by John Creasey
Metal scraped on metal; it seemed to make more noise than when he’d forced the other lock.
He was touched by a faint red glow from the window, and that was sufficient, he didn’t need his torch. He felt perspiration gathering on his forehead, although it wasn’t hot; cold sweat was a bad sign. Conway was in here, and Conway mattered. It wasn’t only because he was a big man behind the air-defence of the country; it was partly because he was a man whom the Department wanted to get back safely. This was a job which had to be done, and like all Department jobs, it was vitally important while it lasted.
Would Conway be in a room, alone?
Or would one of the men be with him?
He kept twisting and turning the pick-lock, and thought that he would have to try the window. Then the key caught and he twisted quickly; the lock went back, and he pushed the door open an inch. He heard nothing. He waited for half a minute before pushing the door wide open and stepping into the passage. It was easy; as easy as it had been next door, and in its way, too smooth. The moment of greatest danger was when all was going well.
He closed the door softly behind him.
The light was on in the wide hall, and two passages and several doors led off this; it was twice as large as the place next door. The doors were painted white; there were good water-colours on the wall; the floorboards were narrow oak strips, polished and strewn with skin rugs — a snare for the unwary step. Everything here had a touch of quality. He reached the centre of the hall. Lights showed under only two doors — the door of the room with the red curtains and the one to the right of it. He passed this and turned into a passage; there were two more doors here, and each was unlocked; they were empty bedrooms.
He walked back cautiously, making no sound, and tried the other passage, where a bathroom, kitchen, and W.C. were close together. He was now left with the two front rooms. There were no stairs; they would hardly put Conway in the loft.
The loft hatch was in one of the passages.
He went back and studied it; there was no sign that it had recently been opened. Tiny cobwebs hung across, proof that it hadn’t been opened that day.
There was only silence and the hall light.
He reached the hall again, and went to the door of the room where there was no light; there had been none at the window, and none showed beneath the door. He tried the handle, but the door was locked. The key wasn’t here.
Conway might be inside.
Above everything else, he wanted Conway to be there.
He took out his pick-lock, hesitated, then went towards a mirror which hung fairly high. He put a chair in position, stepped up and lifted the mirror from its hooks and, with great care, stepped down again. His shoe squeaked on the boards, and with the mirror still in his arms, he stood rigid as he stared towards the door.
It didn’t open.
He carried the mirror to the corner by the front door, then went to the door he wanted to open. He could see only part of the one behind him, so he altered the position of the mirror; then he could see all of the door. If it began to open, he would have plenty of warning.
He started work with the pick-lock.
Why should they lock the door if the room was empty?
If Conway was in here he would surely be alone, for a guard would want some light.
The noise of metal on metal, already familiar, seemed to grate; how could anyone nearby fail to hear it? He kept glancing at the mirror, but the door remained closed.
The lock clicked; it was the third time he’d heard that sound tonight, and this seemed sharp and loud — the men couldn’t fail to hear it. He thrust the door open, met darkness, and stepped swiftly inside. He turned, and kept the door ajar, watching the one opposite; sure that it would open. But it didn’t.
If Conway was in this room, then all four men were across the hall.
He felt sick with anxiety.
He stood in the near darkness, hearing the sound of his own breathing, trying to detect that of someone else in the room. He couldn’t. He saw the vague shape of the light switch, and pressed it down sharply. Light flooded the room — the empty room. It was a small dining-room, with a long table, six chairs, and a sideboard, with only just space to walk round.
7
THE BIG ROOM
ROSS switched off the light, waited until he was used to the gloom, and stepped towards the window. He had to shift two chairs out of his path, and kicked against a pouf which he hadn’t noticed. It made little noise. He reached the window and hesitated, then saw a dark figure loom up outside. He opened the window, which was of the casement type, and Brown, a broad-shouldered barrel of a man, looked at him, his eyes glinting in the starlight.
“Still alive?”
“Just. Tell the others to wait near the red-curtain window, and then come in here and join me, will you?”
“Right!”
There was a note of satisfaction in Brown’s hushed whisper.
“Be careful when you walk across the room,” Ross said.
He went back, reaching the door and opening it so that he could see into the hall. The other door remained closed, and another thing puzzled him: the silence. It was hard to believe that anyone was here. Would three men sit in absolute silence for so long? There was no apparent reason why they should mute their voices, they could be expected to talk normally. Even if Conway were gagged, the others would talk.
Had he been fooled? Was the light shining in an empty room?
He heard no movement until there was a whisper in his ear.
“All ready,” said Brown, who had the uncanny gift of being able to move without a sound.
The silence began to get on Ross’s nerves; there was nothing natural about it, he began to feel sure that he would find the room empty. He went through the other rooms in his mind, to make sure that he hadn’t left a corner without searching it, and knew that he hadn’t. There could be no one else in this bungalow.
The four men must be here.
He reached the far door.
“Now?” asked Brown softly.
Ross examined the door, and recalled what he knew of the others in the bungalow. It was solid, and would take a lot of breaking down; but if he tried to pick the lock, men inside would be sure to hear — if any were inside.
