by John Creasey
“When you’ve finished, perhaps you’ll tell me more about the business. I didn’t know Wally was with you.”
“Nor did we,” said Mark. “He turned up—he’d been convalescing, hadn’t he, and was with friends in Bedford. He saw us at a pub, and came in very useful. But what’s worrying me is whether the girl followed us to the Cherry, or whether she was there by accident.”
“You went by chance?” asked Craigie.
“We-ell,” began Mike.
“Not quite,” said Mark.
“It was more or less like this,” said Mike. “We ran out of matches when we had a look-see at her cottage, and grabbed a book of them on a table. They happened to be issued by the Cherry Club, so we thought we’d look in—we are members, by the way.”
“Mind you,” said Mark, “we wouldn’t have taken the chance if she’d seen us, but she didn’t. Positively sure about that. We heard her car, and hid under the stairs until she came in, Mike with a tablecloth in hand waiting to jump out ghost-fashion and envelop her. She didn’t have a chance of seeing us.”
“Had she had any before?”
“Not much. Not enough to think we were after her.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“Not yet,” said Mike, regretfully.
Craigie’s forehead wrinkled.
“It looks as if her visit to the Cherry was quite accidental. Someone ought to be there with her—why didn’t you ring me?”
Mike grinned. “Someone was with her. Spats.”
“That’s all right then,” said Gordon Craigie with a smile, “you’ll be teaching me my business next. I’ll send someone to support him, and you get to the flat and see Wally and the shrimp. Is there a definite connection between the shrimp and the woman?”
“Only that we watched her, and he was watching us. They could be nothing to do with each other.”
“Doesn’t seem too conclusive,” said Craigie. “All right, then, off you go.”
The Errols departed, hailed a taxi, and were driven to their flat in Brook Street.
They did not speak while in the cab.
They thought, nevertheless, of the good fortune which had sent Wally Davidson, one of Craigie’s oldest agents, oldest, that was, in years of service—to Bedford, where he was able to help them. But for that they may have had some difficulty in trapping the shrimpy little man, who, they believed, was then being interrogated by Wally.
They thought also of Spats Thornton.
Thornton, too, was an agent of Craigie’s, but he had not been detailed for work just then, and from their flat they had telephoned him. They had met him at the Cherry Club, but given no indication that they were old friends, and they had indicated the woman by the bar in a way which Thornton could not possibly have failed to understand. The occasional loud words from Mike Errol had not been purposeless: they had drawn Thornton’s attention to the woman, and that would be enough.
Such ruses were now almost habitual.
They had been working for Craigie for a little over two years: in the beginning they had been green indeed, and prone to many mistakes, but they had learned quickly—particularly under the tutelage of one William Loftus, who was Craigie’s leading agent. And as if by mental telepathy they thought of Loftus at the same time. Mike said:
“I wonder who . . .”
“Bill’s after,” finished Mark.
“Nice work!” grinned Mike. “He’s probably on the tail of the Director-General. What’s the chappy’s name?”
“Sir Bruce Mortimer,” said Mark.
“Hm-hmm. Bill’s welcome to him.”
The taxi came to a halt. Mark paid the fare, while Mike looked up and down Brook Street. There were few people about, probably because it was getting near dusk, and the streets cleared surprisingly quickly when darkness fell, even though the regularity of night warnings had not been maintained after the first few months of the Blitz.
“What are you gaping at?” Mark demanded as he turned from the cab and almost bumped into his cousin.
“I’m not gaping, I’m cogitating,” said Mike in an injured tone. “I didn’t think grey bowlers would ever be seen again off a race-course. Interesting features, too, I . . .”
“We are going to have no more of your descriptions tonight,” declared Mark firmly, and he led Mike to the porch of the house.
He had nevertheless taken a full if concealed glance at the man in the grey bowler. A large man, a fat man with a red face, a gold chain spread over his mighty paunch, and black patent leather shoes atwinkle beneath.
