by John Creasey
“Remarkable!” he said. “Astonishing how fatiguing these modern dances are, my dear Miss Lester. Nearly as—er—nearly as fatiguing as asking questions, aren’t they?”
For a moment the girl from America stared at him in astonishment. Not for a moment had she expected that he would come out into the open. A dozen thoughts rushed pell-mell through her mind as she stared at his red face, at his eyes, grey and cool, contradicting, somehow, the bombast of his manner. He was smiling at her, and she noticed, as one does notice small things at a time of crisis, that his teeth looked very sound and firm, yet were actually false.
For his part, the man whom Valerie Lester and others knew as Major Gulliver Odell saw a girl of exceptional loveliness, heightened by the flush which was then mantling her cheeks, a girl whom a gown of beige marocaine suited to perfection; it occurred to him as more than strange that she should be mixed up, willingly, in an affair which had carried death and destruction with it, and in which danger was always close at hand. Quietly:
“Was it Long who sent you after me?” he demanded.
Valerie Lester told herself that it was useless to try subterfuge. She would stand a better chance of getting information if she accepted the man’s challenge. She took a deep breath, and for some reason seemed to see the comely face of Tony Beresford smiling at her from behind the Major’s back.
“Yes,” she said, after a pause.
Her companion nodded thoughtfully.
“A very interesting gentleman is Mr. Josiah Long. You think so, Miss Lester?”
“A very clever one,” said Valerie quietly.
“You still have faith in him?” There was an edge to the Major’s voice, and a hardness in his smile.
“Yes—why not?”
“My dear”—Odell leaned forward a little, and his face was very close to the girl’s—“Mr. Josiah Long picked the wrong side when he accepted the American Intelligence offer. If he had worked for Leopold Gorman instead of against him, he might have profited considerably. You might have profited too——”
Odell paused. Valerie Lester felt her pulse quickening. She knew that her companion was suggesting that she changed sides, and for a moment she wanted to throw his suggestion, figuratively, into his face. Caution stopped her, and, following caution, she became obsessed with an idea. So far the job against Leopold Gorman, always approached from the outside, had been a complete failure. She felt, rather than knew, that the affair was reaching its end. Before many days were past Gorman would have lost or won—and at the moment the odds were heavily on him winning.
If she could get at him from the inside, if she could learn something which she could communicate to Tony Beresford or Josiah Long, she would be playing a part more than worth the effort.
Doubt and uncertainty chased each other across her face. The man on the other side of the table waited, but she saw that he was waiting impatiently. Suddenly:
“What is it you want from me?” she demanded.
Odell pursed his lips, letting the air through them with a soft hiss.
“Ahhhh! So you are not averse to helping me—and Leopold Gorman?”
“What do you want?” Valerie insisted.
Odell laughed suddenly.
“My dear, I have no idea. Gorman will certainly be very pleased to see you, and to have you on his side. And after all, Miss Lester, he is only doing what many others are doing, but on a larger scale.”
Valerie smiled, but she was thinking fast. That single sentence might mean a great deal to the authorities. She repeated it until she was sure that she would be able to remember it when she wanted, and all the time she was forcing herself to keep cool, forcing herself to stop from saying what she thought. She would have loved to have struck the Major across his red, grinning face; but for the moment she must play a waiting game.
“Where shall I see him?” she demanded, low-voiced.
“I will arrange that,” said Odell, lighting a cigarette with jerky, almost nervous movements. Again the girl’s heightened sense of perception told her that he was not enjoying the smoke; he was used to a pipe or a cigar, and the cigarette was a poor substitute.
“Yes,” said Odell, “I will——”
He broke off suddenly, and for a moment his eyes narrowed. Only for an instant he stared across the crowded floor of the Silver Slipper; then he looked away quickly. The smile had gone from his face when he spoke.
“We have some friends, Miss Lester...”
Valerie went cold inside. For a moment she thought that Odell was talking of Tony Beresford, and at that moment Beresford was the last man whom she wanted to see. She turned her head a little, looking towards the door, and as she saw the newcomers she heaved a little sigh of relief.
