by John Creasey
His face was pale; even his lips had little colour, but there was a dynamic quality about him. Even in the loose-fitting, far-from-new suit of clerical grey that he wore, he looked—vital was the word Loftus mentally applied to him.
Thus, Graham Hershall: the man who in a scant six months as Prime Minister of Britain had rallied the country and enabled it to withstand the first shock of the Nazi siege. The man whose war-cry was ‘Victory!’: the politician with a chequered past and a glorious present, perhaps a greater future. A man who cared neither for precedent nor red-tape, he had been called on to lead the Empire in the hour of its greatest trial.
‘No, don’t get up,’ he repeated, briskly. ‘I’m going to sit down, m’self. ’Morning, Craigie. ’Morning, Loftus.’ He had met Loftus twice, and then only casually; but he had no uncertainty about his identity. ‘What’s this—tea? Is there a spare cup?’
‘There’s always a spare cup, here.’ Loftus had risen, anyway, and now he turned and rooted in the cupboard for crockery as Craigie finished glancing through his post.
Then, tea-caddy in hand, he asked:
‘Strong or weak, sir?’
‘Oh, as it comes.’ The grey-green eyes twinkled. ‘Don’t forget it’s rationed! Well, Loftus—you sent a report in by telephone. Discoveries of some importance, about this sleep stuff, you said? Good or bad?’
‘Good,’ said Loftus.
He poured tea as Craigie pulled up a chair and Hershall lighted a cheroot. Then having handed it round—and talking for much of the time towards the cloud of smoke which half-hid the Premier’s face—he recounted what he had seen and learned.
‘The connection between the missing Tenby,’ he summed up, ‘and the man Richards, is well-established—and that also connects up the two of them on the sleeping-gas. And Richards not only escaped, but took Parnell with him.’
‘Took?’ echoed Hershall, passing his cup for a refill.
‘Took,’ repeated Loftus, pouring automatically. ‘Gordon?’ Refilling Craigie’s cup, he went on, ‘I don’t know whether he forced Parnell to go with him, or whether Parnell went willingly.’
‘In short, Parnell might be treating with the enemy?’ Hershall prompted.
‘It could be,’ admitted Craigie. ‘It’s possible that two separate people discovered this sleeping-gas at about the same time, working entirely apart from each other and with no knowledge of the other’s activities or experiments. Similar coincidences have happened. But no one could call it probable.’
‘No,’ Hershall looked expectantly at Loftus, clearly intending to let him talk as the spirit moved him.
‘The greater probability,’ said Loftus, pensively lighting a cigarette, ‘is that Golightly made the discovery first, and that information concerning it was sent to Germany.’
‘Ah. Through Parnell?’
‘That is at least possible.’
‘What about this sister, or whatever she is?’ asked Hershall.
‘She’s another possibility,’ agreed Loftus, ‘and I wouldn’t advise that she’s neglected. There is, of course, also a chance of a leakage from Golightly’s laboratory through some other source. He must have other assistants—there were the two I saw today, for instance, who’d taken part in his experiment.’
‘Yes . . .’ Hershall scowled. ‘You are arranging to go thoroughly into Golightly’s activities? What is his attitude?’
‘It began obstructive; it’s now co-operative,’ said Loftus, and explained the arrangements they had agreed.
‘I’ll send someone down today.’ Hershall scribbled a note on a scrap of paper from his coat pocket. ‘Who’s been working on these lines for us, Craigie—do you know?’
‘Bradley,’ said Craigie, promptly.
‘Oh yes, of course. Has he sent you the reports on those samples you’ve given him?’
‘They’re in, this morning.’
‘Ah! Useful?’
‘Up to a point,’ said Craigie. ‘The first specimens, taken from Tenby at the Dernier Cri, contain a proportion of morphia, one or two other sleep-producing drugs, and an unknown substance which presumably facilitates the transformation from solid to gaseous form. The phial of gas taken from the man near Hayling was phosgene.’
‘Was it!’ Hershall cocked a wryly-humorous eye at Loftus.
