by John Creasey
He took the telephone, and asked a pertinent question. And learned, from one of the many agents of the New Age Party in London, of the raid Craigie and Fellowes had organised.
‘All right,’ he said, finally. ‘I will find where they are.’
As he replaced the receiver, he stood up. The expression on his face made even Serle shudder.
‘Kenyon will know,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk to him right away.’
And his listeners knew that he would get what he wanted, if he had to break every bone in Kenyon’s body, one by one.
24
Kenyon Meets His Man
Kenyon regained consciousness to find himself tied hand and foot, stretched on a full-length bench built into the wall of the kitchen at Greylands, and faced by three of the dark-skinned men.
The big man had known from the day he had first joined Craigie’s department, that the end would probably come like this. It had little terror for him, physically. But there was horror in his mind, because of the thing that was happening in England, because of the election he knew was coming. A bloodless revolution, Serle had called it. It was just that. The government of the country would change hands, just as it had changed before, but with a vital difference….
And then he thought of Mary.
He recalled, with bitter-sweet vision, her coolness that morning when he had told her to take Serle’s gun. Not for a moment had she hesitated; she had played her part as few women in that situation would have done. Mary!
He forced himself to think of other things.
Thoughts flashed through his mind, inconsequentially. He remembered catching a glimpse of the Rev. Denbigh Morse, in the doorway of Mary’s room. The part Morse played in this vile game still puzzled him; what use could Serle have for a clergyman? And—from what Kenyon knew of him before all this business—a devout clergyman, at that.
He couldn’t know. He doubted whether he ever would. He wondered, as he watched the three guards through half-closed eyes, whether Craigie and the others could have had any luck in London. London seemed a long way off. He wouldn’t see it again.
He stopped himself with an imprecation which made one of the gunmen jump up. He had to do something; he was only torturing himself, letting his thoughts drive him mad; he mustn’t let himself think…
Unless he thought of what he would like to do to certain gentlemen. To Arnold Serle, for instance.
The fat cricketer’s brown eyes seemed to mock him. He remembered that he had crashed his automatic on Serle’s head, and the memory made him laugh again. And then he thought of the unknown man behind Arnold Serle. He didn’t believe it was Wyett, and he doubted whether it was Denbigh Morse. Almost certainly, he told himself, it was someone very high in the present Government. The Premier, the Home Secretary, the…
He stopped thinking suddenly as the door opened.
The three gunmen jumped up, automatics in hand. For a moment Kenyon had a ridiculous hope that someone had turned up; the Arrans were near, waiting for the message he couldn’t send. They might have taken a chance…
‘Fool,’ he muttered to himself, wearily.
Arnold Serle came in, followed by the two relatives of Mary Randall, and…!
Kenyon saw the fourth man, the distinguished-looking man who had controlled the organisation of the New Age Party, and for a moment he could not credit what his mind told him must be true.
But a second glance at the man’s face, twisted into an expression different altogether from any Kenyon had ever seen on it before, told him he was right. There was something devilish about that man’s expression, even though his skin was still a pinkish white, even though his hair was still a silvery grey.
‘I want to talk to you, Kenyon,’ said Sir Michael Randall.
Sir Michael Randall—Mary’s father!
Kenyon groaned. The sound was more a whimper than a groan, in truth, and it was forced from tight lips by sheer agony.
Every inch of his body was sticky with sweat. Sweat was on his forehead, running into his eyes and down his cheeks. His hands gripping the wooden sides of the bench on which he was stretched, seemed melted and soft and hot. The men in the room seemed like vague figures from another world. The only face he saw clearly was Sir Michael Randall’s.
Randall was bending over him. The smile on the diplomat’s face had a wolfish twist.
‘Where are the cricketers?’ he asked softly.
Kenyon gritted his teeth. Already he had clenched them so that they had seemed to merge one into the other. The agony of the last quarter of an hour had sent every nerve in his body shrieking. But somehow he held on.
‘Once more,’ murmured Sir Michael, and his voice was like death. ‘If he won’t talk then, we’ll try his eyes.’
