by John Creasey
The curtains of the car were drawn. At the end of his journey, Serle knew that he would be safe from the curious eyes of the passer-by and the prying eyes of Craigie’s men. The risk of his visit to the Park Lane house had been small. Nevertheless, he realised that it existed. He knew that Craigie’s men, especially Kenyon, would break every law in the world to get him—even though there was, as yet, no criminal charge against him. For his own part, he had been reluctant to make the trip that day. But he had had his instructions.
The Dancer Street saleroom of the Persian Sales Company was very busy on the day of Arnold Serle’s visit to Park Lane.
In the office opposite, Davidson and Curtis—weary with waiting, but worried enough to make no protests, even to themselves—noticed the constant stream of people, most of whom were well known. Only those with money could afford to patronise that exclusive establishment.
Lady Denise Clare had called. Lord and Lady Stenner had followed her. Two distinguished politicians and their wives, a European prince and an American millionaire’s daughter had caused a flutter of activity. The two agents could see through the window, and gained some comic relief from the antics of the salesmen and their victims.
And then Mick Randall arrived, with an unusually pretty girl.
He looked round as he left his car—a Triumph Sports—and as they saw the expression on his face the two watchers were startled.
‘He’s having a rough time,’ said Curtis.
‘Breeze right up,’ agreed Davidson.
They were right. Mick Randall looked scared. His face was pale and his mouth was set tightly. He looked at his companion, without a smile.
‘Who’s the girl?’ asked Curtis.
‘Not sure,’ said Davidson, ‘but I’ve seen her before.’
Curtis watched, closely. Davidson took up the telephone and called Whitehall five fours, the then number of Department Z.
‘Well, Davidson?’ said Gordon Craigie, and Curtis could almost see the pipe drooping from the corner of his mouth.
‘Mick Randall at the saleroom,’ Davidson told him. ‘And looking glum. He’s with a girl. I think I ought to follow…’
‘I’ll send someone to relieve you,’ said Craigie.
One of the mysteries of Craigie’s organisation was the speed with which he could move his agents from one spot to another. Less than ten minutes after the telephone call, and while Mick Randall’s Triumph was waiting outside Number Three Dancer Street, a cheerful-looking man of some forty summers arrived at the office opposite. He asked Davidson whether that gentleman thought it was going to rain, and Davidson said that he didn’t think so, unless the wind changed.
‘Number Twenty-Seven,’ said the middle-aged man.
‘And I thought,’ said Curtis, mournfully, ‘that you were a respectable city broker with a wife and family.’
‘Browning’s worse than I,’ said Davidson, grinning cheerfully at Agent Twenty-Seven, whom the others knew well, ‘he daren’t even think of marriage. How’s that little blonde, old…’
‘Here comes Mick,’ interrupted Curtis. ‘With the girl. Don’t recognise her, do you?’
Browning looked out of the window as Davidson made for the door, and as Mick Randall and his companion came out of Persian Sales. ‘Yes,’ said the newcomer. ‘Scanling’s daughter.’
‘The political V.I.P.?’ murmured Curtis.
Davidson, meanwhile, was slipping into his Alfa-Romeo, which was parked in Oxford Street. Special permission for that parking had been obtained, and every policeman who patrolled the Street of Shops felt that he had been deprived of promotion.
Mick Randall’s Triumph turned out of Dancer Street; Davidson’s Alfa-Romeo followed. The journey did not last long. Randall pulled up in the first side street past Scanling’s Park Lane house, and hurried with his companion into the house. Davidson, waiting nearby, noticed a Daimler standing outside.
Very soon, a fat man whose face was half-hidden by his upturned collar hurried from the house and into the waiting car. During the two seconds in which he was on view, Wally Davidson felt the first real rush of excitement since he had started this job.
The Daimler moved off, towards Hyde Park Corner.
The Alfa-Romeo followed. It took them twenty minutes to reach Victoria, and another twenty to reach Chelsea Town Hall. Then the Daimler began to gather speed.
