by John Creasey
Tommy Wigham moved. By the time they reached the pavement he had quietened down a little but still regarded Burke suspiciously. The big man sighed.
“She’s all right,” he said. “But she’s had a hell of a shock. Don’t try to worry her for a while.”
“W—what nursing home did she go to?”
“Somewhere in Surrey.”
For some reason, Tommy Wigham made no further protest. He might well have argued that there was no need for her to go to Surrey. But he seemed to accept the statement as a final blow, and to give up hope of seeing her until she had recovered.
“Oh,” he said, unhappily. “I see. W-well—I suppose I shall be hearing from her.”
“I daresay,” said Burke, perfunctorily.
Tommy Wigham sniffed.
“All the s-same,” he protested, with a brief return of his bellicosity, “I don’t think it’s right. I-I’m her friend, damn it, and y-you’re only a r-ruddy policeman!”
Burke grinned.
“Not to worry—the police,” he said tritely, “are always good friends to good people.”
Tommy Wigham still looked suspicious. “When will y-you see her again?”
“I’ve no idea. But if you care to telephone me in a couple of days, I’ll let you have any news there is.”
Wigham was as suddenly cheerful as he had been suddenly suspicious. “That’s d–darned d–decent of you! What’s the number?”
“Piccadilly 81812—and the name’s Burke.”
“Th–thanks.” Tommy Wigham was beaming, now. “I–I’ll ring you the day after to-morrow. Now I’d better g-get back.”
“Don’t change your mind this time,” suggested Burke.
“No. N–no, certainly not. Couldn’t help it, before. Well—cheerio. Thanks a lot!”
He made a right-about-turn and dived back across the road, apparently heading for Westminster Underground Station. Burke grinned as he watched him go. He saw Tommy’s flaming red hair easily—and he also saw the short, well-dressed and very ugly man who turned in the wake of Mary Brent’s anxious friend.
Burke stared after them both for a moment, then opened his paper. For the second time that day he had a shock from the headlines, although this time he was taken completely unawares.
Even now, he could not be sure there was anything in it. But it looked bad—or good—according to the angle from which he viewed the situation. For the headline read:
* * *
“MINERS THREATEN TO STRIKE”
* * *
Beneath it, in slightly smaller type, ran the words:
* * *
“Sequel to Dispute at Granton Collieries”
* * *
“Now if that isn’t strange,” said James William Burke to himself, “I’d like to know what is.”
And folding the paper, he tucked it under his arm and went on his way.
* * *
Several other things happened that day; some of which Burke knew, some of which he learned later. Among them, Patricia Carris, Mary Brent and their bodyguard—according to Patricia—reached the Surrey cottage safely, suffering no interference and seeing no-one suspicious—although Timothy Arran was a notoriously suspicious man. Martha Dale had apparently taken the situation in her stride and was bustling about, preparing the spare rooms: luckily, there were two.
Patricia, being Patricia, had elected to sleep in the same room as a too bright-eyed Mary Brent, who was obviously verging on a nervous breakdown. Both Carruthers and Arran were as concerned as Patricia for the girl, and sorry for her. Both men were wondering, too, whether—and when and how—anything would happen. Carruthers was hopeful that it would. His declaration of this hope kindled minor hostilities between himself and Timothy, who was all for trouble, but not at Byways.
Forty miles away, more or less, other people were reacting in different ways to the Fordham murder.
Sir Joseph Granton was rehearsing the speech he would make at the next board meeting, due to take place in seven days’ time. He was a little annoyed because he could not get in touch with the company’s temporary secretary and solicitor, but he did not think the delay would last longer than twenty-four hours.
The tragedy apart, Sir Joseph considered the situation to be very satisfactory. He said so, aloud, to his valet.
“The only possible trouble now, Gulliver,” he announced, “is young Lavis. What a trial these young people are! Obstinacy, Gulliver, is the servant of the devil.”
