by John Creasey
Two men were rushing up the steps.
“Peter.” He could hardly hear her voice. “Don’t let them — catch me.”
So she wanted to die.
Slowly, with a physical effort, he lowered the gun. Two men rushed in, one a policeman, the other in ordinary clothes. They drew up for a moment when they saw the man on the floor, and Mae. Ross glanced towards them — and Mae darted forward towards the second man’s gun, which was on the floor a few inches from his hand. Ross grabbed at her and missed, she snatched the gun up and turned it towards herself. Ross leapt and struck her arm aside. The bullet smacked into the floor, the report was deafening.
Mae stood swaying, glaring.
The policeman, like a herald of doom, took her left arm firmly.
“Don’t let’s have any more of this,” he said.
Mae looked at him — and began to laugh. She flung back her head and opened her mouth wide, and the laughter pealed out; it wasn’t sane. She wasn’t sane. Ross forced himself to look away from her, and caught the bewildered eye of the man who had come in with the policeman. He was not remarkable, just a well-dressed, youngish man.
“Are you in this?” Ross asked.
“I’m not in anything, I just happened to be passing.”
“Oh. Help the policeman, will you, I’ve a job to do.”
“You can’t do anything now, you need a doctor.” The stranger looked at Ross’s left hand. Blood had trickled from the wound in his arm and was spreading over the back of his hand; he hadn’t noticed it. He laughed shortly, swung round, snatched a linen towel off the bathroom rail, and wound it round his hand loosely. “Now we won’t spoil the carpet,” he said.
He tossed his Special Branch card to the policeman and went towards the door. Mae was still laughing, but not so loudly; she looked ill. He turned from the door and sent one look at her, and wondered what had happened to her beauty and what had warped her mind.
Then he went out.
It was ten minutes to nine.
The drive had made his wounded arm much more painful, towards the end of the run he found difficulty in using it for the wheel or the gears. He swung round a corner too fast, and saw a car pulled up across the road and two uniformed policemen standing in front of it. He jammed on his brakes. As he switched off the engine he heard a sound which was becoming familiar — the roar of a shot. There were two more, in quick succession, before one of the policemen came up.
Ross got out of the car, and bent his arm across his chest.
“Having fun?” he asked.
The policeman’s face was hardly visible in the dim light of a street lamp.
“I’m sorry, sir, you can’t pass here, we’re having some trouble. The best way ——”
“It’s my trouble,” Ross said. “I’m expected. My name’s Ross.”
“Oh, yes, sir! Mr. Loftus said he was expecting you. Take the next turning, and be careful, they’re firing at anything they can see. That’s the house,” he added, and pointed.
Ross could just see a house against the sky, some distance from this spot.
“Thanks,” he said.
When he turned the corner, he saw two cars drawn up outside the gates of the house, more policemen and a man in plain clothes; so they’d had to call in the police. As he approached the gate, a shot rang out; he didn’t know whether it was intended for him. He turned into the gateway, and saw Loftus and two or three other agents standing in a clump of bushes; Loftus was crouching. There was no light in the house, until a flash lit up a window for a moment — and there was an answering shot from the garden.
Ross reached Loftus.
“You’ve taken your time,” said Loftus. “You can talk. I thought you’d run into a wall.”
“Not the usual kind of wall,” said Ross. “What’s the situation?”
“I don’t know how many of them are inside, but they’re making it as hot as they can. Not much doubt that Alice Conway’s with them, they say they’ll kill her if we don’t let them go. The usual desperate tactics. What happened to you?”
“I was just dealing with the leader of this mob,” said Ross.
Loftus said: “What?”
Two others — Williamson and Perry — were within earshot, and they drew nearer. Another burst of shooting came from a different part of the grounds; Loftus undoubtedly had groups of men here, and there would also be strong forces of police.
“Serious?” asked Williamson.
“Full story later, but it was Mae,” said Ross. “We can see the wood for the trees now, can’t we? So Alice Conway’s in there, and they’ll kill her if we don’t give them a free passage. Didn’t Craigie say he wanted her, dead or alive, and it didn’t much matter which?”
