by John Creasey
Yet he wondered whether he had overdone what had to be said, whether he had jumped the gun, and convinced the kidnappers that having Hobbs would win them nothing. If that were so, had his words condemned Hobbs to death? What would Penny think? Would she believe he was prepared to sacrifice her beloved on the altar of principle? And had he been wrong to mention the Yorkshire terrier?
For if the killers of the unknown man thought the dog and its owner might be identified, then obviously both dog and owner were in acute danger. He was more on edge than he could remember; it wasn’t fair to take it out on Kate, but that was what he was doing.
Into a brief silence, the telephone bell rang.
He hesitated, then swung round to take the call at the extension close to the passage door. It could be news from the Yard; he was stiff with hope.
“Gideon,” he said in a clipped voice.
“Daddy,” Penelope said. “You were wonderful.”
He caught his breath; and then waved to Kate, so that she could take the call on the kitchen extension. Penny went on: “I hated what you had to say but I know you had to say it.”
“Bless you.” His voice was gruff.
“Penny,” Kate said, “he’s been flagellating himself because of what you might think.”
“Oh, nonsense! Daddy, you mustn’t.” Penelope’s breathing was coming more quickly and her voice almost faded; why was it that there were some moments which broke down all barriers, bared all feelings, brought buried tears close to the surface? He could actually hear her gulping. “Is there—is there any news?”
“Not yet,” Gideon said. “The moment there is—”
“I’m sorry to interrupt you,” a woman said, briskly, “but I have an urgent call for Commander Gideon from Scotland Yard. Will you take it now, sir, or shall I ask them to call back ?”
Gideon answered quietly: “One moment, please, and I’ll take it. Penny, what’s your telephone number in Liverpool?” He took down the number she gave him, and went on: “If there’s any good news – any news at all – I’ll call you.”
“All right.” Penny sounded as if tears had caught up with her.
Gideon was quiet only for a moment as his daughter hung up; then he said to the operator: “I’ll take that call now.” It seemed a long time coming through, so long that Kate said into the extension: “Do you think they’ve found him?”
“Don’t know,” he replied, and thought: Alive or dead. Then Sharp of K.L. Division spoke in his unmistakable voice, putting some fears and some hopes at rest.
“Commander, we have the woman and her Yorkshire terrier. We also have a man on a charge of attempting to cause her grievous bodily harm. He was about to attack her with an iron bar of a weight and shape which could have been used to kill the man in Mr. Hobbs’s car.”
“I’ll come over,” Gideon said at once. “Have you questioned them yet?”
“The woman seemed to be near a state of collapse – if it hadn’t been for her dog she might have been killed. The man won’t talk.”
“We might find a way to persuade him,” Gideon said. “Are you checking his fingerprints against any found on the car and in that garage?”
“Yes – as fast as we can,” Sharp told him.
“Good.” Gideon put the telephone down and moved into the middle room as Kate appeared from the kitchen. He was acutely aware of the fact that he was going to leave her alone; she must be very lonely these days, perhaps lonelier than she had ever been, and that fact was not eased by her understanding and acceptance of it. He was surprised to see that she was smiling.
“I’m sorry—” he began, and then had an idea. “Would you care to come over to Hampstead? I’m not likely to be there long.”
“No, George, I shall be perfectly all right,” she replied. “If I don’t call the children they’ll call me, they’ve probably tried and found the line engaged. You be as long as you have to be,” she added, and suddenly her expression changed and was almost as bleak and ruthless as his could be at times. “Find Alec, whatever you do.” They stood face to face for a moment or two and then she went on: “I never did have much doubt about how much she loved Alec. Now I’ve no doubts at all.”
“I’ll find him,” Gideon said, gruffly.
But how could he possibly be sure?
The man who had been stopped from attacking Geraldine Tudor, first by the terrier and then by the police, was hard-faced, hard-eyed. If there was such a thing as a criminal type, this was it.
He refused to give a name, had nothing in his pockets or on his clothes to identify him.
“Who sent you to attack Miss Tudor?” Gideon demanded.
They were in the cells beneath the divisional station; Sharp was with him, a sergeant and a police officer in the passage; the cell door was locked.
The man didn’t answer.
Gideon said, with an outward show of mildness: “You still have a chance to turn Queen’s Evidence. You may not have another.”
The man returned his gaze impassively.
Gideon said: “You must know that your employer will send someone to kill you to stop you from talking, as readily as he sent you to kill Miss Tudor.”
The man did not change expression, or move, or speak.
“All right,” Gideon said to Sharp. “Charge him with attempted murder and have him up before the beak first thing in the morning.” Laying a hand on Sharp’s shoulder, he went on: “You’re sure the piece of iron this chap had was roughly the same size and weight as the one which was used on the man in Hobbs’s car?”
“As sure as I can be,” Sharp said.
The prisoner said with harsh triumph: “You won’t find any blood on it.”
Slowly, Gideon turned round.