Kenyon hardly heard the second part of the speech. He heard that ‘once more’, and braced every muscle in his body to stand against the coming torture.
He was naked to the waist, now, still lying full length. Over his chest, glistening with sweat and very white, there were a dozen little black marks, a dozen little red marks—burns.
His feet were bare. On the soles of them were two livid weals—burns.
His whole body seemed aflame.
Even Serle seemed petrified. The Rev. Denbigh Morse was groaning to himself, clenching and unclenching his hands. Wyett was deathly white. He couldn’t look—yet he had to.
A dark-skinned man whose eyes were gloating with exultation pulled a poker from the flames of a gas-ring on the stove. It carved a little white arc through the air.
Then he rested it lightly on Kenyon’s chest.
Kenyon’s body heaved, convulsively. Sweat broke out again on his face, on his forehead. There was a little hiss of burning flesh, a little wisp of smoke. The white-hot iron sank deeper, deeper.
Kenyon groaned and twisted. And then suddenly a stream of oaths burst from his lips. His eyes, wide open, glared into Randall’s and there was the light of madness in them.
‘Where are they?’ demanded Randall. ‘My cricketer friends are very precious, Kenyon. Where are they?’
Kenyon stopped staring, stopped swearing. Only his lips were moving, one against the other, as though he was forcing back the very words Randall wanted.
He mustn’t tell. He mustn’t let down Craigie and Fellowes and Miller. They must learn all there was to learn, they must have the chance to beat this—this fiendish swine.
‘His eyes,’ commanded Randall.
The torturer stepped forward, and the white hot steel moved upwards. Kenyon felt the heat of it…
And then the Rev. Denbigh Morse screamed:
‘I can’t stand it—we mustn’t let that happen. We mustn’t, mustn’t!’
The man with the steel drew back.
‘Get on!’ snapped Randall.
‘No—stop,’ said Colonel Wyett, quietly.
Randall turned on him. Arnold Serle swung round. Two of the dark-faced men dropped their hands to their pockets.
‘Keep all your hands in sight,’ rapped Wyett, and his gun moved very persuasively.
Serle, ignoring the order, moved his right arm.
Wyett touched the trigger. Two bullets spat out, almost simultaneously, but Serle’s went into the ceiling and Wyett’s buried itself in Serle’s stomach. The fat man groaned, and clawed at the sudden, tearing pain.
‘A taste of what Kenyon has had,’ Wyett told him. He was speaking as though the whole thing was unreal, but the gun didn’t waver.
‘You’ll regret this,’ Randall threatened, but the diplomat’s eyes held fear. ‘I’ll make you suffer…’
‘You won’t,’ said Wyett. ‘You’ll make no one else suffer. I’m going to shoot you, Randall, before you can get away, before Mary finds out the truth. There’s just one thing I want you to know.’
He stopped. Randall was standing quite still. Denbigh Morse had rushed across the kitchen and was loosening the cords that bound Kenyon. Kenyon himself was whimpering with the pain. Serle, on the floor, was
clutching his stomach, and blood was oozing between his fingers. The two gunmen were crouching against the wall, their eyes on Wyett’s gun.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Randall hoarsely.
‘I am one of Craigie’s men,‘ said Wyett.
Randall’s face was drained of colour. His mouth opened as though he would speak—and then he threw himself at Wyett.
He was a fraction of a second too slow.
Wyett’s gun spoke. Randall’s face looked very white as he reared up. And then an expression of puzzled bewilderment seemed to twist his face; he dropped down and was still.
But the dark-faced men had crept up.
A bullet hit into Wyett’s arm, and he dropped his gun. A bullet stabbed through Denbigh Morse’s shoulder and he spun round. Then there was the sound of a pistol shot. Someone was shooting, out there in the grounds of Greylands.
Almost in the same moment, there was a sudden commotion from the room above the kitchen. A noise like the thudding of a hundred men down the stairs of the Manor thundered through the room. The two dark-faced men forgot everything but the need to know what the new trouble was.
