by John Creasey
He pushed the pile over to Loftus, who examined the penknife, the cheap nickel watch, a few coppers, two half-crowns, a piece of string and—something he turned over twice—a worn piece of billiards chalk. The small round box in which the chalk had been wrapped was missing, and a segment had been chipped out of the block itself.
‘Thought of this, Horace?’
‘Yes,’ said Miller, ‘but there’s not much chance of locating him through that. I’ll try, though. Ah—that’s the only thing that puzzles me.’
‘That’ was a small round disc, a little larger than a ha’-penny. It was plain on one side, made of copper, and well worn at the edges. Loftus flicked it into the air, and it gave forth a light ting as his thumb-nail struck it. Oundle peered at it with him, seeing the design on the one side.
The design was nearly worn off, but with the help of a magnifying-glass which Miller took from his pocket, Loftus could make out what looked like two heads on one pair of shoulders. He grinned crookedly.
‘Accident or design, I wonder?’
‘Of course it’s a design,’ said Miller.
‘Come, come,’ said Loftus, ‘I mean accident or design that the dead man had it on him. You’ll keep the fingerprints and whatnot filed, won’t you? And you might try the other countries, to see if he’s on the records there.’
‘It’s being done,’ said Miller, stroking his moustache.
‘Quick work from Scotland Yard,’ said Loftus. ‘Mind if I keep this?’ He tucked the disc into his pocket, and Miller smiled dourly.
‘A lot of use it would be if I’d said no,’ he commented. ‘What is it all about, Loftus?’
‘I wish I knew,’ said Loftus. ‘But you’ll be in on it as soon as anyone. How’s crime in the black-out?’
‘It could be worse,’ said Miller cautiously.
In the courtyard of Police Headquarters Loftus stopped, as if hesitating while deciding whether to go into Parliament Street or to the Embankment. It was a pitch-black night, and there was little traffic about. Loftus kept quite still, and Oundle followed his example. Oundle had learned many years before that Loftus did nothing without a reason.
Loftus gripped his arm, and whispered.
‘There’s someone not four yards from us, Ned.’
‘Probably a policeman.’
‘And possibly not. Move towards the left, and ask me whether it’s worth going back to the Yard for some matches.’
Oundle obeyed, without question. He moved slowly, and with his ears strained and his eyes at a stretch to try to pierce the gloom. As he said ‘matches’ he heard a sharp exclamation, followed by Loftus’s:
‘I’m awfully sorry! No damage, I hope?’
‘N-no.’ Whoever he had hit against had been startled, and Oundle grinned. Loftus caught up with him, after another hearty apology, and they walked briskly into Parliament Street. There were taxis in the middle of the road, but Loftus preferred to walk, keeping a sharp pace and cannoning into several people. Deliberately he did not use a torch. As deliberately he took three side turnings on the way to Piccadilly. It took them twenty minutes to reach 55g, Brook Street, and outside the house Loftus took his torch out for the first time.
‘I’m not sure on my own doorstep,’ he said aloud, ‘but I knew the rest like the palm of my hand. Ah!’
The bright beam of his torch shot out, but did not point towards the door. Instead, it revealed a short, thick-set man who stood no more than three yards away from them. It revealed his face, a florid, startled countenance, chiefly remarkable at that moment because the mouth was open, and a tooth was missing from the upper jaw.
‘Sorry!’ said Loftus heartily.
He swivelled the torch round, but not until he had shone it on the stranger’s coat—where, Oundle glimpsed, there was a pale mark. Oundle frowned, but not until they were in the flat did Loftus say gently:
‘He followed us from the Yard. He was on our heels all the way but we didn’t hear him, which meant he had some yards to spare.’
‘Sure it’s the same man?’
‘Quite sure,’ said Loftus casually, ‘I rubbed the billiards chalk on his coat. Odd thing, my Ned.’
‘Meaning he could see us?’
‘It looks as if he could,’ admitted Bill Loftus, and he too sounded sombre. ‘And if he could it’s the very Devil. I...’
