by John Creasey
‘Tall and thin,’ said the constable, ‘and with a big moustache and a beard. An artist, I heard.’
‘Does he stay here often?’
‘Not so often as all that, sir. Friends of his do come and go, especially since the bombing started. It isn’t every week. Sometimes there be only one staying, and sometimes five or six.’
Loftus and Hammond exchanged glances.
‘A useful place for a rendezvous,’ Hammond commented, and Webber looked uncomfortable.
‘I’ve never heard anything about the cottage,’ he said. ‘Edward Howe wasn’t here often, Gregg, was he?’
‘Not very often, sir, no.’
‘No fault of yours,’ said Loftus, answering the unspoken apology in the policeman’s words. ‘The question is, why did Rita Ainsworth come here?’
No one answered him, and they went on towards the copse of trees.
As well as Loftus, Hammond, Webber, Davidson, Cartwright and Graham there were six members of the Lashley Home Guard and an equal number of policemen. Near the copse and out of sight of the cottage, they gathered together, and Webber gave brief instructions to the men. A small party of four started off to round the copse and cover the cottage on the other side, while Loftus looked crookedly at the Ministry of Mines expert, who was sitting in the car and poring over blueprints and the ordnance map. The man’s insistence on the existence of a shaft near the summer-house had launched a miracle; Loftus had considerable respect for him. As the party of four disappeared, Cartwright looked up and said eagerly:
‘This cottage is near another shaft off the old workings, Mr. Loftus.’
Cartwright went into a wealth of technicalities which, though impressive, added little to the general knowledge of the others. But they were convinced; and they knew in any case that through the cottage where Hammond had been shanghaied there was a way to the workings; for Hammond had been taken there, and the kidnappers had certainly not gone through the village, nor far away; the whole district had been too well covered by police and Home Guards working the hunt for Mike and Brian.
‘How long do we need to allow the others?’ Loftus asked Webber. ‘Ten minutes?’
‘Twenty would be wiser,’ said Webber. He looked a little nervous, an unusual thing for that cool and collected police officer. ‘I hope we’re in time,’ he added, ‘but there’s no sense in showing ourselves too soon, and we must have it covered from all sides.’
‘That’s right enough,’ admitted Loftus. He lit a cigarette, and then said more quietly to Hammond, Davidson and Graham: ‘I’ve had some strange experiences, but this is queerer than any of them. Who are we going to attack?’ He drew deeply on the cigarette and added: ‘Ratcliffe? Quayle? And then there’s a man whose name keeps cropping up, Hanton of Heath Place. A bit of a mystery, with plenty of money, and living right in the middle of the show down here. And what was Rita doing in this locality?’
‘I couldn’t say one way or the other about Rita,’ admitted Bruce. ‘She was in the village, and I lost her not far from here, but——’ he shrugged his shoulders, and then stopped abruptly, to glance towards the copse. His expression made Graham and Davidson move their hands to their guns, Davidson with a speed of which he did not seem capable.
‘Someone moving,’ Hammond said swiftly. ‘I wish—well I’m damned!’
Out of the copse and making no attempt to hide himself came the mountainous Best. The sun was shining on his untidy hair, his coat was rucked up, and there was a tear in the right leg of his trousers. His beaming face suggested that it was the grandest encounter ever, and as he drew nearer he rumbled:
‘I thought you were a crowd of villains, drat you, and you turn out to be white-headed innocents. What’s doing?’
‘What are you doing?’ demanded Loftus pointedly.
‘Duty, old boy, just duty,’ declared Best. He reached them and held out his hand. ‘Spare a cigarette, Bill, I’ve run out.’ As Loftus handed him his case, Best went on: ‘Following the little lady, the way I was told, that’s what I’m doing. Or I was.’ He paused long enough to light a cigarette and then added: ‘Bless her heart, I left her at Beddiloe House. Quite a time she’s had. Inquiring all over the place for Regina Grey, and of course no one knows a Regina Grey, they all know Regina as Brent.’
Loftus said quietly: ‘Let’s get this straight, old son. You followed Rita down here from Town, and she’s looking for Regina?’
