John Creasey Box Set 1: First Came a Murder, Death Round the Corner, The Mark of the Crescent (Department Z)

by John Creasey

  For this reason, Leopold Gorman had left very little of the work against Beresford and Craigie in other hands. Only Nosey Dean, who had died because he knew too much, and three well-paid general utility men of the gangster variety had ever contributed directly to any of the crimes. There were many who had helped, indirectly, but none of them knew enough to be dangerous. At least, none of them should have known enough.

  It was that ‘should’ which was worrying Gorman on the night of Tony Beresford’s great activity in London, the night when Bob Lavering, who should have been dead, had proved himself alive. For amongst Gorman’s helpers, Adele Fayne and Solly Lewistein played a large part, at times unwittingly, at others with knowledge. And that night Gorman had reached the Emblem Theatre to see Solly Lewistein and to examine more closely Adele Fayne’s recent admirer, the man Trale. Gorman did not know that Trale was one of Craigie’s men, but he did know that his only policy was to suspect all and every one who came in contact with the dancer.

  For the first time in his life Leopold Gorman had been completely nonplussed. Solly Lewistein and Adele Fayne had left the theatre, although they had received his instructions to wait for him. The discovery had at first annoyed him; then, as he realized the possibilities behind their prolonged absence, it perturbed him. For Gorman had Solly Lewistein in the hollow of his hand, and had counted on his hold over the theatre manager a great deal. Lewistein had worked for him for years; Lewistein knew more, probably, than any other man, how often and in what directions Leopold Gorman had broken the law. If by some chance a charge was ever levelled against Gorman, Solly Lewistein would be the most dangerous witness who could be put on oath in court. In a lesser way, Adele Fayne could be dangerous. There was one thing in particular which she had done and which might put her, with Gorman, in the dock on a capital charge, but Gorman was less worried by that possibility than by the chance that many of the secrets of his financial coup d’état would leak out, via Lewistein.

  At one o’clock Gorman called the manager’s flat, only to find that Lewistein was still missing. He called Adele Fayne, with the same result. As he replaced the receiver after the second call, Gorman sat dead still, his misshapen body hunched in his chair, his curious jade-green eyes narrowed to mere slits. He told himself that it would mean failure if he took any more chances. Beresford had been lucky, but he would have to go now. He was too dangerous while he was alive. The Arrans must go too, with the man Trale, and with Craigie—Craigie.

  Gorman, as he sat back in his chair, told himself, and for the first time, that he was afraid of Gordon Craigie. The Chief of Department Z knew a great deal and guessed more. Hitherto Gorman had been afraid that if he tried to get at Craigie he would jeopardize the support of those powerful influences which had made his task comparatively easy over the past five years. Craigie was big meat...

  “But he must go.” Gorman muttered the words between his tight lips, and his face twisted in an expression which would have made even Tony Beresford afraid. “And there’s that damned American too, and Valerie Lester. Valerie Lester!”

  Gorman laughed harshly, and for the third time reached for the telephone.

  As Adele Fayne had been taking her curtain at the Emblem Theatre that night, a large-limbed, genial-looking man had called on Solly Lewistein and suggested, in a rich, mellow voice which indicated that he had dined well and supped better, that they should drink. Solly was in a better humour that night than he had been for some time past. Major Gulliver Odell was not at the theatre, and to Solly Lewistein, Major Gulliver Odell was much worse than a red rag to an enraged bull. Consequently, the theatre-manager was not so curt with Robert Montgomery Curtis as he might have been, and he even humoured that happy young man inasmuch as he promised to go with him, some night in the near future, to a place which Curtis promised would open his eyes to many a star-to-be in the theatrical business.

  From good-tempered indulgence, Solly Lewistein’s attention grew to keen interest. Curtis’s manner suggested that he was interested in some dancer or other in a two-by-four cabaret show or café, and Lewistein knew that when men were interested in that way, business often resulted. Solly, although knowing that nine times out of ten the budding genius would never rise from the chorus ranks, often ‘took an interest’ in the lady in question, and received a pleasant fee for his services—before they were rendered.