He broke off, and moved like lightning for the door. Oundle was on his heels, and as Loftus pulled the door open the scream which had made him move came more loudly into the flat—a scream that was coming from the street, nearby.
4
Out of the Darkness
They had heard it clearly because the window was open behind the curtain, and the room faced the street. Neither of them had hesitated, despite the gloom, but Loftus’s torch carved a ray of light towards the pavement as soon as he opened the front door. The scream had stopped, but there was a low-pitched, moaning sound in its stead—and the thought that sprung into both their minds was proved to be justified.
A man was lying on the pavement, opposite the house.
There were footfalls coming from each end of Brook Street, and several torches flashed. No one was as near as Loftus, however, and he was on his knees peering into the man’s face before anyone else. Oundle saw that in the extremity of pain the man’s mouth was open.
And he saw the gap in the upper row of teeth.
‘Our man,’ he said, and he spoke almost casually.
‘How?’
‘Shot,’ said Loftus. ‘Not quite such a good aim, it got him in the neck, poor beggar. I—ah, officer, I’ve been expecting you.’ He stood up as a policeman arrived, with two men close behind. ‘I heard the scream from my flat, and hurried down.’
‘So I gathered, sir,’ said the policeman heavily. ‘I—oh, it’s Mr. Loftus.’ That it was Loftus seemed to put everything right with the world, and the policeman in uniform bent down to investigate the man lying on the pavement but no longer moaning. He was dead—dead in the opinion of the policeman, Loftus, the two strangers who had arrived, and a doctor summoned from a nearby house.
To Loftus and to Oundle there was something worse than death in that fact.
How had he been shot?
Who had killed him?
And why had he been killed?
‘The why,’ said Loftus into the telephone to Craigie, ‘being the most important, Gordon. It seems senseless. Two men who followed us—or some of us—put out apparently just because of that. There’s neither rhyme nor reason to it.’
‘There is, and we’ll find what it is,’ said Craigie, who did not sound tired over the telephone. ‘I’ve heard from Mark Errol—that girl telephoned him and repeated the warning.’
‘Did she, by Jove! Infernal impudence. Gordon, could this killing be aimed at making us go warily? Putting the wind up us.’
‘It’s even likely to be, Bill. Who has the second man?’
‘I’ve sent him to Cannon Row.’
‘I’ll phone Miller so that he looks into it personally,’ said Craigie. ‘We’ll want the bullets compared, they may have come from the same gun. No luck with identifying the first man?’
‘Only that he plays billiards.’
‘It might help,’ said Craigie. ‘All right, get some sleep while you can.’
Yet Loftus did not go to bed particularly early, although Oundle was asleep soon after eleven. Loftus sat smoking in an easy-chair, the smoke from his pipe coiling upwards towards the haze in the ceiling, and the air in the room getting thicker every minute. He was trying to make sense out of nonsense, trying to see reason in insanity.
• • • • •
‘Ta-ra-ri-a-tida,’ carolled Mike Errol, ‘ta-ra-ri-a-tidy.’ He stopped, and said to the bathroom: ‘That’s if nobody minds me saying so.’
He rubbed down quickly and, with the sun streaming through the windows of the passage beyond, walked briskly to the bedroom which he was sharing with his cousin. It was his first morning in Bournemouth, and he was
liking it. The sun gleamed on the yellow sands at the foot of the cliffs which he could see from the windows, and there was a blue haze about the water, while a small sailing-ship ploughed its way steadily towards Swanage, its sail picked out clear and white. Two or three smaller boats were bobbing on the swell close to the shore, and the buildings of the West Cliff, mostly with red roofs glistening in the sun, made it look like a toy town. The pines, tops driven backwards from the sea, added a touch of dark green which set the rest into perfect relief.
The previous day had been one of complete inactivity and rest. Much rest: and both Mike and Mark decided that as Loftus had sent them on a dead-end job again they may as well make the most of it.
Matthew Grafton was at the Cliff Royal. They had actually argued with him on the previous evening, debating the respective merits of the British and Nazi air forces. The scientist considered that the Nazis were underrated, and the British much overrated. The Errols had begged leave to disagree.
