by John Creasey
There was another thing which still worried Riordon when he thought of it. He had heard and seen the fire engine which had raced to Wharncliff Hall, and, like Devenish, he could not understand how the brigade had received the call.
Yet another dangerous situation had arisen when Martin had been captured at the Clarges Street flat. But for the fact that Riordon had learned of the failure of the raid on the flat through a fourth member of the party who had been waiting nearby, he could never have got at Martin in time to prevent him from talking. But the fourth man had seen the police and had followed the police car to Line Street, telephoning Riordon very quickly afterwards. With the help of one of his many hirelings, the bogus clerk of Redmond, Soames and Redmond, Martin had been effectively silenced—and there was one less to share the proceeds of the coup which was going to stagger the City to its very foundations within the next forty-eight hours.
Then, thought Riordon, there had been Honeybaum—far too crafty an accomplice to have been left alive in England. But now Honeybaum was dead, his body locked in a vault in Bleddon’s Bank—it would probably stay there for weeks.
There remained only Lydia Crane, Octavius William Young—or Rickett, and the thirty roughnecks and exlags who comprised the gang. Riordon did not worry about Horace Birch; the man had been a cat’s-paw, and knew nothing worth knowing.
The further he drew from London the more the Hon. Marcus congratulated himself. The fact that all his hirelings were old lags—most of them with crimes which he had been able to hold over their heads, ensuring their compliance with his instructions—was a distinct advantage. Only fear could have held the gang together.
• • • • •
And so, Riordon thought again, there remained only the woman at his side and Rickett—and Marion Dare.
He was not afraid that either Lydia or Rickett would turn on him. Both were in his toils as deeply as they could be—both were as deeply implicated as he was himself.
For a while Lydia would be useful; for just as long, in fact, as it was necessary for him to keep in hiding. After that…
Riordon gave a queer, mirthless laugh. There had been a time, he reminded himself, when he thought that he would never get tired of Lydia. Now…
Lydia Crane turned her large eyes towards Riordon. She disliked the sound of that laugh.
The Hon. Marcus took a plump hand from the wheel and patted her knee reassuringly.
‘It won’t be long now, my dear,’ he murmured. ‘Another few hours. Do you feel like a drink?’
‘I’ve never felt more like one.’
Riordon patted her knee again.
‘We can spare five minutes,’ he said. ‘There’s a pub just along the road—we’ll pull up. You’ve been very good, my dear, very good.’
He laughed again, and he was still grinning at his thoughts when he pulled into the courtyard of the King’s Head, an isolated public house two miles on the London side of Guildford.
While Lydia Crane drank a large gin and tonic in the bar, the Hon. Marcus Riordon hurried to a telephone in the passage outside. He spoke for ten minutes to a man at a hotel on the outskirts of Shoreham, Sussex; learned much to his satisfaction; and gave a series of orders which he knew would be obeyed to the last letter.
20
Devenish Gets Going
When Hugh Devenish’s Aston Martin hummed into Clarges Street half an hour after the bombing of ‘Fourways’, he noticed not one, but seven or eight solid, grim-faced, but apparently unoccupied men within earshot. None of them appeared to notice him, although he grinned at them all cheerily, feeling that Chief Commissioner William Fellowes did have some points after all.
He hurried up to his flat. Marion Dare stood up as he entered, and he held out his arms.
‘If I tried for a year,’ said Devenish. ‘But...’ He stepped back, his face suddenly serious— ‘We haven’t much time.’
Marion’s eyes clouded.
‘Is there any news?’ she asked.
Devenish decided not to worry her with an account of the bombing.
‘Yes and no.’ He picked up the telephone and dialled Aubrey Chester’s number. ‘Hallo. That you, Aubrey? Hop round here when you can, will you? And bring Diane. I’ve got to go out for a bit, and Marion wants company.’
Aubrey promised they’d be round in less than an hour, and Devenish replaced the receiver.