The doubt screamed at him, but his hands were steady.
Two shots at the lock would be sufficient to enable one of them to break the door down easily; the other could rush in, gun in hand — it would take only a matter of seconds.
He said: “You fire at the lock, I’ll go in.”
“Right. Ready?”
“Yes.”
Ross drew back.
Brown, standing on one side, levelled his gun at the lock; it was a revolver, not a light automatic, Brown liked weight in his weapons. There was only a fraction of a second’s pause before the roar and the flash — and another roar and flash. Brown put his whole weight against the door and thrust, it burst open. Ross went in, crouching low, gun at his waist — and there wasn’t a sound or movement from inside the room.
He pulled up.
Four men were here, and he had found Conway. The Professor was sitting back in an arm-chair; he was tied to the arms, by the wrists.
The other three were sitting down, two in chairs, one on a couch. Each appeared to be fast asleep, each was lying back, relaxed and comfortable.
There wasn’t a sound.
“What’s this?” asked Brown. “Waxworks?”
He had a florid face, a scar over his right eye, short brown hair which stuck up at the back, like a schoolboy’s. He was fairly short, but massive and broad across the shoulders. His brown eyes were steady as he surveyed the room, and there was a slight curve of a smile at his lips.
Ross didn’t speak.
“Madame Tussaud couldn’t do any better,” Brown said.
Ross moved across to Conway, his teeth clenched. He did not think there was any doubt about the explanation; these men were dead, all four o
f them. The mystery of it didn’t occur to him, only the shock of the discovery. He reached Conway and stared into the pale, gentle face. Conway didn’t seem to be breathing. Ross took his left wrist and felt for the pulse, stood like that while Brown did the same with one of the others — a good-looking man with jet-black hair and eyebrows. Brown dropped his man’s arms first.
“Corpus,” he announced.
Ross stood rigid, and with the shock receding, hope replacing it; he thought he detected a slight movement. He took his hand away and held his watch close to Conway’s mouth; the lips were parted, he could just see part of the big, rather yellow teeth. Brown came across to him.
“Hope?”
Conway didn’t stir, but when Ross glanced at the glass of the watch it was smeared faintly.
“Ring the office for a doctor and an ambulance,” he said.
There was no sign of life in any of the other men.
This was a large room, delightfully furnished in the modern fashion, with deep arm-chairs, pastel shades of green and yellow, a fitted carpet with many colours in the small pattern. There was a grand piano in a sycamore case, and ornaments which fitted in with the general scheme. The only thing wrong was the curtain at one small window; it was red, looked as if it had been put up in a hurry. It was just a piece of linen. The lighting was mostly concealed, but there were lights over each of six oil-paintings — all of them good.
The handsome man whom Brown had tested first was the youngest; the other two were somewhere in the middle forties. They might have been seen in any London club or any London pub. They were well dressed and looked healthy, it was hard to believe that they were not sleeping; yet there was not the slightest indication of life.
“Let the others in, will you?” asked Ross. He lit a cigarette as he went back to Conway, tried the trick with the watch again, and got the same result; Conway wasn’t dead. He looked restful as he lay back there, it was easy to imagine that he had just sat down and fallen asleep. The cords at his wrists weren’t tightly tied, and Ross cut them and folded the Professor’s arms. Not until the Professor was on a couch, covered with blankets, collar and shoes off, did Ross relax. He was soon trying to get whisky between the set lips, but failed.
Williamson and Perry came in, quickly and quietly.
“All alive-o, then!” Williamson’s careful pretence at indifference proved his excitement. “Not bad.”
“One alive-o,” said Ross. “I don’t know what’s happened to the others, unless the Professor cast a spell.”
“He isn’t that kind of Professor, is he?” asked Perry.
He was the smallest man in the room, five-feet-five in height, with a little lithe figure and a keen, thin face and eager grey eyes. He had curly hair which looked rather like a wig, there was so much of it and the waves were so perfect. He was dressed in a faultlessly cut suit of dark brown, and looked almost a dwarf beside Williamson.
“He’s not supposed to be that kind of a Professor,” Ross said. “This doesn’t make ...”
“Don’t say it.” Williamson closed one eye, slowly. “I’ll say it for you, it’s more my line of kindergarten. Sense. None of it makes sense, but results count, and you’ve won our prize Professor, he’s ready for the bosom of his family again.”
“If he lives.”
“I wonder if the whisky’s poisoned here,” said Williamson. “You need a drink.”
Ross laughed.
“We won’t take any chances with the poison, but we’ll use their glasses.”
He took out his flask.
As they were drinking, a car pulled up, and the two men who had been on the road came in. The gangling form of Wally, who looked spruce and eager in the bright light of the room, reminded Ross of Mae. He frowned.
“Nice welcome,” said Wally. “What have I done to annoy the great one?”
“Idiot. Where’s the girl I sent along?”
“I delivered her safe and sound to a policeman who wanted to know what I was doing, parking out there. He was going to take her to his cottage, said his wife would look after her. All right, I hope?”
