by John Creasey
“Broken neck,” muttered Curtis. “The other man’s up on the roof, half in and half out, isn’t he?”
Rogerson said that he was.
“I’ll go up and see if he’s conscious,” said Curtis.
He looked round the well-kept garden of the bungalow which was called Resthaven, and saw the ladder leaning against the wall, which the attackers had used to reach the roof. By the wall was a tin of petrol, and a second tin was on the ground, open and half empty. Obviously, Curtis thought, it had dropped from the roof when the man who had been pouring the stuff through the hole had been shot.
Curtis reached the roof, and saw the Frenchman who had slipped, and whose right leg was poking through the hole which had been made in the roof. There was an ugly gash in the man’s head where he had struck against a broken tile, but he was still alive, although unconscious.
“Doubt if I can get him out by myself,” said Curtis thoughtfully. “I think I’d better...”
And then he stopped, for he looked about him, across the countryside, several acres of which he could see from the top of the bungalow. For a moment he stared round him, petrified. His mouth stopped open, and he widened his eyes, as though trying to make sure that he was awake.
About a hundred yards away from the bungalow Curtis saw six men, those plain-clothes men whom Rogerson had sent out to search for the four missing Frenchmen. They were stretched out on the ground, huddled, shapeless heaps, and they were all very still. Further away still, Curtis saw a car which he believed was Sir William Fellowes’ Sunbeam, drawn up on the road leading to Resthaven, its nose pointing into a ditch. The driver—it was Fellowes, Curtis told himself—was sprawling back in his car, and next to him was Tony Beresford—a Beresford whose features were not in the line of vision—hunched up against the dashboard!
Curtis swallowed hard, and slid his hand towards his pocket for his gun. But the unnatural stillness of those men told him that an automatic would avail him little. The paralysis which had overcome him eased. He shouted down, his voice hoarse with tension.
“Oi, there! Rogerson—Trale!...”
There was no answering sound, and Curtis felt suddenly afraid. He leaned over the edge of the roof, looking down at the garden. He saw Rogerson sprawling across the dead body of the Frenchman, and a second policeman stretched out near by. No one else was in sight.
“Ain’t there, though!” Curtis muttered suddenly.
As he spoke, he saw four men approaching Resthaven from four different directions. They looked hideous, but not frightening. Each man wore a mask, complete with respirator.
“Gas!” muttered Curtis, putting into words the knowledge which had come to him when he had first seen the strangely still bodies of the men. “Gas, and neatly done...”
As he spoke, he crouched low against the tiles of the roof, hoping against hope that he would not be seen by those approaching men. He did not know who they were, but he guessed, and afterwards he claimed that his guesses were not far wrong. In his mind he reasoned out the manner of the attack. The alarm which he and Trale had sent to Scotland Yard had brought the police, even the Commissioner himself; Gorman, with his three gunmen, had reckoned to make a full haul with the one attack.
And they had succeeded, at least in part. Curtis groaned to himself. He could see no way—unless luck helped him a great deal—of getting away from the spot and warning Horace Miller, or someone else at Scotland Yard, of the belt of poison fog surrounding Resthaven. But there was just a chance, he told himself, that he could pick the approaching men off one by one.
Curtis pulled his automatic from his pocket and levelled it towards the nearest one of the four. He felt, as he took aim, a slight burning about his lips and eyes, but he hardly noticed it in his anxiety to get his man. His finger was actually touching the trigger when the burning increased with a suddenness which made the big man gasp! One moment it had been nothing, the next it was a white-hot pain, searing through the delicate membranes of his eyes, his nose, his mouth! Curtis coughed, a slight, hacking cough—and then the gun dropped from his nerveless hand, clattering down the tiles of the roof and dropping to the ground with a dull thud. Curtis, his mouth wide open, fell back against the unconscious Frenchman, dead to the world!
