a human being’s approach to life. The policeman with him was walking unsuspiciously towards the heath because he, Freddy, had told him that he’d found some silver and jewellery in some bushes there; it looked like a burglar’s haul, abandoned during the night. Even an unambitious policeman could feel the urgent need to take notice of that.
Wilberforce, in fact, felt that it was a day when everything would happen at once. He wanted to report that bullet hole in the car, Number 2BN563, and if he turned in news of a burglar’s haul too …
They reached the common. Freddy led the way to a clump of bushes. They reached it about the time that Wilberforce realised that no burglary had been reported for several nights, this stuff must have lain here for some time.
Freddy pointed: “You have to bend low to get in—saw something glint, I did, that’s what made me curious. I shall get a reward, shan’t I?”
“If it’s worth anything, you’ll be looked after,” said Wilberforce, and bent low to get through the gap in the bushes. It wasn’t low enough, so he went down on his knees. His broad back was a perfect target for the knife; and Freddy had all the time in the world to select the spot.
Wilberforce just felt something painfully sharp –
Chapter Nineteen
Uneasy Peace
Mannering studied his face in the mirror, two mornings after the murder of P.C. Wilberforce, of which he had read almost casually, and decided that the stain was wearing off slightly; he would have to scrutinise his disguise and touch it up where necessary.
He didn’t like the idea.
He had hoped to finish the job here within forty-eight hours. It was one thing to live the part of another man for a day or two, another to go on doing it indefinitely. The strain was greater than he had expected, and was worse because everyone watched him all the time.
Mrs. Baddelow, after the early hostility, seemed to be coming round; she was more amiable, and she had a habit of slapping his arm and going off into a burst of laughter at one of his least amusing witticisms; yet there was often a sharp glint in her eyes, and he knew that whatever he did, she noticed; at least, she tried to.
The police also watched him intently. Here was a private inquiry agent who, in a way, seemed to be claiming to be able to teach them their job. White had now developed a mock humility, overdid the ‘sir’ and at any request went off at an exaggerated double. Chief Inspector Hill hardly troubled to conceal the fact that he thought Mr. Richardson’s position to be superfluous. By far the most amiable of the police was big Superintendent Aylmer, but he was seldom at the house. The Orme police were finding the watch on Brook House more of a strain than they liked; the total force wasn’t large, and duties which were almost as essential as those here were being neglected.
Mannering had checked everyone.
He had spent an hour on the past two evenings at the ‘Grey Mare’. Mine host was not a particularly hearty type and certainly wasn’t servile, but he seemed friendly and genuine. His dog was handsome and aloof. Mannering examined the old barn, now a bar-cum-museum, and some of the relics were interesting even to the casual visitor. A pair of stocks, a gibbet used in far-off days when Orme had been a highwayman’s paradise, some old agricultural implements, some bronze coins, a few early Saxon flints, Roman vessels dug up from earthworks between here and Orme, made it genuinely of historical interest. There were a lot of pictures, too, including pictures of the animals which had roamed the district centuries ago. Everything was clearly marked with neat notices in red and white.
The only black spots on the old oak walls were those where the big traps had been hanging.
Mannering went again that midday.
“Don’t mind admitting, sir,” said Jeff Liddicombe. “It didn’t occur to me that anyone would ever want to lift them off the walls. They were secured in anyway, had little chains fixed to ’em—like that old plough over there, and the matchlock beside it—and hung from two nails. Must have nipped in, parked his car right up to the door with the boot open, lifted the traps off—and there you are. Half a minute would be time enough.”
“Isn’t the barn kept locked?”
“Well, it is and it isn’t, if you know what I mean,” said Liddicombe. He had a pale, even coloured face and rather dull eyes – there was just his hair to remind one of Priscilla. “It ought to be kept locked, but we’re a bit careless about things like that round here. I’ve come across it unlocked several times in the past few weeks, and I always tell Ted about it—that’s the barman who looks after this bar, sir—but what’s the use of dressing him down too much, if I forget too, when I’m on duty.”
“Fair enough,” agreed Mannering. “And the police have worried you enough about it already. I only came for a glass of your excellent beer and to have a look round here. Whose idea was the museum?”
“Well, sir, mine as a matter of fact. I’ve always had a liking for old things, and when I took over the old ‘Grey Mare’ two years ago, it gave me my chance. Hardly cost a pound, either. I do all my own lettering, and what stuff wasn’t on the premises I’ve picked up for a song.”
“The British Museum should hear of you,” Mannering said.
Liddicombe looked pleased.