Davidson had managed to scrawl a message during the first part of the run, and at Sloane Square he handed it to a policeman, who read:
Supt. Miller, S.Y. Following Daimler XZY 71823 in F.N. LOND. 81. Looks a Portsmouth Road job.
‘What was the man like?’ demanded Miller, on the telephone.
‘A rather big man, sir. Dressed in grey. Looked as if—as if he’d been out all night,’ said the policeman, in a rush of inspiration.
‘Thanks.’ Miller picked up another telephone as he replaced the receiver of the first.
‘Craigie,’ he said, ‘I’ve had a message from someone who sounds like Davidson.’
Within ten minutes three cars, with two of Craigie’s men in each, started to break all speed rules between Whitehall and Putney. Miller, meanwhile, had radioed a call for the Daimler and Alfa-Romeo—for observation.
At Putney the first of the three following cars pulled up, and the constable on duty at the bridge was questioned. Yes, a Daimler and an Alfa-Romeo had passed, about a quarter of an hour before.
‘They went straight up the High Street, sir,’ he volunteered.
‘The Portsmouth Road for a pint,’ said the driver.
At Kingston the message had been received, and the two watched cars had a lead of ten minutes over the pursuers. At Esher, after a drive along the by-pass that caused six retired military gentlemen to write to The Times, the three cars had closed up to within a few miles of their quarry.
‘We’ll be in time for supper,’ said the cheerful driver of the first, whose name was St. John Dane and who was called—blasphemously according to many people—Righteous.
He spotted Davidson’s car a mile outside Cobham, and as he roared past it—for Righteous was driving a supercharged Bentley, new version—he bellowed:
‘Going to rain?’
‘If the wind changes!’
‘What a clever man Craigie is,’ remarked Dane to his companion, a very small man whose name was Besset and whose clothes and features somehow achieved the same height of immaculate neatness.
Besset grunted.
The Bentley passed Daimler XZY 71823 before entering Ripley. Each of its occupants knew that the curtains were drawn, and believed that the driver of the Daimler knew nothing of the cavalcade in front of and behind it.
The big car turned left, two miles outside Godalming, crossed a narrow bridge near the main road and swung into the drive of a small manor house. The change from the speeding to the running to earth had its complications, but the three cars that Craigie had sent roared past the entrance to that house. Davidson had kept on the main road, from where he could see the white drive-posts of Serle’s hiding place.
Within an hour, the inns of that district were invaded. Three of them agreed to lodge pairs of amiable-looking young gentlemen for the night, and the next night if necessary. One such inn, the Blue Boar, was within a hundred yards of Serle’s house. Dane and Besset staked their claim there.
After conferring with the others, Davidson scorched Londonwards. He was filled with the hope that he had made the first progressive step for eight or nine days.
He was right; and the step was more important than he imagined.
13
A Meeting and a Murder
‘So Serle’s at the White House, near Godalming?’ said Jim Kenyon, seated in the office that was rapidly becoming his second home. ‘And he’s being watched?’
‘No doubt on that score,’ said Craigie. ‘Davidson did very well, there.’
‘I don’t like the Mick Randall aspect,’ grumbled Kenyon.
‘You’ll be seeing him tonight,’ Crai
gie told him. ‘See what you can get out of him. The key question is, what was Serle doing with Scanling? And Gowsby-Loam?’
‘Was he there?’
‘All the afternoon,’ said Craigie.
It was nearly six o’clock on the day of the chase, and in Department Z there was a greater optimism than for a week past. Serle was in their sights again. The vaguer issue seemed to lose importance.
‘There’s just one thing,’ said Craigie, quietly, ‘that might give us some help, Jim. Here…’
He passed over a typescript, and Kenyon read it quickly. It was a report on the activities of the two politicians who, it was discovered, knew Arnold Serle, and for whom Serle had sufficient regard to risk a daylight visit during a time when he himself was being sought high and low.
In every phase the two careers differed—with one small exception. Scanling was president and Gowsby-Loam vice-president of the New Age Party.
‘The New Age Party,’ murmured Kenyon, thoughtfully. ‘A kind of Boy Scout movement, isn’t it?’