“Yes, sir,” said Gulliver. “You’re dining in to-night, sir, or—?”
“Yes, yes. No-one is coming?”
“Not to my knowledge, sir.”
“Good. Good.” Sir Joseph beamed absently, and began to think about young Lavis again. A widower of seven years standing, he had little to think about but his business which, as he had always proudly proclaimed, was also his hobby. It wasn’t until four o’clock that afternoon that Sir Joseph was informed by telephone of the ugly turn of events at the Granton mines.
And then he ceased to be cheerful.
“Stop it,” he snapped into the telephone. The manager of the South Wales colliery was speaking to him, and for thirty years Sir Joseph had given the manager orders without troubling to consider whether they could be obeyed. “There must be no strike, Pickering—that’s imperative! It would ruin everything!”
“But we can’t agree to their terms,” said Pickering, reasonably. “That is, not if we follow the company’s policy, Sir Joseph. And the company’s policy is a common one with other owners. I assure you the situation is serious.”
“Stop the strike!” snapped Sir Joseph. “Good God, Pickering, you know what it means! We can’t have trouble until the deal with Cropper-Gordon’s goes through. We can’t, I tell you!”
At the other end of the line, Pickering scowled.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said.
“Hold it over for ten days—a fortnight,” snapped Granton. “Ten days for certain. Promise anything you like—but stop that strike!”
Pickering, whose sympathies were not all with the owners, was tempted to reply to that effect. He conquered the temptation, and grunted non-committally. Granton, meanwhile, had cooled down a little. He was seated in his favourite armchair in the study of his Hampstead house, and fingered his beard restlessly. He looked a worried, anxious yet arrogant old man—all of which he was.
“Are you still there, Pickering?” he demanded.
“Yes,” said the manager, shortly. That order to ‘promise anything’ had not made him pleased with life, or with Sir Joseph.
“Good. Well, what’s caused this threat, man? You’re manager, aren’t you? You ought to have stifled it at birth.”
“If I’d been in the room with him, instead of at the end of a telephone,” Pickering was to say, afterwards, “I think I’d have strangled the old devil.” At the time, he said: “It’s the old trouble, sir—wages and hours.”
“Pah!” snapped Granton. “Those damned agitators, I’ll warrant. It’s always the same. Some madman stirs up the trouble and I—I have to face it. Now listen, Pickering—”
Pickering listened. But, he was silently wondering whether he dared take a big step and let the owner meet the trouble. Pickering himself had been facing trouble for so many years, as well as taking orders from London that did little but irritate him and the men. The thought of Granton himself dealing with the masses and the men’s representatives gave him a bitter pleasure.
“Listen, Pickering.” Granton emphasised each word: “We—can’t—have—any—strikes—for—at—least—ten—days. Is that clear? Do anything to stop it—anything!”
“I’ll do what I can,” said Pickering, bleakly. “When shall I ring you again?”
“When it’s settled,” snapped Granton.
For the first time in his life, Pickering hung up first. Never before had he been so close to speaking his mind. Granton hardly noticed. He pushed the telephone away from him and stared blankly at the oak paneling of
the walls.
“This will finish me,” he muttered. “Cropper-Gordon’s won’t stick to their offer—they’ll cut it. Oh—damn! Damn!”
* * *
Richard Lavis was feeling better that afternoon.
His interview with Superintendent Miller had given him confidence. His old obstinacy was returning—he was damned if he would change his colours. And now his decision was strengthened by reason. There was something big behind this effort to frighten him. There was a game going on that suggested intrigue of which he had no knowledge. Oh, he’d guessed that before, but it hadn’t been so obvious.
Lavis’s pale face was set; his expression would have reminded Jim Burke of Tommy Wigham’s.
“I’ll see it out,” he muttered, now. “Damn it, I’ve got police protection—everything I want. I’ll fight ’em!”
