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

by John Creasey

  The crash sent Beresford’s big body jolting sideways, but the worst of the impact had been avoided. The only damage, Beresford thought with a grunt, was to the two cars...

  And then he had a shock. For the first time he saw that the Daimler was not empty. A man was sitting at the wheel, sitting with absurd stillness after the smash, and staring at Beresford with eyes opened wide in terror! Beresford swallowed hard, and stared unbelievingly at the man. He needed no telling who it was.

  “Odell!” Beresford breathed.

  Beresford felt automatically in his pocket for his cigarettes, and lit one as he approached the big car, feeling in need of the narcotic. As he drew near he saw the reason for the Major’s stillness, and knew why he had not shouted a warning. And Beresford saw a red mist in front of his eyes as the full devilishness of the trick came home to him!

  The man was tied to the seat so that he could not move. His hands were fastened to the wheels, and he was gagged effectively, so that he could not cry out. Beresford needed no telling of the plan which had been conceived. After the smash, which would have killed both men if he had not taken the corner carefully, the men (or one of them) from the woods would have hurried down to the scene of it, cut away the tell-tale cords binding Odell, taken the gag from his mouth, and left the wreck of the two big cars for anyone to find. Nothing in the world would have convinced any sane man that the smash had been anything but an accident caused by reckless driving.

  “And that,” Beresford muttered to himself, “was why they fired at the car and not at me. And,” he added, with a glint in his eyes, “it speaks volumes for the breeze which is floating behind Leopold Gorman. He daren’t take a chance at open killing.”

  That surmise was only partly true, but it was true enough for the moment. Beresford kept his eyes open and his gun handy, but he did not anticipate any trouble from the gunmen who had tried to make him take the bend at a high speed. Nor did he get any trouble from them.

  He cut through the cords at Odell’s wrists, following with those which fastened the man to the seat. Odell, glaring and a fiery red from forehead to collar, tried to speak but failed, and tried to get the gag from his mouth but failed.

  “Allow me,” said Beresford with a sudden smile. In spite of the circumstances, the near-apoplexy which was possessing Odell had its humour, and laughter was an easy thing to Tony Beresford.

  He inserted his large forefinger into the Major’s mouth and eased out a small rubber ball. Odell retched.

  “Try a spot of this,” said Beresford a couple of minutes later, proffering his ever ready flask to Odell. The man sipped the whisky, sipped again and muttered “Thanks—thanks. My God, but I thought I’d finished for good an’ all dat time, buddy!”

  As he heard the words, Beresford’s body went rigid, and his mind went cold. The humour went from his eyes and he stared at the man as if he could not believe the evidence of his sight. It wasn’t Odell...

  “You!” muttered Beresford. “You...”

  “Sho’ thing,” said Josiah Long cheerfully, “an’ my opinion of yuh is getting better an’ better!”

  It took Beresford several minutes to recover from the shock of his discovery. He had convinced himself that Josiah Long was not all that he seemed. Several things had pointed to Long’s association with Gorman, despite the confirmation from America of the agent’s official capacity, but the discovery of Josiah, trussed up and ready for killing in an ‘accident’, was ample confirmation of the enmity which Gorman had for him.

  Fast upon this thought was his realization that events suggested that Major Odell was in the affair much deeper than it had seemed—and the last time Valerie Lester had been seen she had been with the Major.

  Beresford swore, then forced his thoughts into different channels. He jerked his thumb at the two cars, scowling the while.

  “They won’t help us much,” he grunted; “but we’ve got to get back to London, and get back quickly.”

  “Maybe we’ll get a ride,” suggested Josiah Long cheerfully. “There’s a fork turning up de road—let’s walk.”

  As the two men swung along the road, Josiah Long told his story. Beresford listened, grim-eyed. The more he heard, the less he liked of Major Gulliver Odell’s part in the affair.

  Briefly, Josiah Long had left Scotland Yard on the previous night, free to do what he liked, but for the two detectives who had been trailing him. He had slipped his men, and had decided that the most likely source of information was Major Odell, or Major Odell’s friends. Consequently he had decided to visit one or two of the Major’s ports of call, dressed and looking like Odell.

