Carmody, it appeared, was a man who had little to do with anyone, outside of those he met at his meals. He had had no trouble with anyone, had no intimates.
Val himself had radioed Washington in code before daylight, giving such details as he knew. And Washington had replied in code. Val took the message to Nancy Fraser.
V EASTON
ON BOARD SS LAURENTIC
LONDON DISCLAIMS KNOWLEDGE OF CARMODY OR INTEREST IN HIM SAVE AS BRITISH SUBJECT YOUR IDENTIFICATION AS INTELLIGENCE AGENT ERRONEOUS ON NO ACCOUNT LET IT INTERFERE WITH MATTER IN HAND WORK TOGETHER UNTIL FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS
SIGNED GREGG
When Nancy had read the decoded words, Val tore the message into bits and dribbled them over the rail.
“Chalk up another puzzle on your list,” he said drily. “If Carmody isn’t a British agent, what is he? What was he doing with that badge? And why was he killed? It’s more tangled than ever if we take that honor away from him.”
“Could it be possible,” Nancy suggested, “that London is pulling Gregg’s leg? Won’t admit Carmody’s their man, for fear it might tip their hand on something they’re anxious to keep hidden?”
“Quite possible. It’s been done plenty of times before. Carmody’s dead. They can’t help him now. And again, they may have told the truth.”
“The badge?”
“He might have found it.”
Nancy tossed her head. “Badges like that aren’t left lying around for people to find. What about his gun?”
“People carry guns.”
“It’s an official issue.”
“Might have found it too,” Val grinned.
“Your suggestions grow worse,” Nancy told him.
Val lit a cigarette. “We’re cleared on it, anyhow. Gregg seems a trifle annoyed. Suppose I pick your man up when he leaves the Customs and get in touch with you at your hotel? Give you a little leisure that way. I don’t think we’ll be held on board. They won’t detain a shipload of people without evidence.”
“That would be nice,” Nancy nodded. “We’ll go to the Blockman.”
No one had shown any interest in them that morning. And yet Val could not shake off the feeling that he was being watched. He tried every trick he knew to prove it, and got nowhere. The feeling persisted, irritating him finally. Nerves, he told himself. And yet he knew it wasn’t. They were both under silent, insidious scratiny, and there was nothing worse.
And the thought of Carmody horribly dead behind a locked door made things no better.
* * *
—
Val had been right about the ship’s passengers. Among them were many influential people who could not even be considered as suspects. The men from shore were as baffled as the ship’s company had been. They had no clues, no concrete suspicions. Names and addresses were taken, and other data, but nothing else was done. The debarkation was under way in full force shortly after the ship was moored in her berth.
Val had looked up Galbraith, studied the man from a distance. He was typically British in a quiet, unassuming way. A sparse, medium-built man in tweeds, with a long, pale, unsmiling face, a neatly trimmed mustache, an indifference to his surroundings that bespoke much travel. He conversed with no one, kept to himself. Carmody’s death, of which Galbraith evidently knew, aroused no visible interest in the man. Val, following him that morning on a stroll around the deck, noticed that Galbraith did not even glance at the door of Carmody’s cabin.
And Galbraith’s manner when he left the ship was leisurely and indifferent. He went to the “G” section in the Customs line-up, stood by indifferently while his kit bags were examined, and then followed a porter and the bags to a taxi.
Val had managed to have a few words with the man in charge of his own luggage. His bags were mysteriously passed and whisked out of line. Val caught a taxi ahead of Galbraith. Outside the pier shed he ordered the driver to wait. A few moments later they were following Galbraith’s cab.
Galbraith did not look back, seemed not to suspect he might be followed.
Val kept watch behind to see if any cab was noticeably following him. But in the crowded traffic it was almost a hopeless gesture.
Galbraith went directly to the Rosecrans, one of the big hotels overlooking Central Park from Fifty-ninth Street.
He entered the lobby behind his luggage in time to see Galbraith step into an elevator. The card registration system was in use at this hotel. There was no way of telling what room Galbraith had been given. Val smiled disarmingly at the clerk, and tried a random shot.
“My friend, Mr. Galbraith from London, told me on the boat he was going to register here. I’d like a room near him, if possible.”
“Mr. Galbraith has just registered,” the clerk replied. “Let’s see—I can give you Room 717. That’s just across the corridor from him. Mr. Galbraith is in 716.”
“Excellent,” Val nodded.
As soon as he was settled in his room he telephoned Nancy.
“Norah and I will come over there and register,” Nancy said. “If he goes out, follow him. We must know whom he sees.”
But Galbraith did not go out at first. He had a caller. Through his door, which had been left ajar an inch or so, Val saw a gray-clad back as the visitor was admitted to Galbraith’s room. Just a glimpse, and then the door closed on them as Galbraith said formally: “How do you do, Mr. Ramey?”
The two were closeted in Galbraith’s room for half an hour. In that time Nancy Fraser and her companion registered and Nancy telephoned from their room on the third floor. Val told her of Galbraith’s visitor, suggested she be ready to tail him when he left.
