by John Creasey
He jumped up and turned round.
“Peter!” cried Mae. “Don’t go, don’t take any more risks. Don’t go!”
Her voice was ringing in his ears as he hurried down the stairs.
18
MILLICENT STREET
LOFTUS could move fast when he was in a hurry, and caught up with Ross at the first landing. Williamson, who had been outside the door, was already half-way down the next flight of stairs. Loftus put a hand on Ross’s shoulder.
“Millicent Street?” he asked.
“It’s a chance,” said Ross.
“Yes. But don’t rush it, I’ll talk to the Divisional Police, they’ll be glad to co-operate. You’ve time to take Mae home before we raid that garage and the houses near it.”
“Fix it with someone else, will you?” asked Ross.
“All right, old chap. But give yourself half an hour before you go to Millicent Street. I’ll have it surrounded within ten minutes, and I can find out if Willy Tiger owns any of the nearby houses. I’ll have the information for you when you get there — ask for the Superintendent in charge. I’ll have Wally Lane and Perry there, too.”
“Thanks,” said Ross.
He went out, with Williamson, and they walked along Chancery Lane to his car. Neither of them spoke. It was cold, and they moved briskly, Ross breathing deeply, glad to be out in the open air. He had confused pictures, of Mae as he’d first found her, of her eyes flickering, of the thought that she was dead and the realization that she was most certainly alive. He could imagine her screaming, and guess the pressure that the man had exerted — knew exactly how it could be done; he’d used the grip himself. But in finding Mae, his job wasn’t over; he’d simply crossed one bridge. As he got into his car, he asked himself whether he had really rushed away because he didn’t want to be distracted from his main task, or whether it was because he was desperately anxious to find a girl with a pair of remarkable blue eyes. The personal element kept intruding, and there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn’t loyal to the Department, wasn’t wholly loyal to Mae; he was all mixed up, and perhaps because of that, he had let the man go.
“Shall I drive?” asked Williamson.
“Will you?”
“Where?”
“We’ve half an hour to spare.”
“I know just the pub,” said Williamson, and let in the clutch. “Did Mae see the chap?”
“Yes.”
Ross repeated her description, and it could not have been more vivid on his mind. Williamson slid the car through the almost deserted Fleet Street, turned into a narrow side street, and pulled up in a parking-place. Almost opposite was a public-house, with lights blazing cheerfully and an illuminated neon sign reading: Nag’s Head. They went into the private bar, which was crowded — there were two women and about thirty men, none of whom appeared to notice the new-comers.
“I sometimes wonder whether they write with ink or whisky,” said Williamson, sotto voce. “And what wouldn’t they give to know what we’ve just done and are going to do?”
He forged a way to the bar, where two or three others were waiting, and several of the newspapermen glanced at them incuriously. Then with the drinks, he went across the room, where there were two vacant chairs.
They lit cigarettes.
“Just relax,” said Williamson. “You’re too intense on this job, Peter.”
“Blame my temperament,” said Ross.
“I know what to blame, but she’s all right.”
“Oh, yes. Alice Conway isn’t, and we still want a certain fine gentleman.”
“He’s on the run,” said Williamson confidently. “He started off with big ideas, but I don’t think he has ’em now.” He kept his voice low, so that he couldn’t be heard by anyone near. No one was taking the slightest interest in them. “The East End police know how to close up a district like Millicent Street, and if he did go there ——”
“Not likely,” said Ross. “He knows I’ve been there and the place is suspect. It’s worth trying, no more. In any case ——”
He hesitated.
“Yes?”
Ross said: “I’m probably crazy, but I wouldn’t have used the police for this job. We all know the East End grapevine. If there’s a police concentration, they’ll know all about it. A dozen runners will sneak up to Tiger and warn him — and before the police have taken up their position, he’ll have got rid of anything or anyone who might make trouble for him. I think Loftus has made a mistake.”
