by John Creasey
“So he was killed inside,” said Carruthers.
“All right,” said Loftus. “He was killed inside, and in his own suite or one of the others. Presumably he was carried to his bed—certainly he wasn’t shot there. Other suites on the same floor could have been the scene of it, then—he could have been carried easily from one to the other. And . . .” he paused again, and Carruthers widened his eyes.
“By George, one of the directors . . .”
“It could be,” said Loftus. “We’ll find who else has a suite or a room on this floor. The waiter was carrying tea to someone about midnight. It could have been one of the crowd, of course, or it could have been someone quite independent. One way and another I wish it were that.”
Carruthers grimaced. “Rather than treachery in high places?”
“There isn’t time or room for delicate handling,” said Loftus. “It’s a possibility and remains one until we’ve disproved it. This business is growing, Carry. I wonder if the others have had any luck?”
Carruthers had no time to ask what the others were doing, for the telephone rang again. It was the manager. He gave Loftus Farrow’s address, pointing out that the police had given the man permission to go. He also mentioned that three people independent of the regional directors had suites on the first floor, adding earnestly:
“You will be discreet, Mr. Loftus, won’t you? I don’t wish to cause any inconvenience and I know your task is extremely difficult, but—well, our guests are not easily appeased sometimes, and things have been so difficult that we don’t want to incur their displeasure.”
“I won’t cause bother unless it’s necessary, certainly. Who are the other people?”
“One is a lady who—but perhaps I had better come and see you, Mr. Loftus.”
“I think perhaps you had,” said Loftus, and he hung up. He hesitated for a moment, and then rubbed his chin. “Carry, get back to the Errols’ flat. I told Ned to wait there until police took charge inside and out, but I’m a bit uneasy about it. Ring me as soon as you’re there, will you?”
“Right,” said Carruthers promptly.
Loftus waited alone for several minutes, and judging from his expression his mind was quite blank. It was. He did not want to confuse himself with too many diversions, and he needed a mind as open as it could be. Consequently he stared out of the window, and hummed a little ditty which was at least six years out of date. Thus the manager found him.
The manager was a Frenchman named Leroux, but only by an occasional gesture did he betray his nationality. He was of medium height, slim, discreetly dressed, his manner perfectly attuned to the wealthy guests who from time to time stayed at the Landon.
Loftus looked woodenly into the suave face and watchful dark eyes.
“I know that my request seems a little strange in the circumstances,” said Leroux quietly, “and it might, possibly, have annoyed you, Mr. Loftus, but . . .” he shrugged—“the tragedy is already affecting some of the guests, and it is a long time since we have been busy. We were just picking up. However, I will not waste time with my own troubles. The guests on this floor, apart from those whom you already know, are all foreigners. The one to whom Farrow was taking tea last night is an American. He is a semi-invalid, and his named is Rannigan.”
Loftus nodded.
“The second is a Greek named Letaxa,” said Leroux, “a business man who is negotiating for a Greek loan. I have that information in confidence, Mr. Loftus, but it is fair that you should know. The public, of course, do not know the real reason for his visit.”
Again Loftus nodded.
“The third . . .” Leroux gave an expressive shrug of the shoulders—“is La Reine. Need I say more?”
Loftus did not speak immediately, but Leroux saw the hardening of his eyes, and noticed the slight tightening of the muscles of his face.
“La Reine, you say. How long has she been here?”
“Five days.”
“How long does she propose to stay?”
“She told me that if she received the attention that she considered necessary she would stay through the summer, Mr. Loftus.”
“Oh,” said Loftus. “All right, and thanks very much I won’t disturb any of them if it can be avoided.”
Leroux bowed suavely and withdrew.
Left to himself, Loftus reflected on the presence of the lady who styled herself La Reine. He did not know her personally, but he knew her reputation. She was one of the most famous musical comedy stars of pre-war Paris. She had been in London during the fall of France, stayed there until the bombing started, and then gone to the country. Despite the immensity of the war news, there had alway been space in the Press for information about La Reine’s movements.
It was hard to say why.
There have been other musical comedy actresses as famous, and yet she had the “something” which made her news wherever she went and whatever the circumstances. She was beautiful, but it was not her beauty or her dancing or her voice, which gave La Reine that little something which no one else had got. It was her superb horsemanship. An odd thing in musical comedy, but she had first taken London and then Paris by storm with her performance on a white horse. A perfect animal, trained to absolute precision.
It was fairly well known that La Reine had graduated to the stage from the sawdust ring. She had been an equestrienne in the circus of a man whom Loftus could not remember, before reaching her present eminence.
Damn it, what was the man’s name?
Walking along the passage Loftus saw that the police guard was still on duty, and that the servants were busily clearing up the mess after the explosion. It occurred to Loftus that he had been far more concerned with the effect of the bang than with the origin of it, and he hoped that Miller was making good this omission.
Outside the Landon he took a taxi, aware of an unexplainable need for urgency. He thought of the prisoner and his strangely deep voice, and told the cabby to hurry. As the cab turned into Brook Street, his lips tightened and his heart missed a beat, for there was no mistaking the shape of an ambulance that was standing outside the Errols’ flat, nor the several policemen about the doorway.
