The Terror Trap

by John Creasey

  Burke grinned. He wanted the private addresses, where possible, of the partners and principals of Staff Registry Offices in the West End area. The records that a thoughtful police system keeps of all who are known to deal in the employment of servants, proved very useful. As Miller called out a name and private address, Burke checked through the telephone directory, noted the number, and put through a call. At the end of the ninth effort, four principals had been out, two had been bad-tempered, and three had been anxious but unhelpful.

  “I tell you it’s madness,” growled Miller.

  “Supposing Mrs Fordham has taken on a complete new set of servants? I can’t see that it’s so urgent that it can’t hold over till to-morrow.”

  “That’s where we differ,” grinned Burke. “Next, please.”

  Miller returned with martyred patience to the files. “Try Prettle, 13, Friday Street, Edgware Road,” he said, after a pause.

  “Friday the thirteenth,” murmured Burke. “Hardly the luckiest of addresses. “Let’s see—Prettam ... Prettes ... Prettle, 13, Friday Street. Paddington 03219.”

  He put in the call. “Hallo—Mr Prettle?”

  The man at the other end of the wire admitted it.

  “Scotland Yard speaking,” said Burke.

  “One moment, please.”

  Grinning unrepentantly, he handed the instrument to Miller, who took it with bad grace. But after the second question, his expression changed.

  “You did? You dealt with a Mr Broomfield?”

  Mr Prettle had dealt with Katrina Fordham’s secretary. He had engaged a new staff for the Fordham menage: a butler, cook and maid, to sleep in, and three daily maids. He had understood from Mr Broomfield that Mrs. Fordham was nervous, for fear any of the servants at the flat had been connected with her husband’s murder.

  Miller asked Mr Prettle whether he could thoroughly recommend all the new servants, and after warning him to say nothing of the inquiry, rang off.

  “Can he thoroughly recommend ’em?” asked Burke.

  “He says so.” Miller smiled, all bad humour gone from him. “Sorry, Burke—”

  Burke waved the apology away.

  “The big thing is—did she order that wholesale change of servants herself? Or did Mr Broomfield? What we need, old son, is motive. Was she afraid of the servants?”

  “She’d no reason to be,” grunted Miller. “They were all checked, of course. Three of the old ones had alibis, and the others—two girls—say they were at the pictures together. Fordham sent them out, and he also sent Broomfield out. He was expecting a visitor—but we know that.”

  “Have you seen Broomfield?”

  “No. Rogerson’s been handling the Fordham job; I’ve been on the Lavis angle.”

  “I think,” said Jim Burke, thoughtfully, “I’d like to see Broomfield. Rig something up, will you—preferably here, tomorrow morning?”

  From Scotland Yard, Burke went direct to Craigie’s office.

  He gave Craigie a résumé of the affair, as he saw it, and finished by speaking of the sweeping change of servants at the Fordham menage. And:

  “I didn’t like Katrina’s manner to-night,” he added.

  Craigie was sitting by the fire. Fondling the bowl of his meerschaum, he queried:

  “You think she’s—drugged?”

  Burke shook his head.

  “No. I think she’s—afraid. Yet she didn’t seem to be, at the funeral this morning.”

  “Someone’s getting at her?” Craigie suggested.

  “I think so. And she believes it’s someone from Rania. But if it’s a Ranian job, why was Fordham so sure, when he talked to Brent, that it would be over in a couple of months?”

  “If it’s Ranian, why the trouble with Granton Collieries?”

  Burke dropped into a chair and lit a cigarette.

  “The answer,” he said heavily, “is that it’s Granton and Rania. And perhaps Cropper-Gordon. O’Ray doesn’t fit in anywhere, yet, but he’s capable of backing a stunt like this.”

  “And he’s been fighting Fordham for years,” Craigie supplied.

  “Yes ... But there’s a link missing in the connection between the Colliery Company and the Ranian concession. Still, we can be pretty sure that whoever killed Fordham and Brent is also behind the Granton trouble. So I’ll concentrate on that.”

  “You mean you’ll go to Wales?”

  “Yes—tomorrow, first thing.”

  “Not a bad idea,” said Craigie. He glanced at his watch. “With a bit of luck, we could have some news from the Continent, before you go.”

