by John Creasey
‘You’re not’—she faltered, her lips quivering—’you’re not on—on Serle’s side, are you?’
‘You’ve nothing to worry about,’ said Wyett, as though repeating a lesson.
‘Nothing,’ echoed Denbigh Morse.
Mary stared at them, horror in her eyes, dread on her face.
‘Dear God!’ she said brokenly. ‘Men like you…!’
The Rev. Denbigh Morse cleared his throat. For a moment he looked more like the old, kindly clergyman whom she had known so well. There was a suspicion of a smile on his lips.
‘It’s not as bad as you think, my dear. After all—a revolutionary change like this—amazing that there will be such little bloodshed.’
‘It’s just that’—Wyett coughed—’it’s just that you and—one or two of your friends—have been unlucky, my dear. It’s the personal issue that’s worrying you. The wider one, the national one, is apt to be forgotten. Try to bear up.’
‘Bear up!‘ Shocked, incredulous, Mary’s voice carried horror and heartbreak. ‘Go! I tell you. Go. Go. I can’t stand it—you—talking like that—agreeing with these—these devils!’
She flung herself on to the bed and lay there, sobbing, as Wyett and Denbigh Morse turned and left the room.
She hardly knew how long she stayed huddled there, shivering and crying. But gradually the heaviness in her heart eased. Dull and inert, she moved at last to the window, staring emptily out. Then she turned to the table.
Something lay on the surface, a small slip of paper that had not been there before the two men had visited her. Even at that distance she recognised the bold hand of the Rev Denbigh Morse.
Breathlessly, she snatched up the note and read:
The room will be unlocked at three o’clock. A car will be waiting outside.
22
Kenyon Is Wanted
Probably the two most worried men in London during the critical days that followed the complete subjection of the Powers That Were to the influence of the drug Tallin were Sir William Fellowes and Superintendent Miller.
Miller kept telling himself he couldn’t believe it. But he knew it was true. He knew the real manner of Sir Joseph Scanling’s death, and the way it had been hushed up. He heard from Craigie, who warned him to expect trouble in the near future; and a few hours afterwards he realised what Craigie meant.
On the morning following the affair at Glinsea and the mysterious visit of Denbigh Morse and Colonel Wyett to Mary Randall, the copy of the Police Gazette was delivered, as usual, to the Superintendent.
Kenyon’s face seemed to stare up at him, and there was that curve at the corners of the big man’s lips that at times had annoyed Miller to a point of fury. But now…!
The caption read:
Wanted for the murder of Ali Achmed Bey and Mohammed Bey at the White House, Godalming.
There followed a full description of Kenyon.
Miller threw the paper aside. A moment later a uniformed sergeant entered his office.
‘Sir William is asking for you, sir.’
Miller stood up, and the sergeant disappeared speedily. Miller, who had his vanity, caught a glimpse of himself in a small piece of looking-glass standing on the top of a filing cabinet. He was scowling and looked like murder; and he knew why the sergeant had hurried.
Sir William Fellowes, poker-faced as ever, told him to shut the door. Then:
‘You’ve seen the Gazette?’
‘I’d like to…’ began Miller, and then he remembered where he was, and stopped.
A grim smile played at the corners of Fellowes’ lips.
‘We’re agreed,’ he said. ‘Now listen, Miller.’
Miller listened, for ten minutes. During that time his Chief’s voice continued, low-pitched, very crisp and effective.
‘You’ve got all that?’ asked Fellowes.
‘Everything,’ said Miller, and his rather dusty face seemed to take on a sheen.
‘It’s risky,’ warned Fellowes.
‘Not so risky as things might be in a couple of months’ time,’ said Miller.
Craigie lifted the receiver of his telephone and said crisply: ‘Yes.’ The Chief of Department Z looked very much the same as usual and he was still smoking; but those who knew him well would have seen the lines at his eyes, and the grimness at his mouth.
‘Fellowes,’ said the man at the other end of the wire. ‘Miller’s taken it on.’
