by John Creasey
‘Ask Wally to make for Glinsea, pronto,‘ said Kenyon, keeping his voice steady. ‘We want to unload the invalids. I’ve got to make Randall talk, somehow. We must know.’
Toby nodded; his eyes gleamed.
‘Good man,’ he said, simply.
Kenyon was hearing again Irene Scanling’s scream; but the voice was Mary’s.
20
Colonel Wyett Pulls a Gun
Glinsea, as a meeting-place, had been carefully selected. For one thing, it was not a popular resort, being provided with plenty of mud, no sand, and a Town Council bereft of initiative. The railway station was more than a mile from the sea, and the bus services were mostly imaginary. It was the one place in England, Kenyon believed, where it was a thousand-to-one against banging into acquaintances; moreover, he had discovered it to be one of the few towns without a branch of the New Age Party.
At half-past two that day, two cars drew up outside the Seaview Boarding House, and several large young men stepped out. Two more were helped from the cars to the front door, and one man was actually carried between two others. There was no crowd of interested spectators, although a nursemaid and a red-cheeked infant gazed open-mouthed.
‘At me,’ said Timothy Arran, modestly.
‘Infant to infant,’ grunted Toby.
‘Be friends,’ chided Martin Best.
Most of the able-bodied men and all the invalids of Kenyon’s party were rapidly settled in the rooms that had been reserved, and several telephone conversations took place with recently installed residents at surrounding boarding-houses. There was a general air of boyish expectancy hovering over the young men who had descended on Glinsea with the avowed object of waking the place up. After those telephone conversations, boyishness vanished.
‘Distinctly grim,’ murmured an exquisitely dressed young man whom readers of illustrated papers would have recognised as Lord James Lenneton.
‘I wish Kenyon would come,’ said Timothy Arran, who was standing on the promenade and staring seawards, rather startled that Seaview Boarding House actually lived up to its name.
‘Where is he?’ asked Lenneton.
‘With Davidson and Curtis.’
He did not enlarge on the subject. He knew that Kenyon was starting a job that was distasteful to him. He was trying to force information from Sir Michael Randall.
Curtis, whose humour was generally of the kind known as ‘bluff’, called it ‘the performance’.
With Kenyon and Davidson, this genial giant watched the other two carloads of visitors leaving the landing-place. The last car was to take the Colonel, the diplomat and the three remaining agents to Glinsea in due course. Meanwhile, Davidson drove away from the town and pulled up the car at the side of a lonely country road.
Colonel Wyett looked uneasy. He was blinking a great deal, and several times he started to speak, but thought better of it. Sir Michael Randall hardly seemed to know where he was going.
‘Well,’ said Kenyon, steadying his voice with an effort. ‘It’s time you talked.’
‘Talked?’ muttered Randall. His face blanched. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘No!’
‘We’ve got to know who the Boss Man is—and you know. Don’t you?’
‘Ye-es,’ Randall uttered, ‘I suppose I do. But I can’t! Think of Mary—of Mary.’
‘That’s very nearly all I can think about,’ said Kenyon, in a flat voice. ‘But I want that name, Sir Michael—and I’m going to have it.’
His tone seemed to make Randall realise that he was dealing with desperate men– Wyett realised it, too. The Colonel muttered:
‘Don’t make him, Kenyon. Don’t. You’ll regret it.’
‘Why?’ demanded Kenyon, but again there was a terrible heaviness inside him. Who was the leader of the New Age Party? Who was using the drug to such terrible purpose?
Wyett was desperately anxious that he shouldn’t know. Randall was as anxious—but Randall was thinking of his daughter. Was the Colonel thinking of Mary, too, or was he afraid to name the man?
The latter, Kenyon thought, and believed he knew why.
‘Listen,’ he said roughly. ‘You both know what I want. You can both give me the information. I’ve brought you out here, several miles from any village or town, so that I can do what I like with you. If I have to make you shout—to scream…’
‘You mean—torture?’
Kenyon nodded, heavily.