“Fine. Thanks.”
“As for Madame Mae,” said Wally with a grin, “she was dulcet sweet all the way. She didn’t argue with me once, but left a message — would I tell my friend how sorry she was that she’d interfered.”
Ross was eager: “Did she say that?”
“Cross my heart!”
“She’s up to something,” Ross said, but he laughed. He had been half-afraid that Mae would try to break away from her escort. “I wonder how long that doctor will be.”
“A doctor isn’t much use with these.”
Wally didn’t ask questions, didn’t even look surprised.
The three men who showed no sign of life were in exactly the same position, half an hour later, when Loftus and a doctor arrived — the doctor a youthful man who did most of the Department’s work and was also a police-surgeon attached to Scotland Yard. He was brisk and seemed competent, but he gave no opinion about Conway, except to say that he was alive; the others weren’t. Loftus had little to say, and, with Ross, watched the Professor being carried into an ambulance. They stood on the porch as the car was driven off.
Loftus said: “So you managed it.”
“It was done for me. Any idea how they were killed?”
“It looks as if they ate or drank something that Conway didn’t — or else that didn’t affect Conway as much as it did them,” said Loftus. “A.B.C. What have you done here?”
“We’ve looked round.” Ross led the way in. “All the papers we’ve found are on the dining-room table, but we haven’t made a full job of it. You’re the expert on that. At least we’ve a couple of live prisoners for you, but they won’t come round for a bit.”
“They can wait, anyhow,” said Loftus. “Going to see Mae?”
Ross laughed, told him what had happened, and also told him about Alice Conway. Loftus made little comment; it was obvious that the girl had been kidnapped so as to exert pressure on her father. The thoroughness of the kidnappings commanded respect; the deaths were simply mysterious.
“Case of the Three Dead Men,” Loftus mused. “We’ll have the medical report by the time we get back to town. We’ve plenty of men to handle the job here, Peter — care to take a spell?”
“I think I will,” said Ross.
He drove off with Wally Lane, knowing that in the morning he would go over everything that was discovered at the bungalow, and would be brought fully up to date. He drove at a good speed along the by-road, came to the main road a little after midnight, and inquired of a cyclist for the policeman’s cottage; it was nearby. There were lights at both the downstairs windows as he drew up, and a policeman’s bicycle was leaning against the wall. The front door was open. Wally rang the bell, and a woman bustled out of a room on the right of the passage, small, wiry, curious.
“Good evening, sir, do you want to see the constable? That’s my husband, he won’t be a minute, he’s on the telephone.”
“Thanks. Is the young lady still here?”
“Young lady?”
Ross felt as if she’d slapped him across the face.
“Yes. The young lady he brought home from the car.”
“My husband hasn’t brought any young lady home, sir.”
She was emphatic.
There was a ting, as of the receiver being replaced, and a big man in uniform, without his helmet, loomed large in a doorway.
“Tom, there’s a gentleman inquiring about a young lady.”
“What young lady?” asked the constable.
Ross said: “You spoke to two men who were in a parked car at the next by-road, and told them you’d look after the young lady who was with them.”
“Not me, sir,” said the constable. “There’s some mistake, I haven’t spoken to anyone in a car tonight, and I certainly haven’t seen any young lady.”
8
LOST ALICE
WALLY LANE looked at the
constable, and shook his head slowly.
“Not my man, Peter. My chap was taller and not so — er — plump.”
“What other policemen live near here?”
Ross’s voice was sharp, his eyes glinted.
“None,” said the constable firmly. “The next nearest is in Shepperton and after that in Chertsey. There certainly wouldn’t be another policeman on duty in this part of the world tonight, not that I know of. Unless it was a patrol car?”
He looked hopefully at Wally.
“No. Cyclist.”
“I just can’t understand it, sir,” said the constable. “It must have been someone purporting to be a police-officer. That’s a very serious offence, and I must report it at once. I suppose you’re sure?”
He looked almost suspiciously at Wally.
Wally grinned.
“Hardly a sip of alcohol to-night, officer! I can walk the plank, say ipecacuanha wine and indivisible dirigible and pontifical pomposity like one o’clock. Stone cold sober. Peter, I don’t like it.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” said the constable, “but I must please ask you to explain what this is all about. Who are you?”
Ross didn’t answer. He seemed to be looking at a pair of astonishingly bright blue eyes.
Wally showed his Special Branch card, carried by all agents when on normal business, which gave him Scotland Yard authority. The local P.C. passed through the emotions of surprise, consternation, eagerness to impress and to help, and poured out a torrent of not very useful information. At Ross’s dictation, he asked his Superintendent to put out a general police call for Alice Conway. Ten minutes later, Ross took the wheel of his car, and Wally sat by him, offering cigarettes.
“Do you get it?” he asked.
“It’s coming,” said Ross. “A third group.”
“We don’t even know who the first people are yet.”
‘That’s right,” said Ross, and gave a short laugh. “I think I’d better go back and see Loftus.”