by John Creasey
A lock of dark hair hung over Loftus’s dark eye, the rest of his hair was untidy, ash powdered his coat, and his suit was almost shapeless. When Ross arrived he was standing by a small table in one of the bedrooms, looking through some papers which had been found there. He turned when he heard Ross, walked slowly to the bed, and sat down heavily. He stretched his right leg straight out in front of him; it was artificial, and served to make him ungainly in movement.
“Now what, Peter?”
“Found anything?”
“Not a sausage. We know the owner of the bungalows now, and that they were let furnished, two months ago, to a Mr. Ronald Smith. Mr. Smith is dead — he was the man who took Conway from St. James’s Park this afternoon. He’s been in and out of this place for some time, but seldom stayed more than two or three days at a stretch. He had a bank account at Staines and another in London, and seemed to be worth a few thousand — beyond that, nothing. You?”
Ross didn’t answer, and Loftus frowned.
“Not Mae again?”
Ross grinned crookedly.
“I’m ringing the changes. Alice Conway has been kidnapped.”
Loftus whistled softly.
Ross said: “Wally Lane handed her over to a man who looked like a policeman but wasn’t. I’ve had a general call put out for her, and had a word with the Yard myself, from the local copper’s house. It looks as if the phoney policeman was keeping a look-out, knew we were going to raid the bungalow, and ...”
He broke off.
“Take it steadier,” suggested Loftus mildly.
“All right,” said Ross, and sat on a chair, its back in front of him, and leaned forward, cigarette jutting from his lips. “We’ll make it simple. A group of men known as Y kidnapped Conway and his daughter, because they can learn a lot about our air-defences from Conway. Right?”
“Right.”
“Law and order, in the form of Department Z, knew a little about this group. Too little.”
Loftus nodded, owlishly.
“There was a third party, whom we’ll call X. X was watching the first group, saw that the second group was going to attack, and acted on his own. He needed an excuse for being in the district, and he needed some authority, so he dressed himself up as a policeman.”
Again Loftus nodded.
“He had no love for Group Y, had access to their headquarters, at this bungalow, and poisoned them. As he’s snatched Alice Conway, he presumably wants to high-pressure her father, so he wouldn’t want her father dead. That’s why Conway is alive and the others aren’t. Right?”
“Not a foot wrong,” said Loftus. “We’ll tackle the prisoners on it.”
Ross grinned.
“Thank you, sir! It is possible that Group Y and Mr. X were at one time working together, and that X thought it would pay him to work on his own — in other words, that he ratted on Group Y. Someone they knew would find it easier to poison Group Y than someone they didn’t know. Whether that’s true or not, X is still out to bring pressure on Conway. He hadn’t a chance to get him away, as we were around, but he had luck with the girl, and will now try to exert pressure through Conway’s daughter. He must have been pretty smart, to have snatched Alice Conway as he did.”
“Brilliant,” agreed Loftus.
“Until tonight, we knew a little about Group Y, but nothing at all about Mr. X — all we know about Mr. X is that he’s clever and quick and that he was expecting us here tonight.”
“We have to find out plenty more about him,” said Loftus. “You’ve finished this job, how about having a shot at Mr. X? He’ll almost certainly have a stab of some kind at Conway soon, we should get something on him. You cut out everything else, and just think of Mr. X.”
“Suits me,” said Ross.
“The air-defences are still under fire, and we still don’t know who’s behind it,” Loftus added.
Ross leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette on a nearby ash-tray.
“Bill, why not admit the obvious — that it’s Russia?”
“Because we don’t know that’s true, and we can’t afford to trust the obvious,” said Loftus. “You know as well as I do that this might be a private group of spies. Supposing they beat us and discovered everything Conway knows, got possession of the vital air-defence plans? They’d be able to sell to the highest bidder. Our Government would bid, and so would the Soviet, and maybe others. Anyone with that information would be sitting pretty, but it doesn’t have to be a spy-ring for Russia or any other country. Oh, it might be — but let’s be sure, before we start shouting Red.”
“All right, old chap,” Ross said.
Ross had a small flat in Bingham Mews, which lay between Regent Street and Piccadilly. He arrived there a little after one o’clock — alone. The night was still bright with stars, and he’d driven through a hushed London. He left his car outside the garage and on the other side of the mews from his flat, and stood for a few minutes, looking up at the dark window. He’d done a great deal of thinking since he had finished talking to Loftus, and it hadn’t taken him very far. Now he had to wrench his mind from one kind of thought to another — he had to think about Mae.
She might be in the flat; she had a key.
He kept nothing at the flat which gave him away as a Department Z agent, so there were no fears on those grounds. But he didn’t want a session with Mae tonight. If she were there she had probably watched from the window, and had seen him arrive. That needn’t stop him leaving again, he could find a bed at his club.
He left the car to offer evidence that he was going out again, and approached the flight of wooden steps which led up to his front door. A gust of wind cooled his forehead as he put the key in the lock. He opened the door quietly, and stepped swiftly inside, and did not close the door again immediately. He stood still, listening for the slightest sound, any indication that Mae was here.