Val was sitting inside his door when Galbraith’s visitor stepped out into the hall once more. He heard the man say unctuously: “Tomorrow night at Oakridge then. Follow those directions after you reach Washington and you can’t miss it.”
And the fleeting glimpse, through the cracked door showed a stocky, pasty-faced fellow, whose downsnapped hat brim shaded features that were as unctuous and oily as his voice had sounded. Before he was a dozen paces down the hall Val had closed the door and was at the telephone, calling Nancy’s room. “All right—catch the next elevator,” he rapped to her. “Blue suit, pudgy, pasty face, brim of gray hat snapped down.”
“Right,” said Nancy briefly and her receiver clicked.
Val was smiling thinly with satisfaction as he lighted a cigarette and resumed his watch at the door again. Galbraith’s visitor would have a hard time shaking her. But as he conned over his one hasty glimpse of the fellow his smile faded to a thoughtful scowl. Ramey was a queer person to be calling on Sir Edward Lyne, to give Galbraith his right name. If long experience in judging people at a glance held good, Ramey was a shyster, tricky, smooth, untrustworthy.
Tomorrow night at Oakridge—near Washington.
What was behind that rendezvous which had been arranged?
* * *
—
Galbraith left his room shortly. He walked down Fifth Avenue and over to Times Square, slowly window shopping. He went to two of the Times Square newsreel theaters, window-shopped some more, dined leisurely and walked back to the hotel, with a leg-weary Val Easton still within sight of him.
Val called Nancy Fraser’s room when he got in. Norah Beamish answered instantly, and her voice was sharp with worry.
“You haven’t seen Nancy?” she queried anxiously.
“No. Isn’t she in?”
“I haven’t heard from her since she went out this afternoon,” Norah informed him. “Do you think something could have happened?”
“I doubt it,” Val reassured her. “She’ll show up in a little while. Have you eaten?”
“I had some food sent up,” Norah told him. “I won’t leave the room until I hear from her. She may
telephone.”
“If she does, let me know. And if she comes back have her telephone my room at once. I’ll leave word at the desk if I go out.”
Galbraith seemed set for the time being. Val hastily stripped, took a hot shower and dressed again. He found himself wondering about Nancy Fraser. Had something happened to her? She was the kind of girl who would take chances. Val found it impossible to forget those two still forms on the Laurentic, grim warning of the price of carelessness.
He had barely finished dressing when knuckles rapped sharply on the door. Val answered it with a feeling of relief. It must be Nancy, returned finally and come up for a word with him. He opened the door with a grin on his face.
And…
The grin faded to astonishment. A black-coated waiter confronted him, bearing a cloth-covered tray.
“You’ve made a mistake,” Val told him. “I didn’t order anything.”
The waiter looked doubtful. “Mr. Easton, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“This is right then. A young lady telephoned down and said to bring this order to your room. It’s for two. I believe she is supposed to share it also.”
“Oh,” said Val blankly. “All right, bring it in.”
His reaction was pleasure. This was such a thing as Nancy Fraser would do. Thoughtful of her. Eat while they talked. She was back then, and everything was all right. And he wondered what news she was bringing.
The waiter had a small folding rack under his arm. Opening it, he set the tray carefully down. He was a swarthy, poker-faced man with powerful shoulders bulging inside his black jacket and wrists which protruded out of sleeves that were too short.
“The young lady said to cook the steak well done,” he declared. “Will you see it now, sir?”
From the moment the fellow had entered the room, closing the door behind him, Val had been struggling with a feeling of bafflement. Something was out of place in this picture. Wouldn’t Nancy have telephoned him, after all, as soon as she got in? And he hadn’t been under the shower more than a few minutes. Hardly long enough to have a steak well cooked and a full meal sent up to the room after she returned.
And there was something else….
Suddenly he got it. How the devil did the waiter know that the woman who ordered the dinner over the telephone was a young woman? He couldn’t know.
And the man’s coat was too small, his face was tanned where a man used to working indoors would be pale. And a degree of insolence had come into his manner. He leered at Val across the tray as he whisked the cloth away.
One look was enough to tell Val that his suspicions had been right. For the dishes that had obviously contained food a short while before were empty now, and in the midst of them lay a large flat automatic.
Val jumped for that gun instantly.
It was a long chance—and it failed. A muscular hand closed over the gun and its muzzle jerked up and met him.
Val stopped short, arms tensed at his sides. For a moment silence held the room, while Val’s eyes locked with a pair of dead slate eyes which stared at him with a cold unwinking gaze. Politeness, mockery, pretense were gone now.
“Lift your hands!” the other ordered across the littered tray.
“What’s the idea?” Val countered.
“Shut up! Don’t argue! Put your hands up!” As he spoke the other stepped around to Val’s side. The gun was steady in his hand and his manner was venomous. A slight foreign accent tinged his words.
Slowly Val raised his arms.
“Turn around!”
Val did that too. And a second later steel crashed against the side of his head brutally. Everything went blank, black. He pitched forward to the floor.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE HOLLOW NEEDLE
The light overhead was still burning brightly when Val’s eyes opened again. He was stupid for a moment, senses whirling, pain roiling in his head. He couldn’t think what it was all about.
