The Main Chance

by Colin Forbes

  He handed her the automatic and she grasped it with pleasure. First, she double-checked the mechanism, noted it was fully loaded. Then she lifted up her fur coat, slid the weapon inside her left boot, which served as the leg holster she was not wearing.

  Philip ran across the slope to the police car which had ended up broadside on, pulverized by the boulder sent down by Pete and Harry. He could hardly believe what he saw strewn across the ground. Four more telescopic truncheons.

  He knew the Belgian police kept spares stacked on a shelf above the seats. The violent impact must have hurled them out of the window. With great satisfaction he gathered up his find. Newman with Marler and Pete with Harry arrived to see what was happening. He handed each of them a truncheon.

  `Might I ask what is going on?' Tweed's stern voice called to them as he hurried down the slope.

  `Weapons,' Philip said. He handed his own to Tweed.

  `And why do we need these now that the police unit has been dealt with?'

  `Because there are four guards at the Château les Rochers'

  `Never known how those things work,' Paula commented.

  Tweed gripped the handle, then whipped it sideways quickly. The extension shot out and he was holding a truncheon at least half as long again. He handed it back to Philip after retracting the extension.

  `You'll be more skilled with this that I am. So what's the next move, Philip?'

  `We race to the top of the Ardennes. Then we launch our assault on the Château'

  Paula had expected the Château les Rochers to have a fairy-tale appearance. As they crawled over the last ridge she saw how wrong she had been. It was more like a medieval fortress with tiny turrets at the corners. In the centre of a flat roof reared a tall wide turret festooned with a system of wires and tall aerials. Tweed grunted as they paused.

  `There's his communications centre perched even higher than the trees behind it. From here he controls his banking empire. I hope he's at home.'

  * * *

  Calouste was at home.

  It was a mania with him to remain the Invisible Man. So he had had constructed at his different HQs a series of rooms underground — as at Shooter's Lodge. The same method had been organized at the Château. He was now working in a large, luxuriously furnished cellar under the Château.

  There were two entrances. One was a large trapdoor, now open from a ground-floor corridor which led down via half a dozen steps into his sanctum. The second entrance was above the desk where he was sitting. A flight of steps led up to a platform with a heavy iron door open. By the side of the door was a control system built into the wall with buttons numbered from one to twenty-four. On its own was a brown button which locked the less secure trapdoor.

  Calouste was dressed in a velvet jacket, velvet trousers and tennis shoes. The room was dimly lit except for the powerful desk lamp by which he worked. He wore his tinted, gold-rimmed glasses through which he could see clearly. Above his spade-shaped jaw his mouth was moving rapidly as he issued instructions to various of his banks on his phone, linked to the sophisticated communications system on the top of the Château.

  He had heard nothing of the commotion on the lower slopes of the Ardennes. Orion, his informant at Hengistbury, had warned him Tweed and his whole team had left the manor. His intuition had told him they were coming to Belgium. That was no problem. Inspector Benlier and his special unit would kill every member of that team. He was especially anxious to hear that Tweed was dead.

  A coloured servant appeared on the platform above him. He was carrying a tray with a glass and a bottle of the finest cognac. Calouste poured a full glass from the bottle, then placed the bottle next to a Glock pistol. Calouste always bolstered his guards with his own weapon. It made him feel so safe. He drank to the end of Tweed, the major obstacle to his plans for the Main Chance Bank.

  36

  Skirting well clear of the grim fortress-like building with its tall communications turret, Tweed, with Paula by his side in the Land Rover, followed Philip's vehicle. Parked at the summit, he pointed as the others joined them.

  Close to the rear fortress walls was a huge lake with a big dam at one end. Attached to the wall of the lake near the Château was a sizeable box with a thick coiled hose on top.

  `What's the plan?' Tweed asked.

  `Harry and I will lower the dam and a vast amount of water fed by natural springs on the top of that knoll will pour into the lake. Prior to that I'll have attached that hose to the inlet into the air-conditioning system. The other end of the hose I'll drop into the lake. On a recent recce I looked into a number of windows in the Château. All the rooms have a large air-conditioning grille let into the wall.'