Timothy and Tobias Arran were making straight for their table.
Timothy reached them first. He looked, Valerie thought, pale and less self-confident than when she had seen him before, but she told herself that it might be merely the silvery light coming from the walls of the room—the light of the Silver Slipper was in keeping with its name. For Timothy, who was at all times immaculate, a trifle weary to look at and slow in speech, smiled down on her cheerfully.
“Miss Lester, isn’t it?” he drawled. “I met you at the Chesters’ last week. Howdo, Major?” Timothy lifted his hand lethargically, and Odell grunted. “Enjoying England, Miss Lester?”
“Very much indeed.” Valerie forced herself to speak lightly, but inwardly she was seething with anxiety. She guessed that the Arrans were messengers from Beresford, and she guessed that they had been warned to keep her well away from the suspected influence and potential danger of Major Gulliver Odell. But the last thing she wanted, then, was her embryo plot to be broken. She knew that she could, if she chose, rebuff the Arrans in such a way as to ensure that they left the table hurriedly, but if she did that they would carry a report back to Beresford which she knew would make the big man feel that she was definitely against him. She felt herself between two stools.
“Mind if we sit down?” Toby Arran, who had been talking to a waiter, came up to them. “Darned place is always crowded—ain’t it, Major?”
Odell grunted and said that they could sit down. He did it with little good grace, and Valerie saw the smile lurking in the eyes of Timothy Arran. And then she had to keep her body rigid, to bite at her lips to stop herself from shouting a warning.
For there was a glint in the Major’s eyes which suggested that he was prepared to make full use of the Arrans’ untimely interference.
A dozen mad thoughts rushed through the girl’s mind. There was—there must be—some way of warning the Arrans. But try as she might, she could find no way of warning them without letting Odell see it; and the thing of paramount importance was to convince the Major that she was sincere in her promise to see Leopold Gorman, and to work for him if necessary.
Robert Montgomery Curtis possessed his little place in Kent more by accident than for convenience. Resthaven was a bungalow of the modern stucco variety, built for an aunt who had preferred to die in the country than in London, and Curtis, always a generous soul and willing to oblige, had provided the wherewithal to build to the ornament to Kent. The relative, however, had changed her mind, married into money, and decided to die in London after all. Curtis kept the bungalow in good repair, paying a gardener and odd-job man from the neighbouring village of Lindean to keep it in some sort of order.
Thus it was that the garden was presentable and the rooms habitable when Curtis, with Solly Lewistein in tow, reached the bungalow. Curtis had stopped at a wayside café and purchased a variety of eatables, pointing out cheerfully to Lewistein that it was better to die full than die empty.
Lewistein was still frightened, but he had not said a word during the journey. Curtis’s size, apart from the gun in the big man’s pocket, was argument enough to keep Solly from threatening violence or trying to attract attention.
“Sorry you don’t feel so well,” said Curtis, as he turned his Bentley i
nto the short drive leading to the bungalow, and pulled up with a screeching of brakes outside the stucco-work porch. “I was hoping you’d start getting nice and chatty... Right in, old soldier.”
He shepherded Lewistein into the first room, which led from the right of the small hall, and pushed the fat one into an armchair, commenting meanwhile on the tightness of the fit. Then he demanded, solemnly, to knew whether Solly liked beer.
“Beer?” Lewistein squeaked the word, and the expression on his greasy face made Curtis grin. Lewistein was slowly recovering from his fright. Something in Curtis’s manner told him that he had little to fear.
“Don’t say ‘beer’ as if it was poison,” said Curtis. “I’m going to drink some, and I thought maybe you’d join me.”
Lewistein made a noise in his throat. He screwed up his courage and banged his clenched, podgy fist on the arm of his chair.
