by John Creasey
‘I’ll not say a word,’ promised Storm without a qualm. ‘I suppose Mr Granville wrote to Harries and –’
‘Told him to let the workmen have the run o’ the Grange,’ said Benjamin, not to be robbed of his story. ‘That’s the size of it, sir. Love us, but they tell me some days there were twenty or thirty men around the Grange.’
‘But they haven’t been there for a week?’ queried Storm.
‘I don’t know about that, sir. At first they used to come in and have one now and again, sir, but they haven’t been down for six or seven days. I was only saying so to poor old Tom, him liking his drop but not being able to carry it well. He said they’d stopped working for a while, sir.’
‘What kind of men were they?’ demanded Storm. ‘Navvies?’
Mr Cripps was definite.
‘Bless me, no, sir! Quite gentlemanly men. Wireless engineers I took ’em to be.’
‘Well,’ said Storm heartily, ‘thanks a lot, Mr Cripps. Give us another tankard of that beer and we’ll be going.’
Gentlemanly looking men, he thought. Zoeman’s crowd for a fortune! He had little doubt but that the Grange had been Zoeman’s headquarters for some time, but that the return of the Granvilles had stopped whatever game he had been up to. But what had they been building?’
With a generosity which still further warmed the heart of Mr Benjamin Cripps he waved away the change from a pound note and with Timothy in close attendance, left the inn. The letter to Sir William Divot had already been sent, and its writing had filled in the time they had been forced to wait for the ten o’clock opening of The Four Bells. What the Assistant Secretary would say when he received it Storm hated to think.
Timothy pressed the self-starter of the Bugatti and the great car roared into action.
There was only one possible interpretation, Storm decided, of the ‘wireless thingummy’ and the horde of workmen. During his master’s absence Harries had been making hay while the sun shone, and the story of the wireless installation had been spread round to allay suspicion. The Granville’s return, some time earlier than had been expected, had put him thoroughly in the cart. No wonder Mrs Harries had gone away with so little fuss! There was no doubt that she had been ‘in the know’, as had the two gardeners.
Storm was certain that Benjamin Cripps’s description of the workmen tallied with Zoeman’s men, and he was equally sure that Zoeman had had nothing to do with the killing of Harries. The mystery of the Grange deepened; Storm cursed himself for having lost trace of Perriman and for letting Mrs Harries go.
But that was nothing to his curse when he reached Ledsholm Grange.
The six members of the company were grouped in the hall, unhappy and worried. Two hammers and a couple of pokers supplied evidence of the tapping process in the search for hidden passages, but operations had been abandoned. No one spoke as they entered.
Grimm, standing by the telephone, broke the strained silence.
‘Glad to see you back, Martin. I’m afraid – ’
Storm went pale.
‘For the love of Mike,’ he rapped, ‘what is it?’
Grimm gulped.
‘Just had a chat with the guv’nor,’ he said quietly. ‘Letty went out with the mater this morning – and she didn’t come back!’
Chapter 13
Things Unknown to Martin Storm
Letty Granville had found it increasingly difficult to look coldly on the genial, boisterous giant with the twinkling blue-grey eyes. On the afternoon when he had burst into the Park Street house and routed Wenlock she had been very nearly at the end of her tether.
But Martin made one big mistake. He had thought blithely that the friendship which he had struck with young Frank Granville would be a sound plank for him to stand on. In point of fact Letty wished heartily that Storm and Granville had never met each other.
She felt resentful towards Frank for a variety of reasons. It had been one of the most difficult and unpleasant tasks of her life to keep Wenlock, vulgarly speaking, on a piece of string during the voyage from New York to Cherbourg, on her brother’s behalf.
Frank had worried her for some time. In America he started to work on financial deals which had at first brought him excitement and triumph but had gradually turned him morose and sullen. She read worse trouble in his face one evening in March when he came quietly into the room. His face was white and haggard, his whole demeanour that of a man perilously near losing all confidence.
Pouring himself a whisky and soda he had grinned mirthlessly.
‘Letty – I’m deuced sorry, but I’m afraid we – I mean, I’ve made a thorough mess of things, old girl. Absolute. We’re –’ He stumbled over the words and had difficulty in meeting her eyes. ‘We’re dished. Pretty nearly broke.’
It was like saying that the sea had dried up. Broke. It was impossible! She knew that Frank had taken control of over half-a-million pounds after his father’s death.
Broke! He was joking!
But looking at him she saw that he had never been further away from joking in his life. He looked haggard and ill, worried almost to death.
‘Is it really as bad as that, Frank? Let’s talk it over.’
They talked, and at the end of half-an-hour Letty’s lips were set in a grimness which only those who had seen and reckoned on the determined mould of her square chin would have expected.
Granville had caught the up-to-date craze of trying to turn one pound into two. The slump, hitting America so hard, had swallowed up the greater part of the Granville inheritance.
‘The only thing left,’ Frank said uncomfortably, ‘is to lease the Grange. We can’t sell it. The agreement won’t let us. But we can lease it for a tidy bit and keep going.’
