by John Creasey
Bedecked in the regalia of the Queen of the Clouds was Margaret Alleyn. She stood motionless at the threshold, guarded on either side by the two men who had held Quinion close five minutes before.
For a full minute Quinion stood there, looking at her. Never had the look in her beautiful hazel eyes been more helpless; never had he realized the flawless beauty of her as he did then: never had he known such agony of heart as he did at that moment.
‘If you touch her you’ll swing higher than any man in England!’
Yet even as he spoke a tremendous hopelessness surged through him. If he moved he would be as good as a dead man, and as useless.
Hessley stood up slowly and walked towards the girl. With a word he dismissed the two men, and the door closed behind them. Still without speaking to Quinion he led her towards a chair which was placed at the end of the table opposite The Miser, but his automatic was pointed unwaveringly at Quinion as he moved.
The latter had eyes only for the girl as she sat down without protest. The spirit seemed to have been taken from her; she was listless, lifeless almost; and her very helplessness made Quinion’s rage reach white heat.
Yet, for the time being, he could do nothing.
The Miser waited until Hessley had regained his seat before speaking again, and in his mind, strangely cool and working at top speed, Quinion realized the cleverness of the manner in which Margaret Alleyn’s entry had been staged. The Miser was playing on his, Quinion’s emotions with a devilish ingenuity, but the fact that it was necessary to strive in such a way to break his nerve proved to the Hon. James that The Miser was afraid. The possibility that Department ‘Z’ knew of the Café of Clouds as the meeting place of the Council was of vast importance, and even as the would-be despot spoke, Quinion had worked the situation out in his own mind, only to have it confirmed.
‘I will not mince matters, Mr. Quinn. The exact position is this:
‘Our plans, which you learned at the last meeting, have been complete for some time; only the moment at which to strike has been uncertain, and still is uncertain. Due in all probability to the efforts of men like yourself, fighting uselessly to prolong the duration of world peace, two great Powers are not yet primed well enough to co-operate at the moment. It is a matter of days and days only until this has been rectified, but until every country is ready we are unwilling to display our strength.
‘In the event of need, however, we will act now, and only you are in a position to tell us whether it is necessary. If we can rely with some degree of certainty on being able to work without interruption for the next forty-eight hours, then we will be able to move, and every country will be inflamed with the frenzied cries of the populace for war! So——’
The Miser’s flaming red eyes, glowing horribly in that parchment-like face, turned slowly from Quinion to Margaret Alleyn. The Hon. James followed the other’s gaze, sick at heart; yet even as he did so he wondered subconsciously at the slowness of the man’s movements, and the fact The Miser turned his whole head instead of diverting his eyes. The mellow voice went on:
‘In order to exert all possible influence, Mr. Quinn, you are to be given five minutes in which to reach a decision on whether or not you will give us the information that we need. Should you give it, then this woman will be freed. Should you decide against …’
Once more The Miser paused and once more Quinion felt that the white-heat of his fury would burst all bounds of restraint. His teeth were clenched and his fingers were jammed into the flesh of his palms.
The Miser went on. A trace of harshness broke through the mellowness of his voice, and with it Quinion realized that it sounded still more like Arnold Alleyn’s. This fiend was talking of his own daughter!
‘Should you decide against, then I shall press this button which you can see beneath my hand. It is an electrical contrivance. As it is pressed so will every official wireless station in the world be rendered useless. Report after report of outrages by one country against another will be broadcast. The world will be incited to war … and within an hour of the message at least one whole town will be destroyed completely. I have arranged it! At this very moment the whole military resources of one Middle Eastern State are ready for battle because of outrages which you have read of in your papers, and which you have believed to be the result of communist outlawry. Within an hour the greatest war of the world will have commenced!
‘But that, in any case, is inevitable. For my own convenience I wish to defer the first move for another two or three days, and I can only do that if I am sure of being free from interruption. In order to persuade you to talk, Mr. Quinn, I have also prepared this:
‘At the moment that I press this button and deliver the call to arms a current of electricity will pass along the steel arms of the chair on which the … woman … is sitting. It will shrivel her into nothing! The beauty of which she is so proud will be blackened into bones and the perfume which she uses will change for the odour of burning flesh …!’