‘That gentleman didn’t intend you to live, Loftus. But you’ve a reputation for luck, haven’t you?’ He turned to Craigie: ‘Well, now, we’ll want that first specimen examined by Golightly, to see if the constituents are the same as he uses for euthan. Incredible fellow!’ he threw in. ‘Incredible that any Englishman should make a discovery of that importance, and not tell us!’
‘He might have reported it a year ago without anything being done yet,’ suggested Loftus.
‘True.’ Hershall grunted, and he did not look amused. ‘All right, Loftus, I know the faults and failings. We’ll get Golightly’s opinion, then, and I’ll see Bradley myself. This anti-euthan is more important, for the moment. Problem will be how to get it manufactured commercially. No use using the stuff after the people have been sent to sleep—the damage is done, then. So far we’ve only had the three examples, haven’t we? At that night-club place, at Blackpool, and at the nursing-home—right?’
‘That’s all we’ve had reported,’ Craigie corrected.
‘Don’t talk like a Parliamentary answer!’ growled Hershall, and beamed at his own joke. ‘All right.’ He rose abruptly and turned towards the door, which had slid back into position and was again undetectable. ‘I’ll see that no time’s lost. You’ll do your share. This Labiche man is all-important—is there any sign of his recovery?’
‘Not yet,’ said Craigie.
‘H’mm—pity.’ Hershall nodded to them both. Then taking out another cheroot as Craigie pressed the switch and the door opened, he stepped through. ‘Let me have the reports as they come in.’
As the door closed after him, Loftus smiled across at Craigie.
‘He’s good.’
Craigie nodded dourly.
‘I wish to God he’d been in office five years ago!’ he said, with a vehemence surprising for him. ‘We might have averted all this insanity. Well—what do you propose doing next?’
Loftus shook his head.
‘We can’t do much. Labiche is our one hope of locating that island. The other thing to do is to try to find Parnell.’
‘That,’ said Craigie, ‘is already being done.’
————
It was, and not by half-measures. There was no police-station in the country without a full description and a wirelessed photograph of the young American scientist, who knew all that there was to know about the manufacture of euthan. There were a thousand military posts with the same information and every point on the coast was watched, every airfield examined. No risks at all were taken that Parnell might escape from the country by any known or guessable route.
The search for Richoffen, known as Richards, and Paula Duveen was as thorough, although photographs were not available. Detailed descriptions from Colonel Hargreaves and others who had known them well were circulated, but a remarkable fact was soon apparent.
The woman appeared to have no existence in London.
No one had seen or heard of her, and there was no trace of anyone of that name who could conceivably be likened to the woman Loftus had seen. No one in Hayling had the slightest idea of her address, or of her life or whereabouts in London. She had never been seen except in or near Hayling, and then always driving the cream-coloured sports car, to or from Fourways.
Nor—reported Superintendent Miller later in the day—was there any information to be discovered about the man who called himself Richards. He had never talked of his business, nor of his travels other than those he had undertaken to most countries in pursuit of stamps for his collection—which, he had always insisted, had been solely in the nature of a hobby. As far as the police were concerned, Richards might have sprung from nowhere.
The org
anisation in Great Britain was so complete that within twenty-four hours of the word going out, everyone named Richards in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland had been interrogated. But no one answering Charles Richards’ description, no one known to have an exceptional interest in philately, and nothing of anyone who had retired eleven years before and gone to live in Hayling, was discovered.
There was one thing which Loftus was able to do before he returned to the flat. He had been told that the two women servants from Richards’ house had recovered consciousness, and also from the temporary paralysis they had experienced on awakening. Detectives were at the nursing-home—another than the one from which Tenby had been spirited away—but the servants had not been interrogated.
Loftus interviewed them in turn, in a private room. The maid, he found, was in no state to answer questions.
She was nearly hysterical, and he doubted whether she could give intelligent answers if she were not.
He very soon sent her away and the older woman, Richards’ housekeeper, came in. She looked as if, under normal circumstances, she would be capable.