In spite of the fact that they had lived away from England for more than five years, he knew that the thought of giving up the Grange would hit his sister harder than any privation. But it was unavoidable.
‘You’ve already arranged it?’ she queried in a tight voice.
He nodded.
‘To a man called Zoeman – Hesketh Zoeman. He says he wants it for six or twelve months, and that the place is just right for an experimental wireless station that he wants to build.’
‘And the price?’
‘Five thousand a year. It’s not so much as I’d have liked, but it’s better than nothing. I’ve fixed up to stay there for a few days when we go back –’
‘Go back?’ She looked her surprise. ‘But why – ’
‘We’ll have to stay here for a month or two,’ he told her unhappily, ‘until I see how much we can salvage. But we can’t keep travelling in – style – and we can’t potter about from country to country forever. We’ll have to settle down, and you wouldn’t like to get a small place out of England, would you?’
‘No,’ agreed Letty quietly. ‘We’d better go back.’
She was as much concerned over the change in her brother as the loss of money. Frank had seemed to be acting a part with her for a long time, and she still felt uneasy. Was it possible that he had told her only a part of the story?
Two months and more passed before he spoke of the journey again, during which time he collected what little there was left of the fortune. As the date of sailing grew closer she felt more than ever that he was keeping something back.
Then a week before they were due to sail he burst into her room, unnaturally bright-eyed and worried much more than he would admit. His concern had been over a man named Wenlock. Five minutes afterwards she met him.
She found him presentable enough, but she could not repress a dislike of the man’s flaunting of his physical perfection, nor the glinting power of his green eyes. He seemed to exert an influence over Frank which amounted to little less than fascination; she could have sworn that the younger man was living in fear of Ralph Wenlock.
When the red-haired man had gone, Frank dropped his next bomb.
‘There’s just a chance, old girl, that Wenlock’ll take over Ledsholm Grange
! He’ll double Zoeman’s price – ’
‘But Zoeman’s got the agreement,’ she objected.
‘Probably we can get over that,’ he persuaded. ‘Letty, please keep him interested. You can if you will.’
His anxiety to keep both Zoeman and Wenlock interested and his desperate endeavours to get hold of more money strengthened her fears. It took her two full hours to force the truth out of her brother. When it came it was a thousand times blacker than before.
They not only lacked money, but they owed it. The figure of their commitments staggered her, but the fact that Frank was in imminent danger of prosecution staggered her still more! They had to find a hundred thousand pounds. He reckoned to get what he could from Zoeman, what he could from Wenlock, and take a risk on speculative markets for the other. If it failed –
‘Letty’ – he was absolutely at the last gasp she knew – ‘you’ll back me up, won’t you? If I thought you wouldn’t – ’
She said stiffly: ‘Of course I’ll back you up.’
It wasn’t until they had reached Southampton and Wenlock was sulking after the affair with Storm that she realised the dangerous game her brother was playing. A chance remark from Wenlock told her that the fight between him and the unknown Zoeman for Ledsholm Grange turned on crime.
She shrank from taking any action, torn between loyalty to her brother and horror at seeing the frank-faced, blunt-speaking and scrupulously honest youth whom she had thought she knew so well change to a near-criminal. Now he dealt in subterfuge and played on her feelings for help. The uncertainty of the future, and the possibility of Martin Storm being mixed up in the business which centred round Ledsholm Grange, added to her torment.
What was Storm’s part? Why had Frank staged that affair on deck? She discovered that Wenlock had seen and for some reason been suspicious of Martin Storm and Roger Grimm the first time the cousins had shown their faces on board.
* * *
At exactly half-past ten on the morning following her terrifying experience at Ledsholm Grange and her rescue by Martin Storm, Letty Granville, feeling less harassed than at any time since the first bombshell of the financial disaster, finished an admirable breakfast and smiled easily at the small, bright-faced Lady Alicia Grimm. At that identical moment Martin Storm was entering the village post office at Ledsholm.
Lady Alicia took up a small bundle of letters and with a murmured apology scaled them through quickly. Then her bright eyes twinkled.
‘One for you, Miss Granville.’
Letty saw, with a pang of disappointment, that it was from Frank.
Excusing herself she opened it, frowning when she found a rough plan of the underground passages which honeycombed Ledsholm Grange.
The briefly pencilled note with it sent the fears and uncertainties of the past months rushing back to her. The note was damning and yet held a ray of hope which she prayed would materialise.
Dear Letty,
I’m in desperate straits but there’s just a chance of getting through.
Give this note to the man you will see in a blue Delage, and do just what he says. There’s fifty thousand pounds in it!
Frank.
Letty stared in front of her, thankful for Lady Alicia’s rapt attention to her varied correspondence. The possibility of escape from the hell of the threat overhanging her brother was the one bright spot. But what was the plan of the underground passages for? What could possibly bring him fifty thousand pounds? And who would be the man in the blue Delage?