  Burke nodded. Craigie had investigations being made in Rania into the circumstances of the oil concession. So far Burke knew, it had not been easy. Fordham had worked in the dark. He had been granted the concession, and it had been ratified by the Ranian Government: The terms and conditions had been an amazingly well-kept secret.

  They could well offer some explanation or at least, Craigie hoped, give some kind of lead....

  It was nearly ten o’clock when the telephone rang. Few calls came through at that time unless they were urgent, and Craigie answered at once.

  “Yes ... who? ... where? Right—hold on, a moment.”

  “It’s Davidson,” he told Burke. “He’s followed O’Ray and another man from Brake Street. The other man looks like Broomfield.”

  Burke thought quickly.

  “Tell him to leave O’Ray, and stick to Broomfield.”

  Craigie repeated the order, then replaced the receiver.

  “Of course,” he said, thoughtfully, “if O’Ray wants Granton’s urgently, for some reason, he might be causing the trouble in Wales.”

  “Paid agitators?” Burke murmured. “H’mm, maybe. Yet O’Ray told me that if Fordham wanted to keep Granton’s out of the bigger group, he had some good reason—and that that was enough to make O’Ray want it, badly.” He grimaced. “I ought to have seen that clearer before, blast it.”

  “H’mm.” Craigie looked thoughtful. “But remember, if it’s worth Cropper-Gordon’s—or O’Ray’s—attention, it’s likely to interest others. So obviously Granton’s, despite the fact that it’s on the rocks, controls something else—something worth big money and the efforts of a big man like Fordham to save. But—it’s something Fordham couldn’t talk about, or he would have told the other directors.”

  Burke’s eyes gleamed.

  “Lord, yes! Now we’re getting nearer! Fordham’s ‘two months’ has been beating me. But suppose he had to keep that secret for the two months?”

  Craigie nodded, slowly.

  “Yes . . . Now, we’re getting somewhere.” His lips drooped familiarly. “We’ve been slow enough doing it....”

  “We didn’t know there was some concrete reason for Fordham holding out,” protested Burke.

  “We ought to have guessed,” said Craigie. “But now, what have we got? We can be sure Granton’s are worth having. We don’t know why. Only Fordham, perhaps Brent, and the gentlemen who are trying to get it so hard, have known that, till now.”

  “Cropper-Gordon’s being the ‘gentlemen’?”

  “Or Sir Marcus O’Ray,” said Craigie, very softly. “We can go further, Jim. Whoever wants Granton’s, wants the concession.”

  “Yes...” Burke hesitated, thinking hard. “Yes—but the thing belonged to Fordham privately. It’s ratified. It’s lodged under his name.”

  “Then who owns it now?” snapped Craigie.

  Burke’s eyes widened in comprehension.

  “Unless he’s willed it somewhere else—Katrina!”

  “Katrina Fordham,” Craigie agreed sharply. “She owns the oil concession. She knows it, and she’s afraid. Damn it, Jim, we’ve been asleep! Did Fordham make a will?”

  “I expect so.” Burke was equally alert, now. But we’re up against it, there.”

  “Why?”

  “Graydon,” Jim Burke reminded him, “is Fordham’s lawyer. Where Graydon is, you can be pretty sure to find the will.”
<
br />   “Supposing that’s right...” Craigie frowned. “And it’s reasonable enough. Supposing again that Graydon destroys the will. Then no-one can prove Katrina isn’t legally the owner of the concession. Legally, she is—now. No wonder she’s scared!”

  “And if O’Ray’s after it—no wonder he called on her.”

  Craigie nodded, and went on quickly:

  “And another thing. Supposing the big trouble with Granton’s is that it wants heavy financial backing? There’s a direct line: Fordham had the concession. If he’d sold it, he’d have had money enough to back Granton’s as far as he liked.”

  Burke nodded.

  “Yes...” He grinned slightly. “But what a lot of supposings, Gordon.”

  “They’re reasonable.” Craigie rose abruptly and paced the room—a habit he had, when thinking aloud “Let’s work on ’em. First—Lavis is in danger more than ever.”

  Burke thought unhappily of Patricia.

  “Yes...”

