Death by Night

by John Creasey

  ‘It was on the same lines,’ said Wishart.

  ‘It was a flop,’ interpolated Lawrence downrightly. ‘We tried it out under all conditions, and it was useless.’

  ‘So Cartwright claimed,’ said Craigie. ‘But Cartwright knew that Grafton was working along the same lines as he had done. Grafton had gone part of the way, but there were some things he had not discovered. Forster knew this too, and Forster presumably kept a watch on Grafton. We know that Grafton’s daughter passed some information to a man named Warncliffe. Forster believed that this was dangerous, and attacked Warncliffe. And then we began to take an interest. Now...’

  Craigie straightened in his chair. The atmosphere in the room grew tense, for Craigie’s manner suggested that he was getting to the crux of the matter.

  ‘Now,’ he went on, ‘the Cartwrights knew everything there was to know about the Department, and that worried us. The girl knew individual members, and the names of others were quite familiar. Few people could have had that information unless from enemy agents of high standing, or from equally important officials in this country. Some such official—the girl has not named him—gave the Cartwrights all the necessary information. The syndicate was determined that nothing should allow a leakage of the existence of the lens to reach the ears of the Cabinet.

  ‘All the time, remember, the Cartwrights and the syndicate were aware of the danger from Forster, but they were more anxious to prevent us from learning just what was happening. They wanted to spring this as a complete surprise. But Forster also started to operate against us. The Cartwrights actually helped us to avoid trouble from Forster, while trying to prevent us from interfering. Forster came into the open when we showed a greater interest in Grafton, and acted swiftly after this morning’s affair. Grafton, one of two living men who can supervise the making of these lenses—which can be adapted to almost any size—was kidnapped this morning, and Cartwright himself was taken tonight. Forster has everything—except the syndicate, and a large supply of the lenses, which are somewhere in England.’

  Lawrence broke in excitedly:

  ‘We need those lenses, Craigie, and we need the ship that is fitted with them.’

  ‘We don’t know the ship, and we don’t know where the lenses are kept,’ said Craigie. ‘The girl may be lying, but I believe she’s right. But we can get what we want.’

  ‘How?’ demanded Wishart, sharply.

  ‘Someone gave the Cartwrights information about the Department,’ said Craigie. ‘And some Englishmen are members of the syndicate. The syndicate, for some reason not yet known, took the initiative while the Cartwrights—the pacifist members—were away. In short, the syndicate has severed itself from the Cartwrights by the sinking of the Ibrox. We are likely to be faced with demands in the near future, and’—Craigie shrugged—‘for the time being we shall have to accede.’

  ‘I’m damned if we will!’ snapped Lawrence. ‘I’ll have every ship in the Navy hunting for the pirate. We’ll find it by day, capture it and keep it afloat. And we will have a ship fitted with the lenses.

  ‘Yes,’ said Craigie with a dry smile. ‘I believe you will, Lawrence, but it’s going to take time. The time element is the one we can’t fight against.’

  Lawrence scowled.

  ‘And what,’ he demanded sarcastically, ‘does your Department propose to do about the man Forster?’

  ‘Scotland Yard has issued special instructions for every port to be watched,’ said Craigie quietly. ‘All coastal patrols, naval or air-force, are keeping watch for anyone trying to get out of the country...’

  Lawrence laughed.

  ‘All right. Have you any ideas, Loftus?’

  ‘I’m brimful of ideas,’ said Bill Loftus. ‘Mostly I’m thinking about a man named Warncliffe, who has wandered up and down Europe for some years, and who recently pitched me a very pretty story. Also I’m thinking about Grafton’s daughter.’

  ‘That,’ said Lawrence sardonically, ‘helps a great deal.’

  ‘Probably more than you realise,’ said Loftus. ‘You see, gentlemen, we’ve learned and provisionally accept the statement that the Cartwrights acted from the highest of motives, but that the syndicate betrayed their trust. The syndicate would naturally want Grafton watched, as being a man who might steal their thunder. Warncliffe, on his own admission, has taken parts of Grafton’s formula from time to time from Janice Grafton...’ He seemed to be thinking aloud, and there was some truth in that. ‘Warncliffe could be the syndicate’s agent and therefore could put us in touch with the syndicate.’