‘Now’—he took Marion’s shoulders between his firm fingers— ‘don’t leave the flat until you hear from me. Not even if Aubrey suggests it, or Diane, or the whole police force—assuming the place isn’t on fire,’ he added optimistically. ‘Got that?’
Marion nodded.
‘Good girl!’ said Devenish.
He said good-bye, but he could not tell her where he was going, nor why he felt in his bones that the affair of the Riordons was fast nearing its end.
Twenty minutes later he entered the room in Whitehall which he knew as ‘Z’ Department.
Gordon Craigie smiled a welcome.
‘You’ve heard about the Barnes business?’ Devenish asked, without preamble.
Craigie nodded.
‘What do you think about it?’
‘I think it’s a case of burning their boats,’ said Craigie.
Devenish lit a cigarette and blew a streamer of grey smoke across the room.
‘So do I,’ he admitted. ‘And they wouldn’t burn their boats if they wanted them again. Riordon’s too crafty for that...’
‘Which one?’ asked Craigie.
Devenish scowled.
‘I don’t know—yet,’ he admitted. ‘But I will, before we’re much older. Anyhow—Wharncliff has gone up in smoke, and so has “Fourways”. The next hiding-place of the Hon. Marcus isn’t likely to be so near home, I reckon.’
Craigie raised his eyebrows interrogatively.
‘Where, then?’
Devenish laughed grimly.
‘I’ll wager a pound to a penny,’ he offered, ‘that Marcus won’t be in England after tonight— if he slips through our fingers. But I’ve got an idea about that,’ he added. ‘Where’s his yacht, Gordon?’
Craigie’s eyes narrowed.
‘So you think he’ll make a getaway in Madame X, do you?’ he murmured.
Devenish passed over the fact that his Chief was familiar with the name of the Hon. Marcus Riordon’s supermodern yacht and nodded grimly.
Craigie fingered his chin.
‘I’ve wondered that myself,’ he admitted. ‘The yacht’s down at Shoreham.’
‘So shall I be, soon,’ grunted Devenish. ‘And I shouldn’t be surprised if it’s not a big job. How many of the boys can you spare?’
Craigie tapped his fingers against the arm of his chair thoughtfully. There was a lot to be said for Devenish’s reasoning. On the other hand, it was quite possible that the Hon. Marcus had already calculated that the authorities would be watching the yacht, and that he had made arrangements accordingly.
He said as much. Devenish nodded.
‘I shouldn’t be surprised,’ he admitted, ‘but I’ll run down to Shoreham right away, Gordon, and see what there is to see. Meanwhile—any news from Wharncliff?’
Craigie shrugged.
‘Nobody knows.’
Devenish lit a second cigarette at the stub of his first.
‘I wonder whether it is Marcus behind it?’ he muttered, echoing the thought which had been in Craigie’s mind since the Chief had learned of the financier’s sudden activity.
‘I don’t know,’ said Craigie. ‘I don’t even know what the game is yet. But it’s one or the other or both, and the game’s big. And if Bleddon’s is mixed up in it, there’ll be hell to pay.’
‘Bleddon’s is mixed up in it all right,’ said Devenish grimly. ‘However—have you looked up that company business, yet?’
Craigie shook his head.
‘It’s a long job,’ he pointed out. ‘But Fellowes reckoned he’d have some news pretty soon. In fact...’ he glanced at his watch�
� ‘he should be getting in touch any minute.’
Chief Commissioner William Fellowes, it happened, was at that moment reading a series of facts and figures which lay in front of him on his desk at Scotland Yard.
On the previous day, ‘Z’ Department—through Craigie, but inspired in this instance by Hugh Devenish—had put through a request which had caused more heartburning and record searching at Companies House than there had been for years.
The company registers were searched, one by one, for companies, limited or registered, who were controlled in any way by one of four gentlemen—which gentlemen were known to Hugh Devenish as Birch, Honeybaum, Martin and Octavius William Young, alternatively Rickett.