The hotel was on the cliff-edge, some ten minutes’ walk from the pier, and comfortably away from traffic and noise. A little backwater for the Errols, and a place of comfort after their experiences of small French estaminets, and tiny Italian inns. There was ample hot water, central heating, spring-interior mattresses, and excellent food. It was Mike’s morning for breakfast.
There being no apparent need for them both to be on the prowl all the time, Mark was to laze as he liked that morning, Mike the next day. The possibility of a sudden recall had been borne in mind, and they had chosen to ignore it.
Mike opened the bedroom door, to find Mark had sent for more tea, and was reading the Daily Telegraph.
‘News?’ asked Mike.
‘Someone’s dropped another leaflet somewhere,’ said Mark.
‘Nice work. Any more secret weapons?’
‘Don’t talk to me about secret weapons,’ said Mark with a scowl. ‘She pinned one on to my sleeve. Someone’s protesting to Berlin about the sinking of a freighter.’
‘What are the apologies on, silver or gold salvers?’
‘Your trouble,’ said Mark, ‘is an inability to take anything as seriously as you should. Get some clothes on, the gong’ll go at any minute, and you’ll want to make sure the Professor’s grape-fruit isn’t poisoned.’ He tossed the paper aside, and Mark began to dress.
‘Everything considered, Mike, there’s a lot of funny business about this. In the circumstances Gordon wouldn’t have sent us down here just for fun and games.’
‘No-o. He’s expecting developments with the Professor.’
‘Who said he was a professor, anyway?’
‘The large woman with the Spanish comb behind her ear,’ said Mark. ‘The one who said Freud was to blame for the attack on Poland.’
‘With the voice that breathed o’er Eden,’ admitted Mike, stooping to tie his shoe-laces. ‘Large fore and aft, and very earnest. An eagle eye on the Professor, who has to be careful or he’ll be hauled into matrimony.’
‘You seem,’ said Mark, ‘to have noticed her. Nice soul. I’ll wage a pound to a penny that she gets into the breakfast-room a minute after the Pro—I mean Grafton—and neither more nor less. I—hurry!’
Mike hurried, for the breakfast gong went.
There was no real reason why he should be in the breakfast-room before Grafton, but they had decided to do their job seriously and to the best of their ability see that Grafton was kept in sight most of the day. Mike finished knotting his tie, and went downstairs. Sun, which had been missing most of that spring, was still shining through the windows, and in his ears as he passed an open door leading to a small garden was the lapping of the waves against the seashore. A maid, pert and neat in cap and apron, was the only occupant of the breakfast-room.
The Professor’s table was in a corner by the window, and reasonably close to the bright coal fire. The Errols had chosen a table from which they could see their quarry without turning their heads. There were fifteen tables in all, eight set for four, and seven for two—although at dinner the previous night only seven had been occupied, Mike and Mark making the only double. They were opposite the door, and it opened to reveal—Mike anticipated—one of the dowdy females who had been in the previous night.
The woman who entered was medium tall, inclined to be willowy, fair-haired, and very English. Also very lovely. She had one of those dream complexions which seemed to owe nothing to make-up, but actually owed a great deal, if discreetly. Her eyes were blue, clear, and starry. Her lips were red but not too red, an inclination of her head as she passed Mike was a thing of grace.
‘I don’t,’ said Mike to his grape-fruit, ‘believe it.’
She was dressed in a suit coat and a white blouse which somehow contrived to make her look incredibly tiny and dainty. She carried a Daily Telegraph and when she greeted the maid in attendance her voice was pleasant without being affected.
And then she sat at the Professor’s table.
‘I don’t believe that either,’ said Mike, and he finished his appetiser without enjoyment. It was all wrong. He should have had some kind of warning, and...
‘Good morning, darling!’
A male voice, deep and full of the joy of living, a painful thing to hear so early. Mike heard it before seeing the door open, for he had been too busy looking at the girl. Now he saw a man of some thirty years, reasonably tall, passably good-looking, and with a positive rock of a chin, enter the breakfast-room and without fuss or bother sit opposite the girl. That was annoying for two reasons. It meant that he was at her table, and that Mike could not see her without craning his neck.