Mark put a key in the door.
As he did so the fat man in the grey bowler moved, although they did not see him. They did not hear anything except a sound which might have been a sneeze from the other side of the road until there was a sharp noise close to Mike’s head. He looked round, startled, to receive a shower of brick-dust and chippings in the face, causing a sudden sharp pain to his eyes. A bullet dropped from the wall to the garden paving.
“Get in!” he snapped.
He was afraid any moment that a second bullet would follow the first. In fact he was surprised that none did, although he was more immediately concerned with the pain which the brick-dust was causing to his eyes. He had his hands to his face, and consequently there was a sharp alarm in Mark’s voice.
“What’s happened?”
“It’s all right,” gasped Mike. “Bowler Hat, I think . . .”
Mark moved quickly.
He put one hand to his hip pocket and drew out a small automatic pistol. The man in the grey bowler was not immediately in sight. Mark peered up and down the road, and then he saw a thing which he could hardly believe.
The fat man was running.
Had Mark been asked his opinion, he would have said that the man could have managed nothing more than a shambling trot, but he would have been wrong. Bowler Hat ran well, on his toes, and at considerable speed. He was heading towards a large Daimler which was parked at one end of the street.
Mark fired.
The target might have seemed too big to miss, but miss he did, although a little spray of chippings from the pavement rose to one side of his quarry. He saw other chippings although he had fired only once, and he knew that someone was shooting at the fat man from the windows above.
That would be Wally Davidson.
It was as well that there were few people in Brook Street, for in a crowded thoroughfare the shooting would have caused much damage. As it was three people began to shout, and one had the daring to dart across the road towards the fugitive. A policeman joined him.
Neither man reached the fat man.
Mark saw them stop as they ran, saw the policeman fall forward, and the pedestrian stagger and slump to the ground. The shooting stopped. The fat man reached the Daimler, and the car started off, the speed of its getaway proving that there had been someone at the wheel.
A police whistle shrilled out as it turned into Piccadilly, but Mark Errol did not think there was much prospect of the car being caught. With mixed feelings he approached the second constable, and showed a card which stopped unnecessary questions. He waited until the ambulance arrived, and two casualties—neither badly hurt—were helped in.
The small crowd soon dispersed, and a very thoughtful Mark Errol walked back to the flat.
Wally Davidson let him in. He was tall, thin, and good looking, with an affectation of weariness by now so ingrained that it had become second nature.
“Hallo,” he said. “Come in and join the party.”
“How’s Mike?” asked Mark quickly.
“He’s all right. A bit of grit in his eyes, nothing more. We are having fun, aren’t we?”
“Yes, aren’t we,” said Mark gruffly. “How have you been getting on?”
“Fairish,” said Davidson. “Neither better nor worse.”
As he spoke Mike came from the bathroom, dabbing a red and watery eye. He managed a wry grin.
“So the chap got away. How did you manage to miss him?”
“That’s what I’m wondering,” said Mark. “How long had he been there?”
“He arrived twenty minutes ago,” said Davidson, and proceeded to explain his own course of action. He had talked with little effect to the shrimpy man—who, he said, was at that moment in the spare bedroom—and he had left the man for a while and looked out of the window. He had seen the grey-bowlered man arrive, and not liking the cut of his bowler, decided to keep an eye on him.
When the Errols had arrived, the fat man had moved his hand to his coat pocket. He had fired through his coat, Wally said, but only once, for Wally had returned the fire quickly and the fat man had taken to his heels.
“And that,” declared Wally, stifling a yawn, “is all I can tell you. I’m damned annoyed, all the same—I could have sworn I punctured his hide twice.”
“You hit the pavement once or twice,” said Mark glumly. “We would miss something as large as that, wouldn’t we? Oh, well, we’ll report to Gordon when we’ve had another shot at Shrimpy. He’s not talkative, you say?”
“We misnamed him,” said Davidson. “He’s a clam.”