The cab drew up, and Loftus leapt to the ground. A policeman recognised him and stood aside. But Loftus did not go far, for when he reached the foot of the stairs he met two attendants carrying a stretcher.
He saw the face of Wally Davidson, and knew that he was badly hurt.
There was no sign of Carruthers.
9
Of Maximilian Golt
Heavy-hearted, Loftus walked up the stairs.
The door of the flat was open, and he saw a police-sergeant and, further in the room, Carruthers. So Carry was all right, and that was something to be thankful for. Both men were staring at the floor, or what appeared to be the floor.
Actually it was the body of their late prisoner.
He had been strangled, and his mottled face did not make a pleasant sight.
Carruthers half-turned, hard-faced.
“How’s Wally?” asked Loftus. “Has a doctor seen him?”
“Yes, I sent for one as soon as I arrived,” said Carruthers. “He was shot. Operation at once. Touch and go.”
Loftus nodded. “What did you find?”
“Wally there.” Carruthers pointed to one side of the room on which there was a dark patch of blood. “And this fellow just as he is now. Except that Wally’s gone, nothing has been touched. Did you expect this?”
“I saw it as a possibility,” Loftus said seriously. “That’s why I sent Ned along. He and Wally together might have outmatched them. This is no affair for one man on his own. Where is Ned? He should have been here half-an-hour before you.”
“There isn’t a sign of him.”
Loftus turned authoritatively: “Sergeant! I want to find out if a Mr. Oundle has been seen within the past hour. It’s urgent.”
“Of course, sir. Actually . . .” it was a youngish man, and clearly he did not know how mu
ch respect to show to Loftus; he was inclined to be on the generous side with it. “Actually I was here on duty—I had instructions to search through empty flats, and I was doing that when I was sent for by a man on the beat. There is a flat opposite which is empty, but several cigarette ends were found in the front room.”
Loftus said furiously: “What a ruddy fool I am—if I’d played my hunch right out this wouldn’t have happened. Have you those cigarette ends with you?”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant took them from an envelope, and Loftus selected two.
“You’ll want the other for your report,” he said. He knew that people were smoking brands which in peacetime they would not have looked at, but he also knew that Alexis cigarettes, such as these, were an exclusive brand, made by hand in a small shop off Piccadilly.
“You’ve recognised them?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Get me a list of their customers if you can,” said Loftus briskly. “And I’ve an idea—only an idea and it might be a wash-out, but we’ll see. I’m leaving the photographing and all the rest to you, but I don’t think you’ll get much help from finger-prints.”
Loftus hurried downstairs with Carruthers on his heels. Once in the street he began to search the kerb and pavement with slow, painstaking method. A policeman walked towards them and Loftus looked up sharply.
“How often are the streets cleaned at nights, these days?”
“It depends what kind of a night it’s been, sir.”
“Was this done last night?”
“Let me see—no, it wasn’t, the pavement’s usually wet from the water-cart when I come on duty, and it was as dry as a bone when I arrived this morning.”
“Good,” said Loftus. “Thanks.”
“Can I ask what we’re looking for?” asked Carruthers.
“Cigarette ends, old boy, particularly of the brand Alexis—and, by George, there is one!”
The end which he picked up was actually a cigarette little more than half-smoked. There were three others along the kerb, all of them long enough for the gold lettering of the brand to be easily visible. Loftus put them in an envelope, and straightened up.
“What does it prove?” asked Carruthers drily.
“That the man in the room of the empty flat smoked the same cigarettes as the man in the grey bowler who fired at the Errols yesterday,” said Loftus. He added abruptly: “Do you remember the circus story of La Reine?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Do you remember her manager—the circus owner who made her!”
Carruthers frowned in concentration, and then shook his head. Loftus shrugged, while from the other side of the road there came a gruff voice demanding to know whether he was to wait or whether he had been forgotten. It was Loftus’s cabby. Loftus stepped towards him.
“Fleet Street,” he said. “We’ll try the Daily Express office. In a hurry, please.”
The driver obeyed that instruction, and was told to wait again while they went inside the glass-walled building of the Daily Express. A clerk on duty turned out the ten year old files of the story of La Reine in less than ten minutes.
Loftus read swiftly.
“That’s him—Golt, Maximilian Golt. And there is the gentleman.” He looked at the heavy, reproduced features of Maximilian Golt. “I’m a thorough nuisance, I know, but do you think there might be a profile photograph of this man?”
“I’ll see, sir. I remember the affair well—we had a lot of requests at the time for photographs of both of them.”
He came back presently with a profile photograph in his hand—old, yellowing, a little dusty, one of a small pile tucked away in the files.
It was Maximilian Golt all right. Loftus studied it for some seconds, and Carruthers knew from the tightening of his lips that he had found something at least of interest and perhaps of importance.
Thanking the clerk, Loftus hurried back to the cab. He gave an address in Jermyn Street, and ten minutes later the cab drew up outside Thornton’s flat. Loftus paid the cabby and followed Carruthers, who had already pressed the bell.