“Vot matness is this?” he demanded. “Vot outrage vould you be doing to vorce me avay vrom London like —like——”
“A bit sudden, I know,” said Curtis sympathetically. “But I only wanted a little chat, old Sol. Will you——”
“Take your vilthy stuff avay vrom my dose,” snapped Lewistein, taking courage from Curtis’s wide smile. “I tell you I demant to know——”
Curtis thoughtfully drank Four XXXX ale, a crate of which, by order, was always kept in the bungalow. He knew that Beresford was anxious to get a line on Gorman, and it occurred to him that it would be wiser to tackle the theatre-manager while he was still suffering, in part, from the effect of the hold-up.
“Solly,” he said, and the Jew’s body went taut at the change of expression in his captor’s voice. “I want a little information from you...”
Lewistein leaned forward in his chair, staring at Curtis in fascination. There was a whitish tinge round his mouth, and his body was quivering. He seemed to sense what was coming.
“I want to know,” said Curtis softly, “just what Gorman’s got on you?”
For a moment Lewistein gaped at him, as though paralysed. And then he shrank back in his chair, covering his eyes with his hands, and his voice was high-pitched, like that of a man in mortal agony.
“I can’t tell you!” he screeched. “Not that—not that——”
Curtis stared down at him, surprised by the vehemence of the Jew’s reaction, knowing that Beresford had been right when he had said that he suspected Lewistein could tell many things. He felt, not disgust, but pity for Lewistein. The man had obviously been living on his nerves for months.
“Steady up,” said Curtis, after a short, tense pause. “I shan’t eat you—and Gorman’s not here.”
Lewistein pulled his hands away from his eyes. He had gone pale, and the pallor of his face made him look a dirty white. His thick lips quivered, like his fat body.
“Gorman is alvays near,” he muttered, as if talking to himself. “He is too strong vor you—alvays too strong...”
Curtis, for no physical reason, felt cold. He tightened his lips for a moment, staring down at Lewistein, and then he walked across the room and thoughtfully opened a second bottle of Four XXXX. There were times when liquid refreshment was more of a necessity than a pleasure.
As the stopper came out with a hiss of escaping gas, a different sound came from outside the bungalow. Curtis lifted his head and waited. Suddenly he heard the swish of wheels on the gravel of the drive, and a moment later the cheerful voice of Dodo Trale.
“Here we are,” said Dodo, and Curtis grinned when he realized that Adele Fayne was with him. “All merry and bright, ’Dele, but mind that stone...”
Adele Fayne’s voice, raised impatiently, came through the air. Solly Lewistein started up, his face working, his eyes widening with mingled fear and astonishment.
“Where are we?” demanded the dancer. “This isn’t a road-house. Dodo, I——”
“Now then,” warned Dodo Trale with mock gravity, “don’t you go thinking things that aren’t. I’m a well-intentioned young man, ’Dele, but a friend of mine wants a little chat with you.”
Two minutes later Adele Fayne stepped into the front room, her normally pretty face distorted with anger, an anger which was partly fear. She saw Curtis first, and failed to recognize him, but a moment later she saw Solly Lewistein’s plump body squeezed into his chair.
For a moment the dancer and her manager stared at each other, the one stupefied and the other feeling like death. Even Curtis and Trale felt the effect of that silence. There was something here which they did not understand.
Curtis spoke suddenly, his voice harsh in spite of his words.
“ ’Lo, folks!” he said with forced cheerfulness. “We don’t seem so happy as we might be, and all because I said to Solly something about friend Gorman.”
“Gorman!” Adele Fayne shrieked the name, swinging round towards Curtis. Like Lewistein, she was afraid, deathly afraid.
CHAPTER XXI
DEATH AT THE BUNGALOW
AT half past eight on the following morning, Tony Beresford swung out of Auveley Street in his maroon-painted Hispano, and headed for Farningham, in Kent. The only development since he had left Scotland Yard at five o’clock was confirmation, from Curtis, that the two prisoners were comfortable, but that mention of Gorman set them screeching. Beresford determined to have a shot at extracting information.