The kitchen door opened. Wyett heard a voice raised suddenly, a voice that was very firm and clear.
‘Keep still or I’ll shoot,’ said Mary Randall.
Denbigh Morse muttered: ‘I—I untied her, Martin…’
‘She mustn’t come here,’ muttered Martin Wyett.
He stared, suddenly, at Randall’s face, and the hole in Randall’s forehead that was oozing blood.
And then he saw one of the men who had been in the kitchen during that dreadful period of torture creeping along the passage leading from the kitchen. In a moment the man would be within shooting range of the girl, who was on the stairs.
‘Be careful!’ screamed Wyett.
The man rushed forward, out of the Colonel’s sight. The sharp report of a gun echoed into the room, and the Colonel groaned.
Then two things happened.
The window of the kitchen was smashed into a thousand pieces, and the face of a man was outlined against the grey light of morning. It was Timothy Arran.
The next moment, Mary Randall came running in, blood streaming from a wound in her arm.
And then Toby Arran vaulted into the room, followed by his brother. Toby was carrying a Thomson machine-gun.
He took it to the door, and sprayed the passage from end to end. The air was filled with the rat-tat-tat of the gun, the screaming and swearing of men as bullets thudded deep into flesh, the splintering of wood and cracking of glass panels. For several minutes, it was sheer bedlam. If the men in the kitchen had been quite sane, it must have sent them mad.
Mary seemed to hear nothing of it.
She saw Kenyon, stripped to the waist; she saw those terrible marks on his flesh—and blindly, she went to him.
He stared up at her with a glimmer of recognition in his eyes.
Colonel Martin Wyett snatched a cloth from a table and spread it over the head and shoulders of Sir Michael Randall. Mary must never know. Vaguely, the Colonel was aware of the other men in the room. There were eight or nine of them altogether; grim-faced men, who carried guns. They went through Greylands, and no man who fought against them lived.
25
Of Things Which Happened
Just twelve hours after the affair at Greylands, Colonel Martin Wyett entered the office of the Police Commissioner. The Colonel’s arm was in a sling, and in his eyes there was an expression that none of the other men in the room could understand. They would never be able to see, vividly and terribly, the writhing body of Jim Kenyon and those deep, smoking burns.
Craigie was there, with Fellowes and Miller.
They had been in telephone communication with Greylands and knew the story in its outline, but they wanted to hear the details.
‘I’d sent for Arran and his men,’ Wyett said, towards the end of his story, ‘but I didn’t know how long it would be before they arrived. And if I’d shown my hand too soon, it would have ruined everything.’
Craigie nodded. The Colonel’s eyes seemed to picture horror, his ears to catch those groans from Kenyon’s lips.
‘So I had to wait,’ muttered Wyett, ‘I had to let those swine torture him! I hope he’ll understand. I had to let it happen. I could have shot Randall before, but we could have done nothing to save ourselves. He’d have died—Mary—the others. I had to give the Arrans time to come. I had to! We were hopelessly outnumbered.’
Craigie motioned to Miller, and Miller slipped out of the office, understandingly.
‘Kenyon will know,’ murmured Fellowes.
‘And the Arrans did come,’ said Craigie. ‘It was lucky I’d told you where to find them.’
Wyett nodded. His eyes were still shadowed, and he hardly noticed Miller return. The big policeman held a bottle and glass spirited from some secret corner of the Yard, and Wyett said ‘yes’ when Craigie suggested a drink.
The others were glad. Wyett took half a glassful of whisky, neat, and the spirit seemed to steady him. He needed some steadying, Craigie knew. In many ways his had been a more difficult job than Kenyon’s.
All along, Colonel Martin Wyett had been working for Department Z. He had even submitted to Tallin. He had, very gradually, worked himself into Serle’s confidence, and into Randall’s. All the time he had wanted one thing—to discover who was behind Serle. That one thing had been the objective of every man who had been working on the affair, from Craigie downwards. Once they discovered the leader of the New Age Party there was a chance of breaking the stranglehold the man had obtained on the million-odd addicts of the drug and—which was more important at first—there was a chance to make the members of the Cabinet realise where they were heading.