“This is the last stage,” said Loftus. “We’re getting closer, and their ammunition will give out. We’ll start a rush soon, and use tear-gas, she’ll have a fifty-fifty chance.”
“Tried talking to them?”
“It’s a waste of time,” said Loftus.
“Talking usually is. Well, first I had to get Conway dead or alive, and next his daughter. Why don’t I do something about it?”
Ross laughed, and that reminded him of Mae. He could see the way the others looked at him and guessed what they were thinking. They were thinking that he must have had a demoralising shock, and that he hated the world — because they thought the woman he loved had proved to be bad. They didn’t know that he was sizzling with rage at his own folly.
“Peter, you drop back,” said Loftus. “You’re hurt, aren’t you?”
“Just a scratch,” said Ross. “When I’m inside the house, you can lead the light brigade, old chap.”
He swung round, reached the drive, and raced towards the house.
28
ALICE
AS he ran, the shooting started. A piercing whistle came from behind him, a signal of some kind. He heard a bullet strike the drive in front of him, thought that another pulled at his coat, but he ran on, gun in hand. A fusillade of shots rang out from behind him. He had the wit to realise that Loftus had ordered general fire, at the blast of the whistle. The house seemed a long way off, but he went swiftly. He felt something snatch at his wounded arm, and there was more pain, but it hardly made him flinch.
The house was much nearer.
He swerved to one side, where he saw a window; he hadn’t seen any shooting coming from that window, but there was plenty from another, near it. He reached the window, and smashed his gun against the glass. It broke with an explosive crack which sounded high above the shooting.
He knew he was crazy; and also knew that he had to do this thing; it was a form of penance — payment for folly. He smashed at the big splinters of glass which stuck out from the frame, then lowered his head and climbed through. Glass pulled at the towel and it unwound. He stepped inside the room and made for the door. Luck was with him, nothing was in his way. He was near the door when it burst open, and against a poor light, he saw a man rushing in. He fired; the man went down.
He thought he heard someone else at the window. The shooting was still going on, from inside and outside. He went into the passage, and there was no one in sight. The light was on the landing, just a dim glow. The stairs were wide and carpeted. He raced up them, pain forgotten. The noise of shooting seemed louder, now. As he reached the landing, where several doors were open, a man appeared, gun in hand. Ross shot him.
He went into the room and snatched at the light switch; the window was open, a breeze blew the curtains, but no one was there. Now, men were running up the stairs, Loftus had sent the others after him. He swung out of this room into another, from which the shooting sounded loud. As he pressed down the switch, he saw a man kneeling by the open window — and he saw Alice Conway lying on a bed; he didn’t know whether she was dead or alive. The man at the window swung round, but was dazzled by the light. Ross shot the gun out of his hand.
Williamson came to the door.
“Careful,” said Ross. “M
y job’s over.”
He went across to the bed. Alice was tied to it, hand and foot, her arms stretched above her head, she couldn’t move. But her eyes were wide open, and the light shone on to their eternal blueness, which danger and fear could not take away. He didn’t know whether she recognised him, but he stood looking down at her, smiling.
“It’s all over,” he said. “You’re safe, and your father is safe. Nothing to worry about.” He felt a wave of dizziness, staggered, recovered, and put his hand to his hip pocket and drew out a knife. “I’m quite good at doing this kind of thing,” he said, and began to cut the cords.
He swayed again. The knife glinted and became a monstrous shining thing, then became absurdly small. He gritted his teeth, became steadier, and with great deliberation, cut all the cords. Then he dropped the knife.
“Take it easy,” Williamson said.
He came farther into the room. Ross turned towards him, and realised vaguely that the shooting had stopped. Then he saw Loftus limping in, and Loftus was smiling. He let Williamson lead him across to a chair, leaned back, and closed his eyes. He heard Williamson speak as if from a long distance.
