by John Creasey
• • • • •
The Prime Minister looked around at the grim faces of the members of his Cabinet.
‘I’m afraid it has come, gentlemen. The Armed Forces are mobilised. Air-raid precautions have, of course, been prepared, and are being made effective. Elsten will arrange for the balloon barrage to be in constant operation and...’ he broke off. ‘Talk doesn’t help,’ he said wearily. ‘Those five men, killed like that...’
‘But we know it wasn’t any one country!’ protested Sir Michael Scott, Minister for War. ‘So do France, Germany and all the others. It’s a private outrage. It...’
‘They won’t believe it,’ said Wishart wearily. ‘And we’ve got to admit that it could be the results of one country aiming for war—one nation behind the Ring.’
‘If Craigie had joined the others in investigating,’ growled Randall, Minister for Home Affairs, ‘this might not have happened.’
Wishart said nothing. This was not the first time he had faced opposition in his own Cabinet, and, apart from Scott, he sensed they were all against him. He had believed in Loftus, and still believed in him; but Loftus had not succeeded in his mission. The five VIPs were still missing, and identity of the Ring was still unknown.
‘No use chucking stones,’ Randall grunted. ‘Well...’
The telephone bell purred softly. Scott lifted the receiver.
‘What ... yes, yes, put him through.’ He looked up at the Prime Minister. ‘A call from Estonia.’
Wishart took the receiver, the twenty-two members of the Cabinet watching him with anxious eyes. They saw him frown; and they noted the tensing of his voice.
‘Yes ... are you sure? ... go on, go on...’
The pause seemed interminable; but not a man moved. Wishart’s eyes were glinting now; he no longer looked an old, broken man. At last he put the receiver down.
‘Loftus has identified the Ring,’ he stated flatly. ‘Scott, telephone Paris. Arrange to see Nadier at the President’s house. Wilburton...’ he turned to the Foreign Minister—‘get in touch with Rome. Try and find the President. Tell him you’ll fly over at once. I’m going to New York.’
‘But why?’ asked Scott.
‘To win twelve hours’ grace. It might just be enough,’ rasped Wishart. He began to talk in hurried phrases while the telephone operator put through the calls. A last desperate effort to keep the peace.
Provided Loftus was right, provided that he had accurately identified the members of the Ring, and could locate their headquarters, world war might just be averted.
21
Last Word
‘It is unfortunate,’ said Cunningham, ‘that your identities are known. Or will be, very shortly. On the other hand, there is a good chance of convincing the world that you all perished on board the yacht. Our original plans...’
Hyman broke in heavily.
‘You told us, Cunningham, that you would arrange for us to get safely off; that we could let the world know that we had escaped...’
‘Nom de Dieu, you must do eet!’ cried Arbor.
‘Ach, where iss der chance?’ demanded Tult. ‘It was der good chance; it iss not now. We disappear. What more you want, shentlemens?’
Mainwaring was nervous.
‘Our homes, our families...’ he mumbled.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Cunningham easily, ‘it is regrettable, but we cannot help it. As far as the world knows you are dead. On my advice, and in view of the possibility of failure, you have all provided yourself with different identities, and you will live in different parts of the world. You have made considerable profits in the past, and thanks to the arrangements made—again on my suggestion—you have the power to utilise the coming war for your own profit. We guarded against it as an unlikely emergency, and it has come. But think of what you might have lost. If I had not prepared everything, if the seaplane had not been on the yacht, you would have been caught by the destroyers, and once Loftus and the others had talked your deaths would have been inevitable. It will be a very different task for him to convince the Powers that you are guilty, when they believe you dead. Your families, when all is said and done, will honour and respect your memories.’ Cunningham’s lips dropped sardonically as he eyed the five men in front of him. ‘Consider my own position. I shall be hunted. I had planned to rule a country. To do so it was unfortunately necessary for me to leave the Grand Duke and his son and daughter-in-law on board the yacht. When his daughter, my prospective wife, discovered this, she refused to leave—I had not realised she was so fond of her father. Alas, there was no time to argue—the yacht was about to blow up, and so...’ Cunningham shrugged—‘Marie had to blow up with it. And so I lost my chance of being Prince Consort. But there will be other chances...’ Cunningham’s eyes gleamed fanatically—‘I shall see to it that there are other chances.’