Not until the last minute had Wyett made his discovery. Randall had shown a subtlety almost amounting to genius. He had laid false trails, had ‘revealed’ himself as a victim of the persecution; no one had dreamed that this mild-natured gentleman, apparently worried to death for some reason that he daren’t disclose, could be the leader.
Craigie could understand, now, several of the things which had puzzled him.
Mick Randall had been frightened and worried because he had discovered his father’s real nature. Irene Scanling had been anxious, with him, because of her father’s part in the affair. Both of them had been silent, waiting to make sure that they were not wrong; and they had been dosed with Tallin, while they waited. Only a few victims of the drug were able to fight against the craving; they would do anything to get further supplies; so Mick and the girl had suffered, and been silenced.
Wyett, relying heavily on whisky to assuage the craving and offset the mental destructiveness of Tallin, was one of the lucky few. Dr. Matthew Dickson, Craigie had discovered, was another, though he had fought against it for his own ends. He had discovered the leader’s identity and had tried to make capital out of it. He had been killed, at Godalming, and his death used as additional evidence of Randall’s innocence.
Craigie marvelled at the diplomat’s confidence in his safety. Randall had deliberately allowed himself to be taken from Godalming after the failure of the attack on Kenyon and his men, in order to discover Kenyon’s secret headquarters. He had succeeded, but Wyett had outwitted him at Glinsea.
Randall had been in a tight corner when Kenyon had revealed his intention to make him talk, whatever the cost. And Wyett, sensing that Randall’s apparent fear of disclosing his knowledge was false, had taken a big chance.
He had known that the dark-skinned men were massed together, somewhere. He had to find them, in order to break the organisation. So, playing on the knowledge that Randall was ‘wanted’ by Serle, he had taken the diplomat back to London and delivered him to the fat man, apparently knowing nothing of Randall’s dual role.
Randall was convinced, after the showing at Glinsea, that Wyett was a safe and useful ally. Thereafter the Colonel had been informed of the various moves and, with Denbigh Mors
e’s help, had continued to outwit Serle. He had hated the need for tricking Mary, but it had had to be.
‘But if it had gone wrong…!’ muttered the Colonel.
‘It didn’t,’ said Craigie. ‘At Glinsea, you effectively destroyed any idea that you guessed Randall’s identity. Serle had made it appear that he wanted Randall; you appeared to believe him. It was the same with Mary. You appeared to use your relationship with the girl to get her away from London. Actually, you did that, but all the time you were in communication with me.’
‘Thank heavens,’ murmured Wyett.
He took another peg of whisky.
‘I haven’t quite realised it yet,’ He shook his head wearily. ‘Michael Randall—he was one of the best…’
‘He wanted money and power,’ said Craigie, ‘and he had heard of Tallin from Serle. Serle had discovered it in Arabia, the men who cultivated the plant in England were Arabs. Serie hadn’t the power nor the brains to see how it could be used, but Randall had, and he started to use it. The task in England wasn’t difficult; for the Tallin plant grows everywhere. But the seed is the drug itself. The task of getting it into other countries, so that England would not be isolated, was solved by the travelling cricketers.’
Wyett nodded, Miller grunted, and Sir William Fellowes lit a cigarette.
‘There isn’t much, now, that we don’t know,’ added Craigie, pulling his meerschaum from his pocket. ‘I’ve discovered that Randall used to send his orders to addicts and sign them with the mark of a crescent. The orders to keep the Department under rigid control, and to stop the police from worrying Serle—to stop them helping Kenyon, that is—were sent like that. So it won’t be difficult to get reverse orders accepted and obeyed. I think,’ he added, very thoughtfully, ‘that it will be best to let the election go through. The New Age Party will vote as it’s told. We’ll tell it to vote for the present opposition; that will ensure a new Cabinet; a new Cabinet will understand the problem, and it will help us.’
Fellowes leaned forward.
‘Your New Age Party won’t be much good without its drug,’ he suggested.