by John Creasey
There was that smell of gas.
“So you’re calling me a liar,” Payne growled, and then changed his tactics, and went on in a jeering way: “So I’m a liar. What difference does it make?” He backed away again, and was obviously doing that deliberately, wanting to draw Roger on. Why? “All right, Fox came to see me tonight, and we had a little argument,” Payne admitted savagely. “He said that someone else would come after him and I thought he was lying—but he wasn’t. Proper little George Washington, isn’t he?” Payne threw back his head and laughed; there was something wild and uncontrolled in the harsh sound which came out. He backed further away. “He’s waiting in here, hoping that you’ll come for him,” he growled. “I’ve got enough sense to know when I’m beaten, blast you.”
He put his right hand to the door.
He moved his left hand, with the lighter, in front of him, yet there was no obvious reason for it, Roger thought desperately. There was no obvious reason and yet there must be a reason.
Gas!
Payne was turning the handle.
Roger didn’t speak, didn’t waste a second, just slammed his clenched fist to the small of Payne’s back. As the man staggered, Roger snatched at the lighter, and clutched it. Payne kicked out at him and tried to get it back, but he had lost his balance. The door was unfastened and his waving hand banged against it, and it swung open.
A billow of gas swept out.
Roger thought, with strange calmness: I hope to God Scoop’s all right, and hooked Payne’s legs from under him. As the man pitched forward into the gas-filled room, Roger bellowed: “Help, there! Hurry!” He heard footsteps on the instant; men would be here within thirty seconds, and there was nothing more he could do. The stench of gas made him feel sick, and he retched. He saw Payne scrambling to his feet, but men were already at the front porch. He went forward and grabbed Payne’s right wrist, twisted it roughly and made the man cry out, pushed him round so that he could thrust the right arm up behind him in a hammerlock.
“Where’s my son?” he demanded savagely. “And where’s Fox. Come on, Payne—”
Then he heard an exclamation from behind him. He heard Janet cry out, her voice so clear that it seemed to strike horror into him; the cry itself was filled with horror.
“Scoop!” she cried, as if in awful despair. “Scoop!”
Roger thrust Payne away from him, pushed past two of the men from the Squad car, heard voices outside, heard Janet screaming again, heard Richard cry out as if he were trying to restrain his mother, and then saw his elder son, staggering from the passage between the house and die garage, blackened and burned, his hair just a frizzy black mess, his eyes looking wild as a madman’s. He saw Scoopy’s lips moving, knew that he was trying to offer some reassurance. Richard was gripping his hands tightly and holding his head high, chin thrust forward, as if in some kind of frenzy. Then Roger reached Janet and Scoopy at the same time, took Janet’s arm and said urgently: “He’s all right, Janet, he’s all right.”
But he was terribly afraid.
“He’s all right,” the police surgeon said, straightening up from the grass plot where Scoopy had been put down, at full length. “He’ll be without much hair for a few weeks, and he’s got a few first degree burns, but it looks as if his gloved left hand took most of the flames, and saved his face and his eyes. He’s all right, Mrs. West.”
Janet didn’t speak.
Richard was staring across the road, at the dozens of people gathering now, at the police cars and the ambulance which had been sent for immediately, and at two ambulance men who were coming for Scoopy.
Roger said: “He’ll be all right, Jan. Take it easy.”
He knew that a great deal was happening both inside the house and outside. Men from the Division had arrived and gone through the house, and Scoopy had tried to tell them about a shed at the back. More men had gone hurrying there, but Roger did not know exactly what had happened. But his son was not badly hurt, and nothing else seemed to matter. That, and getting Janet away from here. He should have known that directly the worst of the shock was past, Janet would have only one purpose: to go in the ambulance to the hospital. That was the best thing for her, too, as well as for Richard. It would allow time for him to sort things out here, and then go and fetch them.
Janet said, as if she expected a lot of opposition: “I don’t care what you say, I’m going with my son.”
“Fish, go with them and look after them, won’t you?” Roger said.
When the ambulance had driven off, a Divisional man came up and said, briskly, that another ambulance would be needed. Fox had been found, with severe wounds at the back of his head, some burns, and in an advanced state of carbon monoxide poisoning. There was the smell of gas everywhere, the ringing of ambulance bells, the roar of engines. Then another man thrust his way forward from the house, and said: “It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever come up against, Mr. West. Payne’s wife and two children are unconscious upstairs, he turned the gas full on in their rooms. God knows whether they’ll survive or not. I’ve sent for another ambulance.”
Roger said: “Oh, God, what a mess.” He moved forward, saying: “I’ll go and look.” He coughed as he entered the house, which was still reeking with gas, and called back: “Go and make sure no one’s smoking and that there’s no naked light within fifty yards, even out in the street.” A man answered: “Right, sir!” Roger went up the little staircase, with its half landing, its cheap banisters, its vivid red wallpaper. He saw all the three bedroom doors wide open, and felt a wind coming in from the front and blowing right through. He went into the bathroom, which was hardly large enough to turn round in, soaked a towel and put it round his face, then went into the first of the three rooms – the largest. Payne’s wife lay on her back, her face a bright cherry pink, her arms and shoulders the same hideous colour. Roger felt quite sure that she was dead; the only possible hope would be hospital treatment.