  `Will it work?' Paula wondered.

  `You've forgotten Philip was a top engineer before he joined us.

  `And,' Harry remarked, 'the walls of the Château look shaky to me.'

  `And Harry was once in the building trade,' Tweed added.

  They watched as Harry dug inside a deep pocket in his windcheater, produced a chisel. Paula was amused. Harry would not go anywhere without his tool kit, now hidden in his spacious pockets. They watched as he bent close to the wall of the Château, hammered quietly at the mortar, which fell out. Brick-shaped stones above started to slide down.

  `Whole miserable chute could collapse. No maintenance,' he said when he returned.

  Philip waved to Harry to accompany him. First he hurried to the large aluminium chamber controlling the air-conditioning. Unscrewing a round plate with Feu stamped on it, he then forced one end of the thick rubber pipe inside the hole. The other end was dropped into the lake.

  `I think that plate he removed,' Tweed said, 'is in case the air-conditioning system ever catches fire. The whole Château would be enveloped in flames. Unless huge quantities of water poured into it.'

  `If you say so,' Paula replied dubiously.

  Philip and Harry had now taken up positions at either end of the dam behind huge wheels they began turning. Paula gazed in fascination as the top of the dam, smeared with green slime, began to sink rapidly. A wave of water penned up on the far side poured into the lake, then became a great flood as Philip and Harry continued turning their wheels.

  `That's enough,' Philip said as he ran back with Harry.

  Tweed felt in his overcoat pocket, pulled out something he'd forgotten was there. It was the crinkled-face mask worn by the thug he'd hurled over the chalk pit near Gladworth. He gave it to Philip.

  `A peculiar object...'

  `Made in Paris,' Philip told him, `by the most expert mask maker in the world. Costs a fortune — it's so flexible. I think I'll wear this. Might gain us entry through the main door without a fuss.'

  Arriving at the door, he hammered the heavy iron knocker. A man's face appeared when a Judas window was opened. The face looked startled.

  `Oh, Mr Calouste. I thought you were in your office.'

  Harry stood out of sight to one side of the door, truncheon in his hand. Turning of three keys, removal of several chains. Philip walked in, flipped his truncheon, smashed it on the man's head. He collapsed. Another man with a dagger appeared, raised it to strike Philip. Harry's truncheon struck his elbow. He gasped with pain, dropped the dagger as Harry broke the other arm with his truncheon. A hard tap on the forehead and he collapsed on top of his fellow guard.

  `That corridor ahead is straight and level,' Philip remarked. 'The one to our left slopes downward. Calouste is a mole. We'll find him somewhere along here underground...'

  Paula slipped ahead of him, turned a corner, still going down, stopped. She pointed. Vague lighting showed a trapdoor, the lid raised vertically. Followed by the rest of the team she descended six steps after crossing a platform. The cellar-level room was large, dim except for a desk lamp at the far end. A figure was hunched over a desk with its back to her.

  Harry paused, used a blurred torch to check the edges of the opening. Electrically operated. He took a small tube from his pocket, squirted a small amoun
t of gunge between two of the electrodes. The gunge hardened immediately.

  With their thick-rubber-soled boots they made no sound as they all descended to the platform. Beyond six stone steps led down into the weird room. Paula crept down to the floor.

  Blinding lights flashed on. Calouste had crept up onto the platform above his desk. The team's eyes blinked in the glare. Calouste held a Glock pistol in his hand, aimed point-blank at Paula. Tweed, now at floor level, glanced anxiously at her as she stood with her back to the wall. Calouste spoke sneeringly in public-school English.

  `All present and correct. If anyone moves an inch I will shoot Miss Grey in the chest.'

  The team froze.

  Paula glanced along the wall. Close to Calouste's platform an air-conditioning grille of some size was dribbling water. Calouste, in his velvet suit, was speaking again, theatrically.

  `None of you will leave the Château alive.' His tone became sadistic. 'Your bodies will be eaten by crows, which round here are vicious. Not vegetarians.'