‘I’m going to have that name. Don’t you realise what’s happening? Do you think that because neither of you have the moral courage to defy Serle and his gang, they’re going to win? Do you realise where you’re plunging us? The country? Do you realise…’
Randall was deathly white.
‘I know,’ he gasped, ‘but I can’t speak, I daren’t!’
Kenyon looked at Curtis and Davidson.
‘Hold him,’ he said.
The two big men went forward. They had no stomach for their job, but…
And then Kenyon had very nearly the biggest shock of his life.
‘That’s enough,’ said Colonel Martin Wyett, in a high-pitched voice. ‘Put your hands up, all of you!’
Kenyon swung round to find himself looking into the muzzle of an automatic. In Wyett’s face there was a hardness that Kenyon had never seen before.
‘You!’ gasped Kenyon.
‘Me,’ said Wyett, thin-lipped. ‘Curtis—Davidson—keep your hands up high. I’ll shoot you—and I’m far enough away to get all three of you.’
It was true. Wyett was standing nearly ten yards away from them, his eyes glittering.
Wyett!
Never for a moment had Kenyon dreamed of this. He had known that Wyett was a victim of the drug. He had guessed that Wyett knew something. But that the man should have done this…
It seemed that there was only one explanation.
Wyett seemed to read his thoughts.
A change had come over the Colonel. Where before he had seemed merely impotent, now he was dangerous.
Arnold Serle!
It was absurd, Kenyon thought, and he grinned, although he felt sick. Serle and Wyett could not be one and the same; they had been together, both on view, at Greylands; and that morning, at the White House.
‘I didn’t really want to do this,’ said Wyett, ‘but I couldn’t see Sir Michael ill-treated. Could I, Michael?’
Randall seemed to have fallen into a stupor. He was blinking at Kenyon as though wondering why he was holding his hands above his head.
‘Michael doesn’t seem very well,’ muttered Wyett, softly. ‘You haven’t tasted Tallin, have you, Kenyon?’
‘Tallin?’ Kenyon’s eyes narrowed.
‘The name of the drug,’ Wyett said. ‘I’d forgotten that you hadn’t gone even that far in your investigation. It’s a very interesting drug, Kenyon. In small doses it has a soothing effect, and yet tends to make its devotees—I rather like that word, don’t you?—quite wonderfully tractable. In more concentrated form its effect is different. I have tasted it, in its concentrated form. It is most unpleasant, Kenyon, and it’s worse when you are forced to go without it. I don’t intend taking that chance again.’
Kenyon listened, his eyes narrowed. He would have liked to risk a leap at the Colonel; but the odds were hopeless.
‘It has occurred to me,’ continued Wyett, ‘that if I can deliver Sir Michael up to—er—Mr. Serle, after he has been so nearly man-handled by you, it will put me in favour with our future Government. And you have provided me with a wonderful opportunity.’
‘So you know what’s going on,’ said Kenyon.
‘Most of it,’ replied Wyett, smoothly. ‘More, perhaps, than you. I might as well admit,’ he went on, and there was a peculiar glint in his eyes, ‘that I fought against it for a while. But once an—er—devotee, always a devotee. Eh?’
‘And you haven’t the courage to keep fighting for your country?’
‘I’ve the sense not to keep fighting a losing battle. But we’re wasting time…’
As he spoke, he moved towards the car. At the same moment Wally Davidson dropped his arms and hurled himself at the Colonel.
Just for a split-second Kenyon thought there was a chance.
Wyett’s eyes glittered. His finger touched the trigger of his automatic, and a bullet smashed into Davidson’s shin. Wally went down; Curtis, halfway towards Wyett, drew back; Kenyon stopped in his tracks.
‘And very wise,’ said Wyett. His voice rose. ‘Randall. Take everything out of their pockets.’
Sir Michael Randall looked vaguely at the two men who were standing there, arms held high. At a barked command from Wyett, he obeyed. He pulled an automatic from Kenyon’s pocket, and a serviceable knife.
‘Throw them in the car,’ ordered Wyett, ‘and get Curtis’s.’
Within three minutes both men were disarmed. Wyett bent down quickly and took a gun from the injured Davidson’s pocket. He looked rather strangely at Kenyon.
