by John Creasey
He decided at last, and smiled at Patricia.
“All right: I’ll have Lavis sent down here.”
“Let’s have a drink on that, before he changes his mind,” said Toby Arran, brightly. “Martha? Mar-tha!”
“It’s still awake,” said Jim Burke.
Undeniably one of the ugliest men in London (when he was in London) the pugnacious Tobias Arran was surprisingly enough one of the very best-dressed. Equally noteworthy was his habit of speech: he talked, Burke said, like a badly-oiled machine-gun. Nevertheless it was generally admitted that for an ugly man, Toby Arran had a way with the women. He was, however, still a bachelor.
He was also a keen and able member of Department Z, as was his brother.
Timothy Arran and Bob Carruthers still constituted the defending force of Byways. Both continued to bemoan the fact that they were not more exhilaratingly employed, even when Burke pointed out no one else was doing much.
On the surface, things were dull.
With Graydon’s disappearance, indeed, they were at a standstill. The solicitor was now officially wanted on suspicion of murder, and his portrait was in most newspapers most days. Yet nothing had developed. The inquests on both Fordham and Brent had been held, and the verdicts were identical—murder by some person or persons unknown.
On the afternoon of that third day, when he and Toby Arran drove back to London from Byways in his Talbot, Burke had plenty to think about.
Firstly, he now knew that Granton’s, a private company, could not sell out to Cropper-Gordon’s without the unanimous vote of the directors. Which suggested Graydon had not yet succeeded in achieving his object: Lavis’s vote was still wanted. Second, he had had the five directors of the bigger group—Cropper-Gordon’s—watched, and questioned. But as each had pointed out, the inevitability of the big group’s control of Granton’s was a fact: they obviously had no motive for trying to hasten it. On the contrary, they had good reason for delaying it. The labour unrest at Granton’s collieries was temporarily quiescent, but still threatened to cause grave trouble at any moment. If that developed, then Cropper-Gordon’s could withdraw their original offer for the company and subsequently make another, smaller one.
Burke himself had interviewed two gentlemen, Sir Marcus O’Ray and Colonel Morton Drake. The colonel had been almost too typically military. The knight had been a business man to the core. Burke was too experienced to reject a suspect because he had a first-class army record, came of a good family and had been amply provided all his life with this world’s goods. He was also too experienced to misjudge a man completely. And while he did not cross O’Ray off his list of possibles, he did erase the colonel’s name—while at the same time arranging a Department ‘shadow’ to keep the colonel under constant surveillance.
But it was O’Ray who interested Burke.
Marcus O’Ray was a distinguished-looking man. Tall, well-dressed, with silvering hair and rather fresh complexion, he looked pleasant and certainly proved courteous. His manner was temperate and unforced. The task of controlling the Cropper-Gordon group of colliery companies meant fifty-odd million pounds’ worth of responsibility on his shoulders; but he looked perfectly capable of handling that responsibility.
His offices in Throgmorton Street, two hundred yards from the older and dingier offices of the Granton Company, were a model of stream-lined efficiency combined with comfort. Despite an open window, in his own deeply-carpeted, elegantly spacious office on the fifth floor, the hum of traffic from the street below hardly penetrated.
The smile with which he greeted Burke was a mellow one; Sir Marcus was a mellow man. He offered a chair, cigars and himself for interrogation when he learned that Burke was on police business.
Whenever he wanted to make official enquiries, Burke took on himself the identity of a Special Branch man from the Yard. This achieved the required co-operation without revealing the true level of interest behind the enquiries.
Now, as he introduced the subject, Sir Marcus stopped smiling.
“Ah! The Fordham business, eh? A shocking affair, Mr Burke. I knew Fordham well. I liked him.”
“He seems to have been generally popular,” said Burke. “You know, Sir Marcus, that he was fighting you?”
Sir Marcus smiled again.