A portly servant opened the door.
Thornton was one of the wealthiest of Craigie’s men, many of whom were apt to look on their Government pay as a useful addition to a reasonably large income. Thornton’s, however, might be called even larger than reasonable. A middle-aged man and the only son of a wealthy family, his flat, a self-contained one on the ground floor, was the home of objets d’art and Old Masters which were the envy of millionaires. He had a collection of jade almost unique in England, and was a connoisseur on many unexpected and rare subjects.
Well-known, and with the entrée to most political circles, Thornton had gradually built up a position in which to Craigie he was virtually invaluable while he remained unknown as a contact man. But after eight years his subversive activities were discovered, and he moved from Paris to London. Better that, Craigie had told him, than a knife in the back and another body found floating in the Seine.
Few in London suspected Thornton’s part in the Secret Service.
Despite the hour—it was nearly one o’clock—Thornton was having breakfast. He jumped up from the table as they entered, his sad blue eyes sparkling.
“And what an honour! The great Bill himself, and before breakfast!”
“Don’t you mean ‘after lunch’,” said Loftus laughing. “Don’t stop for us, old son, we’re only out for information.”
“Ha! What’s brewing?”
“What did you see of the man who went to Byng Court?” he asked, and Thornton said promptly:
“Part of his profile.”
“Chin?”
“No, that was muffled up—quite naturally, I think, there was nothing furtive about the visit. I saw his mouth and nose, and his hat was pushed back on his head, so I know that his forehead slants a bit. Why?”
Loftus screened the photograph, so that only the nose, mouth and lower part of the forehead showed. He handed it to Thornton, who half-rose from his chair.
“Oh, yes. Not a doubt about it. That’s the man.”
“Good,” said Loftus softly. “Very good indeed.”
Only then did he begin to realise how important this latest discovery was—and it had sprung from the last expected source, from La Reine, who had a suite on the same floor of the Landon as the food directors. He did not let himself think much about that just then. He was too involved in the realisation that the man—whom he had believed important from the first—was known, and could easily be found.
“Who is it?” asked Thornton.
“Golt—a man named Maximilian Golt.”
“So?” Thornton’s years in Paris gave him at times a Gallic interrogatory manner. “La Reine’s sponsor.”
“You know that?” asked Loftus.
“In Paris she was the vogue,” said Thornton simply. “We were all at her feet.” He added with a humorous quirk: “She had a temper, and I doubt if age will improve it.”
“Judging from Leroux of the Landon, it hasn’t,” said Loftus thoughtfully. “What do you know about Golt?”
“Nothing pleasant,” said Thornton.
“Anything in particular?”
Thornton shrugged. “English, they said, although I was doubtful. He had the English accent well enough—rather rough, though, and uncouth. He might have been born here, but his ancestry . . .” Thornton shook his head. “Why all the interest in him, Bill? His record seems simple enough to me. He managed La Reine for a few years, they quarrelled and he went back to his circus.”
“What?” Loftus almost shouted the word, and in that moment he felt a sharp sense of disappointment.
Thornton put a square of toast and marmalade into his mouth.
“La Reine quarrelled with everyone. The wonder was that she stayed with Golt for as long as she did. It was said in Paris that he had some hold over her other than influence, but then everything was said in Paris.”
“Why didn’t you recognise him last
night?” asked Loftus.
Thornton shrugged.
“My dear Bill, it is eight—no, nine—years since I have seen him, and then it was rarely. La Reine let him manage her, but she kept him in the background. He had no polish.”
“Well, we haven’t lost much time,” said Loftus, “and we’ll soon learn some more of Maximilian Golt. Have you seen anything of the Errols this morning?”
“Nothing,” said Thornton.
Thornton’s eyes lit up.
“What did you make of the woman at the Cherry?”
“Bill, I swear to you that she was a joy to look upon, and the loveliest creature I have seen for many years.”
Loftus told him of Wally.
“Oh,” said Thornton slowly, and he pushed his plate back sharply. “Why does he always get it? The injustice of it sickens me!” He stood up, striding the room, a quaintly impressive figure, his short legs enveloped in the folds of a scarlet silk robe embroidered with dragons. The others were silent as he went on: “Always it’s the same. We can’t start moving until murder has been done, before some of us are put out of action. Why can’t we strike first?”
“Now, now,” said Loftus gently.
Slowly Thornton’s eyes lost their look of stormy tragedy. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, I’m sorry. It gets me—it always does when one of the inside circle is hurt. But that’s what we’re for. Bill, have you ever realised that we—you, me, the others—have been at war for years? War isn’t a new thing for us, we’ve never known peace.”
Loftus said: “And probably never will. The world will be a better place when this war’s over, please God, but there will still be unscrupulous bids for power, and so the threat of future war, bringing with it hideous and futile destruction. We’ll have plenty to do,” he added, and there was a quality of restraint in his voice which was impressive. “But it doesn’t help us just now, Spats, to realise just how overwhelming are the forces arraigned against us. As soon as you’re ready, chase round and find where the Errols are, and then phone me, will you?”