“That’s kind of you, sir. You’re welcome to that beer, sir,” said Liddicombe. “Mr. Merrow comes most nights when he’s at home. Old Mr. Garfield often says he’ll come. Proper life of the party, isn’t he?” They went together into the main saloon bar, inside the three centuries’ old inn. “It’s a very bad business, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that Miss Woburn. Very nice young lady, by all accounts.”
“Very.”
“Wonderful job she did, opening them steel traps, the springs on them take some forcing if you don’t know the trick. And Mr. Merrow wasn’t much help, from what I hear, must have been pretty well unconscious. Funny way to end a row.” There was a moment’s pause, hardly noticeable, before he went on: “And she’s had a lot to put up with since. I know what I’d do, if I were in her shoes.”
“What?”
“Get out just as fast as I could,” said Liddicombe.
Mannering said: “Ah, yes.” He didn’t add; “And your daughter Priscilla would like that, wouldn’t she?” In fact, he hardly gave it a thought. He entered the low-ceilinged bar, nodded at the dozen people standing or sitting about, and took the beer in a pewter tankard when Liddicombe offered it to him, and no one could have noticed that
he was in any way unusual.
Inwardly, his heart was hammering, his excitement was bottled up.
No one but Aylmer, Merrow, Joanna and he knew about the quarrel before the traps had been sprung.
How did Liddicombe know?
There was a plan of the roof of Brook House beautifully drawn; and Liddicombe was an excellent draughtsman, one who did all the lettering for the exhibits here.
Liddicombe must be checked, urgently.
It was nearly half-past twelve, as dark now as it had been on the night when Brill had come down the chimney. No stars shone, but there was no wind. The police, wearying now in their vigil, were on the move outside. All the ground-floor lights were on, to make it more difficult for anyone to approach without being seen.
It was almost as difficult to leave.
Mannering, wearing an old raincoat turned up at the collar, and a slouch-hat pulled low over his eyes, worked at a window overlooking the garage and the stables; this was the easiest way to leave without being seen. He had disconnected the alarm wires here, and opened the window. From the outside, he hooked the wires together, so that no one looking at them casually would notice that they had been touched. Then he closed the window.
He stood quite still.
His tool kit was round his waist, and he carried a 32 automatic. He had recovered from the pulsing excitement of early evening, but the heaviness of spirit had eased; he believed that he was on the way.
Patience rewarded …
He heard the policeman on duty on this side of the house walk past; then he slipped out, and for a few seconds was visible in the light from the kitchen windows. He reached the shadows of a beech hedge.
No alarm came.
He walked to the end of the walled vegetable garden, then into the parkland beyond. He had used this path several times, and knew it well; it was the path which Joanna and Merrow had used on the day the traps had been sprung.
The walk to the village took him twenty-five minutes.
He kept on the grass at the side of the road, until he was opposite the old barn near the ‘Grey Mare’. No light shone anywhere, but there were rifts in the clouds now, and he could see the stars.
The inn, with its low uneven roof, its outbuildings, its beamed walls, stood squat and solid. The clean gravel and tar yard made it easy to walk with little sound. Mannering went along one side, between the old barn and the main building. He felt cool, yet the excitement still affected him. He reached a spot where he could not be seen from the road if a car passed with its headlights on, and then reached up to a small outhouse, near the back door. In spite of the thick clothes and the big shoes, he climbed up easily, and stood for a moment on the sloping roof, with a gabled window in front of him.
He drew a cotton scarf up over his face, so that only his eyes showed.
The window was closed.
He took out a pencilled torch, with a specially diffused beam, and studied the window; it was latched, but did not seem to be wired for burglary. He took a slim tool from the kit in his waistband, and inserted it between the two halves of the window, then prised at the catch. It moved slowly. He could hear no other sound, not even from the nearby woodland; there was just the scraping of metal on metal, and the sound of his own breathing.
The catch moved sharply; and the window boomed. Mannering stopped working, and listened; but the seconds brought him relief, and no alarm was raised.
He opened the window.
He shone the torch inside, and found that this was a narrow passage, with bare boards and cream walls; a staircase head was at one end, a dark door at the other. He put a leg over the window, and climbed through. The danger of night marauding in all old places was always the same; loose floorboards which creaked; and in inns particularly they were often left to creak, so as to add to the atmosphere.
A board creaked.
He stepped as close to the wall as he could, and there was no sound. He waited for a few seconds, with a soft wind coming through the window, striking cold on his damp neck. Then he heard a noise a long way off, and gradually it grew louder; the head lamps of a car lit up the road, the telephone wires, the swinging inn sign, the old barn.
The car flashed by.
One could never be sure that one was alone.
Mannering didn’t close the window, but stepped towards the head of the stairs. Once or twice boards creaked faintly, but he stopped most of the noise by keeping close to the wall; it slowed him down, but minutes lost now might save disaster.