  His first call had been at Adele Fayne’s flat, for he knew nothing of Beresford’s preparation for that lady’s sudden change of address. The door of the flat had been opened by a man whom he had not recognized...

  “An’ de guy let me in, buddy, an’ den brought de butt of a gun down on me head. I didn’t stand a chance——”

  “It was about all you deserved,” grunted Beresford. “Impersonating Odell was asking for trouble.”

  Josiah Long shrugged his shoulders.

  “Maybe, maybe not. If it’d woiked de udder way, an’ I’d gotta line somewheres, it’d been genius.”

  Beresford grunted.

  “Anyways,” said Long, “de next thing I knew I wass in de Daimler, trussed like you found me. I wass drugged until den, an’ when I came round I reckoned I wouldn’t be on dis li’l woild much longer. I sure owe yuh a lot, Beresford.”

  Beresford grunted again.

  “A bit back for the Lancia business,” he said. He laughed. “And I’d reckoned you worked those tricks, somehow.”

  “Did you?” Josiah Long blinked. “Can’t say I blame yuh, buddy. Wass dere any udder things you had on me?”

  Beresford nodded. He was fully convinced now that Josiah Long was genuine, and it was a relief to talk.

  “I told you,” he said, “that Nosey Dean was drowned. He wasn’t—he was shot, with the same gun that shot Williams. But you had the gun——”

  “So it looked like I shot Dean?”

  “It did,” said Beresford. “How’d you get the gun?”

  “Through the post,” said Josiah Long simply. “I should have told yuh, Beresford, but it slipped my mind, kind of.”

  Beresford whistled.

  “So it was an effort to make us suspicious of you?”

  “That’s what I reckon,” admitted Long, “an’ it did.” He grinned. “Howso—dat car looks as if it might have room for us, buddy. Yuh call it. I can’t raise a proper shout yet.”

  At twenty past nine that morning, Curtis weary-eyed because he had been forcing himself to keep awake for the past three hours, although he was tired to the point of exhaustion, swore mildly as the telephone-bell rang. He dragged himself out of his chair, staring enviously at the other three people in the room. Adele Fayne, he already knew, slept with her mouth open. It made her look as vacuous as she really was, and did little to increase her prettiness. Solly Lewistein, on a chair next to the couch which had been hastily made up for the dancer, slept noisily, and as he breathed so the sides of his chair bulged slightly outwards. Dodo Trale, who had won the toss for the first man for sleep, slept as he lived—immaculately.

  Curtis lifted the receiver from its hook, halloed, told a sharp-tongued operator that he would complain to a Mr. Belisha if she wasn’t careful, which remark seemed to amuse the operator, and inquired of her what she wanted.

  “A man called your number from a call-box,” he was told, “but he hadn’t enough change to pay for the call. He said his name was B-E-R-E——”

  “Get me that call-box,” snapped Curtis, and the girl sensed the seriousness behind the change of his tone.

  Two minutes later Curtis heard Beresford’s voice.

  “I had a packet of trouble on the way to you,” said Beresford, “and I got something that makes me want to get back to London pretty snappy. But, Bob——”

  “I’m listeni
ng,” muttered Curtis.

  “Keep your eyes wide open,” said Beresford urgently. “I was held up on the road, which means that whoever it was knew I was coming to see you—or, at least, the way I was held up does. So——”

  “They know we’re here,” said Curtis, wide-eyed, “and that means something’ll hum. All right, Tony. But send some others when you can—I’m yawning twice a minute.”

  “With any luck,” said Beresford, who had had something under eight hours’ sleep, in the last forty-eight, “I’ll be there myself.”

  Curtis hung up, and turned towards the three sleeping beauties. The warning from Beresford had sharpened his wits for the moment, and he was able to grin again at Adele Fayne’s open mouth, although even as she rested on the couch he was forced to admit that to many her superb figure would have more than recompensed them for the doll-like prettiness of her face and the comparative vacuity of her mind.