‘It was,’ Craigie agreed. ‘But I’ve had reports that the membership is getting stronger and more responsible. Still, so far, it’s been as blameless as the Scouts. No political fever, no social reform-bug.’
‘Hmmm,’ murmured Kenyon, lighting a cigarette.
‘Its branches are everywhere,’ Craigie added. ‘I should say it has a registered membership of close on a million—and that’s getting close to the party caucus figures.’
Craigie’s opinion of party politics was low.
Kenyon tapped the list of cricketers they had been reading. ‘Will you find out if they’re members?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll join a branch.’
‘Go to a meeting first,’ Craigie advised him. ‘There are half a dozen in London this week, and the public is admitted.’ He passed over a four-page newspaper: a typical party political news-sheet. ‘You’ll find them there.’
Kenyon folded the paper, put it in his pocket, and left Whitehall.
When he reached Regent’s Park he found Mary and the Chesters in. And knew, as soon as he looked at the girl, that there was something the matter. In the past week she had seemed to lose a great deal of her anxiety. The companionship of Diane and the genial idiocy of Aubrey had cheered her. But now….
‘What is it?’ asked Kenyon, simply.
In the past week, too, an understanding had developed between them, one Kenyon found it difficult to define. He knew that he was in love. It was altogether a different proposition than he had imagined.
‘Mick,’ said Mary, with a little sigh. ‘He’s getting jumpy, Jim. He’s excited one moment and down in the dumps the next.’
‘Young love,’ murmured Kenyon, with a more diffident smile than he could have found two weeks before.
‘You mean Irene Scanling?’
‘I’ve heard it rumoured,’ said Kenyon.
‘I like the girl, but—I think she’s as jumpy as he is.’
‘Has he known her long?’ asked Jim.
‘Nearly a year. They met at some meeting down at Greylands. The Scanlings used to live at Yeovil for three months of the year.’
‘A meeting?’ murmured Kenyon, and suddenly his eyes were hard.
‘Yes, Jim.’ Mary seemed to sense the sudden tightening of his muscles.
‘I was thinking of a little crowd I’ve got to drop in and see some time this week. There’s a bloke interesting me and interesting himself in the Chelsea branch of the New Age crowd.’
‘New Age!’ Mary’s eyes gleamed suddenly. ‘That’s it—Mick’s been a member for years. And I’m sure that’s where they met.’
‘Is it, by Jove!’ said Kenyon. ‘Well, I’ll keep my eyes open, Blimp.’
‘Blimp?’ echoed Mary. Then blushing furiously, she laughed. ‘I thought everyone had forgotten that…’
‘You forget,’ Kenyon told her with great solemnity, ‘how I used to dangle you on—or is it from?—my knee, and call you Blimp.’
‘Who’ve you been talking to?’ she demanded.
‘Your brothers and sisters.’
Mary looked puzzled.
‘I mean,’ said Kenyon, with still greater solemnity, ‘the angels.’
They smiled, and then suddenly hugged each other.
‘I—I say,’ said Aubrey Chester, a minute later, red-faced and stammering nineteen-to-the-dozen, ‘I d-didn’t kn-know—I’m s-sorry—I-I…’
‘Why not congratulate us?’ asked Kenyon, gently.
‘C-C-Con…?’ muttered Aubrey. ‘I-I say, damn it! I do! So will Di. Di!’
‘He hadn’t said anything to me about it,’ Mary was saying demurely, ten minutes later. ‘But I suppose the damage is done.’
‘It is indeed,’ said Kenyon, firmly. ‘And I’ve witnesses. You can’t lend me a ring, Di, can you?’
Aubrey said that he could find a magnum of ‘93, he thought, and it was well worth it.
For an hour, Jim Kenyon was very, very happy.
At half-past eight that night, Sir Joseph Scanling rose to address a meeting of the New Age Party in Chelsea. It was primarily a gathering of youth, and the politician made it clear that he was appealing to his audience as the men and women of the future. His powerful but pleasant voice filled the large hall, undistorted by the encircling amplifiers.