There was nothing.
He closed the door and went to his living-room; the door was open. He had left it open, there was nothing surprising about that. He slid his hand round the door and pressed down the switch.
The room was empty.
It was a comfortable room, and lacked nothing; he had all the money he was ever likely to want. It was oak-panelled, and there was a ledge running round the walls, with oddments standing on it; family relics, a few modest trophies, souvenirs of places and occasions abroad. The carpet was of light-brown colour, there were easy chairs, a radiogram, a piano — no bachelor could have more for his creature comfort. He didn’t stay there, but went into the other rooms, taking less care. There was only one with a front window — a tiny one, which served as a dining-room; that was empty. So were his bedroom and the domestic quarters. He had a daily woman for housework, but lived here alone.
He went back into the living-room, and opened the cocktail cabinet; a nightcap and twenty minutes in an easy chair might give the night some semblance of peacefulness. He put up a hand for the whisky, and saw a letter resting on top of the bottle.
He took it down; it had no writing on the envelope.
He smiled wryly as he tore it open. There was a single sheet of his own writing-paper, and three words on it: Dreadfully sorry — Mae.
He poured out his drink, went to his favourite arm-chair and dropped in it, and read the note again. Mae had a clear, bold hand, full of character; she was full of character. Not many women would have done what she had done tonight. But what did the note mean? That she was sorry — perhaps. Why? Because she had interfered with something she now realised was important, or because she had upset him? He ought by now to be regretting some of the things he’d said, but he wasn’t. The issue had been forced, and he knew that if he were compelled to choose between Mae and Department Z, Mae wouldn’t win; probably she had sensed something of this. There wasn’t any need to choose, they could run side by side, provided Mae gave up the fight.
Would she?
She was shrewd and clever, and she wanted him.
He
didn’t like it because he was able to stand outside himself and see her dispassionately; but there it was. He’d never had any illusions about Mae, but she attracted him as no other woman had ever done. He’d told himself that they would often cross swords, and would delight in the battle. He sipped again.
He sipped his drink.
At a time when he ought to be thinking of nothing but the Conway mystery, he was preoccupied with Mae, and that could hardly be worse. He ought to be thinking about Alice Conway. Just about the Professor’s daughter, not her blue eyes.
The telephone bell rang.
The chair was placed so that he could take off the receiver without getting up, but he didn’t stretch out his hand immediately. The bell kept ringing, and at last he picked the receiver up. It might be Mae, or it might be Craigie, and he hoped it was Craigie.
“Peter Ross speaking.”
“I’m sorry to worry you so late in the evening, Mr. Ross,” said a man whose voice was completely unfamiliar, “but I have a message for you.”
“Thanks,” said Ross, and got up slowly.
“It’s signed Alice,” said the man.
His voice was smooth and pleasant, and there was a ring of amusement in it — a faint hint of a chuckle, as if he could see Ross’s reaction to the name of Alice. Ross tightened his grip on the telephone, and shifted his position, but his expression didn’t change.
“Alice what?”
“Just Alice.”
“And did she send the message through a policeman?”
“That’s right, I’m a policeman.”
“You’d better be careful,” said Ross, “or you’ll get yourself locked up.”
“I’m not very worried about that,” said the other mildly. “I took Alice away in a closed car, and I’m quite sure I wasn’t followed — you and your friends had bigger fish to fry. Are you ready for the message?”
“Is it worth hearing?”
“I think so,” said the other. “Alice says that she is quite safe and unhurt, she has been treated with great kindliness, but she’s a little nervous of what might happen if the police were to find out where she is now.”
“That’s too bad,” said Ross. “The police like to find missing girls.”
“I’m sure they do. But I thought you might have a little influence with them, Mr. Ross, and suggest that it might not be in her best interests to search too far. However, that is only one of my reasons for calling you.”
“I thought it might be.”
“You know that if it weren’t for me, Conway would be dead or out of the country, don’t you?”
“It could be.”
“It would be. I sent the little party at Shepperton to sleep, and I can assure you that they were most determined to take Conway away alive, or leave him behind dead and useless to anyone.”
“I’ll send you a bottle of Scotch with a note of thanks,” said Ross dryly.
The other chuckled.
“I think if we knew each other better we should get along, Mr. Ross. At the moment I’m appealing to you as an intelligent man and a member of the Service. Don’t probe too deeply yet — leave some of the investigation to me. I’ve served you well once, and might again — I think it would be worth your while.”
“I’ll think about it,” said Ross.
“Do that, Mr. Ross. Good night.”
The line went dead, and Ross replaced his receiver, but looked at it, scowling. Then he leaned forward and dialled the number of Craigie’s office. The ringing sound started at once, and went on and on. Ross found his mind working more swiftly than before the call, found himself repeating much of what the man had said.
He had confessed to murder.
That meant that he was very sure of himself.
Craigie spoke at the other end of the line.
“It’s Ross here,” said Ross, and spelt his name backwards, a simple code which had served the Department well for many years. “Any news your end?”
“Nothing new, Peter. Yours?”