  From La Fayne, whose back was towards the window, Curtis looked to Solly Lewistein, who was sideways to the window, which window Curtis had opened as wide as possible, for the room was small and the four people made it stuffy. It occurred to him at one and the same time that Dodo should be awakened, for his period of rest was up, and that the open window was another way of asking for trouble. He stepped over Dodo’s long legs (Trale was opposite Lewistein) to close the window, a precaution which he would not have taken but for Beresford’s warning.

  And then, just as Timothy Arran had seen it a few days earlier, Curtis saw something glisten in the light of the morning sun. He swore loudly, and swung away, seeing the handle of the knife, which whistled through the open window. Curtis saw where it was going a fraction of a second too late to stop it!

  The knife stabbed through Solly Lewistein’s throat, with its blood-red tip protruding on the one side and the handle the other! Curtis saw it, and knew that it had cut through the jugular vein, and felt sick. But he slammed the window close before doing anything else, and a second knife cracked against the glass, splintering it, but dropping outside the house.

  Dodo Trale seemed to jump from sleep into full consciousness in a split second. As the second knife cracked against the window he leapt out of his chair, dipping into his pocket for the gun which Beresford had given him. Through the window he could see two vague figures, men on the far side of a clump of bushes in the garden—Franchot’s apaches, if he had but known it—and he levelled his gun.

  “Hold it!” snapped Curtis.

  The big man bent down and picked Adele Fayne from the couch as easily as picking apples from a tree. The dancer, who had been struggling to a sitting position, screamed. Then she saw Solly Lewistein, the knife in his throat and the blood coming from it. She went rigid in Curtis’s arms, and fainted.

  “That’s the best thing she could have done,” grunted Curtis, hurrying to the door. “All right, Dodo—let ’em have it now.”

  Trale grunted, and dropped on one knee behind the armchair in which he had been sleeping. He realized why Curtis had stopped him. If he had fired before the dancer had been taken out of the room, the men outside would have had a better chance of wounding her, for the window would be splintered completely by a bullet shot, and the knife could have come through. For the time being Adele Fayne was very precious.

  Trale waited for a moment, staring into the garden. He saw a bush move, and fancied there was a man behind it. His finger touched the trigger of his gun, and the bullet smashed through the window, humming towards the bush. A man shouted and cursed, and the vague form disappeared.

  Trale told himself two things as he waited for the next opportunity to fire. First, that Beresford had been right when he had reasoned that if he abducted Adele Fayne and Lewistein, Gorman would get rattled and come into the open. Secondly, that the curse which he had heard from the man whom he had shot was not in English, nor American. It was French, and an argot common in Montmartre in the bargain!

  CHAPTER XXII

  ALL ROADS LEAD TO KENT

  BERESFORD and Long had reached the forked roads when Josiah Long pointed at a low-lying Talbot Sports coming towards them and going towards London. Beresford hailed the driver, who obligingly put on his brakes. While the Talbot was slowing down, Beresford noticed the thoroughness of the preparations which had been made to prevent the smash of the Daimler and the Hispano from being prevented by outside interference. At the fork, a ‘Road Closed’ notice was supported on two trestles; the short bypass along which Beresford had travelled was blocked.

  “Clever, de Gorman guy,” said Josiah Long, who seemed at peace with the world.

  Beresford gave his attention to the driver of the Talbot, a lean, elegant young man who looked bored.

  “Going to London?” asked Beresford.

  “Weather and other things permitting,” said the elegant young man. “Can I give you a lift?”

  “We’d be glad if you will,” said Beresford. “And you might stop at the first telephone-kiosk or A.A. box.”

  The young man agreed affably, and five minutes later the Talbot stopped at a telephone booth on the outskirts of a small village. Beresford had some trouble in getting through to Curtis at Resthaven, but when he had given his message to that genial young man, he asked the operator for Scotland Yard, and the operator asked for no money.

  Miller was not at the Yard, but Fellowes was there.

  “There’s no time for talking,” said the big man quickly, “but get half a dozen of your good-and-hearty ones down to Curtis’s bungalow—Resthaven, near Lindean, near Farningham.”