  He chuckled. Not a pleasant sound. His eyes were as dead as his soul. Paula noticed the floor sloped down from where they stood. She fainted, sliding down the wall. Calouste was amused.

  `She is scared to death. Quite rightly so. This is what is coming to her...'

  The air-conditioning grille near Calouste was hurled across the room under the pressure of the water which had built up. A great flood rushed into the room as the second grille gave way. Calouste was momentarily distracted. Paula aimed her Browning, shot him in the left kneecap. Screaming with agony, Calouste dropped his Glock pistol, used both hands to clap his knee, still screaming. He lost his balance, fell off the platform into more than a foot of water.

  The entire lake seemed to be entering the room.

  Water surged towards where Tweed was standing. It was now at least three feet deep. He ran up the steps, ordering a general evacuation. When they had all reached the corridor the water below was six feet deep. Calouste was desperately trying to swim to their steps, with an odd dog-paddle of a movement. He reached the steps, clawed his way up to the platform as water slid across it. His face was now a picture of terror as he looked up, waving a claw-like hand.

  `Please save me,' he screeched. 'Save me. I will give you millions!'

  Harry stared down at him. He used one hand to lever the heavy trapdoor shut. Paula was sure she heard the crunch of skull bone. They were hurrying along the corridor when Harry pointed at water seeping through the walls, mortar coming loose.

  `Let's get the hell out of here — the whole place is coming down.'

  From near the summit of the knoll, where they had parked the cars, they watched the dramatic scene below. The Château was coming apart. The tall turret in the middle of the roof, with the fabulously expensive communications equipment, was tilting slowly towards the front wall. Its tempo of disintegration increased. It fell towards the wall facing the Ardennes slope, split into several sections and hammered a huge hole in the wall.

  `Time we got moving,' Philip said.

  `We're going to run the Brussels gauntlet again,' suggested Paula.

  `No. We're driving down through the tiny state of Luxembourg. Heading for the airport outside the city. A late plane will leave for Heathrow. You've all got reserved seats. Here are your tickets. We must leave now.'

  Philip's Land Rover led the way south. Tweed was seated next to him. Paula travelled in the rear seat. They quickly descended from the heights into narrow roads through defiles. On either side massive limestone cliffs hemmed them in with an occasional clump of trees by the roadside. Paula felt relieved to look at different scenery.

  As a golden dawn glowed in the east they approached the airport, which was very quiet. A single plane waited some way out on the tarmac. Before passing easily through the formalities Tweed used Paula's mobile to call Monica and instruct her to use staff from Communications. His second call was to Jim Corcoran, Chief of Security at Heathrow, who said a bus would meet their plane. Finally, Tweed turned to Philip, shook him by the hand and thanked him warmly.

  `Isn't Philip coming with us?' Paula asked.

  Not this time,' Philip said with a grin. 'My work is here in Europe. I'll be travelling a long way east …'

  It was broad daylight when their plane took off. Paula looked at Tweed, asked him what he was thinking about.

  `Who killed Bella, then Mrs Carlyle.'

  37

  Jim Corcoran, Chief of Security at Heathrow and close friend of Tweed's, met the plane with a small bus as soon as they landed.

  `We're bypassing all security,' he told Tweed when they were all aboard. 'Explained you were SIS and pursuing a lead re. Terrorists. They phoned your Director, Howard, who confirmed it. Your transport is waiting in the parking lot.'

  Tweed was soon behind the wheel of the Audi with Paula beside him. As they left the airport with the rest of the team in two Land Rovers he explained.

  `I've spoken to Newman. Being a top newspaper writer he knew where to go. I need urgently to check November and December 1912 issues of the Clarion. Newman said Peg-Leg Pete was the answer. Peg-Leg is an eccentric. Collects old copies for a song and charges outrageously for you to see them on his rotating screen. Bob phoned him to have the issues ready.'

  It had been broad daylight, sun blazing, when they landed at Heathrow. From there Paula navigated and eventually they reached Watersend Lane, at the wrong end of the East End. In the quiet cobbled street they saw a dirty window with the name Peg-Leg Pete's just visible in fading gold lettering.