  It was a knowledge of this sideline on the fat man’s part which had persuaded Curtis to try his trick. He tried, heavily, to cajole Solly into making his visit that night, but Lewistein was adamant. He had a supper engagement which he must keep. Much as he would like to oblige Mr.——

  “Brown,” lied Curtis. “But listen, Solly old scout, you really must, she’s——”

  Solly began to lose patience.

  “I haff not the time,” he said curtly. “Some odder night, Mr. Brown, mit pleasure, but to-night, no.”

  Bob Curtis reared himself up to his full height and looked down on the little Jew with extreme displeasure. At that moment the two men were about ten yards from the stage-door, and fifteen yards from the stage itself. From the auditorium the low-voiced hum of applause which invariably accompanied Adele Fayne’s last bow came dully to the listeners’ ears, and Curtis knew that if he was to have any luck he would have to hurry. His one object, although Solly knew nothing of it, was to get the theatre-manager into the street, and thence into his Bentley.

  “All right,” said Bob Curtis, with well-aped drunken dignity. “You will not see her, but at least, Mishter—Mr. Lewistoll, you will see her photograph?”

  Lewistein groaned to himself, but avarice, and the fact that this man’s clothes and manner suggested that he was full of money but empty of sense, persuaded him to see the photograph.

  “In my car,” said Curtis, with Napoleonic grandeur.

  Solly lifted his hands and his brows expressively, but followed the big man out of the stage-door. An attendant watched them, grinning, and Solly snapped out:

  “I vill not be two minutes. Tell Miss Fayne——”

  The attendant nodded, and turned away from the street. Only a dozen fans, eager-eyed and waiting for La Fayne, saw the tall man and the little fat man hurry across the pavement. None of them heard the sudden change of tone in the big man’s voice, nor saw the sudden expression of alarm dart across Lewistein’s features.

  Something hard jabbed into the fat of Solly’s back.

  “That’s a gun,” snapped Curtis, sotto voce. “Step right into that seat, son. We’re going for a little ride, but if you behave yourself you’ll be all right!”

  In Adele Fayne’s dressing-room Dodo Trale, a coloured visitor, was asking himself whether Curtis had any luck with Solly Lewistein, and wondering whether he would have much trouble with the dancer. He did not anticipate any, and he felt at peace with the world. So far as he was concerned, the affair on which Department Z was working had fallen a lot short of the usual in the way of excitement, and Dodo Trale liked his life in high colours. The kidnapping (for the message and instructions which Curtis had brought from Beresford were little short of instructions to kidnap Adele Fayne and her manager) promised that it was about to liven up.

  La Fayne swept in, and as the door opened the roar of applause from the auditorium filled the room. Adele was as excited as usual. The plaudits of the people were her meat and drink, and the drink went to her head.

  Dodo held her wrap for her. She slipped into it, and rested her slim body against his for a moment, looking up into his face with a smile which should have been (and to Odell would have been) captivating and intriguing. Dodo, who was not in love, told her that she had been more wonderful than ever that night.

  “Do you really think so, Dodo?”

  “Would I lie to you?” asked Trale impressively.

  “All men are liars,” said Adele Fayne, with a moué which created the impression that she was delivering a truism at once unique and devastating.

  “That proves,” said Dodo, with the same impressiv
eness, “that you haven’t met the right men, ’Dele. I say——”

  “Hm-hm?” La Fayne slipped away from him, into a smaller room which ensured her privacy while allowing her to talk with whoever was paying court. Trale could hear the low-voiced French maid asking madame what dress she would wear.

  “Make it something warmish,” said Trale, “so that we can have a spin out of London and stop at a road-side house. I know several tasty little places.”

  There was a shriek of delight from the smaller room, and Trale told himself that his job was easy. A moment later, however, he suffered a reverse.