Harassed by fear of Wenlock and uncertain of the danger which might surround the unsuspecting Martin Storm, she was in two minds what course to take, but the realisation that if Frank failed to get the money it would mean his certain imprisonment decided her.
She laughed bitterly to herself. He had gradually made it impossible for her to get out of the net which was spreading round them both.
Damn money! Damn money!
It had turned one of the straightest men crooked, and his defection bit more deeply into her heart than she realised.
* * *
The hunched, wizened old man with the horrible green eyes which reminded her of the flaming orbs of Ralph Wenlock peered at Letty from the back of the blue Delage saloon car.
She saw him as she walked down the stone steps of the Philmore Crescent house with Lady Alicia.
The Delage crawled twenty yards behind them as they walked towards Kensington High Street. Outside an antique shop Lady Alicia stopped to admire a Japanese vase and after a tantalizing hesitation decided to buy it.
Letty felt the eyes of the man in the Delage boring into her.
‘I’ll wait here, if I may,’ she said jerkily.
Lady Alicia nodded.
‘I won’t be a minute, my dear.’
She had hardly disappeared into the shop before the Delage drew up alongside.
A hoarse voice reached Letty.
‘You have it?’
She nodded.
‘Good. Get in the car.’
‘But – ’
‘Get in, I say!’
The old man’s stare seemed to hypnotise her. Repressing a shiver of revulsion, she stepped in, and the car slid into the stream of traffic.
Chapter 14
Frank Granville Disappears
Storm felt like hell!
There was nothing he could do, nothing which would help. The sortie of the previous afternoon, the trick which he had won against the devilish plans of Redhead, had been made useless. Letty was gone! Storm took a grip on himself with a mighty effort. He knew that, for him the part which Letty Granville was playing in the mystery of Ledsholm Grange dwarfed all other elements. Once he could get her clear again –
‘Granville been told?’ he demanded suddenly.
Grimm shook his head.
‘No. He went out with Horrobin to hash something up for lunch.’
‘I’ll tell him,’ muttered Storm.
None of the others went with him to the kitchen. None of them had seen Martin Storm so badly hit and they felt instinctively that he was best left alone.
Horrobin, with his sleeves rolled up, ploughing dismally through a vast pile of potatoes, looked round nervously at the sound of footsteps.
‘Where’s Granville?’ jerked Storm.
‘He just went outside, sir. Shall I call him?’
‘I’ll go,’ said Storm.
The narrow door leading to the courtyard was open. He passed through and looked round. Granville was not in sight.
‘Damnation!’ he cursed, going further out and peering into the open door of the power-house and the garage with the same lack of success. ‘Where the devil has the fellow gone?’
Which question was echoed not once but a hundred times, for Frank Granville had vanished as completely as his sister from the face of the earth!
Storm deliberated on the wisdom of going to London in an effort to trace Letty, but finally decided that he was likely to do more good by concentrating on finding the secret of Ledsholm Grange. The depression which had furrowed his brow after the ominous telephone message from Sir Joseph lifted, but the happy-go-lucky characteristics of the rugged Martin Storm had gone. His grimness injected the rest of the party.
Playing was over, there would be hell to pay before this affair was finished. The disappearances – three within a couple of hours – created a heavy atmosphere of suspense. Things were moving fast to a climax.
‘We can reckon,’ said Storm, ‘that the main trouble here lies in the kitchen or just outside. Perriman went out of the back door and vanished. Granville did the same, and in both instances Horrors was in earshot but heard nothing. There’s a hiding place there, and we’re going to find it! Bolt that front door, Tim, and make sure the windows are shuttered. We want no surprise attack.’
Horrobin, still disturbed by the grimness of Storm’s manner, had dallied considerably with the potatoes and he saw with some relief that the call for food was likely to be still further delayed.
‘Kind of patrol, what?’
‘You’ve hit it,’ said Storm. ‘Keep your eyes wide open and trot from end to end of this accursed house. Don’t get out of sight and take the silencer off your gun.’
‘It shall be done,’ muttered Dodo firmly.
For twenty minutes there was no sound but the tapping of iron on steel, wood or stone. Corners, walls, floors and ceilings suffered the onslaught, but the same unresponsive echo came from all.
Crossing to the third outhouse Storm and Grimm saw Martin Best coming from the emergency exit of the powerhouse. He had contrived to wipe his face with an oil rag and the black smear running from ear to ear leant him a savage look his normally good-tempered countenance did not possess.
Storm waited with his hand on an iron latch as the lumbering Best bore down on them.
‘Anything?’ he demanded tersely.
‘Dunno, old boy. But there’s a patch of cement that looks newish. Care to have a squint?’
Storm was already halfway towards the power-house and a moment later all three men were peering at the flooring. After a moment’s hesitation Storm pursed his lips in a soundless whistle.
‘Been powdered over to make it look old, eh?’
‘Looks like it,’ agreed Best grimly.
Storm thought rapidly. On the first place the dusting had been done in a hurry, for he was too keenly aware of the astuteness of his opponents to think that the powdered cement had been used from choice. In the second, there were definite passages under and about the Grange.