‘You—swine!’
The words forced themselves from Quinion’s lips. The whole pent-up emotions which had been consuming him burst out in one fierce blaze of fury which made even The Miser flinch backwards. The flecked grey eyes were aflame with hatred and horror. But the muzzle of Simon Hessley’s revolver hovered a foot or two from Quinion’s face.
With slow, deliberate movements The Miser drew a watch from his pocket. The silence in the room was so complete that the faint ticking could be heard clearly above the constrained breathing of the men and woman.
Margaret Alleyn was leaning forward in her chair. Her lips were parted, her hazel eyes were opened wide with fear, her breath rose and fell tumultuously. For a moment her gaze rested on The Miser; then she looked towards Quinion. The fear which she had had seemed to go from her. She prevented her voice from trembling with an effort greater than any she had ever been called upon to make.
‘Don’t speak, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘He may be … bluffing.’
A hundred mad ideas rushed through Quinion’s mind, only to be thrust aside as useless. Everything was useless; nothing could save Gretta from death nor the world from a revolution that would bring worse than death to millions of men and women. In his mind’s eyes Quinion could see the chaos that would follow on the ultimatum that The Miser had ready to deliver.
The leader of the World Council spoke again, a brief sentence that spelled the end of hope.
‘You have four minutes left.…’
Quinion measured the distance between himself and The Miser. Three yards … he could make it easily enough with one leap … providing Hessley’s automatic didn’t finish him. But what good would it do? One man, unarmed, a woman and another man, bound fast to his chair, were helpless against the numbers in the room. It was … hopeless …
He forced a smile to his lips as he looked into those beautiful hazel eyes. Above all other emotions at that moment the thought that he had believed her in league with The Miser sickened him most … until it was lost in the revelation of the knowledge that her life to him was more precious than anything in the world. He would give everything that he had to save her … yet the only means that he could employ meant sending the whole world into chaos.
‘We’ll call his bluff,’ he said slowly. The effort to smile and to speak calmly was almost too much for him, but he succeeded. ‘They can’t get way with it, Gretta; they must fail.…’
The harsh voice of The Miser broke in, and one more brief sentence brought them nearer eternity.
‘You have two minutes left.…’
Quinion tried to speak, but his tongue seemed to stick to the roof of his mouth. He smiled, putting every ounce of strength that he had into the effort. The silence was complete, a fearful silence that seemed like the herald of death.
For a second time de Lorne broke the terrible tension with a chuckle which, even if it was more forced, made Quinion realize the brief gap between natural living and the horror of that room. And this time even Kret
terlin stared at the bound man with something akin to admiration in his eyes.
‘If it’s cheer-ho, Jimmy—well, we gave ‘em a run for their money.…’
Quinion smiled back.
‘Don’t you worry, Peter; we’ve run them to earth all right.’
The Miser’s red eyes flamed. The hands of the watch went remorselessly towards the last few seconds. Every breath seemed hushed.
Quinion poised himself for a spring. He could not speak, of course, but he could make a final effort to end the life of the fiend who sat in that chair with his hand hovering about that fearful button that would spell death for Margaret Alleyn and chaos for the world. The moment that The Miser spoke again Quinion was prepared to make the effort.
The harsh voice broke the awful silence, and every muscle in Quinion’s body was tightened for his spring.
‘You have decided?’
Quinion leapt.
Hessley, taken completely unawares, lost his touch on the trigger of his automatic and swore beneath his breath. Kretterlin sprang up, but slipped and fell to the ground. The Miser’s blazing red eyes loomed up like two balls of fire into the flecked grey of Quinion’s and his fingers lost the button and sought desperately for it. But Quinion’s steel-like fingers were fastened round the thin neck, and The Miser’s strength oozed from him. He struggled furiously, and had Quinion been fighting coolly he would have wondered at the other’s strength. But the only thought in Quinion’s mind was to end the life of the monster who was writhing in his grasp.