“I’ll prise him open,” said Mark.
There was little doubt that he had been really afraid that Mike had been hit in the face, and that the fear had worried him: moreover, the failure to stop the fat man was—and for some time would continue to be—on his mind. So far it was quite impossible to see ahead, or even to understand the movements of the fat man beyond the bare essential that he had wanted the Errols dead. But one thing was certain; his escape laid up a store of trouble for the Department.
Craigie would not blame them for it; Craigie never apportioned blame except for negligence. But the fact remained, and its effect was more obvious on Mark Errol than on the others.
Davidson, in fact, seemed in good humour.
“You wouldn’t believe what our little clam has for a voice,” he said. “It’s . . .”
“I thought you said he hadn’t talked,” and Mark sharply.
“Good heavens, Mark, how pedantic can you get! What I should have said had I known you to be in a professor mood was, he hadn’t given any information. Now listen.”
He stepped with exaggerated stealth to the door of the spare room, and called:
“Are you ready yet?”
For a moment there was no answer; in fact the moment was so prolonged that in Mark Errol’s mind there jumped the fear that the shrimp of a man was no longer a prisoner. And then the voice came.
“Get to hell wid you.”
The words, of course, did not explain the starts of surprise registered on the faces of the Errols. It was the voice that was all important. Deep, sonorous, low-pitched, it might have come from a giant.
“Uncanny, isn’t it,” said Wally. “Shall we go in?”
Mark said uneasily: “I wish Bill were here.”
“Well, he isn’t,” said Davidson. He said it regretfully, for all of them would gladly have seen Bill Loftus, would as gladly have left him to deal with the recalcitrant prisoner.
Davidson unlocked the door. It was a fact that the effect of the deep voice was such that all of them half-expected some kind of sensation, but they were disappointed. Sitting back in an easy chair in the small spare room was the little shrimp of a man. He was ordinary to a degree. His face was neither ugly nor handsome; nor were his physical characteristics in any way out of the ordinary.
He looked at the oncoming three, his expression one of insolence touched with bravado.
“Can’t yer do it on yer own?” he demanded of Davidson.
The sepulchral voice would have reduced them to laughter in different circumstances; Mark was half inclined to tell the man to stop fooling. But there could surely be no purpose in such a masquerade; it must be natural.
Mark stood squarely in front of the prisoner. He did not immediately speak, and his expression was calculated to inspire nervousness. It succeeded, up to a point.
“You followed me from Bedford to London,” Mark said evenly. “Why?”
“Becawse I liked the sight o’ yer behind,” said the Shrimp promptly, and with a grin that showed a surprisingly good set of teeth.
The grin disappeared a moment later, for Mark struck him with the palm of his hand. It was the kind of thing that most of Craigie’s men had to do from time to time; nothing brought information more quickly than a show of violence and a threat of something more.
The trio expected a spate of abuse, but they had made a mistake, for the Shrimp moved.
It seemed impossible; no one should have been able to move like that from his position. But the Shrimp did so, hurtling all his weight at Mark Errol, who was taken both by surprise and by the force of the leap. He staggered backwards, and the little man clung to him, getting his fingers tight about Mark’s throat.
3
Not a Good Day
For the Errols it was not a good day.
There was little time for thinking, but in the moments at Mark’s disposal he was aware of a fear that he was about to die. It was not only the way his breath had been knocked from his body; it was the tight grip on his throat, one so skilfully applied that the thumb pressed hard into his windpipe and he could not draw a breath. His head filled with a strange humming and his lungs reached bursting point—he was so nearly unconscious in a matter of seconds that he was not immediately aware that Mike and Wally had prised the Shrimp’s hand away.
“It’s all right, Mark. We’ve got him.”
The little man had slumped, as if he accepted the fact that he had no chance to get away from the three of them. He allowed himself to be pushed back into his chair without making any effort at self-defence. Mark’s head cleared, and he sat up; his recovery was expedited by a weak whisky-and-soda which Mike prepared. In perplexity he contemplated the man who had so nearly strangled him.