William Fellowes learned, when he examined the report, that some seventy-six companies had been fortunate in having one or other of those four gentlemen on their boards. He also learned that each of the companies had failed, and failed badly.
It was a tremendously illuminating report, and Fellowes ungrudgingly admitted that it was due entirely to the efforts of Hugh Devenish. When Devenish had secured the photographs of Birch and Martin, and had proved the identity of Octavius Young—or proved it near enough—he had reported in due course to Craigie, and Craigie had passed the photographs on to the Yard. Thereafter a number of thorough and experienced policemen had combed the City of London for information about Birch, Young, Martin, and Honeybaum. Young and Martin, it had been conclusively discovered, had operated under several names, which names were now on the report in front of Fellowes.
Devenish was still sitting in Craigie’s office when the Chief Commissioner telephoned—and twenty minutes later, called at the office in person. The three men commented briefly on the discoveries—and explicitly.
At a rough estimate, the seventy-six companies had defrauded a get-rich-quick public of close on two million pounds—Marritabas alone were responsible for seventy-five thousand.
Devenish looked quizzically across at Fellowes.
‘And now,’ he said mildly, ‘Perhaps you’ll agree that Riordon Senior isn’t all the beautiful things you thought he was.’
Fellowes smiled ruefully.
‘It certainly seems you may be right,’ he admitted. ‘Prove Sir Basil is behind it, and not Marcus, and I’ll take you.’
‘If he’s not,’ grunted Devenish, ‘Marcus has made a dupe of his father for years. Because Bleddon’s have backed up fifty of these blasted swindles. Laugh that one off.’
Craigie’s dry voice broke in.
‘Anyhow,’ he said, ‘we’ve got enough to pull in Marcus Riordon, as well as Honeybaum, Rickett, and Birch. Martin’s dead, so we can’t get anything from him.’
‘There’s the woman—Crane,’ inserted Fellowes.
‘Find her, find Marcus,’ said Devenish shrewdly.
• • • • •
At three o’clock that afternoon Devenish telephoned Craigie from Shoreham Harbour and reported that there were signs of great activity on board Marcus Riordon’s sumptuously equipped yacht. Not only was there a great stir on board Madame X but, so Devenish had learned by shrewd inquiry, enough provisions had been taken on to the yacht to keep the crew and a dozen passengers well looked-after for many weeks. Madame X was prepared for a long voyage.
Craigie was still not a hundred per cent certain that Devenish was playing the right hunch—on the other hand he realised that it was impossible to neglect the possibility of a getaway attempt in the yacht. After Devenish had rung off, he sat back in his chair, his brow furrowed, his fingers beating a light tattoo on his desk. Suddenly he made up his mind. Turning back to his telephone, he sent out a number of calls to various ‘Z’ Department agents—including Timothy and Tobias Arran, Robert Augustus Bruce, and Dodo Trale.
Within minutes of their having received Craigie’s instructions, these agents were speeding towards Shoreham.
21
Amazing Happening on Madame X
It would, reasoned Devenish, be useless to raid Madame X once Riordon and his hirelings were on board—unless perhaps he could persuade the Admiralty to lend a hand.
The latter plan, although feasible—for there was no limit to the power behind ‘Z’ Department—he viewed with disfavour. The Hon. Marcus, he fancied, would fight to the last; there was too heavy a penalty on his head for him to submit to capture. And Devenish had no desire to see Madame X with her precious—or so he hazarded—cargo and her scoundrelly crew blown to pieces.
As he watched the yacht, now at anchor a quarter of a mile from the shore, he reasoned that at least half a dozen of the crew would make a trip landwards during the afternoon. Riordon would be careful not to do anything which might catch the eye of possible watchers and create suspicion.