‘That’s right,’ rumbled Best. ‘She called at several houses asking the way and making inquiries, while I remained a shadow and kept watching. Then she cottoned on to the fact that Regina’s a Brent and not a Grey, and went up to the house. I saw she was in good company, as Mike and another cove were just arriving, so I left and came over here.’
‘How did you know we were here?’ demanded Loftus.
‘I can see the cottage from the house,’ said Best promptly. ‘It’s on a rise, y’know, and you’d be surprised what I saw. Wally looking as tired as ever, and I couldn’t miss the Lagonda. There’s the place for things to happen, I thought, so here I am. How are tricks?’
‘We don’t know,’ admitted Loftus. ‘This may or may not be a way to the end of the hunt.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Those twenty minutes are up, Webber.’
‘I was just going to say so,’ Webber told him. ‘We can move now.’
The Home Guards and the police spread out on either side, making a semi-circle some two hundred yards from point to point before approaching the cottage, which came into sight as soon as they were past the copse. Loftus and the other Department Z men were in the middle, with Webber. Two Home Guards were left in the rear, to guard against the possibility of a flank attack.
The strange thing to Loftus was that there was no certainty at all that they would get results or even meet opposition. He felt not unlike Mike Errol had done, but realised more vividly than Mike the importance of finding the leaders of the organisation. They were not Nazis, if Lannigan and Smith were to be believed, but Englishmen betraying their country.
He could not believe that Quayle was not numbered amongst them, but that was only a vague, passing thought. The cottage was small, creeper-clad, and set against distant trees, which grew close to the edge of the hill. A mile away to the right was the summer-house whence they had come, and if Cartwright were right, the cottage was close to another shaft leading to the old, useless workings.
Loftus was thinking: ‘It’s all so easy that it can’t come to much. I don’t like it.’
The silence about them was disturbed only by the chattering of the birds and the rustle of a slight wind through grass already tall enough for a second cutting. The sun shone on the polished windows of the cottage, on to the rose-covered porch and the creeper-clad walls. The quiet worried Loftus, because it seemed to him that there were all the hallmarks of a trap.
Then, behind them, came the sharp stutter of an engine.
It came so quickly that at first they thought a machine-gun was being used, and Graham and Davidson flung themselves to the ground while snatching their automatics from their pockets. Loftus turned; Hammond and Webber followed his example. Down below, on a narrow track leading from the road, they saw a single motorcyclist. He was coming at reckless speed. The ridges in the fields sent the motor-cycle lurching right and left and a dozen times in as many seconds it appeared that he must be thrown. The rider kept in the saddle, however, while the little party stared towards him.
The Home Guards and the police went on, and suddenly there came a shout from the nearest guard.
Only Hammond turned, of those near Loftus. There was shouting, and he was in time to see a small round object curving through the air. It was a long way off, not near enough to do them any damage, but it dropped near the Home Guards, each man of whom flung himself to the ground.
The dull boom of an explosion followed; a gust of wind from the blast was felt plainly.
‘Grenades or bombs,’ Hammond said briefly. ‘They’re in there all right, Bill. Look ou
t, here’s another.’ Hammond and Loftus this time saw the Mills bomb which was flung from the cottage towards the attacking guards, and Webber shouted:
‘Come on, come on, we must rush the place!’
‘We’ve got ‘em worried,’ said Hammond, ‘and there’s someone in there who matters, Bill. Come on.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Loftus. ‘Wait a minute.’
He spoke in a low-pitched voice which did not carry to all of them. Davidson and Graham went forward, Webber with them. As they moved, a burst of revolver shooting came from the cottage, the shots sharp and clear, but the bullets hopelessly wide. Or so they thought, until Webber tripped up and went sprawling.
‘Bill!’ cried Hammond urgently.
‘Who is it?’ demanded Loftus tensely, looking towards the motor-cyclist. ‘Who—Bruce, it’s Pat Malone!’