CHAPTER XXIV
OF A RUSE WHICH SUCCEEDED
CURTIS had made one mistake when he had identified in his mind the men who were near Resthaven. He had fancied it was Tony Beresford next to the Police Commissioner, whereas it was, in fact, Wally Davidson, who had returned from a wild-goose chase after the Arran Twins (“I could have sworn it was those devils!” Wally had told Beresford) late on the previous night, dropped asleep at his flat and, awakening with a guilty conscience, had telephoned to various places and located Beresford at Scotland Yard.
Davidson’s story of his trailing of two men whom he had thought to be the Arrans made Beresford thoughtful, but it was not until the Commissioner’s Sunbeam was speeding along the Strand that Beresford suddenly decided to delay his visit to the bungalow near Farningham.
Fellowes grunted as the big man climbed out of the car.
“What are you going to do?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” said Beresford truthfully, “but I’ve got a hunch.”
“Do you mind if we get after Gorman?” asked Fellowes, “while you follow your hunch?”
“Go steady in Kent,” said Beresford, suddenly serious. “Look after him, Wally. He’s not used to travelling about without a bodyguard of flatfoots.”
Fellowes grunted, and released the brakes. The Sunbeam slid along the road, and for a moment Beresford watched it. Then he hailed a passing taxi, and gave the address of a large house in a road leading off Shaftesbury Avenue.
As he leaned back in the cab, he told himself that he would probably wish that he had completed the run with Fellowes. But there had been times before when an idea had forced itself into his mind, and he had been suddenly convinced that he must act on it. This time, he had told himself that it was possible that a call on Major Gulliver Odell’s flat (No. 5 of the Shaftesbury Avenue turning) would show profit. For the Major had been to the Silver Slipper, and so had the Arrans, who were missing.
As the taxi swung out of the Avenue, Beresford was looking out of the window, and as he watched his eyes glistened. The one thing which he had wanted to happen was happening. A Daimler saloon was moving slowly away from outside the house for which Beresford was making—and Beresford caught a glimpse of Major Gulliver Odell’s florid countenance!
The Daimler was moving away from the taxi, and for a moment Beresford was afraid that he would lose his man. He swore, suddenly opened the door of the cab and swung on to the running-board.
“’Ere!” protested the cabby. “Wot’s this lark, Mister——”
“Can you get past that Daimler,” snapped Beresford, “and run it into the side of the road?”
The cabby swore luridly.
“Shore, an’ then I kin buy meself a noo keb——”
“That’ll buy your cab,” grunted Beresford.
As he spoke, he pulled his wallet from his pocket and dropped it on to the driver’s knees. He knew the easy way to action without questions was via money, and habitually carried a substantial wad of notes with him. The cabby saw the wad, and while there was not enough to buy a new taxi, there was more than enough to show earnest. The man stopped swearing and trod hard on his accelerator. The cab gathered speed, passed the Daimler before its engine had started properly, then swung across the big car’s nose.
Beresford heard a curse from the driver of the Daimler, and out of the corners of his eyes he saw Gulliver Odell poking his head out of the window. The Daimler stopped dead, its radiator touching the back of the cab. At the moment of the impact Beresford jumped to the pavement, swinging round towards Odell.
The Major’s eyes widened, and in that moment Beresford knew that his hunch had been right! For Odell was afraid...
Odell’s voice was raised suddenly
, high-pitched with fear.
“Get that man—the big man!”
Beresford heard the shout, and saw the driver of the Daimler move his right hand towards his pocket. He saw the driver’s little eyes narrow, and for a moment seemed to see death.
But the man’s gun jammed for a vital fraction of a second. Beresford leapt forward, his fist clenched, his arm swinging. Every ounce of strength in his great body was behind the blow, which caught his man dead on the point. The man gasped, and then lolled back, his mouth agape, his eyes closed.
At the same moment Tony Beresford bent his knees. He heard the soft zutt! of Odell’s silenced automatic, and saw the spurt of flame accompanying it. A bullet whirred over his head, smacking into the wall of a house. A second followed it, a third tore through Beresford’s coat, scratching his ribs. He hardly noticed the sharp twinge of pain as he took a chance which was a hundred-to-one against, and launched himself at Odell—Major Gulliver Odell, whose red face was twisted with rage and whose pudgy right hand was holding the automatic.