At half past three, after he had telephoned Craigie and arranged for reinforcements, Devenish amused himself at the bar of the Jolly Sailor, a pub on the promenade of Shoreham, which commanded a fine view of the yacht.
At four o’clock a thin-faced, sharp-eyed man entered the bar.
Devenish recognised him by the small carnation in his right lapel; he was a member of the Sussex C.I.D., and, as such, unknown to the man in the street but known well enough to one William Hearty, the landlord of the Jolly Sailor.
Hearty, a lean, lugubrious-faced longshoreman, saw the detective enter the saloon bar, and pulled a wry face. He had soft drinks at his bar, and had schemed permission from the justices to open for soft drinks only during otherwise forbidden hours and during the summer season. Hearty feared, with some cause, that rumour had winged its way to the police that his afternoon drinks were not always what they seemed.
He welcomed Tankerton, the detective, genially enough, however, and jerked his head towards the rear quarters of the pub.
Tankerton nodded. Devenish, toying with a lime-juice and soda, watched the two men disappear.
The interview terminated happily from Hearty’s point of view. He cared less than a tuppenny cuss what the game was, providing his licence was all right.
Tankerton left the inn without a glance at Devenish, who, ten minutes later, looked interrogatively at Mr. William Hearty. Hearty nodded. Devenish, taking the first opportunity to move unobserved, slipped into the rear quarters of the Jolly Sailor and made a brief but thorough survey of the passage leading to the cellar beneath the inn.
When he reappeared, Hearty was serving three hefty, grim-visaged sailors, whose immaculate uniforms and hats bore the insignia Madame X in gold lettering, and who looked as though they had sailed the world many times, spending their leave in the toughest quarters of the toughest countries.
Each of the three members of the crew ordered lemonade, each received something stronger—which was the reason for Mr. Hearty’s earlier fears. They had often received something stronger....
But they had never been sold anything approaching the strength of the concoction which Mr. Hearty served to them on that afternoon.
In something under five minutes all three men were staring stupidly at their host, and as stupidly at the tall man leaning against the bar near them. There was a peculiar singing in their heads, as though they had been drinking for a very long time.
Devenish moved a little closer. The heaviest of the three, a swarthy, vicious-faced ruffian, bull-necked and broad-chested, pushed himself a yard away from the bar.
He glared at the landlord suspiciously.
‘What the hell have you been doing?’ he snarled, wincing as a sudden pain shot through his stomach. ‘I reckon...’
What he reckoned was lost to the world.
As he moved forward threateningly, a man behind him slumped down in a heap on the floor. The barrelchested man swung round with a curse—but caught Devenish’s first squarely on the chin. He teetered for a moment, then fell heavily across the inert body beside him. The third man, still partly in possession of his senses, made a desperate effort to get to the door, but he too met the full force of Devenish’s fist, and joined his companions on the floor without a murmur.
Devenish went down the iron steps alongside the run, and William Hearty pushed the men, one by one, over the edge. They did not slide as easily as barrels, but they went down. Devenish prevented their heads from hitting the concrete floor, hauled them into a corner, and rejoined the landlord.
The two men went back to the bar, but they had no sooner straightened their clothes—Devenish running a hand over his dishevelled hair—than the swing-doors were flung open and a second party of the crew from Madame X called for a ‘lemonade’ apiece.
Another bull-necked individual lounged across the saloon to the bar, a yard ahead of his two companions. Devenish had seen him twice before—the last time unconscious at Wharncliff Hall. It was Rogers—the man whose unconscious body had been taken away while Devenish had been searching the top floor of the Riordons’ country home.
For five breathless seconds Devenish thought that the game was going to be lost. Only the fact that he was looking studiously at a sporting print on the wall saved him from being recognised.
He flashed one warning glance at Hearty, who gave an almost imperceptible nod and placed a glass of whisky in front of Rogers.
Rogers tossed the drink down—and then he turned round. As he turned, his companions drained their glasses also—glasses which had been dexterously doped by William Hearty.