‘Fine,’ muttered Craigie, and he spoke as though he was afraid of being overheard. ‘Not a move until midnight. Kenyon’s insistent on that, and I think he’s right.’
‘Don’t let him show himself,’ warned Fellowes.
‘He’ll be careful,’ said Craigie.
He replaced the receiver, and stared at the ceiling for ten minutes on end. A hundred thoughts flashed through his mind, and the chief of them concerned the effort he was making that night.
He was making! Kenyon had planned it. Kenyon had telephoned him, several hours before, and had presented a plan, cut and dried.
Craigie knew it was good. There was only one thing that it wouldn’t do—providing, of course, that it succeeded—and that was to discover the identity of the man behind the New Age Party. Craigie felt that if they could get at that man, half their troubles would be over. Through the drug he controlled his organisation; if he was removed, Craigie, or Fellowes, or anyone who preferred a Government elected by a sane populace uninfluenced by dope, could take over the reins. The New Age Party would not be smashed; the coming election would be fought, but the mass vote of the New Age Party would go where Craigie wanted it, and not as Serle ordained.
Not Serle; the other man. The unknown.
After the surprising affair outside Glinsea, there had been a sudden exodus from that resort, an exodus much more sudden than the inrush of the past few days. Young men who had been quite content, apparently, to watch the sea lapping the mud, changed their minds and went off, in twos, threes and fours, towards London.
Only a very few of them actually arrived in London.
Eight of them, with Curtis in charge, stayed at a ‘little pub’ near Epping. The pub was a twenty-bedroomed hotel owned by a distant relative of the genial Robert—who said, during the afternoon and evening, that he wouldn’t have stayed there if he’d known what the beer was like.
Eight other young men—including the Arran twins who argued intermittently as to who was O.C.—drove across country to Somerset. It was late when they reached the village of Greylands; but the Arrans, who knew the district well, had telephoned for accommodation and had no difficulty in reserving it.
Another party of eight, including Dodo Trale and Martin Best, made for Godalming, but they stayed as far away as practicable from the Blue Boar. They had no desire to be recognised, but they wanted to be close at hand for the anticipated spot of bother at the White House.
Kenyon, meanwhile, had hired a Daimler and an ambulance. After a great deal of haggling, he persuaded the local hospital to allow the ambulance to be driven to London and in it he placed Ronald Knight and Righteous Dane. In the Daimler, which he himself drove, he put Irene Scanling and Mick Randall. They set off as soon as he had arranged for the two wounded men to be taken to the Westland Hospital, and reached the Chester place in Regent’s Park about the time that Craigie and Fellowes spoke to each other over the telephone.
He knew he was taking a desperate chance in driving through London, but it had to be taken. He pulled a cap low over his eyes, and turned up the collar of his loose-fitting mackintosh.
The drive proved uneventful. He was admitted to the Mausoleum, with Mick and the young girl.
Both of the younger folk were walking and acting as if in a state of semi-consciousness. Kenyon was dreading the time when the craving for the drug would come again, but it had to be faced; there were some precautions he could take, and after that it was out of his hands.
Aubrey, whose Brer Rabbit chin was very nearly ousted by his aggressive determination to ‘do so
mething’, was pounding up and down Diane’s sitting-room when Kenyon, ignoring the butler, barged in. Aubrey stopped his pacing and stared as though he was looking at a ghost.
‘J-Jim!’ he gasped, ‘I-I was af-af-afraid y-y…’
Kenyon shut the door behind him, and said quietly:
‘Steady, my lad. I’ve a lot to do and a very little time to do it in.’
He gave them a sketchy account of the situation, as he saw it. Aubrey Chester was speechless. Diane’s lovely face was very troubled. She had passed through dangerous times herself, and had once said, half-laughing, half-serious, that when any of Craigie’s men wanted a temporary mother’s wing, they could call on her.
‘You really think it’s as bad as that?’ she asked.