Loftus put himself out to be pleasant.
‘Ah, Mrs. Browning! I’ve wanted a word with you before, but it was thought wiser to let you rest. You’re feeling better, I hope?’
‘I am,’ said Mrs. Browning, brusquely. ‘Ask what ye will; I’ll answer all I can.’
‘Fine.’ Loftus was thankful: there would be no waste of time here. ‘Now, first—were you and the maid together, when this thing happened?’
‘We were, in the garden shed.’
‘And precisely what did happen?’
‘I can tell ye little or nothing,’ warned the woman, and proceeded to describe without detail what she had been doing, and how she had suddenly felt tired and gone to sleep on her feet. No such thing had ever happened to her before. Had it been ‘the girl’—she spoke disparagingly of the maid—it would have been understandable: she was half-asleep most of the time.
He questioned her about Richards, but she could give him little information. She had worked for him for six years. In every year, he had spent at least one month abroad, but she had not known where: he had not had his post forwarded. He had always treated her well, but she disliked him—and she would always dislike him. Just as she had hated the hunch-backed servant, Grey. But nothing she could tell him threw any light at all on Richards’ activities, nor on his early history.
Richards, it seemed, had no history.
‘Which,’ Loftus mused as he discussed the matter with Ned Oundle and Wally Davidson, ‘is at least interesting. He has no earlier existence as Richards, of course. Yet he’d been at Hayling for eleven years—perhaps waiting all the time for this day.’
Wally opened one weary eye.
‘Hang it, old son, he could be any ordinary crook jumping at this chance of making a fortune through Adolf!’
Oundle frowned.
‘The woman’s about thirty, didn’t you say?’
Loftus regarded him thoughtfully.
‘She is. She might be thirty-five. Richards could be a lot younger than he looked.’
‘A couple in crime,’ murmured Davidson.
‘A team, yes,’ said Loftus. ‘It could be. It could also be that they’re working direct for Berlin.’
‘Hitler was a dream eleven years ago,’ protested Davidson.
‘Hitler had the skeleton of his Fifth Column in operation, fifteen years ago,’ said Loftus shortly. ‘Well, we can’t say we’ve nothing to do now—and Yvonne should be happier, now that she’s got to try to get Labiche back to normal.’
‘Just what do you expect to happen?’ asked Oundle.
Loftus leaned back, his eyes closed.
‘There’s an island,’ he said, ‘somewhere probably not far away, where this sleeping-gas is being manufactured, and where experiments are going on apace. It exists, it isn’t a dream. If they can make the stuff in large enough quantities, it can be the most dangerous weapon ever known. The “if” is a large one, since Golightly seems positive this euthan is necessary—and it’s very rare. On the other hand, they may have found a substitute——’
‘Synthetic euthan,’ Oundle murmured.
‘Call it what you like,’ said Loftus, ‘but it’s a fact—they might have one. So far, they’re trying the stuff out. The fact that it hasn’t been used in widespread raids means that, so far, there isn’t much available. Before there is, we’ve got to locate that island. The R.A.F.’ he added slowly, ‘will do the rest.’
‘It sounds all right.’ Davidson blinked, then rooted for cigarettes. ‘I wish I didn’t feel so jittery—I hardly dare rest, in case I fall asleep.’
‘It won’t make a lot of difference to you,’ Loftus told him tartly, and Davidson grinned. ‘I’m going for a stroll,’ Loftus added. ‘Anyone coming?’
They preferred to stay in the flat, and he left Brook Street a few minutes afterwards, glad of the fresher air as he tried to marshal his thoughts. There was nothing he could work on directly; but now there were enough possibilities to give him hope where once there had been none.
He found himself thinking mostly of two women: Yvonne de Montmaront, and Gay Parnell.
But he stopped thinking of them when he reached the gates of Green Park. There were people walking up and down Piccadilly, and traffic moving normally—normally, that was, for war conditions. But as he entered the park he saw men and women lying on the grass. That alone would not have perturbed him—but there were others, sprawled on seats and deck-chairs.
