by Frank Froest
‘So it’s you, Gwennie?’ he said quietly. ‘I might have guessed it. You’d better let me come in.’
She dropped her Cockney accent instantly, and a wry smile showed on her face.
‘Yes, sonny, it’s me,’ she said. ‘How’d you know?’
‘Your eyes,’ he said succinctly. ‘Can I come in now?’
She laughed.
‘Say, don’t you think you’ve got a nerve? Ling means to finish you if he finds you.’
Cincinnati went a shade paler. The recollection of the detective cordon around the neighbourhood, however, gave him confidence. He returned her laugh.
‘I’m not a coward, Gwennie. A little heart to heart talk with Ling or you’ll put that all right. I couldn’t help myself, Gwennie, really I couldn’t.’
‘Come right in,’ she said genially.
He followed her without hesitation, and she took him up the creaking stairs into a little, unused room, bare of furniture.
‘How did you know where we were?’ she demanded. ‘Did Ling tell you?’
‘Sure!’ he agreed nonchalantly; and instantly he saw the trap into which he had fallen.
It was wildly improbable that, in the circumstances of their last meeting, Ling would have told him anything of this retreat. It was a mistake unpardonable in a man who made his living by his wits, but to try to retrieve it would be even worse.
‘I’ll go and tell Stewart you’re here,’ she said swiftly. ‘You won’t mind waiting a minute?’
He did mind. He minded very much. Gwennie Lyne was altogether too complacent in accepting his visit. He knew that she was certain that he was playing the game of their antagonists, and the thought of the police cordon was not quite so comforting. He had learned part of what he had set out to know. She was in the house, and the probability was that Ling was also. He was unlikely to get any further chances of making sure, and he wished fervently that he could see an opportunity of carrying his information back to Menzies. Did Gwennie know or guess that the place was surrounded? Did she think that this was merely a reconnoitring expedition or a reconnaissance in force? He had been a fool, he reflected, to so weakly fall in with Weir Menzies’ suggestion. Of course, the police wouldn’t care what happened to him. They were using him as a catspaw to test the hot chestnuts before drawing them out of the fire.
He had calculated on the readiness of his wits to extricate himself from any dilemma in which he might find himself placed, and now his blunder had exposed him. He could only wait events. He assented quietly, and she left the room.
There ensued a nerve-racking period of waiting. His ears were strained to catch the slightest sound, and he could hear movements below. In that room, where he could meet anyone who entered face to face, he felt comparatively safe. But his imagination played tricks when he contemplated the possibility of creeping downstairs and so into the open street. On the dark staircase or in the gloomy passage, Ling might be waiting. His nerve was going, and he dared not risk it. The window looked out, as far as he could see in the blackness, on a bleak prospect of tiny back yards, and, after a sombre inspection, he decided that there was no escape that way.
The house grew unnaturally quiet, and his waning courage began to return to him. There was a possibility, after all, that his former friends had been as badly scared by his arrival as a spy as he was by the knowledge that they had divined his purpose. Very likely Gwennie Lyne had left him there while she and her confederate quietly slipped away. If so, they must already have fallen into the hands of the police, and Menzies and his detectives would be in the house at any moment.
He picked a candle off the mantelpiece and opened the door. At once he became aware of a determined and incessant rapping below. Somewhere near him he heard someone stir, and promptly blew out the light and waited with the door an inch or two open. There was a swish of skirts on the landing, and he heard light footsteps descend the creaky stairs. Apparently the front door had been very securely fastened since he had arrived, for he heard the withdrawing of many bolts and the rattle of a chain. Then a soft, guttural voice:
‘Goot-evening, miss. I yoost thought I would come along to see how my patient was brogressing.’
CHAPTER XXV
IT was not exactly what Cincinnati Red had expected. Nor did he anticipate the low, musical voice that answered. He had assumed that Gwennie Lyne was the only woman in the house, and somewhat impatiently he waited for developments.
‘Oh, yes. I wasn’t expecting you, doctor; but I am glad you called,’ he heard someone saying. ‘Will you come up? He is asleep.’