“Yes, and in more than one way, Mr Burke. Fordham and I were frequently after the same thing; more often than not, he won. But lately—perhaps I should say from the time he started to try and save Granton’s—he hasn’t been so successful.”
“Do you think he had any chance of saving Granton’s?”
“Arthur Fordham was capable of saving anything. I might tell you, Burke, that Fordham’s opposition to our purchase of the Granton Company only made us more eager. Because if Fordham saw something worth saving, it was well worth our trying to get.”
“Thank you,” said Burke. Throughout the interview, he presented a wooden-faced lack of humour: the watchful plainclothes policeman to perfection. “I suppose, Sir Marcus, you have no ideas of your own about the—er—tragedy?”
Sir Marcus looked thoughtful.
“Theories are dangerous,” he demurred. “But—well Fordham was playing with fire, earlier in the year.”
“You mean the Ranian concession?”
“Just that. It was an affair that almost shouted trouble—I may say I think Fordham realised it, but took the chance. Fordham was, if anything, too much of a gambler.”
“I wonder if you could enlarge on that?” asked Burke
Sir Marcus contemplated the half-inch of white ash on the end of his cigar.
“I’m only too anxious to assist you,” he said slowly. “But I cannot feel you need a great deal of help in this direction, Mr Burke. I have the highest opinion of the police. I think they must realise the connection between Fordham’s death and the Ranian oil concession.”
That, thought Burke, was beautifully ambiguous. He said:
“Why would you, Sir Marcus, have hesitated to touch the Ranian concession? It’s a big one, I believe, covering the export of ten million gallons of oil yearly.”
Sir Marcus looked amused.
“First, because I’m not interested in oil. Secondly, because I have a strong distrust of Ranian methods. The Government is not above double-dealing; few countries or companies will give Rania credit—and I have always played for safety. In other words, Mr Burke, the Ranian oil concession represented a gamble, and there is no room for gambling in my operations.”
It was a sweeping statement, and an authoritative one. It also told Jim Burke that Ranian business principles were such that the murders might easily be ascribed to representatives of Rania.
“I see.” He paused, then: “Did you ever have reason to believe that Mr Fordham thought he was in danger?”
“None at all.”
“Or that he regretted his Ranian activities?”
“Again—none at all.”
“I suppose you met Mr Fordham several times after his return from Rania? And perhaps—Mrs Fordham?”
“Yes, yes, indeed. I met him several times, and Mrs. Fordham twice. Fordham himself appeared in the best of health and spirits. His wife was—you will forgive the expression—nothing short of radiant.”
Sir Marcus was obviously a man who said what he had to say, emphatically—but only when he wanted to. Burke came away from that interview very thoughtfully.
He was thinking of Sir Marcus again as he drove Toby Arran back to London from Byways. Toby had been busy all night, and needed to get some sleep. Burke deposited him at his flat, spent half an hour at his own place, and then went out to make the one call which, till now, had evaded him.
He had not yet seen Katrina Fordham.
For two days following her husband’s murder, she had been forbidden visitors. She had not attended the inquest, but she had been at the funeral that morning. Despite her pallor, her loveliness had been in startling contrast to the severity of her mourning.
Burke had been there.
Now, he would meet her. So far, she had been very little bothered by the police. Servants and friends had been able to testify as to Fordham’s health and spirits before his death, and it had not been considered wise to question her. But it had to be done.
Burke wasn’t looking forward to his task. He walked to Number 17, Brake Street: Mrs Katrina Fordham had elected to stay at the flat where her husband had been murdered. Burke had long since learned that the ways of woman are strange, but this really surprised him....
Fordham’s flat was a sumptuous one, comprising two floors of a very spaciously-designed, neo-Georgian block. The ultra-modern decor did not appeal to Burke, whose taste leaned towards British oak and comfort.
The flat lacked atmosphere, warmth. Burke waited in a room which was carpeted and furnished throughout in the same neutral shade: a sort of sandy-beige. It depressed him. He felt dulled by it. He wondered if the dulling effect was deliberately contrived—to throw into sharper relief the vibrant beauty of Katrina Fordham, Princess of Rania.