He didn’t know who they were, but the words made him feel better. He was still at his Hampstead home—a mile away from Sir Joseph Granton, as he knew—and Miller had warned him not to go out that day. The plainclothes men on guard had been doubled, and the footman who had recently been installed at the house was now reinforced by a plainclothes detective who made no bones about his real identity. The maids—especially the maid who had taken Dick Lavis his breakfast that morning—were pleasurably excited. The only manservant, hitherto, had been an elderly and disapproving butler whose views on modern femininity were bluntly uncompromising and unsympathetic.
At about five o’clock, when Lavis was in an upstairs room trying to interest himself in a cross-word puzzle, the telephone rang. The sound sent a nervous shock right through him. Was it—news? The only news he wanted to hear was from Miller, and he recognised the Super’s gruff voice with real relief.
“Yes,” he said, eagerly. “Lavis speaking...”
“Mr Lavis,” Miller told him, “you will get a call from a Mr Burke, sometime this evening. You’ll have no trouble in recognising him—he’s a man about my size. The guards will know him at all events, so they’ll admit him to the house.”
“Yes.” Lavis didn’t know whether to be disappointed because this was not definite news, or pleased because it was obviously another step in the investigations of the threats and attempts to kill him.
“Answer his questions,” Miller told him. “Whatever they are—you can trust Burke implicitly. But I thought I’d warn you he was coming. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.” Lavis replaced the receiver, hesitated a moment, then strode to a small table which held whisky and glasses. He had picked up the decanter and the whisky was actually gurgling into the glass when he stopped and said a sudden: “Damn!”
He glared from the glass to the decanter. Suddenly, he grinned.
“Blast the stuff,” he announced. “I’m damned if I’ll let them get me down!”
He set the glass down, took a cigarette from his case and crossed to the window, to gaze at the distant heath.
He didn’t hear the car coming: he was too full of his decision to cut out drink. He was still grinning at himself when the car passed. Something attracted his gaze and he stared down—to see a single spurt of flame stab out, as if from the car itself; and then something bit into his chest. He staggered, and went pale. For a moment he felt no pain, but he knew what had happened—
His right hand sought his chest. Blood oozed on to his fingers; wet, warm. His face drained of colour as, with a little gasp of dread, he staggered towards the bell-push by the door. He pressed it, and leaned against the wall for a moment. Then with a queer, choking sob, he reeled towards the small table and picked up the whisky decanter, staring oddly at the blurred red marks his fingers left on the glass.
And there was the man named Curson.
Curson had sat between Graydon and the American gunman during the journey in the cab from Brook Street. No word had been spoken. Curson was too scared to speak.
He guessed what would happen, and he was terribly afraid.
Graydon’s face was no longer genial; it was twisted in fury. The American showed nothing at all; he never did. He didn’t alter his expression even when he shot to kill.
Somehow Curson managed to keep his teeth from chattering, and his hands still. The cab went by the shortest route to a house in Regent’s Park. It stopped outside, and Graydon spoke.
“Get out,” he snapped.
Curson shivered as he obeyed, although the autumn air was warm. With Graydon and the gunman behind him, he walked the drive to the house. The gravel crunched beneath his feet, and to Curson there was a dreadful significance in the sound.
This was his last walk.
He knew it. He felt it. Death was beckoning him.
The sun was still in the heavens, the sky was cloudless, the leaves of the trees rustled in the lightest of breezes.
Nature was mocking him——
Shadows materialised out of the bright light of day for the man named Curson. Filled with dread—knowing of the gun under the American’s coat, knowing what was going to happen—he approached the house. A single shout then, might have saved him. They dared do nothing in the open...
Curson didn’t shout.
His face was deathly white as he mounted the steps to the front door. He saw the door open, saw the butler—tall, dark, silent—stand to one side. For a second, he hesitated.
Graydon poked him in the ribs.
“Get in,” he snapped.
Curson went in.....
Terror reared up inside him, now, and on the threshold of the house he half-turned and a scream rose to his lips. In a flash, the butler moved. A hand closed over his mouth, forcing the cry back. He was half-pushed, half-lifted, into the hall. Then the door banged.