He wedged himself against the crack of the door. Who was asleep? Was it Ling? Why should he need a doctor anyway? Apart from these problems he had a sense of relief. Even if any designs were contemplated against him they would scarcely be carried out with the doctor in the house. What was to prevent him walking bolding out behind the visitor when he went? He heard the woman and the man pass by him on the landing. Then a splash of light showed that they had entered the room opposite.
He crept gently out and stooped to the keyhole of the room into which they had vanished. Within his line of sight there came a vision of the back of a frock-coated man stooping over someone laying beneath a cluster of bedclothes in the corner. A girl was holding a lamp to light the doctor’s examination. Cincinnati caught his breath as he saw her features and he remembered her as the girl Hallett had rushed from La Petite Savoye the previous evening.
The doctor stood up. ‘I will not disturb him now,’ he said. ‘He seems fairly comfortable. I will send you some different medicine presently with directions. Remember he is not to be moved on any aggount, or I will nod answer for his life. And now for my other patient.’
She put down the lamp. Cincinnati raised his head and sniffed gently, suspiciously. ‘There is no other patient, doctor,’ she said. ‘The gentleman you saw last night is gone.’
‘Gone.’ The doctor’s voice held unmistakable evidence of disappointment. ‘He is gone? Where is he gone?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I am only a lodger here. Perhaps Mrs Battle—the landlady—could tell you.’
A vivid bolt of flame leapt with appalling suddenness up the stairway, illuminating the whole place in a blaze of light, and a hoarse cry came from Cincinnati. He pushed the door open, and flung himself in on them.
‘Petrol!’ he cried. ‘The murdering devils! For God’s sake get out of this.’
The girl shrank back before the pallet as though to instinctively protect the man lying there. Her eyes were fixed in a kind of fascinated terror on the ‘con’ man’s face. It was not the fire that terrified her so much as his appearance there. When last they met he had been in association with the police.
‘Go away!’ she shrieked. ‘You shan’t touch him.’
‘They have set the place ablaze,’ he repeated. ‘We are trapped.’ It was the only thought in his mind.
The doctor was the only one who seemed unmoved either by the fire or by the ‘con’ man’s dramatic appearance. ‘Don’t be a mad fool, Cincinnati,’ he said, quietly. ‘Here, stand aside and let’s have a look.’
He pushed Cincinnati away, and glanced through the open doorway. The smell of burning petrol was wafted upwards, and the first burst of flame had given way to clouds of choking dense smoke, through which he could dimly perceive many coloured flames devouring the woodwork of the stairs. The incendiaries had done their work well. The whole bottom floor had been set alight as if by magic, and the dry, rotten flooring was blazing like tinder. Although it had only been a matter of a few seconds since Cincinnati Red had raised the first alarm, it was already plainly impossible to reach the street by the stairs.
The doctor closed the door quickly, and stepped back, removing his spectacles as he did so. ‘The gov’nor will be annoyed about this,’ he commented. ‘It’s a good move. They’ll have a fine chance to get away in the confusion.’
The terror in Peggy Greye-Stratton’s eyes deepened and her fingern
ails sank into her flesh as she clenched her fists. ‘You are not the doctor!’ she cried, in a strained voice. ‘Are you—detectives?’
‘I am a police officer,’ admitted the frock-coated man. ‘My name’s Congreve. My friend here is not. But don’t you worry, Miss. We’re not going to hurt you. Here you, Cincinnati. Come along into the front room. We’ll have to get down through the window. Someone in the street will surely have had the gumption to get a ladder. Now don’t you be getting frightened, miss. We’ll have you out of this in two shakes.’
The ‘con’ man and he passed into the front room. Peggy sank into a chair, and buried her face in her arms. Realisation of the peril she was in from the fire was sunk in the more insistent dread for her brother, which the unexpected advent of Cincinnati Red and the calm confession of identity made by the disguised detective had aroused. Their presence had only one meaning for her.
The sick man raised himself on one elbow. ‘Peggy,’ he whispered. ‘Peggy.’ His eyes were shining with an unnatural light, but his voice was quite normal.