In spite of his artificial leg he began to run down the hill towards Malone, who was no more than a hundred yards away, his engine snorting. Now that he was nearer they could see the blood on his forehead, and it seemed to them that his hands, on the handlebars, were also covered with blood. He was shouting, they saw his mouth opening but his words were drowned by the staccato beat of the engine.
The others were nearing the cottage, going cautiously along on their hands and knees. Two more bombs were flung at them, and the shooting came regularly.
Then vaguely Malone’s voice reached Loftus.
‘Get away,’ he called, ‘get away from there, get away!’
‘What’s that?’ snapped Hammond.
‘Get away,’ said Loftus sharply, and then swung round and bellowed at the top of his voice: ‘Graham—Wally—get back! Bruce, bring them back, for God’s sake bring them back, I can’t make it!’
Hammond stared at him, and then began to run.
The motor-cycle drew nearer. There was no longer any doubt that Malone was badly hurt, his face was deathly pale where it was not smeared with blood. He came up at high speed, and drew level with Loftus. His eyes were glittering and he was gasping for breath.
‘Get ‘em away, Bill, it’ll be blue murder! They’ve dynamited the whole ridge.’
Loftus heard: the words did not convey their full meaning for some seconds, although he had been afraid of what Malone would say. He saw the Irishman stagger, but there was no time to help him as he seized the motor-cycle and straddled it himself. Its engine was still running. He saw Malone fall heavily to the ground, as he drove furiously towards the cottage and the ridge covered with trees, seeing Hammond still a long way from the advance guard of the attackers, hearing bomb explosions and gunfire.
The noise was too loud for Hammond’s shouts to reach the men, and Loftus knew that only he could manage to save them, by getting in front of them and sending them back.
The wind rushed past his forehead, he found breathing difficult, and when he shouted as he drew nearer the words did not seem to carry more than a few feet. He took the cycle in a wide half-circle approaching the further end of the cordon. He realised then that the attackers were taking the business grimly, and meant to break through at all costs, believing that the quicker the opposition was smashed the better. But for Malone’s warning there would have been an echo of that in Loftus’s mind, although even then he would have thought that it was too easy.
Too easy——
He reached the end of the line of men, and yelled to the nearest:
‘Get back as far as you can. Get—back!’
One man heard and understood, and turned to run. But the others were too intent on their task to see what was happening, crawling grimly forward and firing as they went. Loftus rode along the line, between two fires. Once a Mills bomb went over his head and pitched behind the men: the blast from the explosion unsteadied him, but did not make him lose his balance. He noticed in a queer, detached way that the Mills bomb dropped into a crater made by an earlier one; there were three craters, lined up and not twenty feet away from one another.
He reached the next man and shouted the same order, then went on. Man after man turned back, bent low in retreat, to keep out of the revolver fire coming from the house. Loftus did not need to go to the far end of the line, for the last three men saw what the others were doing and followed their example.
Loftus looked towards the cottage.
The temptation to go on and explore was great, but he drew a deep breath abruptly, for he could see a movement inside one of the rooms. It was a shadow at first, showing a queer mechanical movement; and then a Mills bomb was lobbed out of the window by a mechanical arm.
‘There’s no one there,’ he thought oddly.
He stopped the motor-cycle. He looked at the cottage, and then heard his name being called by Davidson and the others. He kicked off again, and as the engine roared, turned the machine towards the main group of men by the copse. By then, most of the others had reached it, and only a few seconds were needed for him to join them.
Then he heard the first rumble of an explosion.
21
It Must Be Quayle
It was underground, a deep rumbling roar which shook the earth. He felt it shaking as he went along, and once was almost thrown. He kept his balance and pressed harder onwards, sending the machine racing towards the copse. The men there had flung themselves down, except for Hammond, who was gesticulating wildly and shouting to Loftus.
Loftus reached him.
He nearly fell off the cycle, which went over, and then straightened up. As he did so he heard another rumbling roar underground, and simultaneously saw a cloud of dirt and dust rise up some distance beyond the cottage. It was not an eruption with any spectacular effect; the earth subsided and trees disappeared, going downwards not upwards, in a tidy, almost orderly, fashion.