  “Dodo—what a divine idea! But I must wait for—for a friend, and then after we have had supper——”

  “You’re seeing him again, are you?” Dodo Trale’s voice sounded grim, and Adele Fayne pictured to herself the scowl on his face. “Who is it?” he demanded.

  “It is business——” began the dancer.

  “You mean Gorman?”

  “But, Dodo—he owns the theatre——”

  “He doesn’t own you,” said Trale roughly, and then, for the sake of effect, added “yet.”

  There was a brief silence. For a moment Dodo Trale called himself a fool for having gone too far, but the scowl, this time genuine, disappeared from his face as La Fayne snapped an order to her maid.

  “Hurry, Antoinette, hurry! That blue frock—no, idiot, not for dinner, for the country—and those heavy shoes——”

  “You’re coming with me?” Dodo put every ounce of expression that he could into the words.

  “Yes—I am tired of Gorman! But we must hurry—before he comes.”

  Dodo Trale lit a cigarette and smiled happily to himself.

  At twenty past one, Greenwich time, the telephone bell in the office of M’sieu Franchot, manager of the Côte d’Or, burred out insistently, and Franchot lifted the receiver with a curse. Since Corinne had been murdered, Franchot was an uneasy man at heart. It was not so much that he had arranged for Corinne to be strangled; Franchot was too experienced a rogue to be squeamish on that score. It was not even because the murder had stirred up more trouble than any case which Franchot could remember; Piquet, of the Sûreté, was putting all his energy into solving the mystery of the murder in the Hotel Royale, and he had questioned Franchot closely several times, but the Frenchman was not worried about the police; true, Piquet could not be bought, but if Piquet grew too dangerous he could be taken off the case by those in higher authority. Thus it was neither conscience nor fear of the police which had made the manager bad-tempered. It was simply that he had earned a rebuke from Leopold Gorman—and Franchot was very much afraid of the financier. Gorman had the ear of those in higher authority.

  Franchot considered that he had a justifiable grievance. He had arranged for the American, Lavering, to be drugged while he had been at the café, and he had had the American taken to the Hôtel Divante. He had, moreover, told Corinne to acquaint him at once if anyone made inquiries about Lavering. Franchot did not see that it was his sin if Corinne had been treacherous, and had tried—indeed had—shown the other madman, the Englishman, where Lavering was being kept a prisoner. In fact, being suspicious of Corinne that night, Franchot had taken the trouble to send two of his best street rats after her. It could not be laid at Franchot’s door that the Englishman had avoided death, and had cunningly arranged for Lavering to be removed. After all, Franchot in turn had arranged for Corinne to die.

  Instead of congratulating Franchot on the astuteness with which he had countered Corinne’s treachery, Gorman had raged because the mad Englishman had escaped from the apaches’ knives. Gorman did not pay Franchot to try to do things. He paid him to do them.

  Franchot would have liked to have told the Englishman with the green eyes just where he could go, but there were reasons why he could do nothing of the kind. For one thing, Gorman owned the Côte d’Or. For another, his money and influence sheltered Franchot from many troubles. Without Gorman’s support, Franchot knew that he would have a very short journey to make to the guillotine. Franchot knew that Leopold Gorman was behind many a murder, and of recent months the murders of Englishmen in Paris on mysterious business; but he could not prove it. Gorman was as clever as he was powerful.

  In consequence of these things, Franchot picked up the telephone with no very good grace. The sound of the harsh voice at the other end of the wire made him go tense, however, and his voice was suave as he spoke.

  “It is I, Franchot, M’sieu Gorman.”

  Leopold Gorman, speaking from his Park Place house, after his deliberations over the case of Tony Beresford and others, grunted and snapped:

  “I want three more men, in London. Can you get them here by the morning, Franchot?”

  “Three?” The Frenchman’s voice went up. “Already you have two, M’sieu——”

  “Already they’ve failed to do everything that I’ve told them.” Gorman’s voice came over the wires, cold and brutal. “You have had too many failures, Franchot. Do you want to suffer for them?”

