by John Creasey
‘There’s a difference,’ he said coldly, ‘between England and the U.S.A. Also, if I know anything about the bright lad who runs you, you’re in for a nasty time when he learns that you shouted his telephone number about the village.’
The man’s brutal face was distorted in rage; Storm knew that the telephone gibe had struck home. But for the time being he had to manoeuvre the two ‘commercials’ away without creating too much of a sensation. Luckily the still teeming rain kept most of the villagers out of the streets.
‘Now,’ he ordered, ‘keep well back in here but keep in sight of the door while I’m outside. And if you think of dodging remember that I am just that much quicker with a gun than you. Now move!’
The gunman glowered, but the odds were too heavy. He watched Storm reach the door and heard his deep, pleasant voice as he spoke quietly to the startled postmistress.
‘I’m very much afraid,’ said Storm gently, realising that the woman’s nerves were dangerously near breaking-point, ‘that we’ve come across a bandit. But there’s no need to worry. I’ll fetch one or two of my friends and we’ll handle him. For the time being it would be much wiser to talk as little as possible about this.’
With luck the postmistress would take him for a detective and fall in with what he said. Stepping briskly towards the door but being careful to keep his man covered without showing the gun to anyone outside, he peered towards the car.
‘Now, son. Move again and move quickly. When you see your pal on the other side of the road call him over but don’t try any tricks.’
The gunman began to move, while Storm kept well out of his reach to make sure there was no sudden, desperate attempt to wrest the automatic from him.
Grimm, seeing what was happening, slipped into the road, his hand thrust well down into his trousers pocket, clasping his unseen automatic. At the same moment the gunman raised his nasal voice.
‘Say! Lefty!’
Lefty, in the doorway of The Four Bells, gave a sudden start.
Storm watched him strolling sluggishly across the road, and wished that the man would take his hand out of his pocket.
The thought was hardly out of his head when the man in front of him ducked suddenly, raising his thick voice in a wild warning which rang like a clarion call through the deserted, rain-swept street.
‘Plug him, Lefty!’
Like greased lightning Lefty’s hand ripped from his pocket and Storm saw a jab of yellow flame spit from a revolver. No sound came but the zutt of a silenced gun, but the shot, murderously quick though it was, came a shade too late.
Storm dropped a fraction of a second before the bullet hummed. He heard the crack of breaking glass and as he took quick aim and fired point black at Lefty he hoped to heaven that the postmistress was out of harm’s way.
The silence of the street was ripped again as Lefty, dropping his automatic, mouthed a stream of searing curses. Blood was streaming from his arm, showing that Storm’s shot had taken him just above the right wrist. Before the first gunman could jerk upwards Grimm had whipped round the Daimler, gun in hand.
A grim smile played round the corners of Storm’s mouth as he heard windows jerking upwards and saw the door of The Four Bells open. He spoke quietly to Grimm.
‘Get ’em in the back of the car, Roger, and don’t let the cusses budge. Granny – ’ Granville was already out of the car, staring in bewilderment. ‘You’d better come with me. We’ve got to kid these folk,’ Storm went on, ‘that we – Grimm and I – are detectives who came down to look after Ledsholm Grange. Rig up a cock-and-bull story of a threat of murder or robbery. That should let us get clear. Savvy?’
Granville savvied with admirable presence of mind. Within ten minutes the inhabitants of Ledsholm village were agog with the story of bandits who had opened fire on the Post Office prior to carrying out a raid on the Grange. The story, eminently reasonable in view of the reports of outrages which filled the daily Press, was swallowed as quickly as Benjamin Cripps’ brown ale.
Storm finished with a brief, soothing and complimentary word to the still trembling postmistress, then crowded into the back of the Daimler, with the gunmen for company.
They were huddled up in a corner with their hands in front of them, and Storm realised that they were two of the toughest specimens that he had ever set eyes on. He shivered at the thought of gentry of their kind keeping a watch on Letty Granville.
Showing them the gleaming steel of his gun, he commented affably: ‘They call this “going for a ride”, don’t they?’