“He doesn’t make many.”
Ross shrugged.
He felt calmer as they left the pub, twenty minutes later. From force of habit, they stood by the car for several minutes, to make sure that no one followed them. Newspapermen had a nose for news. No one came out, but several people went in. Ross drove now, and stopped in Fleet Street, to make quite sure they weren’t followed. Then he drove across Ludgate Circus, through the desolation around St. Paul’s, and along the empty City streets, with the tall, grey buildings towering up on either side. Street cleaners were at work, a water-cart was droning along, splashing water into the kerb. There was no other sign of activity, no lights in any of the offices. As they turned into Aldgate, passing the old pump, London sprang to life. Neon signs flickered and glowed in a dozen colours, the Underground Station was a hubbub of activity, traffic suddenly became thick. The barrow-boys were still busy, the lighted cafés seemed crowded with people.
Ross turned towards Millicent Street, and a uniformed policeman stood in the middle of the road, hand up to stop them.
“Sorry, sir, you’ll have to make a detour.”
“We’re on business,” Ross said amiably. “Is the Superintendent in charge handy?”
He showed his Special Branch card.
“That’s all right, sir, thank you. You’ll find him at the other end of the street; you’d better go back, and take the next turning on the left. He doesn’t want any traffic along Millicent Street just now. It’s not far out of your way, sir — and it’s Chief Inspector Clark.”
“Thanks,” said Ross.
Clark was a thick-set man with a barrel-like torso, a hoarse, whispering voice and heavy features. He showed no enthusiasm for Ross or Williamson. He wore his trilby hat at the back of his head, and kept one hand in his pocket most of the time.
“Your friends are just along there, Mr. Ross.”
“Thanks. What’s your plan?”
“Not mine,” said Clark, and sounded almost bitter. “Mr. Loftus is in charge to-night.”
Ross said: “Fine!” and didn’t miss Clark’s scowl.
He left the car and with Williamson hurried along the street. Loftus, little Perry, and Wally Lane were outside one of the small houses. The garage showed up vaguely, the Mission House was much better lighted. There were no other men in sight, although many might be hiding in doorways, perhaps even in the garage or the Mission House itself.
Loftus loomed up.
“Hallo, folks, just the right timing.”
“Anything new?”
“Tiger owns the three houses next to the garage. There’s a flat over the garage which his men use as a doss-house, and he lives in the third house along. He’s in, all right.”
“How do you want to handle him?”
“What would you do?”
Ross grinned.
“I’d just go and knock at his door and tell him I want another chat. If he hasn’t already been told that there’s a police crowd in the street, he might be amenable. I think I could get anything out of him that he’s still keeping to himself.”
“Want any company?”
“What am I here for?” asked Williamson.
Perry and Lane didn’t speak or move.
“I’d say that’s as good a way as any,” said Loftus. “Did you reload your gun, Peter?”
“I’ve still three shots ——”
“Better be safe,” said Loftus, and handed him a clip of ammunition.
There was a light on in
Tiger’s house in Millicent Street; it glowed through the frosted glass of the fanlight. The small door was of solid wood. The house was exactly the same as all the others in the street, and there was no sound from it or from anywhere nearby. The police were watching at the back, there was no chance for Tiger or anyone else to get away.
Ross banged on the iron knocker, but there was no response. He knocked again, more heavily, and looked round for a bell; there wasn’t one. Next time, he thundered on the knocker, but as the echoes died away, silence fell. The light still glowed.
“Tiger isn’t deaf, is he?” asked Williamson mildly.
“Not yet,” said Ross.
He moved towards the window and examined it; the old sash-cord type had a catch which was fastened, but might be easy to press back. He used his knife, and the blade was long enough to touch the catch; there was no need for silence, and it went back against the glass with a bang. After that, silence settled again.