Downwards, not upwards.
Another roar followed, while Loftus stared at the cottage and saw it crumple, the walls falling inwards. Then it disappeared, although with no great billow of smoke or flame: it just sank out of sight, and the outlying trees, and shrubs, fences and small outbuildings went with it. The brown earth was sucked downward, and the men who were nearby could feel the trembling, hear the rumbling.
Another explosion, and the line of trees which covered the ridge disappeared, leaving no trace; their distance from the cottage was nearly a mile, thus the eeriness of their going, without wreckage or debris, was the greater. Where there had been solid earth and grass there was now nothing but a great void. Until that moment they could not see beyond the belt of trees, but as the gap appeared, the distant fields of the valley beyond, Heath Place, garish in its untouched solidity, was opened up to them. They could see, too, the cricket field which Brian Howe had pointed out to Mike.
For how long?
None knew for certain that the mining had not been carried underground to a spot beneath which they themselves were standing, but they watched, fascinated with the horror of it, as more and more gaps appeared in the trees, more and more great stretches of earth disappeared. Where there had been fields, hedges, mounds, hillocks, barns, gates, haystacks, cattle, and horses, there was nothing. Everything was swallowed by the craters, not one or two but a dozen of them, until the men were standing within thirty yards of the edge of the ridge instead of a mile away.
Dust and smoke were rising upwards, a great pall which spread over Lashley in a deepening cloud.
Loftus broke the vocal silence while the rumbling continued and flocks of birds rose high in the air, shrill cries declaring their fear and excitement, while in distant fields the cattle stampeded and the high-pitched whinneying of a horse reached their ears.
‘I wonder if the village is all right?’ said Loftus.
No one answered.
All of the party had withdrawn in time, and Webber limped towards them, his face set in a drawn expression, a little trickle of blood coming from a cut in his right cheek. He drew near to Loftus, and said:
‘I caught my foot and fell.’
He stopped abruptly, and turned to face the
devastation. The rumbling had ceased but dust and smoke were rising over the wide area where the ground had subsided. Bleak and bare, the sight which met his eyes was one of desolation, all the greater because it had been so lovely a short while before.
Webber tightened his lips, while Loftus went on:
‘They had a gadget in the house, tossing the bombs. Probably the shooting was mechanical, too. The idea was to draw us on and then swallow us up.’ He brushed a hand over his forehead, and his voice hardened. ‘But what the devil are we doing here? Bruce, will you take some of the others and get down to the village? Wally, and you, Graham, take a party down to the big house on the plain—Heath Place. Just for the sake of it,’ he added grimly. ‘Best, keep three or four of the Home Guards, will you? We’ll go with ‘em to wherever Pat came from.’
‘Who—who brought the warning?’ asked Webber.
‘One of our men who was watching Colonel Ratcliffe,’ said Loftus grimly. ‘I’m hoping that he’ll remember just how much the Colonel knows about this.’
The first two parties started off without further question, while Loftus approached Pat Malone, who was sitting against a tree with a uniformed policeman bending solicitously over him. Malone’s face remained pale except where it was bloodstained. There was a glint in his eyes and a twisted smile on his lips despite the pain that he obviously suffered.
‘Well, Pat,’ said Loftus quietly.
‘Did you ever hear the old saying “Leave it to Loftus”?’ demanded Malone, and there was a laugh in his voice. ‘Good man, Bill, but I thought you’d left it too long.’ He paused and gasped for breath, then went on quickly, and more soberly: ‘It was Ratcliffe, but you’ll have guessed that. I paid him closer attention than he liked, and we had a quarrel. Then the fool began to boast what he was going to do to you, said he had someone who would look after you all, and he talked about the whole of the workings being blown up. Then he locked a door on me, as if a locked door was ever able to keep an Irishman in!’
Behind that half-jocular commentary was a story of great courage and endurance, Loftus knew; but it was doubtful whether the Irishman would ever relate exactly what had happened. His report to Craigie would be brief and factual; he had escaped, and brought the message. That was all that mattered.