Odell, inside the Daimler, jerked backwards. The fourth shot from his gun whistled close to Beresford’s head, but there was no fifth shot. Beresford slammed his right fist into Odell’s thick neck. Odell gasped and swayed. Beresford, forced to hit straight through the open window, followed his right with a left which sent Odell smacking against the far door. The Major’s head hit against the framework. Beresford saw his eyes roll, and knew that he would sleep for a long time to come.
Beresford stood still for a moment, breathing hard. As he looked round, he saw a dozen scared pedestrians rushing towards the car. Two blue helmets towered above the crowd, and a policeman’s gruff voice demanded to know what this was.
“Ask yourself,” grunted Beresford, “and put the handcuffs round those two men. They’re liable to be bad-tempered when they wake up. And, Robert——”
“Sir?” Beresford’s manner made the man attentive.
“Get one of your pals to telephone for Miller at the Yard—yes, the Super. Tell him Beresford’s on something, and for God’s sake tell him quick!”
Beresford had realized that the best way of getting quick action was to have Horace Miller, or one of his juniors, on the scene. It was Miller himself who arrived a quarter of an hour later—a Miller who was refreshed by six hours’ sound sleep, and who was ready for anything.
Beresford saw the Superintendent turn into the street, and hurried towards him. A few graphic sentences sufficed to convince Miller that the ‘something’ was big.
“So,” said Beresford, “the quicker we get into Odell’s flat the better. He’ll have some keys in his pockets, but I didn’t want to try your Robert’s patience too much——”
“It won’t take long now,” said Miller.
He rapped instructions to a detective who had accompanied him, and within five minutes of his arrival Miller and Tony Beresford were stepping across the threshold of Major Odell’s flat.
The first room was empty, but as the two men opened the door of the second room, Tony Beresford stopped dead, staring at the four people inside, staring at one in particular, and conscious of a tremendous lightness in his chest.
Valerie Lester, bound and gagged, was lying on a settee! The Arrans and Gordon Craigie, trussed so that they could neither move nor speak, were in the room too!
Beresford muttered a prayer of thanks as he hurried across the room, opening a knife as he went, ready to cut the cords from Valerie Lester’s arms and legs.
When Robert Curtis regained consciousness, he found that he was sitting in a large armchair in one of the rooms of Resthaven. The chair was apparently dancing a fandango on its own. Apart from the giddiness and a soreness about his eyes and mouth, however, Curtis felt little the worse for the gassing. But as the room—or his head—steadied, and the vague forms in front of him took definite shape and became men, he felt a thickness in his throat, and when he tried to speak the words would not come.
He stared in dumb defiance at the men. One of them he recognized, and his eyes narrowed. Leopold Gorman had come into the open at last!
The second man was, to Curtis, a complete stranger, but for the moment at least he was a good friend.
“Drink this,” he said tersely, proffering a glass filled with something which looked like water.
Curtis drank eagerly. There was a bitter taste about the liquid, but it served its main purpose. The genial Robert’s throat cleared as if by magic. He grinned.
“That’s a pal!” he said gratefully.
The little man scowled, and there was no answering smile on his lips; Curtis noticed Gorman was glaring——
“Where’s Beresford?” snapped the second man.
Curtis frowned. He remembered seeing—or thinking he saw—Tony Beresford in the Sunbeam with Fellowes. He said as much.
“That wasn’t Beresford,” Gorman said harshly. “If you want to get out of this with a whole skin, Curtis, you’ll have to talk.”
Curtis forced back a biting retort, telling himself that he was as anxious to know where Beresford was as the others were, and that it would serve no purpose if he told Leopold Gorman that he knew perfectly well that his chance of getting out of the bungalow at all was small, if it rested with the man with the jade-green eyes.