He did not need to speak of the possibility of acute danger; that Tiger and perhaps others knew they were in a corner, and would try to shoot their way out. He saw Williamson put his hand to his pocket, for his gun. He pushed the window up and it squealed noisily, and he could just see the crowded furniture in the room. There was a table with an art pot and some flowers right in the window, and he had to move this aside before he climbed in.
There was no sound; the door of the room was closed.
Williamson followed him.
Ross recalled the interview with Tiger and everything that Craigie had reported about him; and there was the possibility that Craigie was wrong. As Loftus may have been wrong in using the police. The odds were that Tiger had managed to get away before the police had come.
He groped his way across the room, reached the door, and opened it cautiously.
Light shone in the passage from another room; there was no light on in the passage itself. He sidled out. The passage was only a yard wide, he could stretch out his arm and touch the far wall. There was complete silence, inside and out — the little house was empty all right.
A staircase led up from the stairs.
Ross kept close to the wall as he went towards the room where the light was on. This was at the end of the passage alongside the stairs, and probably came from the kitchen. Williamson followed, but went the other way, to open the front door. Loftus and the other Z men came in, filling the passage. Ross led the way to the kitchen. The door was only open a foot, and he could just see a dresser and a row of shelves, the corner of a table with a bottle of beer, a loaf of bread, some butter, and other oddments on it — as if Tiger had been settling down to a meal before he’d had the warning.
Ross pushed the door wider open, and saw a foot.
It was a small foot, in a canvas slipper, and its owner was lying down. The other leg was drawn up; Ross saw that as he peered cautiously round the door, not yet certain that there was nothing to fear. Then he saw the huge torso and the shirt open at the neck.
Tiger lay on his back.
Tiger’s throat was cut.
Loftus looked down dispassionately, and said as if to himself:
“Well, he won’t do any more harm.”
He moved across the kitchen, which was as crowded as the front room. Beyond was a tiny scullery, where Ross was examining the door. The back door was locked, so no one had escaped that way. He opened it and called out to the policemen in the tiny garden, then rejoined Loftus in the kitchen. Perry was bending over Tiger’s dead body, and Loftus looking through the pockets of a coat which was hanging on the back of a chair.
“Nice people,” Williamson said.
“Suicide?” Perry muttered the word.
“Be yourself,” said Ross. “There’s no knife handy. Someone came in, and Tiger wasn’t alarmed — and then he was slashed. By a friend — now we have to find all of Tiger’s friends, Bill.”
“Just the killer will do,” said Loftus. He touched Tiger’s hand. “Warm — he hasn’t been dead long, but he might have been dead before you found Mae.”
“Or Mae’s boy friend might have come straight here,” said Ross.
“Can you tell me why?”
“Not yet. Unless he was afraid we’d have another go at Tiger, who could talk. Nothing in the pockets, was there?”
“Nothing any good,” said Loftus. “But it’ll take us several hours to have a good look round here and at the garage. Going upstairs?”
Loftus was leaving everything to him, making it clear that it was his own show. Ross gave a twisted smile, went back and started up the stairs. He didn’t expect to find anyone else here, and then remembered asking Craigie if Tiger were married. If he were, where was his wife? There was a tiny landing, and three doors led from it. Two of them stood open, and the other was closed.
He opened the closed door.
Tiger had been married; at all events, the woman on the bed, killed in exactly the same way as the man, had a wedding ring on a plump finger.
Ross glanced round, called down to tell the others, and then went into the next room. It was a small bedroom, with a single bed, and an old marble-topped washstand. It looked clean and tidy, but didn’t offer him any information. He went to the third room.
Cords dangled from the posts at the foot and head of the double bed — and he didn’t need telling that someone had been tied to this bed. The cords had been cut.
He stood looking round, eyes narrowed but missing nothing. A cigarette-end, lying on a broken ash-tray; a plate with some crumbs on it. He moved about the room, shifting oddments of furniture, eventually looked under the bed.
Something showed up, small and pale.