  ‘Where’s Warncliffe?’ demanded Lawrence.

  ‘Being watched,’ said Loftus, and he stood up. ‘May I use your telephone, Mr. Wishart? Thanks.’

  And he lifted the telephone, and called a Bournemouth number.

  17

  More Action in Bournemouth

  Mark Errol did not know whether to be pleased or sorry. After Loftus and Craigie had heard the girl’s story, with Mark and Wally as silent listeners who believed what they heard almost against their will—Loftus had given Mark Errol his stiffest job yet.

  He had said casually:

  ‘Mark, look after Miss Cartwright, will you? A prison cell isn’t necessary, but get her to the Cliff Royal for a spell. If she shows restlessness, discourage her.’

  And that had been that.

  Wally had driven them from Winchester while Errol and the girl had sat in the back. They had been silent most of the way; what little conversation had passed between them had been banal, until Mark had said:

  ‘Let’s stop pretending, Garry.’ He had fallen into the habit of calling her by her Christian name. ‘Why did you pick on me at Waterloo?’

  ‘I wanted to give you a warning, and you wouldn’t take it.’

  ‘Did you expect me to?’

  ‘I—hoped you would. Or Loftus would. I knew that it wasn’t up to you.’

  ‘You knew a lot,’ said Mark gruffly.

  He was not pleased with life as they ran into Bournemouth, and made for the Cliff Royal. Davidson had only been there by day, and the place was difficult enough to find then. By night and in the black-out it was a positive rabbit warren on the West Cliff, and Mark was compelled to lend a hand with the route-finding. They drew up outside the hotel at last—and from the darkness there loomed a gigantic figure.

  ‘Stand and deliver!’ said the figure sepulchrally.

  ‘Go and drown yourself,’ snapped Mark, and he proved he was not in the best of tempers.

  ‘Naughty, naughty,’ reproved the giant in the same deep voice. ‘You’re feeling better, I hope, Wally.’

  ‘Tirin’ business, that’s all,’ said Wally Davidson. ‘How’s life down here, Martin?’

  ‘Slow,’ said the giant, one Martin Best. ‘On the cold side, too. My orders are to stand around until you arrive, and then take charge of operations.’ He went with them—without appearing to notice Garry—to the front door of the hotel. This was unlatched, and when they went inside and the blinds were adjusted, the girl could see Martin Best for what he was.

  A vast man, and untidy—the type who contrived to get untidy in a dinner-jacket, and to look badly dressed in a bathing costume. He had a genial, attractive face, with a large and very square chin, a mobile and generous-looking mouth and a tooth-brush moustache—which, of course, needed trimming. His mackintosh hung open, and there was a trail of cigarette ash down his waistcoat.

  In the hall was another man—Best’s opposite in most things.

  Where Best was dark and his hair needed brushing, Bob Carruthers was as fair as corn, and his hair was immaculate. So was his exquisite grey suit, while his fair-complexioned face was an apt likeness to Adonis. No one suspected that he had been a useful heavy-weight, and at one time had held the amateur title.

  He raised a hand negligently.

  ‘Come in, folks, it’s time we threw a party.’ He smiled winningly at Garry Cartwright, and demanded to be introduced. He was. There was something about t
he flippancy of the four men which made Garry laugh in spite of herself.

  She did not know that the management of the Cliff Royal had been advised that the young men would take up their quarters there until further notice, and that admission must be made possible at all hours of the day and night. And she did not know that Janice Grafton and Edward Grey were still there.

  Carruthers was watching Grey, and another agent—a youngster named Lister, renowned for his freckles—was watching Janice. From the outside of her door, he had been apt to stay gloomily. Mark Errol had been watching the Professor, but was now a free agent, as was Davidson. Some half a mile away a tubby man with red hair—one Jock Allison—was keeping watch on Warncliffe’s flat, while yet another of Craigie’s young men was at hand to follow Warncliffe’s servant, Paul, if Paul left the flat.

  Nothing, Carruthers reported, had happened. They gathered together in the lounge, with Lister keeping a watch upstairs; and there was beer.