“He’s lost a hell of a lot of blood.”
As if that mattered.
Ross lay in bed in a room at a nursing-home near his flat, and looked idly through the newspapers. He felt weak, but wasn’t in any pain. His left arm was bandaged, but after two days, he could sit up and talk sensibly, and he knew that he would be as right as ever in a week or two. The newspapers were yesterday’s, and carried full reports of the raid at Wimbledon, but nothing about the fight at his flat. Alice was shown in every paper, but there wasn’t a picture of Mae.
He was looking through this morning’s paper, five minutes later, when the door opened and Loftus came in. Ross dropped the paper, and raised a hand in greeting. Loftus, walking slowly, came across and sat down on the foot of the bed, stretching his false leg straight out in front of him. They looked at each other for a few seconds, both grinning.
Then Loftus said: “Well, how’s the hero?”
“Wonderful!”
“In future, you might remember that we like to keep our best agents alive,” said Loftus. “You were crazy to go in like that — don’t do it again.” His grin broadened. “If you hadn’t, we might have had more casualties and gone on for hours. And we might not have made Professor Conway so happy.”
“How — how’s his daughter?” asked Ross, as if casually.
“Doing all right. She wasn’t hurt anything to speak of, and is tucked up in bed at home. Her aunt’s fussing her, and her father looks about ten years younger. Job nicely completed, Peter.”
“Some would say so. What did you find at the house?”
“Two dead men, one wounded, and two others who gave up when we rushed them. None of them was a big shot — it’s all out, now. Higson of the Dive and Mae Harrison were the leaders, no doubt about that. We’ve found all the papers, all the evidence.”
“Where’s Mae?”
“Awaiting trial.”
Ross didn’t speak.
Loftus said gently: “And don’t get any fool notion that you ought to have killed her, to save her from that. She asked for everything she’s going to get. Sorry, Peter, but we needn’t beat about the bush. What’s more, the trial will do a lot of good, we’ll be able to publish everything she’s been up to, everything she’s been doing. It’ll tell the world that we’ve broken that particular gang, do something to make them realise British Intelligence isn’t on its last legs yet.”
“Ah,” said Ross. “What was she doing, exactly?”
“Quite simply — running a small, highly organised spy-ring, selling whatever it collected to the highest bidder. Not always Russia, either. She’s been at it for years. Elliott and Higson have talked freely, now she’s caught. She’s not insane within the legal meaning of the word, but obsessed with a hatred of England and all things English. I don’t know her early history yet, but Higson says that all she ever worried about was harming the country. She did a lot during the Second World War, and got away with it. Her background was so good that I couldn’t find anything wrong with it, would have used her, within limits, to ease your personal troubles. You weren’t the only one who was fooled.”
Ross groped for cigarettes and lit one without thinking of offering the packet to Loftus.
“Two gangs were after Conway and the defence secrets — we don’t know the other one, yet. We can guess! The first gang kidnapped Conway. Mae’s mob — or rather Elliott — got in with them. For a while he worked for both, although he says he doesn’t know much about the others, except that they were after Conway. He pretended to work for them, but was planning to get Conway from them, for Mae. He poisoned the men at the bungalow before they could get Conway away in the launch. Conway was drugged. Then he received the telephone message from the other bungalow. With Department Z men about he knew he would have trouble getting out, so he put on a policeman’s outfit, kept at the bungalow, and slipped through the garden. He had the luck to pick up Alice.”
“I see,” said Ross. “This other gang ——”
Loftus said: “Finding them will be our next job. Now! To bring the story up to date, there were underground offers of big money for these atomic air-defence plans, and Mae and Higson got to work on it. We soon found they were after Conway, whom they selected as the man to work on — because of his age and because of his daughter; they thought they could bribe her to help. You were keeping Conway pretty safe, and had been for months. Mae discovered it and made a set at you, and then — Higson isn’t in any doubt — she fell in love. It complicated things somewhat.”
Ross drew in the smoke, deeply.