“Then let us have your suit.”
“Why the hell should I?”
“Because I say so. If you haven’t started in thirty seconds I’ll send for a couple of men to strip you.”
“But why?”
“Have you ever heard of a blood test?” Gideon asked him. “It’s a simple and foolproof one. If there’s a single speck of blood on your jacket or trousers we’ll know in half an hour whether it was the dead man’s or not.”
The man said in a high-pitched voice: “I didn’t kill anybody!”
“Are you going to take off your clothes or are we going to have to take them off you?”
Very slowly, fearfully, the man began to undo his tie. Gideon nodded and turned round, motioning the turnkey to open the cell door. He held it wide open for Sharp to pass through, and the prisoner made a wild rush, pushed him aside, got out of the cell and into the passage, and then ran into a blow from the sergeant’s enormous fist.
“Keep at him,” Gideon urged Sharp. “He’ll crack. First he’ll remember his own name and then with luck he’ll begin to remember others.”
“That’s the way I want it,” Sharp said.
Gideon nodded, and went upstairs, first to see P.C. Best, then Geraldine Tudor.
He recognised the elderly policeman he was seeking without difficulty.
“Are you P.C. Best?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You saw the old lady and her dog last night?”
“Yes, sir.” Best began to go pink in the face. “Proper fool she made of me, too.”
“You escorted an old lady who seemed lost in the fog to where she told you she lived,” Gideon said. “I hope any officer would do the same. It would be nice if we all had a built-in lie detector, but we haven’t.”
“Well, I haven’t,” admitted Best, woefully. “And that’s a fact.”
“How often have you seen her tonight?”
“Twice, sir.”
“You’re absolutely sure she is the same woman?”
“I’d give up my pension
if she isn’t!” Best said with such comical confidence that Gideon was surprised into a laugh, and there was a general chuckle from everyone nearby.
“All right,” Gideon said. “I’m going to talk to her. Come in, and make yourself inconspicuous. You may have to remember most of what she says.”
“I’ll remember,” Best assured him earnestly. “Don’t you worry about that, sir.”
Gideon opened the door of the waiting-room where Geraldine Tudor sat. She was sitting back in an easy chair, the dog in her lap. A plainclothes policewoman sat at a small table, a notebook in front of her, a paperback book also open, and to one side. At sight of Gideon, she sprang up.
“Good-evening, sir.”
“Good-evening,” Gideon said. “May I see your notes, please?”
“They’re in shorthand, sir, they wouldn’t mean anything to you, but—but Miss Tudor’s hardly said a thing.”
“I see.” Gideon looked at the elderly woman. “Have you checked whether she needs anything? Tea, coffee, cigarettes, or—”
“No! No! Poison all!” cried the woman distractedly. “I don’t know what the world is coming to when even the police shrug their shoulders and do nothing when our parks are used as brothels and places of assignation!”
The dog started barking furiously. A fringe hung over his eyes yet they shone brightly; the long hair on his back seemed to dance like silver waves.
“Madam,” Gideon began, taking advantage of a lull. “Madam—”
“I know who you are! I saw you on television only tonight, you—you hypocrite. You talk like that because a friend of yours has been kidnapped, but what do you do about the thousands of people whose whole lives are in jeopardy in our parks? Dens of iniquity, that’s what they are, and you let your men ignore it, absolutely ignore it. Hypocrisy! That is the only word—don’t you talk to me, Mr. Gideon! When are you going to save London? That’s what I want to know. That’s what all decent people want to know!”
She stopped; glaring.
The policewoman stood by the table, looking at the old woman as if mesmerised, and P.C. Best, on Gideon’s other side, regarded her open-mouthed. When her voice stopped the dog yapped, but she covered its mouth gently with her veined and brown-spotted hand, and it settled, curling about in her lap again.
Gideon spoke in his gentlest voice.
“I understand exactly how you feel, Miss Tudor. In fact that’s what I’ve come to talk to you about.”
The rage died out of her eyes and she relaxed; once relaxed, she began to shiver.
Chapter Thirteen
A NAME TO BEGIN WITH …
Gideon went to the table and pulled out an upright chair. Standing close, he would tower frighteningly over Geraldine Tudor, and one way or the other she had been frightened enough. He pitched the chair a little way across the room, letting his eyes rest comfortingly on woman and dog.
“There is so much to clean up, some of it obvious, some of it under the surface,” Gideon said. He was like a father talking to a child. “And we shall never do it if we don’t work together.”
She rubbed her eyes.
“I know how impatient you, and many others, must feel,” Gideon went on, “and I know how easy it is to make mistakes when one loses patience.”
She breathed: “Impatience? We’ve waited so long, so very long.”
“Yes,” Gideon said, “but now you’ve brought yourself into conflict with the police. With authority. So we have to spend time arguing – quarrelling – with you, when you want the same things that we want.”
“You—you even break up our meetings,” she protested, with a brief return of spirit.