A dozen hands plucked at his coat and tugged madly to drag him away, but he felt that the strength of a giant was in his muscles. His fingers squeezed with devilish purpose; with a strangled gasp The Miser fell limp and lifeless.
And at the same moment a roar filled the ears of everyone in the room. The walls shook and the door shivered violently on its hinges. The pictures fell and smashed on the floor and the electric light swayed ominously. Then de Lorne’s voice raised itself above the commotion joyously.
‘They’ve blown up the Café, Jimmy!’
26
A Chat with Gordon Craigie
QUINION’S mind cleared of its red rage in a flash, and he threw the limp form of The Miser from him. He did not move from the spot, however, for he was bent on keeping any of the members of the World Council from touching that fateful button. He wondered at Simon Hessley’s failure to use his automatic, but saw the explanation quickly. Hessley, after the first shock of the explosion, had swung round towards the door and the revolver had been knocked from his grasp as the great figure of Kretterlin had forced by him.
Only Hessley and Brundt seemed to realize the vast importance of the button set in the table. The former moved towards it, eyeing Quinion warily, but the latter lunged forward and caught Hessley’s chin with a tremendous punch that sent his man flying backwards. Brundt, following behind the Englishman, was taken off his feet as Hessley hurtled back. Then, for the third time, Peter de Lorne chuckled.
There was no need to force it, this time. The sight of the members of the World Council scurrying through a door opposite that through which Quinion had entered, was ludicrous. With one accord they were flying for their lives; it seemed that with the death of their leader they were helplessly lost, and their minds filled with the one great thought of escape. Tunn and Kretterlin had started a panic, and the manner in which Hessley had been knocked out completed it. In the space of a minute there were only five people in the room. The Miser was lolling back in his chair, the red eyes bulging horribly and his tongue half out of his mouth. Hessley, knocked unconscious by striking his head against the corner of the table as he fell, lay inert. De Lorne watched the Hon. James as the latter bent over the still figure of the girl.
Quinion did not hear the noise of footsteps outside the room until they stopped for a moment and a fist hammered noisily on the panels. He swung round as de Lorne called out briefly:
‘Bust the damned thing down.’
There were more footsteps and a consultation outside the door, but before anyone had acted on de Lorne’s advice Quinion had stepped across the room and swung it open. He receded a step as the muzzles of three revolvers pointed towards him, only to be lowered as the voice of Gordon Craigie broke the momentary silence.
‘Not bad, Number Seven. How’s the female of the species?’
Quinion licked his lips for a second before he grinned.
‘I’ll tell you better,’ he said lightly, ‘if you’ll lend me some smelling salts.’
• • • • •
Quinion entered the room which he knew to be the head-quarters of Department ‘Z’ and smiled across at his Chief, who was sitting back in the leather arm-chair and smoking the inevitable meerschaum.
‘Gordon,’ he said conversationally, ‘I never did like that dressing-gown of yours; if I lend you a fiver will you buy a real one? Yellow with blue spots, like a leopard’s, or a nice pale pink.…’
‘No,’ answered Craigie, ‘I won’t.’
‘All right,’ Quinion said easily. ‘I’ll hand you my resignation herewith, and this time you’re going to accept it.’
Craigie watched the younger man as he dragged the swivel-chair opposite that of the head of Department ‘Z’. The Hon. James was dressed in a perfectly cut lounge suit, and was smoking a Virginia cigarette. The flecked grey eyes were smiling contentedly.
‘Serious?’ demanded Craigie, lifting the meerschaum from his mouth.
‘Dead serious,’ responded Quinion. ‘As a matter of fact, Gordon, I’ve postponed my wedding for an hour in order to have this chat with you, and it’s going to be expensive, what with a special licence and the cabby ticking the tanners while I’m up here.’
Gordon Craigie shifted his meerschaum from his right hand to his left and stood up slowly. Quinion gripped the other’s proffered hand and smiled at the laughing eyes of his Chief.