‘I’ll give your regards to Mary,’ he said.
Randall’s eyes blazed suddenly.
‘Mary?’ he snapped. ‘Martin, if you know where…’
‘You’ll see her within four hours,’ promised the Colonel.
Randall stepped into the car.
Almost at the same moment the sound of a motor horn pierced the comparative silence. Kenyon’s heart leapt. Wyett slipped into the driving-seat. The car moved off; and as it moved, Wyett turned in his seat.
Thirty yards away he saw a second car, with Timothy Arran at the wheel. Wyett raised his gun. Three times flame spat from it; twice a bullet sank deeply into rubber. Two loud reports told of the bursting of the front tyres of the Arrans’ car.
Then Wyett trod on the accelerator. The big car leapt away, and Kenyon saw through the rear window the back of Randall’s head.
‘Bless his heart,’ Kenyon muttered, and there was a glint in his eyes.
‘Bless who?’ demanded Toby, who had climbed quickly, if dejectedly, from the car.
‘The Colonel,’ said Kenyon.
‘From what I could see of it,’ complained Arran, crossly, ‘you should curse him and bless me.’
‘But he could have shot me,’ said Kenyon.
‘He probably would have done, if it hadn’t occurred to me that you’d been a hell of a long time.’
‘You don’t see the point,’ said Kenyon, sensing something he didn’t understand in the strange turn of events. ‘Wyett should have killed me; and he didn’t.’
‘Of all the ungrateful…’ began Toby.
‘You still don’t see it,’ said Kenyon. ‘He missed a golden opportunity, and it’s not the kind of thing that happens every day. You turned up, like a guardian angel—but then, one learns to expect that of you.’
Toby Arran looked puzzled, and then he actually blushed. Kenyon grinned again.
‘Look after Wally,’ he said to Timothy Arran, and walked towards the usually weary Davidson and knelt by his side. The shin bone was chipped, and a few shreds of cloth were buried in the wound.
‘Surgeon for that,’ said Kenyon, quietly. ‘Let’s give you a hand up, Wally. We’ll be at Glinsea in a brace of shakes.’
Davidson forced a grin, although the pain in his leg was excruciating. Timothy and Toby Arran entered the front seats of the car. They were puzzled.
It almost seemed that Kenyon had gone off his rocker. Surely that wasn’t happening. Of course, he’d taken it badly about the girl….
Kenyon, leaning back in the car, was smiling.
Timothy Arran looked round, and muttered:
‘He’s got something up his sleeve, Toby.’
‘I shouldn’t be surprised,’ admitted the ugly one.
21
Mary Randall Feels Despair
At half-past six that evening, Mr. Arnold Serle entered a room that he was beginning to hate. His fat face was twisted in an unpleasant grin. He limped a little, as a result of a chance bullet through the fleshy part of his leg, and his left hand was bandaged. He had not escaped scatheless from the affair at the White House.
About that affair he believed that he had a grievance.
Everything had worked as well as he had expected. The ruse to get Kenyon to Godalming had succeeded. But for that aeroplane move, Kenyon must have been finished. As it was, the big man was as dangerous as ever.
And then the man who controlled the destiny of Arnold Serle had also turned—or tried to turn—the tables. He had ordered the wholesale shooting, and had endangered Serle’s life. It was only luck that had saved the cricketer, who had been so rattled at this treachery that for a few minutes after the escape of the rescue party in the second plane, he had actually felt a bitter satisfaction.
And then he had remembered that Kenyon was still at large.
It was his sense of grievance that was uppermost as he entered the room. He was still more annoyed when he found that he would have to wait. He smoked three cigarettes, one after the other, and the scowl on his face deepened.
The door opened, suddenly, and the great man entered.
He looked, if possible, more distinguished than ever, as he offered Serle his hand—a rare condescension—and congratulated him on his escape that morning.
‘You hardly contributed towards it,’ said Serle, stiffly.
The other smiled, and clipped the end off a cigar. There was a hardness in his smile—a frostiness.
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I was reluctantly compelled to endanger you, and another very good friend.’