The smouldering hate in the furtive eyes of the gunmen changed to fear. They jerked forward.
‘Say, Boss!’
‘Get back!’ snapped Storm. ‘That’s better. Now, if it eases your rotten minds, your country’s connotation of that phrase will not be carried out – just yet. But’ – he glared at them – ‘it’s ten chances to one on your fading out of this little planet, and fading very soon! Think it over. Maybe it’ll help you to talk later on. But there’s just one thing now. Where’s Redhead?’
He learned all he wanted to know from their faces. They were Redhead’s men without a shadow of doubt, and they were tough. Not a word came from their lips in spite of their fear.
‘Rest easy,’ grinned Storm.
It was anything but a comfortable ride, yet as the powerful Daimler swung into the drive of Ledsholm Grange he hardly realised that they were at their destination. He was satisfied with the day’s work so far. The first score was to him, for the thugs in the back of the car were admirable hostages.
Driving the two gangsters in front of him he followed Grimm and Granville up a short flight of steps leading to the main hall. Inside, he grinned cheerfully at Granville.
Then he remembered the telegram and the fact that he had no idea why the younger man had sent for him.
Something in Granville’s eyes sent a shiver of fear through him. His voice was low and strained.
‘Now – what’s the trouble?’
But it was Grimm, who had been able to talk during the journey, who answered.
‘Prepare for a nasty jolt, old boy. Wenlock, curse him, has got hold of Letty!’
Chapter 7
A Matter of Numbers
The two thugs were bound hand and foot and tied to a bed in one of the many rooms in the great building. A gardener – Perriman – one of four servants at the Grange who had prepared a royal welcome for the wanderers’ return and were murderously inclined towards the devils who had abducted Miss Letty, were keeping watch outside the locked door and hopefully clutching a poker.
Storm, Granville and Grimm made a cheerless trio in the great reception hall.
‘The first thing we saw when we reached here,’ said Granville wearily, ‘was Wenlock’s ruddy ginger thatch! You could have sent me flying with a matchstick! I didn’t dream –’
He broke off, passing a hand through his hair, then went on quickly, as though anxious to get the story over.
‘Of course Harries – the caretaker – didn’t know that he wasn’t the friend he had made himself out to be when he had called half-an-hour before our arrival last night.
‘Anyhow, Wenlock was civil enough if you discount his outrageous suggestion that we should let the Grange to him for six months, with an option for another six. He said that we might as well stay for another year as we’ve been away so long.
‘Letty wouldn’t speak to him at all, while I told him pretty bluntly that we neither cared for him, or wanted to hear from him from now until doomsday. He went away quietly enough, and we’d hoped that we’d never come across the blighter again.
‘Harries, his wife and the two gardeners, who put themselves out to make a show for us, did their best to calm things down a bit, but the homecoming was a frost. I wished I’d pressed you two fellows to come straight down here with us, and Letty agreed – ’
‘Did she say so?’ interposed Storm off-handedly.
Granville nodded.
‘She said so
first, actually. Anyhow, after she’d gone to bed Harries told me that he thought he saw a circle of light in the grounds. Sure enough, there were at least half-a-dozen lights, coming, I reckoned, from torches!
‘It didn’t take much thinking about. Wenlock was out for trouble. Harries rummaged round and found a couple of blunderbusses, and the other servants posted themselves near Letty’s room.
‘It was pretty ghoulish, I can tell you! This place, which hasn’t been occupied apart for three or four downstairs rooms for nearly five years, was like a beastly sepulchre! We heard things that weren’t and saw things that never have been! Talk about ghosts!
‘Of course, we didn’t worry Letty. But after an hour of it, with the lights still moving about in the grounds, I called up Lewes Police Station.
‘I thought we’d be all right then. Someone promised to send half-a-dozen men along to investigate, and about half-an-hour afterwards a car arrived with six or seven men in it. One was in uniform and the rest were in ordinary civvies. Of course I didn’t dream –
‘It was all over in a flash! The first thing I saw when I opened the door was a nasty-looking gun pushed towards my middle and three others pointed at Harries and the gardeners. I did try to kick the door shut’ – Granville smiled wanly – ‘but Wenlock socked me with the butt of a gun.