‘Yes?’ she said.
‘It’s all up, old girl; I’ve been awake for the last five minutes. That was a detective, wasn’t it? And the house is afire. Well, I’ll take my medicine. I’ve been a rotter and a waster, but it’s up to me now to do the first decent thing by you I’ve ever done. You get along. I’ll look after myself.’
She laid a hand soothingly on his shoulder, and held herself under stern control. ‘You’ve been dreaming, boy,’ she said with a smile. ‘Lay down. Everything’s all right.’
He resisted the soft pressure and pointed to the wreaths of smoke now curling lazily under the door. ‘That ain’t much of a dream, Peggy. Better go. I know what I’ve got to do, and you’ll only be in the way.’
Congreve poked his head into the room. ‘Now then, miss, here’s a ladder. You first and then we’ll see to your brother.’
She held back. ‘I’ll not go,’ she declared. ‘I’ll not let you arrest him.’
‘We’ll see about that after we’ve got you both out,’ said Congreve, gently. ‘Now, come along like a good lass, and don’t argue.’
‘No,’ she retorted, with set face.
It was mere madness, but she was past logical reasoning. Even the genial Congreve almost lost his temper. He started forward, but before he could reach her Errol had risen from the bed. His face was grey, and drawn with pain, and those unnaturally bright eyes shone fiercely out of their sunken pits.
‘Do as the man tells you,’ he said, and added an oath. Excitement seemed to have lent him strength. With a quick movement he lifted her bodily, and staggered with her towards Congreve. ‘Take her,’ he said, curtly. In her brother’s hands she had been almost passive, but as she passed to the detective she struggled like a wild thing. It was all the detective, who was a man of no mean physical strength, could do to hold her. He had to call Cincinnati Red to his aid before he could get her across the outside room to the window.
‘Steady, miss,’ he said, soothingly. ‘You don’t want to be burnt alive, do you?’
She paid no heed to his expostulations. All her efforts were concentrated on the one purpose—to free herself, and stand between her brother and the danger of arrest. What exactly she could do she had but the vaguest notion. She saw nothing except that all she had done and suffered during the last few days had been for nothing. The inevitable end had come.
A low cry went up from the crowd that had already assembled outside the burning house as they appeared at the window. The fire engines were dashing up. The two men placed her down for an instant, and she made one final effort to break away.
‘Of all the silly women,’ muttered Cincinnati, irritably.
The window was open, and a head appeared at it. Peggy felt herself abruptly swung off her feet again, and almost before she was aware of it, she was in the street, and half a dozen men were moving her swiftly away. Cincinnati had followed her down the ladder, and he gave a breath of relief as he found himself once more in the open air.
Congreve had returned to the door of the inner room, which had swung to. He tried to push it open with his foot, but to his surprise it resisted the pressure. ‘Here you, Errol,’ he shouted. ‘Come on. It’s your turn. Open the door. It’s caught.’
The voice that replied was muffled, but it had a note of determination. ‘It’s not caught. Look after yourself, Mr Policeman. I’m going to take my chance. You don’t lay your hooks on me.’
The burly figure of Menzies squirmed its way through the window, and a couple of helmeted firemen followed. ‘Hullo, Congreve,’ he said, casually ‘Here’s a fine old mess. What’s wrong?’
His subordinate jerked a thumb towards the door. ‘Errol in there,’ he said, shortly. ‘Door locked. He won’t come out.’
The chief-inspector raised his boot, and smashed with the heels against the panels. A mocking laugh came from the interior. ‘Don’t do that again,’ said Erroll. ‘I’ve an eight shot automatic here. Don’t you run away with the delusion that you’re going to take me.’
‘The deuce you have, laddie,’ muttered Menzies. ‘Here,’ he wheeled on one of the firemen. ‘Lend me your axe. Pass the word to your people to send up a length of hose. Congreve, you get out of this.’
He struck with the axe at one of the panels, and as the wood smashed and splintered the thudding report of an automatic answered, and an irregular hole showed a few inches from where he had hit. He moved quickly back out of the line of fire.