“Yes, I know. But we have to keep the streets clear. Miss Tudor – do you think I could talk to your leaders?”
She drew her shoulders up, defensively.
“Why should you?”
“Because I think we should work together,” Gideon repeated quietly. “You know it won’t get us anywhere to be on opposite sides.” When she didn’t answer but continued to look at him suspiciously, he went on: “Now I’m sure you were asked to mislead Constable Best here for a very good reason. Unfortunately it took him away from his duty – his actual work on the beat – at a time which proved to be very serious. Do you know why you were asked to mislead him?”
She muttered defensively: “No, no I don’t.”
“You were asked to, weren’t you?”
“I’ve sworn an oath of allegiance,” she declared, with a flare of pride. “I don’t question my instructions, Mr. Gideon. I simply obey.”
“Most praiseworthy,” Gideon said. “Have you had many such instructions?”
“I am very active in E.L.C.” She spelled the letters out, meticulously. “And I often have to distract the police.”
“Indeed,” Gideon said, and smiled at Best. “No wonder you were misled, constable! We are dealing with an expert.” Best had the sense to say nothing and Gideon looked back at Geraldine Tudor.
“Can you give me an example?”
“I’m not sure that I should,” she prevaricated.
“Oh, just a general example, not a specific case,” Gideon said reassuringly.
“Well, perhaps I could do that,” she conceded, and she began to stroke the Yorkshire terrier with long, smooth movements. “If we are to hold a meeting, or to clean out some—some cesspit of iniquity, I will distract the police or park-keepers while the task is carried out. I consider it my duty,” she went on proudly.
“I am sure you do. Just as I consider it mine to protect public property.”
“To protect these licentious young animals, you mean!”
“If I can do the one without the other I would be very glad,” Gideon declared. “Did the request yesterday—”
“It was not a request, Commander. It was an instruction from a senior officer.”
“And you obeyed just as my men would obey,” Gideon mused. “Did your instructions yesterday come from the same source as they usually come?”
“Naturally they did.”
“Who did they come from?” asked Gideon, and shifted his chair in the hope of distracting her from the significance of the question.
“My superior, as always,” the woman said primly.
“Do you know her?”
“I knew her voice, Commander, and that is sufficient for me.”
“Ah,” said Gideon. “You identified the voice of a superior. Are you sure it was—”
“I am not in the habit of making mistakes,” Geraldine Tudor asserted with great severity. “Nor am I so easily fooled as you appear to think. It was apparent from the beginning that some of our actions would be unlawful – just as the actions of the suffragettes were unlawful. But they succeeded as ours will succeed.” She drew her shoulders back proudly as she went on: “We have a very efficient organisation. We do not give instructions by name: we learn the voices of our superiors whenever we are to receive instructions which may be unlawful. So we cannot betray our leaders.”
Gideon pursed his lips before he said: “Very clever, Miss Tudor, there are some very astute minds behind this. However—” He let the word hover in the air. Best shifted his position. There was a sound at the door, but no one tapped and it didn’t open. Gideon stood up very slowly, his height and girth dominating the room. It seemed a long time before he came to a standstill a few feet from the woman.
“Would your leaders connive at murder, Miss Tudor?”
“Most certainly not!”
“Yet murder was done.”
“I had no part in it, and neither did they.”
“I don’t for a moment suppose you did—wittingly.”
“What do you mean—wittingly?”
“I mean it is easy to imitate voices,” Gideon said with vehemence. “And
if someone used the voice of your superior to make you distract a police officer while a serious crime was being committed, then you might not be responsible in law, but morally you could not evade some measure of responsibility.” He moved still closer, and went on in a husky voice: “Could you, Miss Tudor?”
The old lady did not answer.
“Nor could your superior,” Gideon said. “And cold-blooded murder was committed. Moreover had the police not arrived in time you might well have been murdered yourself tonight. So your superior’s moral responsibility is much greater than yours. And if her voice could be imitated so as to deceive you, then it could be imitated to deceive others. I must talk to your superior at once. What is her name, please?”
“I—but I don’t know!” the other gasped. “That’s the whole idea.”
“You must know some of the leaders in E.L.C.,” insisted Gideon. “You didn’t become an active member without meeting others, learning the rules and regulations. To whom did you swear your oath of allegiance, for instance?”
“Lady Carradine,” the old lady answered dreamily.
It was apparent the moment she uttered the name she had misgivings. Her lips puckered, and she drew her body together as if she were suddenly cold. The vital thing, Gideon knew, was not to show his own satisfaction; to conceal from her the fact that he had been working up to this snap question ever since he had started talking.
“I think I know Lady Carradine,” he said, musingly. “I’ll have a word with her myself—or better, get the Commissioner to have a word with her.” He studied this woman, wondering what to do with her. If they kept her here, it might be a kind of disgrace from which she would never recover; on the other hand she seemed to live alone in a bleak room.