As he spun through Vauxhall, then cut across London towards the Kentish borders, he felt the reaction of the previous day’s events. The fact that Valerie Lester was missing made him feel that he could not prevent himself from going to Gorman’s Park Place house and facing the financier with a direct accusation. But he realized that he would be serving no purpose by so doing. He would not even help Valerie Lester.
The green fields of Kent, fresh after a light rainfall overnight, did nothing to ease the big man’s frame of mind. There was one thing, and one thing only, that would do that—the sight of Valerie Lester safe and unhurt.
Beresford told himself that he was a fool, a thousand times a fool, for letting his thoughts centre round the girl. It was more important by far to find Craigie, even more important to force information which might help against Gorman from the two prisoners at Curtis’s bungalow. But the fact remained that Beresford’s chief interest was the girl. The possibility that she was not all that Long had said tormented him. She might be playing a double game, with and against Josiah Long at the same time. She might be...
“Don’t be a ruddy fool!” Beresford snapped aloud. “You’re losing sight of the big stuff, and if you’re not careful you’ll miss something that matters—now what the hell was that?”
‘That’ was something which pinged against the side of the Hispano, and it says a great deal for the state of Beresford’s mind that he assumed it was a stone thrown up by the wheels. A second ping, fast upon the first, made him grunt and look quickly on either side of the road. There was no one in sight, but on the left side of the road a wooded tract of countryside might have hidden a small army. On the right the fields were bare of everything but the first shoots of the hops, and the network of poles for training them ready for the autumn picking.
But Beresford was not concerned with hops nor their eventual state at that moment. He was telling himself that it would be touch and go if he got out of this spot of bother!
Unconsciously, he was glad that it was happening. It cleared his mind, and forced him out of the comparative state of lethargy into which he had fallen. It was no time for thinking; it was time for doing.
He sized the situation up quickly. The woods ran close to the road, and stretched further than he could see, for the road turned sharply to the right about two hundred yards further on. That acute bend prevented him from following his first inclination and sending the Hispano hurtling along the road, trusting to sheer speed to avoid being hit. For Beresford knew there were two or more gunmen in the woods, and the Hispano made a good target, if a moving one.
Beresford slouched down as far as he could in hi
s seat while retaining full control of the roadster, and took one hand off the wheel. An automatic slipped between his fingers, taken from his pocket, and he kept a hold of the gun while peering into the woods. Twice again those shots came, hitting against the side of the car, but there was no sound before they found their mark, no stab of flame visible through the trees.
Beresford clenched his teeth as the Hispano went forward. The speedometer touched fifty before he began to slow down ready for the bend. He was no fool, and he reckoned that it was better to make sure of the corner and then let the engine have its full run. A smash at the bend would end all the chance he had of getting away from the ambush.
He did not call it an ambush, but he would have been justified in so doing. In the woods, he knew, the gunmen were taking their time as they fired at the Hispano. And they were firing well. By the time he reached the first bend of the corner seven shots had struck the side of the car.
It was the seventh which gave him the split-second of warning that he needed to avert disaster. It sent a shiver of foreknowledge through him, for he realized suddenly that the marksmen were firing well, that seven times they had hit the car, but not once had a bullet gone over his head! In short, Beresford thought as he swung his wheel, they were firing to panic him, not to kill!
Beresford knew the reason as he turned the bend!
In the centre of the road a Daimler limousine was at a standstill, drawn up so that only a small car could have passed on either side. There was no chance at all of Beresford in the Hispano missing the Daimler, and if he had taken the obvious course, by treading on his accelerator and taking the bend hell-for-leather, he must have crashed into perdition. As it was, Beresford was going at little more than twenty-five miles per hour as he started to turn, and that split-second of warning, intuitive rather than actual, had made him fasten on to his brakes desperately. The Hispano skidded as its driver braked and turned the wheel at the same time. For a moment Beresford thought that he must go broadside into the Daimler, but another skid took the Hispano round, and Beresford let his muscles go loose as the radiator of his car crashed against the offside wheel of the Daimler.