‘That was the end of it for me. I woke up an hour or two afterwards, to find Harries and the others tied up like a lot of sacks, and Letty gone!’
Granville stopped for a moment. The bond between himself and his sister, strengthened by five years’ travelling together, was a strong one, and the disaster which had overtaken her bit deep. He stood up suddenly, driving one clenched fist into the other open palm.
Overwrought, thought Storm. But he wished Granville didn’t gesture quite so theatrically. Still...
‘Don’t let it get you down,’ he encouraged. ‘We’ll fix it.’
Well, I was all for going straight to the police,’ Granville went on. ‘It was obvious that the telephone wires had been tampered with, of course – but we found a note stuck to the inside of the front door. After reading it I just felt that I couldn’t move. Then it struck me that you two were useful johnnies so I sent one of the gardeners into the village to send the wire and to get a local plumber fellow to see what he could do with the telephone wires.’
Granville took an envelope from his pocket and handed it over. The letter inside was typewritten and unsigned, but Storm could easily understand why it had distressed Granville. He held the letter so that Grimm could read it. They leaned forward beneath the light of the hanging chandelier which spread its glow over the massive dignity of the hall and its sober furnishings. The silence was oppressive and somehow threatening.
My dear Granville,
I have no doubt you are feeling angry. Take my very sound advice before you decide to do something foolish.
Your sister’s life depends entirely on your behaviour. You must leave Ledsholm Grange immediately, with the servants, and give me a written leave of tenancy for six months, with an option for another six. You will not come near the Grange during that period.
You will not communicate with the police or any similar body. Not only would it be useless, but your charming sister would lose her life – painfully.
You will signify your acceptance of these terms and your wish to see me again by showing a green light in the front porch of the Grange from ten o’clock until ten-thirty tomorrow, Friday, evening.
Storm seemed to see the redheaded man’s eyes with their basilisk expression of malevolent, soulless hatred staring up from the white paper. Involuntarily he shuddered, and when he looked up he saw Grimm’s face filled with that same unreasoning, chilled expression of dread.
The sinister influence of the writer of the letter bit through the atmosphere of the lofty hall into their very bones. Granville stared at them tensely.
At last Storm heaved himself upwards from his chair and his deep voice boomed out, calm and confident.
‘So-ho, Redhead! It’s between us, is it? Well – have a care, my hearty!’
Grimm grinned. Granville’s expression eased.
Storm thwacked him heavily on the back.
‘That’s more like it! Now then. We know a thing or two. Redhead wants Ledsholm Grange and wants it badly. We don’t know why, but we can find out. Meanwhile Letty’s as safe as houses. Why? Because he’s holding her as a kind of barter for the Grange, and if he loses her’ – Storm passed gently over the possibility of Redhead’s murderous rage getting the better of him – ‘he knows he’s as much chance of getting the Grange as a cat has of rearing carthorses. Our game is to stall. Keep putting him off, and maybe we’ll get a chance of sending him to join the two boys upstairs.’
He beamed round, noting with satisfaction that the strained expression in Granville’s eyes was lessening. Nevertheless Granville had had a nasty shock.
‘The reasoning’s all right,’ admitted Grimm after a pause. ‘The thing is –’
‘The waiting!’ burst out Granville, jumping from his chair and pacing the hall nervously. ‘Damn it, Storm, we’ve got to do something! Don’t you see? While Letty’s with that – swine! – anything might happen. Can’t you see?’
Again Storm had a half-reluctant wish that Granville wouldn’t make his outbursts quite so melodramatic. But he placed a steadying hand on the younger man’s shoulder and looked squarely into his brown eyes.
‘I can see, Granville. It’s biting me as hard as it is you. But talking won’t help – not that kind of talking anyhow. It’ll just cloud your judgement and land us in more trouble. What you’ve got to do is to think, and think like hell, for any reason he might have for wanting the Grange.’