  “So’s Katrina Fordham. I’ll double the guard there, Jim—and at the cottage. I won’t ask for Fellowes’* help—yet. The men will have to be well-armed.” He turned abruptly to the telephone. “I’ll be a while, Jim. You get on to the Yard—see if they’ve learned anything about Fordham’s will.”

  By the time Craigie finally replaced his receiver, six young men were already on their way. From private houses, the Cambridge Theatre, the So Far Club—London’s latest and hottest—and the Carilon—London’s oldest and stablest these dedicated men went-forth, members all of Department Z. Two had gone to Brake Street, where they would shortly engage in conversation the chauffeur watching Number 17; four had set off for the cottage in Surrey.

  Meanwhile, for the second time that night, Burke had roused a police superintendent from a well-earned fireside nap. The Super in question, Rogerson, had taken charge of the police investigations of the Fordham murder (Department Z, of course, was not concerned with finding who killed Arthur Fordham; it was dealing solely with the possible international complications, so far very vague). Mrs Katrina Fordham did not think her husband had made a will, Rogerson reported: certainly, he had never spoken to her of one.

  “No will, so far as we know,” Burke reported, as Craigie hung up. “O’Ray said: ‘Fordham’s a gambler,’ remember. And a man who takes chances is more than likely to risk leaving his will until later in life.”

  Craigie nodded. He was standing, now, with his back to the fire.

  “Katrina’s in a spot. We must keep her safe, and—”

  The telephone interrupted him.

  “We’re friends with that damned thing, to-night,” he growled, leaving the fire reluctantly. “Yes ... who?” the hooded grey eyes hardened as he called to Burke:

  “They’ve found Curson. A house at Regent’s Park—care to go over?”

  “Yes,” said Jim Burke, emphatically.

  “I’ll come with you,” Craigie decided, and said so to the Yard man on the line.

  12

  THINGS HAPPEN QUICKLY

  Lord Aubrey Chester—a gentleman, some said, less famous for his prodigious feats of endurance on the Centre Court and elsewhere than for his quite gorgeous wife—strode quickly along the sidewalk towards his house in Regent’s Park. He was a deceptive-looking man. Even now, in his heavy overcoat, he managed to look frail. He was not frail. Neither was he a fool, although he frequently appeared to be....

  He was hurrying, not because he was cold but because he loved his wife. Diane Chester, of whom many will have heard*, was in bed with what to Aubrey’s mind was something between influenza and double-pneumonia, but was in fact a chill. He was angry at himself for having gone out that night at all and was beginning to convince himself that he would reach home to find Diane on her death bed.

  Consequently, when his toe stubbed against something that let out a clear, metallic sound and sent him off his balance, he glared vindictively down at the object in question. It was a cigarette case.

  Nine times out of ten, Aubrey Chester would have left that cigarette case to look after itself, or perhaps given it a kick, to teach it manners. But in the dim light of a lamp twenty yards away, he stared—and annoyance gave way to sharp awareness.

  “B-b-blood,” said Aubrey, who stammered.

  Very slowly, he bent down, and looked closer at the cigarette case. There was blood on it, without doubt—and there was something else: a small, tell-tale hole drilled through the metal.

  “P-punctured,” said Aubrey.

  He took out a handkerchief, picked the cigarette case up in his gloved hand and laying it carefully on the white silk square, examined it closely. There was no doubt at all. The hole had been made by a bullet.

  The chances were this cigarette-case had been in a man’s top left-hand waistcoat pocket, approximately covering his heart. Lord Aubrey Chester, who looked more closely at the pavement, now saw what he had half-expected: small, round spots of brownish-red. They led to a gateway, and thence to a drive.

  He stood up and looked about him. A policeman who had entered the park some fifty yards further along was strolling in the opposite direction. Clasping the cigarette case in his handkerchief, Aubrey raced after him.

  “Constable—Constable!”

  The policeman turned, stared, and smiled.

  “Good evening, my lord.”

  “I’m g–glad it’s y–you.” Aubrey who recognised the regular patrolman, disliked talking to strangers because of his stammer.

  “L–look at this, C–Constable——”

  The policeman looked, and whistled.