He did not hear the door open. He was leaning back in a chair, his eyes closed, when her voice came softly across the silence:
“You are Mr Burke?”
Burke opened his eyes. Rising, he went towards her digesting with one swift but well-trained glance, every detail of her appearance and demeanour.
She was not in black, her gown being of some soft, gold material. Her expression was a mixture of stoicism and indifference; but her lips were set, and her eyes deeply shadowed. In some strange way, her pallor seemed more noticeable against the gold than it had against the black, that morning; and it was further emphasised by the dark hair braided and coiled about her head.
She seemed to Burke to be bereft of animation: even her voice was lifeless.
“Yes,” he told her and smiled apologetically. “You know why I have come, Mrs. Fordham? I did telephone this afternoon.”
“I know.” She spoke slowly, almost as if reciting words learned off by heart: “You will please be seated, Mr Burke. You may ask me whatever questions you like.”
“Thank you.” Burke waited for her to take a seat, before resuming his own. He told himself that her listlessness was only to be expected, but in his heart of hearts he could not reconcile himself to it. She hadn’t been like this at the funeral. Then, she had seemed human. She didn’t, now.
She gestured, wanly.
“Please go on.”
Burke adopted his woodenly-earnest manner: “Thank you. Now, can you tell me, Mrs. Fordham, whether your husband was expecting any attack on his life, during the past months?”
“I do not think so.”
“You saw no signs of—anxiety?”
“None.”
“Were there any incidents, while Mr Fordham was in Rania, in any way similar to the attack the other night?”
“No.”
She spoke in flawless English, but her voice, her eyes, her face, were utterly without expression. She sat absolutely still, staring at Burke. It was like talking to a statue.
Burke tried again—bluntly, almost brutally.
“Can you give me any idea, Mrs Fordham, why your husband was killed?”
He meant to pierce the mask of lifelessness that fitted her with such unnerving grimness. He needed to see her alive.
He failed. But he had one of the biggest shocks of his life, when she answered—slowly, tonelessly, but with a wealth of meaning in her words:
“Yes,” she said. “He was killed because he married me.”
11
ANOTHER SHOCK FOR BURKE
Jim Burke was an expert at repressing his feelings, and was glad of the fact, in that moment. Quietly, smoothly, even as the shock still coursed through him, he prompted:
“Do you know who killed him?”
Katrina, Princess of Rania, altered her expression for the first time in that strange interview. She smiled.
“I would not tell you, Mr Burke, if I did. I have surely told you enough. Perhaps more than enough.”
Burke was a man of quick decisions, and he made one then.
He rose at once, and bowed.
“Thank you, Mrs. Fordham. There’s no need for me to worry you any more—tonight.”
“I am glad.” Katrina rose, too. There was a clock-work smoothness about her movements as she crossed the room and pressed a bell-push.
As the door was opened by a maid, Katrina said:
“Goodnight, Mr Burke.”
Before he could respond, she had gone. The hall into which he stepped was coloured a greyish-blue, and struck him as even colder than the other room. The place, he thought, was like a morgue.
The maid had picked up his hat and was waiting by the front door. Before he reached it, he glanced into the room next to the one he had just left. It was there, he knew, that Fordham had been killed. The police had been over it with a fine-tooth comb.
“Goodnight, sir,” said the maid, handing him his hat.
“Goodnight.” Burke hesitated a moment. “Have you been here long?”
He hardly knew why he asked the question, beyond a vague awareness that he would only have been truly satisfied that nothing had been missed in the interrogation of the Fordham servants, had he conducted it himself.
“No, sir. I only came yesterday.”
Burke looked at her. He smiled, and when Burke smiled, it broke down barriers of reserve in a remarkable way.
“Did you, indeed? It must be quite a job getting used to the other servants, isn’t it?”
The girl tittered.