‘I’m not exaggerating at all,’ said Kenyon. ‘Now! This is the last place they’ll expect to find Mick and the girl—even if they trouble to look for them. I don’t know just how important they are, yet; it depends on how much they know, and neither is in a fit state for talking.’
‘We’ll look after them,’ Diane promised.
‘A mother’s wing of proved downiness,’ said Kenyon, with a quick smile.
He knew that if Serle did discover where the young couple were staying, the Chesters would be in the centre of the stage again. Serle would stop at nothing to get Kenyon, and if he believed he could do so through a third degree examination of the Chesters, he would not hesitate to try.
Kenyon looked at Aubrey a little anxiously, conscious of the heaviness of the burden he was placing on them.
‘Do you know Doc Little, the Auveley Street man?’ he asked.
Aubrey nodded.
‘Tell him what I’ve told you,’ said Kenyon. ‘He’ll do all he can. Get the kids into a top room; one where they won’t be heard if they shout…’
‘Are they likely to?’ asked Diane.
‘Afraid so.’
‘That’s the lot?’ said Aubrey, pressing his wife’s hand.
Kenyon nodded and stood up.
‘Just hold ‘em,’ he said. ‘And’—there was bleakness in his voice as he went on—’if Mary should turn up, watch her even more closely.’
Aubrey nodded again. Kenyon smiled at his friends, and went out, into the avenue.
Kenyon had made an interesting discovery that morning.
There were two county cricket matches in London, and another within twenty miles. With a few exceptions, all the players who had visited Greylands that season, and all the men whose names had been noted by Arnold Serle, figured in them.
Kenyon didn’t believe it was a coincidence. He was inclined to think that the fat man had known early in the season which counties were due to play in London at the end of August and, after the fixture lists had been made, had chosen his men. Kenyon felt sure that Serle wanted to get the men together—either to talk to them himself, or get someone else to address them.
Kenyon smiled grimly. If his plan worked, Arnold Serle would have a shock. And there was every reason why it should work. If there was one thing he regretted it was the fact that he would be unable to take any personal part in the scheme; it wasn’t wise to show himself in London.
Afterwards, he was glad that he had not committed himself. But towards twelve o’clock, he was on edge.
At twelve, things would start to happen.
All the time, he was tortured by thoughts of Mary. It was unbearable, having no idea where she was.
Had he known of the message she had received from Wyett and Denbigh Morse, he would have been no easier in his mind. He more than suspected that Wyett’s behaviour on the previous day had been a clever, but a definite, act. He doubted whether the Colonel owed his knowledge of the New Age and its drug entirely to circumstance. He even doubted whether the Colonel had ever suffered, as Mary believed.
Wyett had been at Greylands, on the day that had seen the beginning, for Kenyon, of the whole sorry business. Had Wyett been as innocent, then, as he had seemed? Or had his nervous, jumpy manner been a clever cloak? Had he deliberately given Mary the idea that he was suffering from the drug Tallin?
There was one thing which made Kenyon doubtful. He was sure that Wyett had drunk more whisky than was good for him, on that day at Greylands.
For the rest, it would have been easy for the Colonel to have acted a part during the affair at Godalming. True, he had been wounded, but it had been a leg wound, and superficial. Moreover, Serle had escaped. It was a strange fact that both should have escaped so easily.
In fact, Kenyon had been suspicious of the Godalming affray for some time. There had been no real barrage of fire; the plane party had been heavily outnumbered but it had taken the honours. True, Righteous Dane had been badly wounded; so had Ronald Knight.
The clock in the little restaurant where Kenyon spent the last hour before midnight struck twelve.
‘I wish I were there,’ he murmured to himself.
The ‘there’ meant any of a dozen places; it meant that things had started—that Miller, Fellowes, and Craigie were playing their dangerous parts in that dangerous game. It meant that the last, desperate endeavour to beat Tallin and the men who controlled it, had started.
An obsequious Italian waiter hovered near. Kenyon, rather desperately, ordered champagne. The waiter brought it; it was unexpectedly good, and Kenyon felt better. He paid a reasonable bill and gave an unreasonable tip; then he went into the streets.