  Five minutes later, they were staring together at the door of a big house on the outskirts of Regent’s Park. The house was in darkness, but the policeman’s torch showed that the trail of blood continued into the hall. He rang the bell several times without result. He was clearly reluctant to take it on his own responsibility to break in, but Aubrey prompted him. At the back of the house, they found an unlatched window and forced an entry. They expected to find further trace of a man who had been recently shot. In fact, they discovered the stiff, cold body of a man who had obviously been dead several days.....

  Later, they learned that his name was Curson.

  The Inspector in charge of the case that night was a young man who, having been told without explanation to give Burke and Craigie every facility, was annoyingly polite. He showed them the room where the dead man had been found. He gave them a lot of theories. He pointed out that it looked as if the house hadn’t been occupied for several days—although there was furniture in most of the rooms. And he told them that one of his sergeants had recognised Curson as a solicitor who had been jugged for misappropriation.

  “Shot three times,” Burke said to Craigie, “and dead, I imagine, three days.”

  Craigie nodded.

  “In other words,” said Burke heavily, “the poor devil was shot soon after he got away from my place the other day. He was dead scared of Graydon, then. He had cause to be.”

  The Inspector, a short, tubby, fussy little man named Brown, hurried up. He wanted to pass on a lot of things they didn’t want to know, and half of which they didn’t believe. Burke asked, cutting him short:

  “Who found him?”

  “Police-constable Stapleton. I understand Lord Chester was actually instrumental in—well, well! Here is Lord Chester.”

  From the doorway, Aubrey looked a little vacantly round the room. Then he saw Craigie.

  Beaming, he hurried across. Brown, denied the pleasure of introducing a gentleman of the peerage to two lesser lights, waited huffily nearby.

  “F–fancy s–seeing you,” gasped Aubrey, as he and Craigie shook hands. “Y-you were the f–first thing I th-thought of, Gordon. M–murder, I said, and C–Craigie, are p–pieces of a p–puzzle. Fact.”

  Craigie grinned.

  “Thanks. How’s Diane?”

  Aubrey looked even more cheerful.

  “I th–thought she was go–ing to d–ie,” he said. “B–b
ut she’s go–going to g–get up to–morrow. B–but what b–brought you here? N–not another of y–your jobs, is it?”

  Craigie stopped smiling.

  “Yes. But first, do you know Jim Burke?”

  “O–only by s–sight.” Aubrey shook hands. “How d’you do?”

  As Burke reciprocated automatically, Craigie asked:

  “What put you on to this?”

  Aubrey told them about the blood-stained and punctured cigarette-case.

  “How did you know it was blood?” Burke queried. “It must have been pretty dry?”

  “Dry be damned!” Aubrey, indignant, never stammered. “It was wet. So w-was the I–line of spots——”

  “Line of spots?” echoed Craigie.

  “Inspector Brown.” Jim Burke turned abruptly. “Did you know anything about a trail of wet blood?”

  Brown puffed out importantly.

  “Yes, but I assumed——”

  “God damn all idiots,” thought Burke. Aloud, he demanded. “Has the house been searched?”

  “Yes.” Brown glared at the big man. “Yes, of course!”

  “I wonder,” said Burke, and Craigie looked grim. It had taken them nearly half an hour to learn of this fresh blood—which was certainly not Curson’s. “Where did you see the spots, Chester?”

  “Ou–outside, and in the h–hall——”

  The spots were undoubtedly there; they were still sticky, although most of them had been trodden on and blurred.

  A chastened and worried Inspector Brown watched Craigie and the big man trace the spots. They led to the kitchen, and then to a cupboard. Hard-faced, Burke pulled the cupboard door open——

  The body of a man fell out. Blood splashed on Jim Burke’s trousers.

  The man had been shot, twice, through the chest. One bullet, obviously that which had punctured the thin metal cigarette case, could be seen, embedded in the flesh. The man was small, with a pasty-face; he had died without knowing his fate, for his features were in repose. There were no papers in his pockets, no clue to his identity on his clothes.

  Burke finished examining the body, and stood up.

  “Dead little more than an hour,” he said, grimly. “He must have been shot a few minutes before Chester found the case.” He regarded Inspector Brown, who was biting his lips. “The photographers are still here, aren’t they?”