Roger went to see the girl, who looked more naturally asleep. A man by a window said: “There’s a good vent by the side of the chimney in this room, I should think a lot of gas went up that way. She ought to be all right.”
“Good,” Roger said. He stared at the girl, and understood what his son saw in her, and wondered what the future held. Then he went to see Payne’s boy, who was quite as far gone as his mother.
“Almost makes you hope the girl will go, too, doesn’t it?” the Yard man said.
Payne was standing in the hall, handcuffed to a Divisional man who had made the charge. From here, he appeared to have lost every vestige of colour. His shoulders were bowed, and he leaned against the wall in an attitude of absolute dejection. When a man told him to move, he did not really straighten up, but seemed to drag himself towards the front door. When he reached it, he turned to look round, and to look upwards; Roger had never seen such despair on a human face.
Roger heard him ask: “They will die, won’t they? They won’t live to know what happened.
“You can do your talking later,” the detective said roughly, and obviously tugged at Payne, who went out and disappeared.
Soon, doctors, ambulance men and men from the Gas Board were crowding the little house, and Roger went downstairs. A radio report from the hospital said that Fox would pull through; no one then knew that he would owe his life to the broken window. The news about Scoopy was about the same, but his single head wound was much less serious than Fox’s.
“No reason why you shouldn’t leave the clearing up to us, Handsome,” a Divisional man said. “You’ll want to see your son. Why don’t you call it a day? We’ve got Payne as tight as a drum, the devil. He’ll hang.”
And his daughter would probably live.
Roger went to the hospital, only ten minutes’ drive away, and found Janet normal except for tear stained face and smeared lipstick, and Richard talking much more than usua
l, his tired eyes very bright as he explained again exactly what had happened. Scoopy was under a sleeping drug.
“But there’s nothing at all to worry about,” Janet said. “He’ll be all right, thank God, he’ll be all right.”
She didn’t know, nobody knew, just how close Roger had been to being blown to death before his son had recovered consciousness, and staggered round to the front of the house.
Next morning, Roger went to see Julian Anderson. There was a special court arranged for that afternoon, when the police would formally submit that they had no evidence, and the charges would be withdrawn.
It was the first time he had seen Julian’s slow smile.
Three months later, Payne was hanged.
His daughter, who was staying with relatives, had been in court throughout the trial. She had lost her colouring and her vitality, and seemed very much thinner and older than when she had first come to Bell Street. Scoopy saw her in court twice, but she showed no interest in him, and they did not speak. Fox had recovered sufficiently to give evidence about the steel filings and the fingerprints on the chocolate boxes found in Alice Murray’s room, which were identical with Payne’s.
After the execution, Roger learned, Hilda planned to emigrate to one of the Dominions; her mother had left her a little money, and there was some to come from her father’s estate.
On the day after the execution, two middle-aged and rather aloof looking people moved into Cornerways. Very little had been said about the house by any of the West family, but it was tacitly accepted that it was not the right home for them.
Soon after Hilda left the country, Julian Anderson called at the house in Bell Street, spruce, immaculate, almost himself again, yet still not a man to like. He had with him a set of Georgian jewellery, not expensive but very lovely, and he stood with his back to the window in the shabby front room, and said:
“I know one cannot make a gift to a police officer, Mr. West, and I would not like to cause any embarrassment for you, but I must somehow show my appreciation of the way you treated me during those terrible days. So I bring this gift to your charming wife. I always felt that you would exert yourself to the uttermost to see that justice was done. That is a very reassuring feeling, Mr. West, very reassuring indeed.”
He held out his flabby hand.
Martin called Scoopy and Richard saw him leave and wanted to know who he was. Martin showed no signs of the burns or the injuries, and Richard seemed to have grown a couple of inches in the past few months. To Janet, in a queer way they seemed to have grown younger, too.
Series Information
Published or to be published by
House of Stratus
Dates given are those of first publication
Alternative titles in brackets
'The Baron' (47 titles) (writing as Anthony Morton)
'Department 'Z'' (28 titles)
'Dr. Palfrey Novels' (34 titles)
'Gideon of Scotland Yard' (22 titles)
'Inspector West' (43 titles)
'Sexton Blake' (5 titles)
'The Toff' (59 titles)
along with:
The Masters of Bow Street
This epic novel embraces the story of the Bow Street Runners and the Marine Police, forerunners of the modern police force, who were founded by novelist Henry Fielding in 1748. They were the earliest detective force operating from the courts to enforce the decisions of magistrates. John Creasey's account also gives a fascinating insight into family life of the time and the struggle between crime and justice, and ends with the establishment of the Metropolitan Police after the passing of Peel's Act in 1829.