“So you’d talk, would you?” Graydon snarled. “You hadn’t the guts to keep a still tongue, hadn’t you? You know what happens to men who rat on me, Curson—!”
Curson’s eyes glared with madness. In a frenzy of terror he fought against the butler’s grip; but he couldn’t get a word out, he couldn’t get away.
“Hit him,” Graydon ordered.
The butler’s grip relaxed, but Curson was breathless; he couldn’t find his voice. As he staggered away, the butler cracked a clenched right fist on his chin. Even as he cried out, a second punch floored him. He lay there, grovelling, gibbering.....
“Drop him,” said Graydon.
The American, unimpeded by the big gun under his coat, dipped his right hand into his pocket and brought out an automatic. Without a word, he touched the trigger. Flame stabbed out and bullets bit into Curson’s chest—once, twice, thrice!
Curson didn’t cry out; the death rattle came, and he went suddenly very still.
“Get rid of him,” said Graydon, coldly.
Without a glance at the American or the butler, he walked towards the staircase and began to mount it. Not until he reached the top step, did he speak. Then:
“We’ve got to be out of here, in one hour,” he told them. “Everything—and everybody—that matters.”
Without waiting for a reply, he strode on.
10
INCLUDING A NURSING HOME
Patricia Carris laughed into the face of the big man, and told him he was an idiot.
“If Mary’s here,” she said, “we’re in it. And in for a penny, in for a pound.”
Burke grimaced.
“I still don’t like it.”
“Jim, you must listen to reason. We have the room down here, and since we have your friends, anyway, they might as well have something to do. Let young Lavis come. Martha’s a trained nurse and I can look after Mary Brent, now that the funeral is over—and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”
“You, being nothing,” said Burke.
“Don’t be obstinate. You know if you’d any sound reason against it, you’d have quashed it right away. Wouldn’t you?”
“So your safety isn’t a good reason?”
“Jim, I’ll brain you!”
“At the rate I’m progressing with this job,” growled
Burke, “I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ve got any brains.”
“At last!” crowed the very ugly gentleman who was sprawling in an armchair by the window. Until that moment, he had appeared to be asleep. But Toby Arran, brother of Tim, was never asleep when there was a chance to dig at Jim Burke.
“It’s awake,” grinned Burke. “We shan’t have any peace now, so we’ll have to make up our minds.”
“Mine’s made up,” said Patricia firmly.
But Burke still hesitated.
Three days had passed since he had first learned of the Fordham-Brent mysteries and he was gloomy now because he had learned little else. The motives were still hidden. Among other things, Graydon had completely disappeared, and Curson was also missing—Burke suspected he was dead. The car from which Dick Lavis had been shot had not been traced, although three policemen had seen it and noted its number—a false one, as it proved.
On the morning after the shooting, a letter had been delivered to the Lavis house, containing the threat familiar to him and to Superintendent Miller—and because of his wound, Miller had made sure that Lavis hadn’t seen it, that time.
At no time had he been critically ill, but that chest injury was no joke. Now, he was well enough to be moved and Burke had voiced, in Patricia’s hearing, a wish that he could be somewhere out of London, yet under the Department’s watchful eye. Patricia immediately suggested Byways—and he did admit, to himself, that she was being both helpful and sensible.
So long as Mary Brent was at the cottage, and until the murders had been cleared up, there would be Department Z men both at and near Byways. Patricia reasoned that not only would the place be safe against anything short of an air or mass machine-gun attack, but that Burke could be absolutely sure there was no chance of Lavis being ‘got at’.
Burke’s big objection to the suggestion was a simple one. He had no proof that Mary Brent was in danger, now her father was dead. He had ample proof that Lavis was in danger. Therefore, to have Lavis at the cottage was inviting trouble. On the other hand, it could be reasonably assumed that trouble would be capably handled.