  “But M’sieu!” Franchot’s voice quivered, and at the pit of his stomach there was a peculiar coldness. “I——”

  “Send them over before morning,” said Gorman coldly. “They need not know London, but they must speak good English.”

  “Mais oui, mais oui!”

  The line went dead. Franchot, sweating as though he had been running, sat for a moment looking at the telephone as if it was an agent of the devil. Then, with a curse, he hurried out of the office. He dared not refuse Gorman—but Franchot did not like sending men to England. There was a ruthlessness about English justice which made him afraid.

  CHAPTER XX

  ANOTHER GATHERING OF FRIENDS

  IT was half past four when Tony Beresford, weary but sustained by a fierce anxiety to find Valerie Lester, turned into Scotland Yard on the offchance of seeing either Miller or Sir William Fellowes. The murders of Williams and Nosey Dean provided work in plenty for Scotland Yard, and Beresford knew that the police would spare no effort to put their hands on the murderers. Moreover, both Fellowes and Horace Miller knew of the probable connection between the murders and the mysterious business which Leopold Gorman was running, and they were as anxious as Beresford to put a spoke into Gorman’s wheel. At that time none of them knew the goal for which the financier was aiming, but Beresford and Craigie had already told them something of what they suspected, and those suspicions were very near the truth.

  The Super was in, weary but wide-eyed. As Beresford entered the small office, he looked up anxiously.

  “Any luck with Craigie?”

  “None at all,” grunted Beresford, dropping into a chair. “He’s disappeared as completely as——”

  “Miss Lester,” suggested Miller quietly.

  Beresford looked haggard.

  “Ye-s. She went to the Silver Slipper with Odell——”

  “I know,” said Miller. “Rogerson told me.”

  Beresford forced his mind away from thoughts of Valerie Lester. Since he had left Doc Little at Auveley Street, he had been to several places in the hope of finding some clue to the whereabouts of Craigie, Gulliver Odell or the girl. He had learned nothing; but he had found one thing which had given him mingled hope and fear.

  His last call had been to the Silver Slipper, where he had sent the Arrans on their return from Paris. Neither of the twins had been at the club, although a waiter had told Beresford that they had been there for an hour earlier in the evening. The waiter, however, had known neither Major Odell nor Valerie Lester. Whether the Arrans had gone in pursuit of them, or whether they had been beguiled away from the club by Gorman’s agents, the big man did not know. He could only hope for the best.

  He passed a brief résumé of his activities to Miller. Finally:

  “So the Arrans might be anywhere, Craigie’s lost, and —and the girl. Against that, I’ve got Adele Fayne and Solly Lewistein down at Curtis’s place near Farningham. I don’t know how important those two
are, but I think it’ll make Gorman go carefully. There’s only one other line——”

  “Josiah Long?” suggested Miller.

  “Yes. Where did he go, after leaving here?”

  “Back to Chelsea. He promised to ring through if he found anything.”

  Beresford grunted.

  “I don’t think that clever little devil has told us all that he could do,” he said. “I’ll have another talk with him. Hand me that telephone, will you, Horace?”

  There was a sudden sparkle in the big man’s eyes, and from the curve of his lips Horace Miller guessed that Beresford had been seized with what he would have called an idea. Miller pushed the telephone across the desk and waited hopefully. He was a firm believer in the efficacy of Tony Beresford’s ideas.

  Valerie Lester knew that the general opinion of Major Gulliver Odell was that he was a muttonhead. She was inclined to share that opinion of the soldier for the first hour of her acquaintance with him, but afterwards she began to realize that he was shrewd, if not clever. The man who danced with her and affected a bombastic manner of speech and expression seemed to have guessed immediately that she was baiting him, and the answers he made to her carefully-wrapped-up questions told her that he was skilfully parrying her thrusts.

  It was after a fox-trot, which the Major danced with more vigour than grace, that he challenged her.