Jim Kenyon, sitting at the back of the hall with Mary, listened with considerable interest.
The speaker was telling his audience what fine people they were. He spent twenty minutes repeating the same thing in a variety of words and phrases, and another ten minutes in saying that there was always the possibility of a sudden national emergency, and with it the onus of helping their country.
‘Remember the Great War,’ intoned Sir Joseph, his incipient paunch emphasised as he squared his shoulders and held his hands behind his back, ‘and remember the suddenness of that emergency. Had your mothers and fathers any idea of the catastrophe about to burst upon the world? Did they know that…’
And so on.
‘He does it beautifully,’ murmured Kenyon to Mary. ‘Watch the crowd. He’s got ‘em where he wants ‘em.’
‘Where does he want them?’
‘That’s the problem,’ he admitted, wryly.
‘… You will not be found wanting,’ cried Sir Joseph vibrantly. ‘At all times and in…’
‘Who wants annovver war?’
The interruption, the first of that evening, came from a burly looking man a few yards away from Kenyon. He was trembling, apparently with that pent-up emotion and nervousness of a man unused to the limelight but compelled by circumstance or dogged determination to stand in it.
‘My friend,’ Sir Joseph said, ‘none of us wants another war. I am not talking of the emergency of battle. I think of the economic instability of the world at the present day, and I am warning you, all of you, that England may be caught up in the maelstrom of international dissatisfaction. We must stand together…’
‘All I says is,’ persisted the burly man, ‘that we don’t want annovver war.’
He sat down.
A hundred people looked at him; some curiously, some with hostility. Kenyon sensed that the interruption had been unusual, and that the meetings of the New Age Party were, as a rule, conducted without disturbance.
For the next ten minutes Kenyon forgot the speaker and studied the audience.
There was something in that hall, in those people, that was different from anything he had seen before. Political meetings, church assemblies and even sports crowds, had one big thing in common; they fidgeted. Some less than others, of course, and always in proportion to the size of the attraction; but always there was a constant rustle of movement.
Tonight, there was no such rustle.
On nearly every face there was an expression of rapt attention. The audience looked, man for man, as though it was enjoying itself.
Kenyon began to look at the hands of the people near him. He had deliberately delayed this examinat
ion. He had wanted to view the meeting—and Sir Joseph—with a clear mind, and he had learned that it was impossible to keep a clear mind when reminded of the mark of the crescent.
But now he looked at the hands.
The peculiar coldness that started at his spine crept through his limbs. On each hand as he looked, he saw the mark. He could see clearly the hands of twenty to thirty people, and not one was free of it.
Kenyon realised that he had made a tremendous discovery. If every man and woman, boy and girl in this hall was tainted with the drug, it was safe to assume that there was a direct connection between the New Age Party and the mark of the crescent.
And the New Age Party, Craigie had said, had at least a million members in England. It had branches in every town, small or large. It was almost as widespread as the Scout Movement.
Kenyon wiped his forehead.
‘Warm?’ asked Mary.
‘Stuffy in here,’ said Kenyon. ‘But I’d like to stick it out. Not much of a celebration, my dear.’
‘I’m here, you’re next to me,’ Mary pointed out. And her eyes said: ‘What more do we want?’
Kenyon squeezed her hand, and looked back towards the platform. As he did so he noticed a dozen faces turned towards him; he was being rebuked for talking.
He saw the hands of the burly man who had shouted, a few minutes before; the fingers were clear enough…
Then he had a shock.
The man’s nails were dirty, and so were his hands, but they had not the ingrained grime that might have been expected.
‘Well, well, well!’ murmured Kenyon, sotto voce.
‘All of us will be ready…’ intoned Sir Joseph Scanling, for the fifth time. ‘All of us…’
‘We don’t want any more war!’
There was an ugly murmur of disapproval. The burly one stood up again, glaring at the platform. But for those hands Kenyon would have put him down as a dull-witted man, made obstinate by drink.
‘Shut up,’ grunted a well-dressed man nearby.
‘Siddown,’ demanded a plump matron.
‘Turn him out,’ muttered a lad.