  ‘You’ll join us?’ Carruthers asked Garry. ‘Or if you’d rather have a sherry we can manage it. Otherwise it’s got to be grape-fruit.’

  ‘Grape-fruit,’ said Garry Cartwright firmly.

  ‘I was afraid so,’ said Carruthers. ‘That nasty look in your eyes warned me.’ He poured grape-fruit, and then beer. ‘Well, gentlemen, do we sleep or what?’

  ‘It looks like “or what”,’ said Best.

  ‘Miss Cartwright needs some sleep,’ said Errol quietly. ‘My room’s empty, isn’t it?’

  ‘No one’s there as far as I know,’ said Carruthers.

  ‘Right—you’d better get up soon,’ Mark said, and his air was almost fatherly. Garry shrugged, and Carruthers and Best demanded—as was inevitable—to know what was happening. Wally told the story as well as he could and Garry Cartwright was surprised by the calm acceptance of the narrative which Best and Carruthers showed. They appeared neither startled nor scared, and took it as a matter of course.

  Mark stood up abruptly.

  ‘Coming, Garry?’

  She nodded, and there was a chorus of good nights. Mark stepped into the hall after her, and was startled to see tears filming her eyes. He felt for a moment completely nonplussed, and they reached the stairs without a word.

  She walked easily, and with grace. She was so clean-cut, normally so self-possessed, so unfeminine in her reaction to the rushed events of the past few hours, that tears were the last thing he had expected. Halfway up the stairs he said stiffly:

  ‘What is it?’ A pause. ‘Your brother?’

  Her response startled him.

  ‘Are they always like that?’

  ‘They? Oh, the crowd? Yes, pretty well always the same. I haven’t been with them long, but I’ve never known them any different. They’re like it in the middle of a shindy, or when they’re doing nothing.’

  ‘Nothing frightens them?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. But they hide it. Nothing seems,’ he said, ‘to frighten you.’

  ‘Seems!’ There was a wealth of scorn in her voice. ‘Oh, I’ve been scared to death a dozen times since Jim found this beastly thing! I thought once that we were really going to get away with it. Peace for all time,’ she said very softly yet bitterly. ‘I was a fool, all kinds of a damned fool! There’ll be no such thing! All the work Jim and I have done is absolutely wasted. If we’d brought this thing to the Government immediately we would have brought peace a lot nearer. This accursed syndicate looks as if it’s going to squeeze every penny it can out of England. I’ve been afraid that the money angle would bring the crash, but Jim seemed so certain that the syndicate was genuine.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mark awkwardly, ‘things do turn out that way. Don’t you know a single member of the syndicate?’

  ‘Not one.’

  ‘But you’ve been in your brother’s confidence in practically everything else.’

  ‘I didn’t approve of the method of finance, and he sensed that. When he makes his mind up it’s not easily altered. He felt that I wasn’t to be relied on with the syndicate, and decided to negotiate with it himself.

  ‘How has it been negotiated?’

  ‘By telephone, or when Jim’s called on one or the other of them. He’s had a messenger several times.’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Not by name.’

  ‘Would you recognise him again?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘That might help,’ said Mark. He pushed open the door of his room, and unthinkingly stepped through, sitting on the end of one of the twin beds—that which Mike had been using before the morning outrage. For the first time Garry hesitated, and her lips curved a little. ‘It might help,’ Mark repeated, and lit a cigarette. ‘Garry—quite seriously. Are you telling us all you know?’

  ‘Yes. All that will help.’

  ‘Why?’

  She shrugged. ‘Well, the sinking of the ship was enough to make the difference—I’d dreaded something like that. And then—well, Loftus and Craigie seemed so certain about themselves. You and Davidson do, for that matter. You don’t seem to have any doubt about you’re being right. I’ve hated this Government since I can remember—and so has Jim. We’re not exactly Communists, I don’t think you could even call us Socialists. But there’s something grievously wrong with the present systems, or war would be impossible. Our one thought has been to make it so. Now...’ She looked pale and harassed. ‘So far as I can see, Loftus and the others will do more than Jim and I will ever do.’

  Mark smiled.