‘One of the reasons why you’ll be happy, Jimmy, is that you always move fast. She’s a nice girl.’
‘If you talk to me like that,’ grinned Quinion, ‘I’ll knock your head off. Without exception she’s the finest, pluckiest, loveliest—— well, that’ll keep, and I haven’t much time.’ He took his pipe from his pocket and stretched a hand out for Craigie’s pouch. ‘Now you can start talking.’
‘You know, of course, that Chane rang me up and told me just what the position was,’ Craigie said. ‘Or rather Felton did, the man who took Chane to de Lorne’s place. And you know that we found the Café of Clouds locked all over the place and that the only way of getting in was to blow it up; it seemed safe enough, because from what Chane said all the rooms that mattered were below ground. Everything worked out perfectly … you know that too. The whole shoot of the World Council turned up from a house just behind the Café, and as we had something over a thousand men in the neighbourhood, there wasn’t much trouble. There’s a door leading from the Café itself to the house, of course, and I gather that it was the regular entrance for the great men.’
‘Did you get them all?’ demanded Quinion. ‘I had hoped to be in at the kill, but——’
‘If it eases your conscience,’ said Craigie, ‘as soon as the doctor—I brought one with me, in case of accident—had brought Miss Alleyn round I told him to dose you; you had the stiffest packet of sleeping stuff in that peg of whisky that you swilled from my flask that I’ve ever seen; so blame it on to me.’
‘I’ll grant you I was tired,’ Quinion put in. ‘Carry on.’
Gordon Craigie hesitated for a few minutes before he continued, but Quinion sat silent. ‘Well, you know as much as I do about the Council, and The Miser.’
‘Alias Arnold Alleyn,’ interjected Quinion. ‘What a man! …’
‘So you don’t know as much as I do. Arnold Alleyn is alive to-day … and he’ll probably be shot for high treason with the rest of them.’
‘Then who …?’ The Hon. James was perturbed, and he dropped his pipe. ‘Then, who the devil …’
&nbs
p; ‘The man named Smith was The Miser,’ said Craigie evenly. ‘I had my doubts about that man, although his story was true enough. Loder did ruin him in Canada, and it wasn’t until afterwards that Smith began the organization. He used Loder, but always intended to kill him. That was why he was shot at the Café———’
Quinion had recovered from his surprise, and had begun to draw at his pipe again. He took it from his mouth for a moment, however, to interrupt.
‘Shot by whom?’ he demanded.
‘The real Queen of the Clouds. It went like this, Jimmy. Smith and Alleyn … I still don’t know their real name … were brothers, and they had one trait in common … a passionate love of the human voice. Soon after he came to England The Miser, or Smith, married an actress who had got mixed up in an international crime organization. It was that which started Smith off on his World Council idea, together with his brother’s, Arnold Alleyn’s, association with the more prominent thieves; Alleyn, of course, had been a “fence” for many years. By the way, Jimmy, there’s one little thing that might ease your mind a bit.…’
‘Anything is welcome,’ Quinion said sadly.
‘The fact,’ answered Craigie, ‘that Alleyn is not Margaret’s father. He adopted her when she was a youngster, and worked it so that she believed herself to be his daughter; and the reason for the adoption was the fact of Margaret’s wonderful voice. Even as a child she was a prodigy. Occasionally, when The Miser’s wife wanted an evening off, Margaret took her place; and on the evening before last, when you saw her at the Café, she had been forced to appear under the threat of seeing you killed. Alleyn had let her catch a glimpse of Chane, who was unrecognizable because of the blood over his face, and had told her that it was you; he’s about your build, you know.’
‘We are clearing things up,’ murmured Quinion. ‘Hurry, Gordon; the registrar won’t wait.’
‘Another item is that Margaret appeared on the stage in small parts occasionally, under orders from her supposed father,’ went on Craigie, smiling. ‘I don’t know why, but Alleyn told me that he liked to see her there; it was probably just a twisted type of vanity, Jimmy. Anyhow, that’s all I can tell you about your young woman.’