'The Baron' Series
These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
Meet the Baron (The Man in the Blue Mask) (1937)
The Baron Returns (The Return of the Blue Mask) (1937)
The Baron Again (Salute Blue Mask) (1938)
The Baron at Bay (Blue Mask at Bay) (1938)
Alias the Baron (Alias Blue Mask) (1939)
The Baron at Large (Challenge Blue Mask!) (1939)
Versus the Baron (Blue Mask Strikes Again) (1940)
Call for the Baron (Blue Mask Victorious) (1940)
The Baron Comes Back (1943)
A Case for the Baron (1945)
Reward for the Baron (1945)
Career for the Baron (1946)
Blood Diamond (The Baron and the Beggar) (1947)
Blame the Baron (1948)
A Rope for the Baron (1948)
Books for the Baron (1949)
Cry for the Baron (1950)
Trap the Baron (1950)
Attack the Baron (1951)
Shadow the Baron (1951)
Warn the Baron (1952)
The Baron Goes East (1953)
The Baron in France (1953)
Danger for the Baron (1953)
The Baron Goes Fast (1954)
Nest-Egg for the Baron (Deaf, Dumb and Blonde) (1954)
Help from the Baron (1955)
Hide the Baron (1956)
The Double Frame (Frame the Baron) (1957)
Blood Red (Red Eye for the Baron) (1958)
If Anything Happens to Hester (Black for the Baron) (1959)
Salute for the Baron (1960)
The Baron Branches Out (A Branch for the Baron) (1961)
The Baron and the Stolen Legacy (Bad for the Baron) (1962)
A Sword for the Baron (The Baron and the Mogul Swords) (1963)
The Baron on Board (The Mask of Sumi) (1964)
The Baron and the Chinese Puzzle (1964)
Sport for the Baron (1966)
Affair for the Baron (1967)
The Baron and the Missing Old Masters (1968)
The Baron and the Unfinished Portrait (1969)
Last Laugh for the Baron (1970)
The Baron Goes A-Buying (1971)
The Baron and the Arrogant Artist (1972)
Burgle the Baron (1973)
The Baron - King Maker (1975)
Love for the Baron (1979)
'Department Z' Novels
These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
The Death Miser (1932)
Redhead (1934)
First Came a Murder (1934)
Death Round the Corner (1935)
The Mark of the Crescent (1935)
Thunder in Europe (1936)
The Terror Trap (1936)
Carriers of Death (1937)
Days of Danger (1937)
Death Stands By (1938)
Menace! (1938)
Murder Must Wait (1939)
Panic! (1939)
Death by Night (1940)
The Island of Peril (1940)
Sabotage (1941)
Go Away Death (1941)
The Day of Disaster (1942)
Prepare for Action (1942)
No Darker Crime (1943)
Dark Peril (1944)
The Peril Ahead (1946)
The League of Dark Men (1947)
The Department of Death (1949)
The Enemy Within (1950)
Dead or Alive (1951)
A Kind of Prisoner (1954)
The Black Spiders (1957)
Doctor Palfrey Novels
These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
Traitor's Doom (1942)
The Legion of the Lost (1943)
The Valley of Fear (The Perilous Country) (1943)
Dangerous Quest (1944)
Death in the Rising Sun (1945)
The Hounds of Vengeance (1945)
Shadow of Doom (1946)
The House of the Bears (1946)
Dark Harvest (1947)
The Wings of Peace (1948)
The Sons of Satan (1948)
The Dawn of Darkness (1949)
The League of Light (1949)
The Man Who Shook the World (1950)
The Prophet of Fire (1951)
The Children of Hate (The Killers of Innocence; The Children of Despair) (1952)
The Touch of Death (1954)
The Mists of Fear (1955)
The Flood (1956)
The Plague of Silence (1958)
Dry Spell (The Drought) (1959)
The Terror (1962)
The Depths (1963)
The Sleep (1964)
The Inferno (1965)
The Famine (1967)
The Blight (1968)
The Oasis (1970)
The Smog (1970)
The Unbegotten (1971)
The Insulators (1972)
The Voiceless Ones (1973)
The Thunder-Maker (1976)
The Whirlwind (1979)
Gideon Series
(Writing as JJ Marric)
These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
Gideon's Day (Gideon of Scotland Yard) (1955)
Seven Days to Death (Gideon's Week) (1956)
Gideon's Night (1957)
A Backwards Jump (Gideon's Month) (1958)
Thugs and Economies (Gideon's Staff) (1959)
Gideon Combats Influence (Gideon's Risk) (1960)
Gideon's Fire (1961)
A Conference for Assassins (Gideon's March) (1962)
Travelling Crimes (Gideon's Ride) (1963)
An Uncivilised Election (Gideon's Vote) (1964)
Criminal Imports (Gideon's Lot) (1965)
To Nail a Serial Killer (Gideon's Badge) (1966)
From Murder to a Cathedral (Gideon's Wrath) (1967)
Gideon's River (1968)
Darkness and Confusion (Gideon's Power) (1969)
Sport, Heat & Scotland Yard (Gideon's Sport) (1970)
Gideon's Art (1971)
No Relaxation at Scotland Yard (Gideon's Men) (1972)