  ‘Garry: Loftus and Craigie and the rest of them have been trying to stop war for years. But in our odd way, and despite the wires that get pulled, and the different interests that have to be studied, it looks as if Britain has managed to strike the best way of getting some kind of decent social order. Not a Union of the British Empire, or drivel like that—but we are better than most countries, and if we’ve been a gang of pirates in the past, at least the countries we stole have self-government, and better treatment than any others. However, we’re getting on the heavy side, and it’s late.’

  ‘Ye-es,’ said Garry. ‘Odd, isn’t it? You can see a thing so clearly all your life, and then suddenly see it differently. When—it’s too late.’

  Mark said: ‘It’s a long way from too late yet—Loftus will get results before long.’

  ‘I wonder. He seemed too slow at the Manor.’

  ‘He’d some idea that he didn’t talk about, and as far as I’ve gathered the police made a major error when they ignored him. Loftus gets through, Garry. I doubt if he’s worried about the situation half as much as you are, and I’ll offer what odds you like that he’ll be busy before the night’s over. We’ll get some sleep. I can’t offer you pyjamas, but there’s a spare pair of my cousin’s. ‘Night.’

  ‘Good night, Mark.’ She smiled a little, and as he reached the door, she said: ‘I’ve been watching you for some days, at different clubs and places. Before you went abroad. We were afraid all the time that the Department would step in.’

  ‘Nothing personal meant,’ Mark said with a grin.

  ‘No-o.’

  ‘At the moment,’ said Mark, ‘we’re both too tired to worry about it.’

  He re-entered the room downstairs with a more jaunty air than he had left it, and he made remarks about the fug of smoke and beer fumes.

  ‘Hear ye,’ grinned Martin Best. ‘He comes from the purity of her proximity.’

  The telephone—fitted to the lounge that afternoon—burred sharply. Wally lifted it, and from the other end heard Loftus beginning to spell his name backwards.

  ‘Right, Bill.’

  ‘How many of you there?’ asked Loftus.

  ‘Four in this room—Lister’s upstairs, and...’

  ‘Four will be enough. Keep an eye on Grey, but the rest of you worry about Warncliffe. Now listen...’

  • • • • •

  Mr. Jeremiah Warncliffe should have been sleeping.

  Instead, he was sitting in his dressing-room in
front of a radio-receiving set which had no loud-speaker. Earphones were clamped over his head, and he was leaning back and smoking. There was no sound in the room but his even breathing—and that of his man Paul. Paul was sitting, just as much at his ease but in a lounge suit, and smoking a cigar.

  ‘Aren’t they through yet?’ He spoke testily as Warncliffe yawned.

  ‘No—they won’t be long. You needn’t wait up.’

  ‘Thanks. I propose to.’

  ‘Please yourself,’ said Warncliffe. He continued to listen speaking at the same time. ‘You were a damned fool not to show up after the explosion this morning. Loftus spotted it in a flash.’

  Paul’s oddly good-looking face—mask-like, for it lacked every expression—did not change. But there was a note of venom in his voice.

  ‘You made enough mistakes, God knows! Loftus guessed what you’d been doing.’

  ‘So you listened, did you?’

  ‘It’s my job to,’ snapped Paul. ‘If they knew what you’d done this morning, you’d last about twenty-four hours.’

  Warncliffe sneered: ‘Who’s going to tell them?’

  ‘I’m not—while you keep up the payments,’ said Paul.

  Warncliffe’s body tightened, and he leaned forward towards the radio, as if getting closer would help him to hear better. He heard the message that was sent over the radio on a short-wave station which few people ever caught. It was in code and he wrote swiftly. Paul leaned forward, reading the message and translating from memory. Paul’s eyes, very cold and grey, glittered as the message came to an end.

  ‘They’ve got it! Got the Ibrox!’

  ‘My God!’ breathed Warncliffe. He waited, but the message was signed off, and he took the earphones from his head and stood up abruptly. ‘When was it?’

  ‘At eight o’clock tonight! I...’

  And then he stopped.

  Paul swung round in his chair, and his hand went towards his coat pocket—but he did not draw out his gun. For two men were standing in the doorway, and one of them carried a Thompson sub-machine-gun.