He was in the Victoria district, not far from Glebe Road. Glebe Road—the one-time hiding-place of Arnold Serle, he reminded himself. He felt an urge to drive up to the West End, where most of the game was to be played that night. But Glebe Road was a counter-attraction.
It was possible that Serle still used the place. It was possible—just possible—that Mary was there.
Kenyon turned the nose of the Daimler towards that ill-lighted thoroughfare. As he drove he remembered the trip he had made here before. He remembered that it was soon after that taxi-ride that Mary had told him of the drug: it had been the first he had heard of it. He remembered the way in which she had said:
‘Jim—it can’t be you!’ when he had spoken to her from the darkness of his corner, and a smile curved his lips at the memory.
Then he turned into Glebe Road—and the smile disappeared in a flash.
His muscles tensed, and there was a glint in his eyes. An Austin Cambridge was drawing away from the building in which Arnold Serle had a flat.
Colonel Martin Wyett was driving that Austin!
Gordon Craigie waited at his flat, not at the Whitehall office.
At twenty-past twelve the first message came in, from Horace Miller himself.
‘My raid’s all right,’ grunted Miller. ‘I’m going straight down to Godalming.’
‘Good man,’ said Craigie.
At twenty-five past a second call came, with the same type of message. Thereafter Craigie sat by the telephone with a pad in front of him, marking off names and addresses as he was given them.
One after another, they came.
One after another, that sultry August night, certain well-known and respected cricketers, playing in London, were knocked up and requested, quietly but firmly, to dress and to accompany the gentleman of the law. Protests were of no avail. The police were there, in uniform; they had warrants signed by the Commissioner of Police himself.
Some argued and blustered, some looked frightened, some took the thing lightly. None of them fully realised what it meant, for they were tools in Serle’s hands; he had given them good money for doing things that had seemed easy and honest. Those of them who troubled to think, knew that the money was too good for the jobs to be legal, but they had not questioned it.
Where the men lived in their own homes, or were staying with friends, it was a comparatively simple matter. Each man was taken into a police car, and the car was driven towards Godalming. Here and there, where a spirited protest against being taken out of London was made, a revolver induced submission.
Raid
after raid went through. Only those larger hotels, where half-a-dozen men were staying together, presented real difficulty, but the plans had been made with cunning; a strong force of police carried out the raid; the weight of numbers proved a deciding factor.
That every policeman was working directly against the orders of the then Home Secretary mattered nothing. Sir William Fellowes was officially the Chief of Police. He had certain orders that forbade him to help Craigie; if he chose to ignore them, the blame was his.
Fellowes had ignored them, completely….
By three o’clock that night, the White House, near Godalming, was literally alive with men whose names enlivened the sporting pages of the daily papers. There were more runs in that house, said Timothy Arran, than in the whole of Australia; Timothy was a patriot.
The first approach to the house had been made by an Inspector from the Yard, with three car loads of uniformed police. The servants—especially those dark-faced servants of Arnold Serle—had been completely hoodwinked. They had been given to understand that they were now working with the police, and when a man was called aside, it was believed that the errand was a friendly one. Actually, each man was handcuffed; the servants’ hall at the White House grew overcrowded, and tempers frayed. But the temper of Horace Miller, who had taken the first party, grew very sunny.
At four o’clock, the last party appeared. Close on their heels came Sir William Fellowes and Gordon Craigie.
And then the interrogations began.
Every man was questioned. A statement of every time he had worked with Serle was obtained from him. Everything he had done for Serle was admitted; here and there they met obstinacy, but for the most part the job was easy.
And the result almost stunned Craigie—and Fellowes, and Miller. For Serle’s campaign had been worldwide; more especially, dominionwide. And the cunning of it…!
‘Of course,’ said Craigie, ‘when this first started, if a Customs man had discovered the stuff and examined it, it would have been sent for analysis and its true nature revealed. It could never have spread. So they used these men.’