‘He means business, sir,’ said Congreve, who, for once, had disobeyed an order. ‘You’ll never be able to make a hole to turn the hose on him. We can’t save him if he won’t be saved.’
Menzies made a helpless gesture. ‘Hang it all man, we’ve got to get him. He’s part of my evidence.’ He turned to one of the firemen. ‘What are the chances of getting the fire under?’ The man shrugged his shoulders. ‘The chief might be able to tell you. I don’t reckon we’ll do much myself. There’s gallons of petrol been used, and you can’t put that out with water.’
The brow of the chief-inspector furrowed. On a larger scale he was faced with a similar problem to that which is dealt with almost every day by the huge policeman with a small but obstreperous drunken prisoner. The policeman gets the aid of other constables as large as himself, not because he cannot manage by himself, but because he might harm the man in custody did he exert his full strength.
Only by violence could Errol be saved, but the probabilities were that in making the attempt several other lives would be sacrificed. Menzies had no doubt that any of his men would risk that eight shot automatic, if need be, purely as a matter of course. He, himself, for that matter was willing to take his chances, but his sober common sense told him it wouldn’t do.
He climbed down into the street, and engaged the divisional officer of the fire-brigade—a heavy-jawed young man, in sea boots, his face begrimmed and bloodshot. ‘Suffering snakes!’ ejaculated that individual when the position had been made clear to him. ‘I don’t see what we can do. If there’s a madman with a shooter locked in the first room, it’s for you police to deal with him. Our job’s putting out the fire, and I don’t see that we can save the place anyway. All we can do is to prevent it spreading. I’ve been in there’—he nodded towards the door, out of which a thick volume of smoke was emerging—‘and I tell you they haven’t spared the petrol. The house is doomed, Mr Menzies, and if your pal is going to shoot anybody who tries to get at him he can roast for me.’
The detective concealed his annoyance. In the fireman’s place he would have felt the same. He would have to count Errol out of the game. He dismissed him from his mind for a moment, and put another enquiry. The divisional officer nodded his head energetically.
‘That’s so. That’s so. Whoever set it alight knew what they were doing. It could have all been done in three minutes or less. As far as I could see this is what happened. It’s partly a guess, mind. Some old clothes were soaked with petrol and thrown or
placed on the stairs and at the bottom. An open washbowl full of petrol was placed at the bottom and other open utensils with petrol in some of the rooms. Tape—common, household tape—was soaked in paraffin, and laid from one to the other. A length carried to one of the windows, and a match applied to it from outside, would have set the whole place ablaze in ten seconds.’ He broke off to shout a curt order, and Menzies, with a word of thanks, moved away.
The fire had interfered with some of his arrangements, but he had by no means given up hope of laying his hands on Gwennie Lyne and Ling and their confederates that night. He was playing against astute antagonists, who were bound by no rules, and who had the advantage of working on the defensive. He had appreciated the significance of their move directly he had got the first hint of the outbreak of fire. Either Cincinnati Red or Congreve, or both, had had their purpose discovered, and Menzies, whose brain was that of a strategist in such emergencies as this, had lost not a moment in attempting to counter the move.
A message was sent round that no man was to approach the fire without orders, and, getting on to the telephone, he had given a hurried explanation of the new development to the headquarters station of the division. To the sub-divisional inspector of the uniformed branch, who had been lurking quietly in the vicinity, and now came at a run, with his whistle between his teeth, he had outlined certain ideas, and at each end of Levoine Street a detachment of constables had sprung up as if by magic, and was lined across the street. All thoroughfares that entered Levoine Street were similarly guarded, and no one except police officials and firemen were to be allowed to approach nearer than several hundred yards from the fire. Above all no one was to leave the street. Menzies had determined that he would not allow his purpose to be rendered impossible by the collection of a big crowd. It was inevitable that there should be some sort of gathering, for within the cleared area there were two hundred or more houses, nearly each of which was a human ant-heap, but that could not be helped. In any case he had determined to sift the collection, individual by individual, if necessary.