Serle looked puzzled.
‘I mean Wyett.’
Serle still looked puzzled.
‘But only this morning,’ he snapped, ‘Wyett was making it as difficult as he could for me…’
‘You obviously didn’t handle him properly,’ said the other, ‘or else you failed to understand him. He arrived here a short while ago.’
‘You mean—he escaped from Kenyon?’
‘He did indeed. And it seems safe to say that he did so at a very opportune moment. But that is by the way. Kenyon and his men were at Glinsea, on the Essex coast, at three o’clock this afternoon. I have already telephoned instructions to the local police, and had the Chief Constable confirm my orders, but I’m not sure they will be enforced. Kenyon has a remarkable way of banging his head against a brick wall and wearing through to the other side. So make sure his men cannot move.’
‘Supposing they’ve gone?’ asked Serle.
‘In that case,’ said the distinguished-looking man, ‘you must find them.’
At half-past seven that evening, Mary Randall, nearly distraught with anxiety and with something that seemed almost too terrible to believe, heard the key of the door of her room turn. She stared towards the door as it slowly opened.
Early that morning she had been at her father’s hotel. She had left with him after a messenger had called, purporting to bring a message from Mick. She had feared the worst from the first, but her father had refused to believe that there was anything suspicious about the message.
And that was all she knew. She had been drugged while in the car. When she recovered consciousness, she had found herself in this room. She had no idea where it was, for the only window looked over an unfamiliar back yard. The crowded houses and the dingy roofs suggested it was London.
Her anxiety might not have been so acute but for the fact that Arnold Serle had visited her.
Serle had been smarting from the affair of the morning, although she knew nothing about that. He told her, brutally, where Mick Randall was, how Mick’s Irene had suffered and would suffer. Arnold Serle, in fact, had talked more than was wise. And if ever Mary Randall had been frightened, she was frightened then. She had seen Wyett, under the drug’s influence; and now she knew that Mick was under it. And, possibly, her father.
And—Jim Kenyon.
A dozen times that weary afternoon she wished she had taken Jim’s advice more literally. He had warned her, not once but a hundred times, about going out alone. But she had visited her fat
her that morning, hardly realising the need for telling the Chesters where and why she was going.
If she had acted on Jim’s advice, she would have been safe. It was not her own danger that worried her; she guessed that her capture would be used to trap Jim. And at that time he needed complete freedom of thought and mind.
But it had happened. She could almost see the smile on his face, the shrug of his square shoulders, and the casual:
‘The only thing to do, once you’re in, is to get out.’
He would say that, or something like it, and he would never stop trying to find a way out.
But even if she was free, even if she had still been at the Chesters’ home, was it possible that Jim could have done anything to stop Serle?
She didn’t know, but in her heart she doubted it. She knew, since Serle had talked to her, just what the New Age Party was. She knew, too, that her father had been recalled from Paris because he was not amenable to the suggestions made by Serle’s leaders.
Serle’s words, and his brutal laugh, seemed to echo about the room.
‘He’ll pay for it, my dear—they’ll all pay for it. And Kenyon more than ever—when I get him.’
In those last four words had been the one grain of hope for the girl. ‘When I get him.’ At least Jim was still free.
She was very near prostration when the door opened, at half-past seven.
‘You!’ she exclaimed. ‘Thank goodness…’
Colonel Martin Wyett entered the room, and behind him she saw the Rev. Denbigh Morse. Just for a moment she thought that it meant rescue.
And then she saw that Wyett was looking sheepish, and that Denbigh Morse was avoiding her eyes. She watched them as they entered the room and closed the door behind them.
‘We just came to tell you,’ said Wyett, ‘that you will be all right, my dear. We will look after you, and your father.’
‘Daddy?’ said Mary, and her arms went out, supplicatingly. ‘You’ll look after him, won’t you?’
‘We’ll do everything we possibly can,’ promised Wyett.
Mary was suddenly very still. She stared at the two men, who, until a few weeks before, she had known only as two lovable, rather old-fashioned relatives of the highest integrity. She saw something on their faces that had never been there before.