“Mae wanted you out of the game, because she didn’t want you hurt, and Elliott, your man with the Voice, simply acted on her orders.
“Mae kept ringing the changes, to confuse you, but you got on to Bray. She’d blackmailed Bray, who was mixed up in some gun-running during the First World War, but there were limits to what he would do — he’d found patriotism. So when you got warm, she switched suspicion on to Bray, and he certainly looked right. He’d done a great deal that she told him to.
“She was obsessed with you. She arranged for her own ‘kidnapping’, believing that if she were ‘kidnapped’, you’d be so desperately anxious to save her from further danger, you’d give up the case. Later, she let Bray give Elliott away. She also told Bray to let you think he’d had orders to start a quarrel — just another ruse to keep you thinking more about Mae than the case. She felt sure Elliott would get away from the Chancery Lane office, and had given Higson orders to kill him. A wounded man was a liability. She took the risk that you’d catch Elliott at Chancery Lane, of course — but she was so used to taking risks, it didn’t worry her. Then she described him. That was very cunning, Peter, because she’d ordered him to wear the wig and false nose when Bray saw him — because she knew Bray would describe him, and if his description differed from hers, Bray would be on the spot.”
Ross nodded, slowly.
“Tiger had been useful in some ways, such as supplying strong-arm men, and looking after Alice Conway, whom Elliott took to the garage, but he began to get ambitious. He was told to raid your flat first, then hers, to get you worrying about her. She hoped, even as early as that, that you’d give up if she were in danger. But Tiger was in danger himself. He looked for papers at her flat, and was obviously trying to muscle in. So Mae gave Tiger away — said just enough about the garage in the East End to make sure we’d go there. But she’d arranged for him and his wife to be killed so that they couldn’t talk. You’d started to break Tiger, he wasn’t loyal, and the only way to make sure he was safe was to kill him. She lost nothing there, but she put herself in the clear.
“By then you were so great a danger, and there was a risk you’d discover her real self, that she made an effort to kidnap you. Then she realised the game was pretty nearly up, but made her final effort with you. She
still hoped the Wimbledon members of the group could get the plans. To confuse you, one of her men telephoned, pretending to be the Voice. Earlier, still wanting to find out exactly what you knew, whether you were on to Wimbledon or anything else, she offered help and did that little job with Bray and Dolly. She’d blackmailed Bray, of course, but he didn’t know she was behind that. She was afraid there would be talk of a woman being concerned, and Alice Conway was nicely placed for a suspect — so she switched to her. Then gradually she realised that she couldn’t win. She was afraid Higson or one of the others would break down, feared there’d be a raid at Wimbledon, and made that last attempt. She was nearly demented — and I don’t have to tell you what followed.”
Loftus stopped.
Ross stubbed out his cigarette, closed his eyes, and said quietly:
“Well, I don’t want to run into anything like that again. Can’t you invent a de-humanising serum, to make sure we don’t make fools of ourselves?”
Loftus smiled.
“Forget it. Gordon’s found out that if you stop a man from being human, you take something out of him that he needs on the job. The no-marriage rule wasn’t vetoed just for the sake of it, it simply didn’t work. Gordon hates to admit it, but that doesn’t alter facts. Any questions?”
“Alice and Bray?”
“Oh, yes,” said Loftus, “that was a curious little twist. Approach was made to Alice, through Bray — who was acting on his unknown blackmailer’s orders. Alice was very curious, and wanted to find out who was so interested in her father’s work. If she’d taken the normal course and gone to the police, she thought they would laugh at her. She saw herself as really doing something worthwhile — she’d led a drab life, and dreamed dreams. She knew her father was working on important projects, but didn’t know what, and — well, she tried to find out just what Bray was after. He didn’t really know her, had just tested her out and found she wasn’t likely to fall for bribery. He knew what Conway was doing — Bray seems to know a lot that he shouldn’t — and didn’t like it. So he told his blackmailer that he couldn’t get results, and dropped Alice. He had a strong motive, too — falling in love with his Dolly.