“Well, sir, seeing we’re all new—”
“Good Lord,” thought Burke: “All new!” Aloud: “That’s unusual, isn’t it?”
He smiled again—a genial giant of a man, rock-solid, friendly, safe. Belowstairs’ etiquette was swamped by desire to please—and the nervousness born of living in a flat where, three days before, murder had been done.
“Yes, sir, I suppose it is,” she babbled. “But—well, I mean, you can quite understand Mrs. Fordham not wanting the old servants, can’t you. I’m sure if I—”
She broke off suddenly as a soft-toned bell rang out above her head. The front door, Burke guessed, and moved towards it.
“Who engaged you?” he asked casually.
“The secretary, sir—he’s the same. Mr Broomfield—”
“Thanks,” said Burke, and opened the door.
And then he stared at the man outside, while the man outside stared back. They were absolutely silent for several seconds. It was Sir Marcus O’Ray who spoke first.
“You’re working late, Mr Burke.”
Burke laughed, with the portentous humour of an unimaginative man.
“Well, Sir Marcus, work’s work, and there’s no sleeping on murders. Not that the job’s to my liking,” he said, with a grimace. “And I don’t envy you, sir.”
“Why me?” asked O’Ray, with his mellow smile.
Burke looked a little uncomfortable.
“Well—you can’t very well not call, can you? But Mrs Fordham’s taking it hard, which is only to be expected.”
“I’m afraid so,” said Sir Marcus. “Well—goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” said James William Burke.
O’Ray went in and the door closed. Burke walked from the flat, very thoughtfully. He hoped he had convinced O’Ray that he believed he had called to pay his respects to the widow as a member of the Special Branch might be expected to believe.
But....
Had O’Ray really been fooled? And why had he really called?
It was certainly worth following up, Burke decided. O’Ray and Fordham had been business rivals: had they, in fact, been friends? O’Ray had said he had met Mrs Fordham only twice. Was that really a strong enough reason for the call?
It was a complication, and Burke liked complications. They had to be unravelled, and in the unravelling, strange facts were frequently disclosed. Well—O’Ray would have to be watched, carefully, for some time to come.
�
��And I think,” Burke told himself, “that I’ll watch him myself. After to-night. To-night, I’ve a job for Dusty, and he won’t like it a bit.”
Before telephoning Superintendent Miller, he had a word with the chauffeur of a car waiting outside Number 25, Brake Street, three doors from the Fordham flat. The chauffeur had been there for nearly two hours. When he went, another chauffeur in another car would wait outside Number 18, opposite the Fordham flat. That would happen throughout the night, and the following day—in fact, until the affair was finished.
The chauffeurs were Department men, and they were watching Number 17, Brake Street. The young man to whom Burke spoke was half-hidden by his coat collar and peaked cap. No-one would have recognised him as Dodo Trale, an old friend of Burke’s and Craigie’s.
“Sir Marcus O’Ray’s just gone in,” Burke told him.
“Is this information?” Dodo was peeved because he disliked sitting still. “Or confirmation? Or do you think I’m blind?”
Burke grinned, fleetingly.
“Who’s on this job with you?”
“Wally,” said Dodo, referring to a certain Wally Davidson, of whom many will know. “He’ll come if he sees me take my hat off.”
“Tell him to follow O’Ray.”
“Of course,” groused Dodo, “he would get the jam. I’ve been stuck here for a couple of hours doing nothing but—”
“Thinking about the job, I hope.” Burke grinned again. “You follow Katrina Fordham, if she comes out.”
“Oh!” said Dodo. “Ah! Good man, Jim.”
“Goodnight,” said Jim Burke, and passed on.
Superintendent Horace Miller had a small house in Chelsea, and when he reached it, after his day’s labours, he disliked leaving it. But as usual, he allowed Burke to drag him out—under protest.
It was eight o’clock when they reached Scotland Yard. Miller got busy at once.
“Although I think it’s a crazy idea,” he said, flatly.