“I’ve just had an interesting call,” said Ross, and explained and went on: “I don’t quite make it out, but I’d say he was nervous in case we’re on to him, and he thought it worth trying this way to stall us. And if he’s nervous about us finding him, it means that we probably know something about him, or could find it fairly easily. That’s worth thinking about.”
“Did you get anything from the voice?”
“Only that I should probably recognise it again — nothing really distinctive.”
“All right,” said Craigie. “We’ll carry on as before — if we get a line on the Conway girl we’ll tell you before we do anything. Get some sleep.”
Ross woke next morning with a parched mouth and a headache. He made tea, lit a cigarette, and looked through the morning newspapers. None of them carried the story of Professor Conway, which gave the Department and the police full marks. None carried any story of mysterious happenings near the river at Shepperton.
He bathed and shaved and felt better.
He breakfasted off coffee, toast, and marmalade, and by ten o’clock was talking to Loftus on the telephone; there had been no major developments. The two prisoners had been grilled, and had talked little; they had been employed by Ronald Smith, the dead tenant of the bungalows. They were bodyguards; each had a record of crime with violence. They swore they knew nothing of what had happened at the larger bungalow. They said they knew that Ronald Smith employed several other men, but knew nothing of any quarrel or break-away from Smith’s gang.
Conway was still unconscious but would live. He and the three dead men had suffered from a narcotic poisoning, and the doctors had not yet decided which one; that would wait on post mortems.
“What about Conway’s home?” Ross asked.
“He has a housekeeper who’s very upset. We’re doing what we can for her,” said Loftus. “She’s more worried about the girl than Conway — she thinks he’s gone off on one of his frequent trips out of London.”
“Will she tell the Press?”
“Not yet. What do you think of letting the Press know?”
“I’d hold it for a bit,” said Ross.
“Right.”
Loftus rang off, and Ross stood by the telephone, half-expecting it to ring, then telling himself that he was a fool. Mae would expect him to make the first move. He wouldn’t be a hundred per cent on the Conway case until he’d seen her; and he wanted that hundred per cent. He worked out what he would say and how she would answer, and laughed at himself before he reached her flat.
It was in a small block near Knightsbridge, not far from Harrods. They were exclusive flats; Mae had money. She lived alone except for a middle-aged maid who had been in her family for half a century. Her family lived in the Midlands, and Ross had met them briefly.
He knew the uniformed porter on duty.
“Good morning, Mr. Ross. Nice day.”
“So it is. I hadn’t realised it.”
“Wonderful for the time of year,” said the porter, as if the weather were due to him. “Couldn’t be better, could it?”
“I suppose it couldn’t.”
Ross went up in the lift, and at the third-floor landing started to tell himself what they would say to each other, and this time didn’t laugh it off. He wasn’t normal with Mae, and he couldn’t stop telling himself that.
He rang the bell; there was no answer.
He had a key, but seldom used it.
He rang again, but there was no move inside the flat. That was disappointing, he didn’t want to wait, wanted to get Mae and the difference with Mae completely off his mind. But it would help if he wrote a note; brief, if not so brief as hers.
He went inside, wondering idly why the maid wasn’t in.
There was a wide hall, and all the doors of the flat led off it; there were only five rooms. He closed the door with a snap; all the other doors were closed. He went across to the drawing-room door, whistling softly, and thrust it open.
I
t was a lovely room, which looked as if it had been visited by a tornado.
9
SECOND SNATCH
ROSS took the scene of wild disorder in at a glance, swung on his heel, and thrust open the doors of the other rooms in quick succession; they had also been visited by the tornado, the only room which had escaped was the kitchen. This was empty, but as he opened the door, he heard a dull tapping sound. He stood very still, listening; it came from the larder. He went across, and the tapping sounded louder.
He opened the door.
The maid, bound hand and foot and with a gag over her mouth, was huddled on the floor beneath the shelves. Her grey hair looked like a mop. She could just move her feet, and was tapping one against the wall. Ross drew her out gently and carried her to her room, laid her on the bed and cut the cords. As he looked at her pale, lined face, he noticed something which he’d never noticed before; her eyes were blue.
When she was free of the gag, she tried to speak and only managed to nod.
He did everything for her as he had for Alice, fighting back his own impatience. At last she could form words. He helped, by framing questions so that she had only to say yes or no, or qualify with a word or two.
This had happened before breakfast. Mae had gone for her daily before-breakfast walk, but had been due back within half an hour; she’d been gone for more than two.
There had been two men, and they had let themselves in with a key. The maid hadn’t heard them come in, they’d surprised her in the kitchen, and she hadn’t been able to see them clearly; all she knew was that they were young men and well dressed. They’d thrown a cloth over her face; she’d had only a swift, frightened glance at each of them.
They’d asked no questions.
Ross said: “Sure they had a key?”
“Yes — yes, Mr. Ross, there’s no doubt, I’m so — so terrified.”
“You needn’t be.”
“But I am!” She was able to speak more freely now, and to move her hands without wincing. “They must have taken the key from Miss Mae’s bag, where else could they have obtained it?”
“They could have stolen the bag — that’s common enough.”