“Talk about what?” Curtis demanded. “How the hell can I talk, anyhow? I——”
“Don’t try that trick,” snapped the second man, and Curtis swore silently. Time wasted was time saved, in effect, and he had hoped to gain a few precious minutes. “Where’s Beresford?” the man demanded again.
Curtis forced a grin.
“I don’t know any more than you do,” he said. “I telephoned Beresford, and I expected him to be here. Unless——”
He broke off suddenly, and Gorman jumped into the opening.
“Unless what?” he grated, and Curtis felt the fascination of his green eyes.
“Unless nothing,” said Curtis, looking at his feet.
The second man snapped suddenly at Gorman, and Curtis was surprised that the financier accepted the other’s attitude without a complaint. He could not know that Gorman’s companion was the man who had arranged the first attacks on Beresford, had worked both tricks with the Lancia, and had led the attack on Beresford on the Kent road; but he did realize that the man was one of that rare species in England—the killer.
“He’s stalling,” the gunman snapped. “We’ve got to get out of here, and get Beresford later.”
“Beresford’s bound to come,” protested Gorman.
“Yes, and to bring plenty with him,” snapped the other. “We can’t take the chance. We’ll be lucky now if we save our necks.”
He swung out of the room, and Curtis heard him barking instructions to the others—including the Frenchmen—of the raiding party. Gorman stood by the window, looking across the lawn, and Curtis wondered what was going on behind those green eyes.
But the big man forgot Gorman as he realized what was happening. Three times he saw the raiders enter the bungalow, each time heavily burdened. After the third trip, Curtis knew that they had been carrying the unconscious policemen from the garden into the bungalow. That meant, Curtis told himself, that he had been dosed but lightly with the gas, probably because he had been fifteen yards above the ground; most poisonous gases were heavier than air.
It was a sudden question from one of the men which made Curtis’s body go rigid.
“That’s de lot,” said the man. “Where shall we start it, Boss?”
The man with Gorman spoke callously, and Curtis saw a red mist float in front of his eyes. It was then that the prisoner discovered that although his hands were free, he was fastened to the armchair by a rope round his waist, and the chair in turn was fast to the floor.
“In the kitchen,” snapped the man.
“Leaving them all?”
“Yes—not forgetting the girl...”
Curtis closed his eyes, and as he did so heard for a second time within an hour th
e sound of splashing. He needed no telling that the splashing was of petrol. The cold-bloodedness of the thing was incredible! Gorman and the other man were planning to destroy the bungalow, and all its occupants, by fire! For a moment that seemed like an age, Curtis gritted his teeth and kept his eyes closed. And then he opened his mouth...
But he choked the words back—mad words that he was planning to hurl at Gorman, and that cold-blooded devil in the other room. He heard Gorman cry out, and saw a man running across the lawn—a man who seemed as if he was being chased by the devil.
“Don’t fire it!” shouted Gorman. “Here’s Odell—Odell!”
The second man cursed and hurried into the room. He watched the figure of the man he thought was Major Gulliver Odell, and it was not until the newcomer was within a few yards of the window that he realized the trap.
“That’s not Odell!” He swore, dropping his hand to his pocket. “That’s Craigie—Gordon Craigie!”
As he spoke, there came the sudden zutt! of a silenced automatic. Curtis, staring wide-eyed at the newcomer, thought for a terrible moment that Craigie—could it be Craigie?—had been shot, but as the thought flashed through Curtis’s mind, the man with Gorman staggered, and pirouetted on his feet. Curtis saw the ugly patch of red on his shirt, saw Gorman, his dark, misshapen face a sickly pallor, swing away from the window, and saw the window splinter into a thousand pieces as the man who looked like Major Odell fired for a second time. The bullet took the financier on the knee. Gorman shrieked in agony, and crashed down.
And through a haze, Curtis saw not one man but a dozen racing across the grass towards the bungalow. He saw Tony Beresford, and the dapper figures of the Unholy Twins, and further back a small army of men, moving quickly towards the bungalow. Craigie had taken no chances of being outnumbered in the final assault on Resthaven!