And still others, lying on the paths.
With a sudden thumping of the heart, Loftus stared at them—knowing that he was not dreaming. Knowing that within a radius of at least two hundred yards, everyone there was asleep.
15
Experiment or Attack?
For several seconds, Loftus stood rooted to the spot.
He had tried to assure himself that he had overcome the terrors the sleeping-gas still clearly had for him. But the sight of those men and women—with here and there a child with a pet dog—stretched out asleep in the middle of Green Park on a warm September morning, appalled him.
The resurgence of fear was so great that for a moment he was almost stifled by it—and for a split-second, he panicked as he realised he was not breathing normally and thought himself again a victim. Calmer again as he realised he was not, he hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was safe to venture further. Then took the wiser course and hurried back to Piccadilly.
There were a few people standing about, gazing idly across the Park or watching the usual parade of Servicemen on leave, their girls on their arms, strolling towards the Circus. A newsvendor, displaying a chalked-up notice about a U-boat outrage, gave him an apathetic glance.
‘Paper, sir?’
The man’s eyes were bleary, his voice was sluggish. Loftus said sharply:
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Me? Since ’arf-past ten, sir, I reckon.’
He blinked wearily, and Loftus asked at once:
‘Tired?’
He was fighting down that insidious panic again. What if the sleep was already attacking him? How could he be sure——
‘Ain’t we all?’ the newsvendor was saying, and now he made no attempt to stifle a yawn. ‘Everybody is. Look at ’em,’ he added, jerking his head towards the Park.
‘That’s hardly normal!’ snapped Loftus.
‘Who said it was? I was only pointing out—paper, sir?’
A passer-by shook his head, yawning widely, and strolled on. Loftus strode across to a taxi rank, which had half-a-dozen cabs waiting for hire: a driver sat at every wheel; sluggish, tired-eyed. None moved as he approached: none invited his custom.
He saw a policeman on the other side of the road, and hurried across to him. The man regarded him patiently, but with lack-lustre eyes.
Loftus wanted to shout. Instead:
‘Constable,’ he said, ‘I want you to remain on duty in th
is area until reinforcements arrive.’ He showed his card as he spoke. ‘How many men are there, on this patrol?’
‘Eight, sir, including wardens.’
‘Get them all together,’ Loftus commanded, ‘and send them into the Park—where a lot of people are sleeping, constable.’
‘They do sleep, these days,’ said the man, with a rueful smile. ‘Lucky beggars!’
Lucky! thought Loftus, as the constable saluted and hurried off to summon the others.
The man’s calm acceptance of the thing left him jittery. Yet the attitude was understandable—why should people not be sleeping while they could, wearied as they were by sleepless nights?
If only it were nothing more, he thought bleakly. If only it were!
He hailed the nearest taxi and directed it to Scotland Yard. The cabby drove lethargically. It was true: there was weariness everywhere, Loftus knew.
‘Of course there is,’ he told himself fiercely. And for a moment he tried to persuade himself that he could have been wrong—that they could have been sleeping normally. But the truth was a cold hand, clutching at his heart. The sleeping-gas was already in use.
And there was no escaping the ugly implications of that fact.
The agents of Department Z had run out of time.
————
At Scotland Yard, the two armed constables at the gate looked alert enough, and there was no sign of exceptional fatigue among the men he passed as he hurried to Superintendent Miller’s office.
Miller was alone.
He looked up in surprise as the door opened after a peremptory tap, and pushed back his chair as he saw who his visitor was. Nothing, Loftus reflected as they shook hands warmly, would every disturb ‘Dusty’ Miller’s equanimity. Which was just as well: at such a time, this phlegmatic suntanned giant was a reassuring man to see.
‘Hallo,’ he greeted. ‘What’s your hurry, Loftus?’
‘Sorry, old son.’ Loftus smiled, not very effectively. ‘But things have happened, I think. Have there been any ’planes over London, this morning?’
‘Yes, there was one over about an hour ago.’
‘Was there, by God! What area?’