The others remained silent. Whilst they could contemplate death and destruction for the world at large, the cold way in which Cunningham had talked of the murder of individuals made them shudder.
Then Hyman grunted.
‘He’s right, of course. We’ll have to disappear, gentlemen. Nothing else for it.’
‘That I said already,’ Tult put in.
‘Can—can we get away?’ Mainwaring demanded.
Cunningham lifted his hands in mock protest.
‘My dear Mr. Mainwaring, I brought you here safely, and no one in this world is going to believe that we would come to the centre of Paris. This small cabaret, known as the Chez Diable, is the last place that will be suspected. Other houses where we have worked from time to time have been discovered. They may be searched, now, in the doubtless frantic efforts that are being made to find us. But here we are quite safe.’
‘What do you propose to do?’ demanded Hyman.
‘It is all arranged, gentlemen. A reliable theatrical make-up expert is due at any moment. He will work on your faces, and you will be able to mix with the crowd quite easily. There is, I believe, a very fine display by La Comique which may even take your minds off the problem for a while. Late in the evening—not early, or you may arouse comment—you will leave. All of you have passports and visas which will help you to get safely away. Oh it has been perfectly arranged.’
‘You’re clever, I’ll say that,’ admitted Hyman grudgingly. ‘But we’re finished now.’
‘The culminating results of the Ring’s activities, surely, give you pleasure,’ said Cunningham. ‘I could wish that my own future was as assured and as happy. However, thanks to the two hundred and fifty millions you have obtained for me, and which I have already collected, I shall be—ah—comfortable.’
‘A moment!’ Rioldi exclaimed, his pale, bearded face anxious. ‘You make ze mistake, Cunningham. Fifty million is yours. Ze other is...’
‘You forget,’ murmured Cunningham, ‘that I can leave you here, gentlemen, and lock the door, and telephone the Sûreté—no, no, Monsieur Arbor, talking and swearing is of no use. None of us has obtained just what we wanted, and I feel I am entitled to as much as I can get. The biggest regret I have is that Loftus has escaped.’
He swung sharply towards the door, as it slowly opened.
A man was standing in the doorway. Cunningham went rigid. He dropped his hand to his pocket.
‘Just a shade too late,’ said Loftus, and he touched the trigger of his gun. As the flame spat out, as Cunningham gasped and snatched his hand from his pocket, the others swung round to the two remaining doors. But they too were open. The men standing there seemed more grim, even, than Loftus.
‘You see,’ Loftus said as he slowly advanced, ‘Belling drew a picture of a striptease dancer with horns, just before you got him. Afterwards he was too ill to tell us about it, but the message came through.’ He touched the trigger of his gun again, for Cunningham was trying to get at his pocket with his left hand.
The remorselessness of the three men approaching that frightened group had something terrible in it.
• • • • •
Loftus was impressed but not overawed by the twenty-two famous men gathered about the large table at Number 10.
Two days had passed, and the crisis had begun to die down. The Prime Minister had managed to postpone action long enough to enable Loftus, Kerr and Best to reach the Chez Diable. And the five members of the Ring, knowing that their conversation had been overheard and realising that no denials could now save them, had admitted the truth.
Much of the ransom money had been paid. Cunningham had arranged to have it collected by airmen, who had dropped down on the locations where the sum from each nation had been put—on his instructions. But the airmen were later located, with the money, in Lakka, where they were waiting for further orders from Cunningham.
Thornton, and the other agents who had been capsized, had been picked up by a third boat, which had put out in the wake of the first two from Lakka Pier—occupied by three curious policemen. Chloe, who had been taken to hospital in Estonia, was now nearly recovered and would soon be on her way to England. The world would never know what part she had played in saving it from war. Emilie—Cunningham’s mistress—had perished with the Marri family of Lakka. It had been she who, overcome by jealousy, had told Marie of Cunningham’s intent to murder her father.