He actually let that word pass through his mind.
Remember, they were killers.
If he were right, and Liddicombe was involved, Liddicombe was also a killer.
Someone who lived near by, someone who knew what went on at Brook House, someone who could find out what was happening indoors; Liddicombe measured up to all that. He was often at the big house; Priscilla his daughter could tell him what he wanted to know, perhaps without realising why he needed the information.
As Mannering reached the head of the stairs, he reminded himself again – they were killers.
He must not make a mistake.
He studied the staircase. It went down only half a dozen steps before reaching a half landing. There were glints from bronze and copper, warming-pans and oddments fastened to the walls; a gem of a place, this ‘Grey Mare’.
Where did Liddicombe do his diagrams and his lettering?
There would be an office downstairs, but he probably worked somewhere else.
Find out!
Mannering crept down the stairs. He kept by the banisters, putting part of his weight on them, and made hardly a sound. Downstairs, it wouldn’t be so dangerous. He shone the torch all round, seeing the signs on the doors – Bar, Saloon Bar, Residents’ Lounge, Lounge Bar, Reception – Office.
He went to the office.
It was locked.
He took a pick-lock from his pocket, studied the keyhole and then slid the dull steel in. A few twists, and he felt the barrel of the lock going back. He opened the door, very cautiously; it didn’t squeak. He stepped inside.
A dog growled deep in its throat and leapt at him.
Chapter Twenty
The Dog and the Man
The green eyes glinted in the glow from Mannering’s torch. He had just that split second of warning, heard the growl, felt his heart leap wildly – and then saw the huge, dark shape coming.
Instinctively, he covered his face with his hands.
Teeth tore at his coat.
He felt the cloth rip, felt a painful tear at his right forearm. By then he was over the worst of the shock, and knew that if he had a chance he had to make it now. The dog’s first leap was over, it was dropping back; the deep growl might become a wild bark any moment.
Mannering shot out his hands, snatching at the thick neck. The dog snapped, and missed. Mannering’s fingers buried themselves in the fur and the flesh. He felt the heavy body writhing, the powerful sinews working up and down. He didn’t know whether his thumbs were at the right spot. He pressed harder and still harder, keeping the dog at arm’s length.
He felt its struggles weaken.
It went limp.
He lowered it, and stood for a moment in the middle of the office, sweat dripping from his forehead, mouth wide open as he gasped for breath. He couldn’t do a thing. He knew that he had only seconds in which to work, but he couldn’t start yet.
The dog was quivering.
He hadn’t broken its neck and hadn’t choked it; it might come round in seconds; or it might lay there for minutes. He dropped to his knees, heavily, took a stretch of cord from his kit, and tied it round the big, wet muzzle; the cord wasn’t tight enough to hurt, but would stop the dog from biting. He bound the legs together, leaving the cord slack, and then stood up.
<
br /> He felt better and far less desperate; no sound came from above, nothing indicated that he had raised an alarm. The dog had been trained to silence; trained to bring his man down, not to bark.
Mannering looked round, easing his collar.
There was a desk and, in a corner, a small drawing-board with a light immediately above it; so, this was the right spot.
He wiped his forehead as he stepped to the drawing-board. Pinned to it was a sheet of paper with the outline of a house sketched in, and Mannering recognised it as one end of the ‘Grey Mare’. Forget that! He looked through the paper in a rack, finding dozens of unfinished sketches, some lettering, some tracing paper; there was no sign of the plan of the top of Brook House. The lettering was not unlike the plan, the ink looked identical, so did the stiff, white drawing paper.
There was nothing else, no way of proving beyond doubt that the plan Aylmer now held had been drawn here; if he were to give the police evidence, he had to find a copy of the plan.
The safe was in a corner.
He heard the dog moving and grunting.
He went to the door, stepped into the passage, and listened intently; he heard no sound at all, and felt confident that no one was disturbed; he still had time. He closed the door of the office; that would keep the sound the dog made inside. He spoke to it softly, but it only growled; he could feel it struggling.
He turned to the safe.
It was an old Cobb, and he had opened dozens like it; but many modern gadgets could make a fool of the expert safe-breaker. He studied it closely; it looked as easy a crib to crack as he could have hoped for; child’s play for the Baron. He tried his keys, but none was good enough. He found one which seemed to get a little purchase, withdrew it, smeared the surface with a thin tacky white paste from a flat tin, and put it in again carefully.
He turned this as firmly as he could, then let it fall back into its proper position, and withdrew it. Faint marks showed, made by the barrel of the lock against the paste. He put the key in a small steel hand vice, took out a file, and began to work on the key; the noise was negligible.