It would have been easy enough to beat him up, but violence for the sake of it was not in his mind. They wanted the man to talk, and they needed to find a way of doing it. It did not look as if violence was the required method.
“Stalemate,” murmured Mike.
“If that means yer stuck, it’s right first time,” said the cavernous voice unexpectedly. “Like I told longshanks ’ere, I don’t talk, see. Not to you, or the ruddy narks, or anyone, see. Wotjer think yer going ter do wiv’ me now I’m ’ere?”
“We haven’t quite decided,” said Wally, “but we will.” He nodded to the Errols. They all went out, and as Wally locked the door he smiled gloomily.
“Round two to the shrimp, I think.”
“Why two?” asked Mike.
“You forget I’ve already had a go at him. I threatened him all I could think of, and Bill couldn’t have done it better, but he kept his mouth closed on everything that mattered. I wish . . .”
“Bill were here, I know,” growled Mark. “Great Scott, are we going to let a little runt like that beat us? There must be some way of making him talk.”
“We could give him a sleeping draught, and see if he talks in his sleep,” said Mike.
Mark looked at him coldly.
“Don’t be an idiot. Oh, well, one of us ought to report to Craigie.”
Davidson reached for his hat. “I suppose it had better be me. Watch the little blighter while I’m gone. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a trick or two in his locker.”
“That struck me,” said Mike.
The others eyed him, and he went on slowly:
“Damn it, he wouldn’t be so cocksure if he thought he was going to be here long. He must think he’ll be released. I wonder if he expects the fat man?”
Something akin to excitement showed in Mark’s and Wally’s eyes, and together they said:
“You’ve got it.”
Mike said a trifle smugly: “I do believe I have. All right, he expects the fat one will get him out, and he doesn’t know that the fat one has been and tried and gone. Shall we try again from that angle?”
“No-o,” Wally demurred.
“Give him half-an-hour—until I’m back,” he added ingenuously. “He’ll be worried because time’s dragging. Haven’t either of you any idea why he followed you?”
“It could only be because we were watching the woman.”
“Hmm. The watcher watched. Oh, well,” said Davidson. “I’ll get back as soon as I can.”
He went out, looking cautiously up and down the street; but dusk was gathering, and it was impossible to see clearly for more than fifty yards. Nothing untoward happened, however, and he reached Whitehall without interference. Thus he was able to report to Craigie that from appearances he judged that the flat was no longer being watched. He made a full statement of the other developments, and as he expected Craigie lost no time in vain regrets.
“Get back to the flat,” he said easily, “and make sure that you keep our Shrimp. I’ll send Bill over as soon as I can.”
“Will he be long?”
“He phoned from Guildford that he hopes to be back in three or four hours,” said Craigie.
“Oh, well,” Davidson said, “if we’ve got to wait we’ve got to. Is he on to something?”
“I earnestly hope so,” said Craigie.
As Davidson went out, he wondered what was in Craigie’s mind. That it held danger and risk he knew, aware as were all Craigie’s men that their lives were so close to death that it had, in fact, become a close familiar.
Next to Craigie, Loftus was the most important of the Department men; the difference being that Craigie had the capacity for detailed organisation, while Loftus’s mind worked better when he was in action. He moved faster than Craigie when on a job, but between jobs his mind went, as it were, moribund. At all times Craigie would be taken for what he was: a clever, deep thinking man. But when Loftus was not working he gave the impression that he was a fool; and indeed he often acted like one.
Davidson again decided that the quicker Loftus arrived the better. Crossing St. James’s Park, he became aware that he was being followed.
He would not have noticed it but for a peculiar fact.
The black-out was complete and the night was pitch dark, without a moon, and with the stars hidden by heavy clouds, but as he had turned into the park a car’s headlights had shone on a diminutive creature in a bright red beret.