The Prime Minister smiled about him.
‘Well, Mr. Loftus, if you will explain...’
‘I hope there isn’t a great deal left to explain,’ said Loftus. ‘We know now who comprised the Ring, although I will admit that I had no idea until...’ he explained what had happened in the Castle, his immediate understanding when there had been a suggestion of freeing Diana. ‘You see,’ he went on cheerfully, as if he had been addressing a meeting of the Department Z men, ‘the essence of the scheme was in its simplicity. The Ring wanted war. Cunningham, whose mind was as clever as it was unbalanced, saw the one certain way of achieving it. If prominent men were ostensibly kidnapped—men believed to be vital to their respective nations’ well-being—it would enrage those nations and create world-wide suspicion. And certainly the last people to be suspected of the conspiracy would be the victims of the outrages.
‘Ned Oundle was a witness to the pretended kidnapping of Hyman, and this was done very cleverly. Miss Woodward, whom Cunningham suspected of being an American espionage agent, was actually used as an important factor in it. Thus America would have been convinced it was a genuine kidnapping. The remaining four members also disappeared of their own free will, but here again it looked, in each instance, as though they had been kidnapped.
‘However, when the truth was known, it was merely a matter of finding the men, and proving it to general satisfaction. My colleague, Mr. Belling, had fallen into their hands some time before. He had managed to leave a dry-point at one of the houses where he was taken, of a...’ Loftus smiled—‘striptease dancer with horns. She danced at the cabaret known as the Chez Diable, already used by Cunningham to get Hyman safely away, but not until I realised the members of the Ring would have to go somewhere together to make final arrangements, did the significance of Belling’s picture occur to me. When we first found Belling he was too ill to tell us very much, but he now confirms that he had discovered that the individual members of the Ring visited the cabaret when they wanted to see Cunningham. They could mix with the crowd, and even if they were recognised their presence at a cabaret would not excite much comment.
‘You have, I think, full particulars of how the Grand Duke Nikolai needed money, which was why he undertook to offer Cunningham help.’
Loftus was surprised that they wanted to know more: in fact, to know everything. And twenty-two gentlemen who controlled the destiny of England shook him warmly by the hand before he left.
He reached the Carilon Club, and went upstairs to the small banquet hall on the first floor, which was reserved that day for the Department. The Club rules had been temporarily relaxed so that Diana and Lois could also be present. They had just heard that Craigie, like Chloe, was well on the way to recovery, and they greeted Loftus hilariously, sparing little time for serious discussion. But Best was curious about Pinari and Doom.
‘Cunningham told me,’ said Loftus, ‘that Doom knew everything, apart from the location of the hiding place. He could have blackmailed Cunningham, of course, and the others, but as an anarchist his chief objective was to provoke war. So was Pinari’s. Both men are fanatically convinced that anarchy is necessary.’
‘I told you,’ said Trale. ‘He walks and talks as though he’s got a season ticket for Number 10.’
‘I’ll deal with you later,’ said Loftus cheerfully. ‘Doom had a grand idea. Let the war start, he said, and then collect the cash for his own aims from Cunningham and the others. Pinari was acting under his orders to try and kill Diana—they wanted Diana dead not because they seriously thought she was concerned, but because they believed she was having an affair with Cunningham and slowing the game down. Sorry, Di.’
Diana laughed. ‘I can take it!’
‘All very well,’ said Spats, rubbing his nose, ‘but I don’t know that the girl has explained herself fully enough.’
Loftus shook a finger admonishingly.
‘She has to me, and that’s sufficient. You should know by now that she went into the affair because the Ring ruined her father—who’s now on the mend, by the way. There was a letter from him waiting for her when she got back to London. Oh no—Diana fooled a lot of people for a long time, but she’s not fooling anyone now.’
‘You hope,’ teased Lois Kerr.