‘Hallo, Teddy,’ said the girl amiably.
‘Teddy!’ thought Mike Errol with a snort. ‘Teddy! Nothing more than a bruiser, he...’ Mike stopped thinking and ordered bacon and eggs—hoping that the rationing would make it permissible and gave himself time to smile at himself. There was, after all, nothing unusual nor abnormal about a decent-looking man and a good-looking girl greeting each other at the breakfast table as if they were old friends. Bias apart, moreover the man was a clean-cut fellow with a naturally deep voice.
The puzzle was the table.
Why should they go to the Professor’s?
Others filtered into the breakfast; a chorus of ‘good mornings’ and a combined rustling of newspapers followed. The only conversation came from the corner by the window, and that was not well maintained. Mike saw the girl glancing towards the door several times, and once as she turned her head the man leaned forward and whispered.
The girl shrugged.
Within a minute her eyes had turned towards the door again, and a movement of her companion revealed her clearly to Mike. He scowled, for he thought at once that she looked worried—and he did not like to think of her worried. He had come to the conclusion that she was a relative or friend of Grafton’s.
If he were right, she was looking for Grafton. Of her growing concern there could not be the slightest doubt. He saw her push her plate away suddenly, with her food half-finished.
‘I’ll slip up to make sure he’s all right,’ she said.
‘I’ll go,’ said the man cheerfully. ‘But there’s nothing to worry about.’
He suited his action to his words, dabbed at his lips with his napkin. Mike found himself watching the door as eagerly as the girl.
The rustling increased, the clatter of knives and forks went on, but the door did not open. It passed through Mike’s mind that the well-built woman who had blamed Freud for so many things had not yet arrived, and he recalled Mark’s offer to wager that she would follow the Professor by a minute.
He had finished eating and was deliberately dallying in order to watch the girl. Now he pushed his chair back and walked towards the door. Attractive though she was, his interest was in Grafton, and her anxiety could only be for the Professor.
A maid entered the room hurriedly and stepped across to the girl.
‘Mr. Grey would like to see you for a minute, miss.’
Mike was outside the room before the girl had left the table. Presumably ‘Mr. Grey’ was the man who had left earlier, and his message suggested some reason for the girl’s anxiety.
Grafton’s room was Number 11. The Errols had Number 15, which was on the same landing, and as Mike reached the landing he saw that the door of Number 11 was wide open. Passing it, he glimpsed Grey standing by the window with his back towards the door.
The girl was hurrying in Mike’s wake.
Mike went quickly into his own room, where Mark, in his dressing-gown, was breakfasting by the open window. His expression hardened as he saw his cousin.
‘Get some clothes on,’ said Mike, ‘we may have a hurried move.’
He waited for nothing else but ducked back into the passage. The Professor’s door remained open, and the girl’s voice was coming quietly. The quiet note was praiseworthy in the circumstances.
‘He can’t have gone far, Teddy.’
‘Of course not.’ The voice of the man was hearty, and obviously intended to be reassuring. To Mike, it failed in its object. ‘He’s slipped out for a stroll along the cliff, it’s such a glorious morning.’
‘Don’t try to tell me what he’s likely to do, please.’ For the first time there was a note of impatience in the girl’s voice, suggesting that she was a little tired of Teddy’s heartiness. Mike silently applauded her. ‘I—I’m sorry, Teddy, but you know that it’s been so worrying for the past few weeks, and I’ve been afraid of something like this for a long time.’
‘Easy goes,’ said Teddy. ‘We’ll take a stroll, and probably run across him. I know he’s going to be my father-in-law, sweet, but he is unpredictable.’
‘Ye-es.’ Mike could imagine the expression on her face, and at the same time digested the fact that she was Grafton’s daughter and that Teddy was engaged to her: presumably, that was. She went on, in a quiet voice that took Mike completely by surprise. ‘Teddy, did you see those two men last night?’
‘Which two?’