Granville managed a not very heroic grin.
‘Where’d you keep your whisky?’ demanded Martin. ‘There it is, Grimy. Cart it over.’
Grimm brought the decanter and glasses, and after a brief interval for refreshment the cousins – after Granville had been despatched to Harries with an inquiry as to any local activities which might throw some light on Redhead’s mysterious anxiety to get possession of the Grange – discussed those odd points of the affair which stuck out so inconsistently.
One thing seemed moderately certain and could explain a great deal.
Redhead’s journey to England had been made to fit in with the return of the Granvilles. He had endeavoured to get into the good books of the couple during the trip, failing dismally with Frank, though scoring well enough with Letty. The arrival of Storm had smashed through his plans. Undoubtedly Redhead, as Wenlock, had good reason to hate the cousins.
And now, careering like a couple of rogue-elephants, they had burst into the middle of the shindy at the Grange, picked up a couple of Redhead’s pet thugs and written ‘setback’ on his local progress. His knife would be waiting for Storm and Grimm, and it was a knife likely to carry poison on its blade.
Together with the obvious numerical strength of the enemy and Redhead’s cunning, this point engaged the minds of the cousins. Finally:
‘Roughly speaking,’ said Storm, ‘and assuming that we’re not going to make an immediate report to Whitehall, we ought to have at least half-a-dozen men.’
‘Be better to tell Divot, wouldn’t it?’ demurred Grimm.
Storm nursed his pipe.
‘I know you don’t mean that, Roger, or I’d throw you out of the window. Listen. If we bring the police down here, Redhead will realise that there isn’t a half chance of his ever gaining possession of the place. And we’ve got to consider the personal element – ’
‘The girl,’ admitted Grimm.
‘And,’ said Storm without heeding the interruption, ‘we can be sure that if Redhead sees he’s beaten off the Grange, she won’t stand half a chance. Even you ought to be able to see that. We can hold the blighter off a bit, but we daren’t do anything with the police – yet.’
Grimm nodded slowly.
‘I see up to a point, Martin
. But surely you see that the job’s too much for us as we are? We want – ’
‘Reinforcements,’ put in Storm. ‘That’s just what I was saying. Think hard, Roger. Then guess.’
For twenty seconds there was no sound in the room but the rhythmic puffing peculiar to pipe smokers. Then;
‘The Arran Twins,’ suggested Grimm quietly.
‘The Arran Twins!’ agreed Storm with a sigh of content. ‘And their bodyguard. Hand me that telephone – quick, darn you!’
At a time when Martin Storm and Roger Grimm had been out of England on one of their periodical explorations, exciting things had happened in England.*
The Twins had been active participants, and not only they, but several eager and energetic young men with money, brains and a carefully disguised patriotism.
Storm had no doubt at all that the Twins would not only come but that they would jump to it. But as he lifted the receiver and gave the Mayfair number of the Arrans’ flat it struck him forcefully that the line might be tapped. His conversation with the Twins would have to be garbled.
At the other end of the wire a staid but resigned valet – ‘Splits’ to the Twins’ intimates – walked warily towards a bathroom from which came loud sounds of exuberant splashing.
After two minutes Storm heard a plaintive voice drawling over the wire.
‘Oh, I say! Who the – blinkin’ – hell is – that? Darn it, you might have picked a better moment!’
‘Rabbits!’ snorted Storm. ‘Listen, Timothy’ – the Twins were always easily distinguishable, Timothy being long-winded and Tobias talking with machine-gun precision – ‘It’s Storm here – yes, darn you! Windy. Do you happen to know Ledsholm? Yes, the place in Sussex. You’re not coming down this way, are you? No? Only I’m likely to be here for a day or two and I thought – Oh, shut up, curse you, and let me get a word in! Listening? Hump. Well, you remember that little do you went to with Chubby Spencer?’
Until that moment a series of snorts, indicating strong indignation, had travelled over the wire. They stopped suddenly.