‘Keep your wife in order, Bob,’ appealed Loftus. ‘Oh, well. Everyone’s holding out olive branches and oozing goodwill at the moment, but how long it will last the Lord knows. Until Craigie’s on the go again, I hope. Cheers.’
He lifted his glass, and the spirits of the gathering rose still further.
Later that evening, Bill Loftus was looking into Diana’s eyes.
‘This marriage business, now. I think we ought to get it over straight away, and....’
Diana smiled up at him. But her voice, when she spoke, was firm.
‘Kerr was telling me how badly Craigie needs you. And about his objection to married men. He’s right. I can wait, Bill, and I don’t think you’ll be happy until things have settled down. I may be able to help a little, too.’
‘A little!’ exclaimed Loftus.
And if at odd moments he was gloomy during the next few days, every visit to Craigie made him sure that Diana was right.
Panic!
John Creasey
1
Says Mark
Any man or woman with a sporting turn of mind would have offered long odds, on first seeing Mark and Michael Errol, that they were not only brothers but twins. The bet-taker would have won, for in fact they were cousins—a relationship from which they appeared to derive singularly little pleasure. Indeed, the same casual and careless punter would have considered them bad friends, despite the fact that they shared a Brook Street flat as well as that unmistakable Errol chin.
The chin, on a day in August which each spent blaming the other for the decision to stay in a now sweltering London instead of escaping into the countryside, was a subject of some bitterness between them.
‘If you,’ Mark announced, with a scowl, ‘would learn to use a decent razor, you’d get a shave that wouldn’t make me ashamed to take you out.’
Their voices, let it be said at once, were not alike. Mark’s was deeper, almost rough at times, and he clipped his words. Michael’s was fuller, more mellow; and he was inclined to drag his words. But being what they were—two young, popular but unattached bachelors, wealthy enough to spend twelve months in the year in sheer idleness—and as yet untempted to do otherwise—they had perfected the art of imitating each other’s voices for no better reason than to mystify acquaintances and amuse themselves.
‘I,’ Mike drawled calmly, ‘do not propose to use a cut-throat for your or anyone else’s benefit, little man. It is more than enough to be seen about wit
h one.’
Mark rose to the bait in predictable fashion.
‘One what?’
‘One cut-throat.’ Mike sprawled in his easy chair, a breeze from the open window behind him ruffling his dark hair. ‘Did it ever occur to you, Marko, that your scowl, your squint and your bark combined are pretty forbidding? Dress you in a muffler and cap …’
‘When you’ve stopped blethering,’ Mark growled, ‘perhaps even you will admit you need a shave if we’re going to that perishing …’
‘Don’t say it!’ grinned Michael. ‘You know that polo is a sacred subject in the Errol family. Your respected father, my venerated uncle, would develop apoplexy if he knew how you feel about it. And after all—be reasonable! It’s warm. All we have to do is sit there looking pretty …’
‘With you there?’ Mark said witheringly but he did not appear to enjoy the thrust. ‘We’ve got to dress up, sit and bake in all that heat, be charming to old ladies and stay pleasant to pretty young things who don’t give a damn about polo, and call ponies horses …’
‘In fact, you are feeling somewhat rebellious,’ Mike summed up.
‘It was your confounded idea!’ said Mark, bitterly. ‘The old man had about given up expecting to see me at Hurlingham, and you have to go and offer …’
‘By admitting that we were free this afternoon, little man,’ Mike pointed out, with maddening logic, ‘you started the ball rolling.’
‘Oh, forget it!’ Mark pushed his hand through hair which was rarely as well-groomed as his cousin’s and so helped puzzled acquaintances to tell them apart.
They were almost exactly of an age—a few months short of thirty. They were both six feet tall to a fraction of an inch, both broadly—but muscularly—built, and both good to look at, if not entirely handsome. They had the same dark, almost black hair. Their eyes were grey, their lashes long, their noses regular—unlike the traditional Errol Roman—and both possessed that large, square chin with its unmistakable cleft. They were, as frequently happened, dressed alike in silver greys and Old Carthusian ties.