And then he remembered. The waiter—the cloth-covered tray—the gun—the stunning blow against his head….
The tray was still sitting on the rack in the center of the floor before him, the white cloth tossed on the floor and the soiled dishes mocking him.
The waiter and his gun were gone. The room was silent, deserted.
And there by the side of the bed Val sat in the straight-backed chair, tied hand and foot with lengths of fine silk cord.
His ankles were fastened to the legs of the chair and his arms were tied behind it. Silk cord was lashed about his wrists so tightly the circulation had been cut off. His hands were numb. Cloth had been stuffed into his mouth and tied in place by a towel, making an extremely uncomfortable but highly efficient gag.
He was helpless, miserable and impotent.
As his predicament burst over him, Val’s first reaction was a struggle to free himself. He quickly saw it was impossible. He couldn’t rub the gag out of his mouth and call for help. Over his shoulder he saw that the window had been closed and the shade pulled down.
* * *
—
The phone was on the other side of the bed. By the side of the door was the bell button that would quickly bring help. Only a few feet away—and yet it might have been as many miles.
Val raged at himself for a moment. He had been a fool to be caught off guard that way. And yet it had been smooth work, well planned and executed. Whoever had done it had known about his connection with Nancy Fraser; had known that Nancy was out and might be back any time.
Only one man could have known that—the one who had been watching them on the Laurentic.
What was the reason for it? Not Nancy. She was out of the hotel. Hardly Norah Beamish, on a lower floor. Galbraith then! Galbraith across the hall, where Val’s door commanded his, where no move could have been made without danger of interruption.
He didn’t know how long he had been tied here in the chair before regaining consciousness. It might have been minutes, or an hour or more.
In that time what had happened to Galbraith?
Val eyed the telephone narrowly. If he could inch the chair around to it he might tip the phone over. Using his toes and throwing the weight of his body at the same time he managed to shift the chair inch by inch. But it was slow, hard work. Perspiration broke out on his forehead.
And in the midst of that the telephone suddenly buzzed.
Val cursed behind his gag. That was Nancy or Norah. And he couldn’t answer. It was maddening to know help was so near and be unable to summon it.
The telephone buzzed again and again and then stopped. He hadn’t covered a quarter of the distance to the instrument. Stubbornly Val kept on.
And then a few minutes later a key grated suddenly in the door. A bare-headed, broad-shouldered stranger stepped into the room, took one look and uttered in a startled voice: “Hey—what’s this?”
From behind his back Nancy Fraser darted into the room. Relief broke over her face as she saw Val staring mutely at her. With a swift little rush she reached his side, snatched the towel down and pulled the wadded cloth out of his mouth.
“Thanks,” Val mumbled through cramped lips.
“Who did this?” Nancy asked tensely.
“Fellow disguised as a waiter. Get across hall and see if Galbraith’s all right. I think they got me out of the way because of him.”
“This looks mighty funny to me,” the broad-shouldered stranger said ponderously. “You hurt, buddy?”
Val had him placed by now. A hotel detective, already muddled, and uncertain about everything.
“I telephoned as soon as I got in,” Nancy said swiftly. “When you didn’t answer I queried the desk and they said you hadn’t left any word there. I suspected something was wrong, so I got the hotel detective to come up here
with me and unlock your door.”
Nancy whirled around on the detective. “Cut him loose from there!” she snapped. “Where’s your master key?”
* * *
—
The master key was produced with a puzzled frown. Nancy snatched it and made for the door. “Hey, where you going with that?” the detective protested.
But Nancy whirled out of the room without answering either of them. The detective turned after her in indecision. “Is that dame gone nutty?” he uttered plaintively.
“Cut these damn ropes!” Val snarled. “Don’t stand there like a lunkhead! Get me out of this chair!”
The fierce command in his voice brought the desired result. The detective’s thick fingers fumbled open a small pocketknife, and he hacked at the cords. Val was chafing his wrists and wringing circulation back in them as the detective stooped over and slashed at the cords around his ankles.
Val staggered to his feet.
From across the hall keened a cry of distress that broke off sharply in a choked gasp. Nancy’s voice!
Val plunged for the doorway without stopping for the gun in his bag. Galbraith’s door was standing ajar. He crashed it open with his shoulder and plunged into the room—into a scene of confusion and violence.
The place had been looted hurriedly. Bureau drawers were out and their contents tossed heedlessly on the floor. Bags had been slit open with a sharp knife and searched hastily. The closet door was open, the bed turned down. And Galbraith’s body lay huddled in the center of the floor.
All that went unheeded. For before him Nancy was fighting off a tall, stooped, black-caped figure which clutched her throat with one long talonlike hand as it tried to wrench its other hand from Nancy’s desperate grip.
They staggered around as Val entered the room.
A pale, ghastly, cadaverous face turned toward Val. He was aware of a parted, writhing mouth, of blazing, green-flecked eyes, of teeth that showed momentarily like fangs.
The Big Book of Espionage Page 93