  They followed Newman inside while the rest of the team took up guard outside. A short burly individual appeared, with a wooden leg which tapped as he walked with the aid of a stick.

  `Two hundred nicker,' he growled, hand held out. He glared at Tweed. 'Two 'undred pounds to your educated friend before you use the machine. Clarions you want to see all ready for viewing.'

  `No you don't, Peg-Leg,' Newman said roughly. `Back into your office while my friend checks that he has what he needs.'

  Taking Peg-Leg gently by one arm Newman guided him inside a small room, shut the door. Tweed had seated himself in a chair before a large microfilm reader. He turned a lever, scanned the page, used the

  lever again, then once more.

  `Got it,' he said. He pointed to a paragraph with a headline.

  MURDEROUS BANK ROBBERY

  `Five copies of the whole paragraph, please.'

  He waited while Paula used her non-flash camera. Then he put a finger on the date. Wednesday 7 November 1912.

  When she had taken her photographs of the whole page he used the lever again. He found nothing until December issues appeared. Then he put his finger on another paragraph with a large headline. When she had her copies, automatically ejected from the camera, she knew what else he needed. She photographed the whole page with the date Thursday 12 December 1912.

  `That's more than two 'undred nicker,' Peg-Leg shouted after he emerged again from his office, stick and leg tapping madly. Newman produced an envelope with two hundred pounds in banknotes, shoved it into the top pocket of Peg-Leg's well-worn woollen jacket.

  `That's the fee you agreed, you old thief. So shut up. We're off.'

  `I don't understand,' Paula said after they had left London and the three-vehicle convoy was heading south.

  `You will,' Tweed assured her. 'Now it's full speed to the manor at Hengistbury and the solution of two horrible murders.'

  `I hope that's all that faces you,' Paula mused who had on many occasions shown a deadly intuition.

  38

  Driving through the tunnel created by the mighty firs which closed above them Paula again had the same eerie feeling she had experienced when they first arrived. Relieved when they reached the entrance, they only had to wait seconds before the tall wrought-iron gates swung open.

  `It's such a lovely day,' she remarked as Tweed drove to the foot of the steps, a remark she wished within minutes she'd never made. Behind them the other
two vehicles drove round the back to park.

  They ran up the steps and the left-hand door opened. Crystal was waiting to greet them instead of Lavinia. Like her half-sister she wore a white polo- necked sweater and a pleated white skirt. She stood very still, hands clasped in front of her.

  `Welcome back,' she greeted them with the shadow of a smile. 'I have grim news for you. I'm determined not to give way to my volatile temperament.' She paused. 'Leo has been murdered.'

  `We'll go into the library so you can sit down,' Tweed said, gently grasping her arm.

  `Not necessary. But thank you.'

  Tweed was shocked but concealed it. Paula watched Crystal closely but there was no sign of her breaking down. She had a stronger character than Paula had realized. As they entered the hall Chief Inspector Hammer came forward, his tone surprisingly sympathetic as he spoke to Crystal.

  `I've kept my word. Let you tell Tweed what has happened. Now please, if you will, have a rest in the library while I have a private word with Mr Tweed'

  Crystal walked slowly away and into the library. She left the door open. Paula realized she was going to listen to make sure Hammer got it right.

  `All the details, please,' Tweed requested.

  `Killed the same way the others were. One of those unpleasant — I mean horrible — collars slipped over his head and neck from behind him in his apartment. He was sitting in a chair. Throat ripped out. I called Buchanan, who called Professor Saafeld. The Professor came straight down in the middle of the night in his Rolls with a team of medics. Until the autopsy, he calculates the murder took place between midnight and 2 a.m. this morning, subject to the usual et ceteras. I've interviewed everyone and they were all, so they say, asleep alone in their apartments. No alibis again.'

  Where is Lavinia?' Tweed asked. 'She usually opens the gates.'

  Crystal came walking steadily out of the library. Paula marvelled at her self-control. She spoke firmly. `I'm worried about Lavinia.'