He fished it out; a small pearl cluster brooch. It was Alice Conway’s; she had worn it at the neck of her blouse.
The girl must have been here when he had been talking to Tiger, earlier in the day. He’d told himself that he had come out of that encounter well — and the girl had been lying here, helpless, terrified.
He gritted his teeth.
He heard footsteps coming up the passage, but didn’t turn round. He stared at the window, and seemed to see a pair of startling blue eyes — eyes so blue and clear that he couldn’t forget them, and knew that he never would.
19
VITAL NEED
ROSS tried to shut out the vision of those blue eyes as he rang the bell at Mae’s flat. He couldn’t. He had seen Alice Conway for about twenty minutes, certainly not much longer — and he couldn’t forget her, he was thinking of her even as he waited for the door to open and before he saw Mae. He wrenched his thoughts away, tried to guess how Mae was now. In bed, probably, with the maid fussing over her.
Mae opened the door.
“Hallo, darling,” she said, and drew him inside.
There had been much smart talk between them, the serious moments had been few and far between, and those had been touched by the intensity of passion. That wasn’t here now. She was quiet and earnest — she seemed calmer and different. That showed in the way she smiled, the way she spoke, and in the soft touch of her hand. He tried to analyse it as he followed her into the big room, where the chaos had been that morning, but which had been tidied up so that nothing was out of place.
She was more mature.
The cocktail cabinet was open, and she went across and poured out drinks, knowing that he would want whisky. One bar of the electric fire was on, and two arm-chairs were drawn up in front of it; usually, she would have the couch drawn up.
“A long life, darling.”
“No more escapades for you,” said Ross.
They drank.
Mae sat down; and usually by now she would have flung her arms round him, they would have been losing themselves in the wild joy of passion. He started to sit down, then realised that he hadn’t kissed her and hadn’t wanted to. He’d brushed her forehead with his lips, at Chancery Lane, that was all. He went across, and stood smiling down.
“All right?”
“Yes, I’m fine, now. He didn
’t hurt me.”
“Wonderful!”
He went down and pressed his lips against hers, but there was something wrong. There wasn’t the response that he might have expected, and that was partly due to him. He drew away.
“You must be tired,” said Mae. “Sit down, darling.”
“I’m not new to this game,” he said.
“No, I realise that. I realise a lot of things,” said Mae. “It began after you sent me home last night. At first I was — livid.” She laughed, lightly, nervously. “To be sent home like a naughty schoolgirl! But that didn’t last long, I realised you were really working and there wasn’t a blonde — and that I’d been an utter fool. Did you get my note?”
“Yes. Thanks. It’s in my pocket.”
“I mean what I said.”
“I know,” said Ross, although he hadn’t been and wasn’t sure.
“And I’ve done a lot of thinking since then, I’ve had time to,” said Mae. “If that man’s a specimen of the kind you fight, you’ve plenty to do, and you can’t afford to be worrying about the tantrums of a spoiled woman.”
“My, my! You’ll get introspective.”
“It’s time I did some thinking,” said Mae. “Peter, I don’t know what’s going to happen between us, I can well understand if you feel that it’s all been a mistake. But whatever happens, I shan’t be a pest again. You’ve the job, and I’m not part of it. I wish I could be, but ——” She shrugged. “Forget everything I said at the Dive, darling.”
“Forgotten,” said Peter.
“Can I — help?”
“I doubt it — beyond telling me more about the boy friend,” said Ross. “I’m not the boss of the outfit, and agents don’t get picked off the nearest tree. You’ve all the requisites of a bee-ootiful spy, my sweet, but it’s tough going.”
“Let’s be serious,” said Mae.
“Did you get any idea of this man’s name?”
“None at all.”
“What did he talk about?”
Mae said: “That was one of the worst things about it, he said practically nothing after the first interview. He was at the house in the East End, that was the first time I saw him. He wanted to know everything I could tell him about you — especially your work.”