  “All right,” said Fellowes. “Anything else?”

  “Discovered anything about Odell?” asked Beresford, and his voice was tense.

  Fellowes’ answer disappointed him.

  “Nothing at all, nor of the others.”

  Beresford scowled into the mouthpiece.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll be with you in an hour, with any luck. Meanwhile, Odell’s our pigeon.”

  “I’ll do everything I can,” said Fellowes.

  The line went dead. Beresford hurried back to the Talbot, and the obliging driver slipped in his clutch.

  “Any special part of London you’d like?” asked the young man politely.

  Beresford chuckled. There was something likeable about the driver of the Talbot.

  “Whitehall,” he said. “Parliament Square end. All right?”

  “Always ready to help,” said the young man.

  Beresford’s opinion of their Good Samaritan was even better when the Talbot pulled up outside Scotland Yard, and the young man motioned towards the building, still looking bored.

  “I take it,” he said politely, “that this is where you want. Any other time I can be of service...”

  Beresford was still chuckling to himself when he hurried up the steps of the Yard, and Josiah Long was smiling. The speed of the run from Kent had been considerable, and the young man had been a veritable knight-errant.

  “Who are we going to see?” Long demanded.

  “Fellowes,” said Beresford.

  The Commissioner, however, was closeted with some Very High Officials, but he sent a message to tell Beresford that he would be finished within ten minutes. Beresford confounded the officials, but lit a cigarette and spent the period of waiting in trying to put the affair on which he was working into some kind of order.

  There were several things clear. Having finally accepted Josiah Long for what he was, the many minor mysteries arising out of the American’s part in the business were settled. Nevertheless, there was plenty to sort out, and many things seemed inexplicable. For instance, there was the mystery of Bob Lavering. Why had he been allowed to escape? Why had he been poisoned, although not fatally, by Leopold Gorman? Why had the nursing-home in Paris been burned down after Lavering had left for London?

  Tony Beresford needed no telling that the Police Commissioner had news, and important news, when he saw that stony-faced gentleman hurry into his office, his stiff right leg thrown fo
rward more than usual. Fellowes looked full of information, but he stopped short as he saw Josiah Long, looking for all the world like Gulliver Odell.

  “It wasn’t you who went to Paris, was it?” he demanded.

  Long shook his head.

  “No—an’ if yuh think hard enough, yuh’ll know why.”

  Fellowes grunted. Certainly Josiah Long had been busy enough in London during the time that Leopold Gorman and Major Odell had been in Paris.

  “We can pass Long now,” said Beresford. “What have you got hold of, Bill?”

  Sir William Fellowes drew a deep breath.

  “We’ve heard from America,” he said, “about the Wheat Pool job. Lavering’s father is in control of the Pool——”

  “The devil he is!” Beresford pushed his hand through his hair, looking keenly at the Commissioner, and realizing that the mystery of Bob Lavering would very soon be explained. He felt tense with a mental excitement, which made him drum his fingers against his thigh.

  “And when he dies,” said Fellowes, “young Lavering will take over that control. There are two things which we haven’t known before: first, that Lavering is behind the Pool—his interest in it has been kept a close secret for years—and secondly, that he’s suffering from an incurable disease...”

  Fellowes paused. Beresford’s lips shaped a soundless whistle.

  “So-ho! He’s likely to die at any time, is he?”

  “Yes,” Fellowes agreed, and as he went on his voice was low-pitched. “That’s why Gorman wanted to control Lavering. He tried first to marry him to Adele Fayne, but in case that didn’t work—and it didn’t—he had him dosed with arsenic; physically and mentally, Bob Lavering would—or could—have been controlled by Gorman. I fancy that Gorman didn’t want to murder either of the Laverings—they’re big men on the other side——”

  “I’ll say dey are!” interpolated Josiah Long.

  “Because,” went on the Commissioner, “he wanted complete control of the Wheat Pool, together with the influence of the Lavering family behind him. I don’t think,” Fellowes added grimly, “that we’ll have much trouble in tying the Lavering affair on to Gorman.”