The Day of Disaster

by John Creasey

  The man lost his grip on the rope, and Hammond moved aside, lessening the weight of the man’s fall.

  He saw a short, slim man, dark-haired and olive-skinned whose yellowish eyes were wide with fear and pain. Hammond laid him full length on the floor and ran through his pockets; he found an automatic and, fastened to the left suspender, a small dagger in a sheath. He put them both in his pocket, and said quickly:

  ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘She seems to be,’ said Marion.

  ‘Leave her for a moment, then, and stay by the door,’ said Hammond. ‘Make sure the front door’s locked first.’ He pulled a chair into position beneath the hole in the ceiling. The hole was well-camouflaged when closed, he knew, for he had seen nothing amiss with the pattern of the ceiling paper.

  He was just able to reach the sides and get a grip on the upper floor. He did not think there would be any danger.

  He believed that if anyone else had been in the flat above there would have been action before this. With a couple of violent lurches he found himself in Ferdinand’s unpretentious living room.

  The carpet was rolled back half-way across the room. In one of the floor boards was fastened a ring to which the rope was attached. He went through the other rooms quickly, but found no one there. He went to the front door, opened it—to find himself faced with an automatic pistol held in the hand of a tall, fair-haired man.

  They stared at each other in tense silence.

  Then the man lowered his gun, and brushed a hand across his forehead. His expression was one of complete bewilderment.

  ‘Hammond, you don’t know how lucky you were!’

  ‘Hallo,’ said Hammond calmly.

  Now he recognised the other as Carruthers, a Department agent.

  ‘I’ve been on this landing for three hours,’ Carruthers said, and added glumly: ‘When I did think I’d got a chance of crowning someone, you turn up. The invisible man again.’ He grinned, put his gun away, and went on: ‘I suppose the flatfoot on the fire-escape was having a nap. You came in that way, did you?’

  ‘No,’ said Hammond, ‘but presumably someone else did.’ He led the way to the kitchen and the back door, from which the occupants of the flat could reach the fire-escape. He unlocked the door, and looked outside. A gruff voice said promptly: ‘Stay where you are!’

  Carruthers poked his head round the door. ‘Hallo, Dave, so you did go to sleep.’

  The plainclothes man, one of Miller’s staff, regarded Carruthers in mingled surprise and annoyance. His voice, when it came, was more than injured.

  ‘Indeed I did not, sir. I’ve been watching this door for the last three hours, so help me.’

  Carruthers looked blankly at Hammond.

  ‘D’you hear that?’

  ‘Ye—es,’ said Hammond slowly. He eyed the policeman, and judged him to be a man of thorough reliability.

  Carruthers said: ‘D’you say someone got in, Hammond?’

  ‘I certainly do.’

  ‘But I didn’t see anyone.’

  ‘I certainly did not,’ said the policeman gruffly.

  ‘As it’s highly improbable that he floated invisibly through the air,’ Hammond said reasonably, ‘there must be a way in, apart from the front and back doors and the windows. Will you see what you can do about finding it?’

  Carruthers drew a deep breath.

  ‘You can’t have been seeing things, I suppose?’ he asked hopefully.

  Hammond smiled. ‘No, old man, not a chance. But I’m going to have a chat with the gentleman who evaded you. If he talks it’ll save you from looking.’

  14

  Little Man Doesn’t Know

  ‘How are things making out?’

  ‘Pretty involved,’ said Hammond with a shrug.

  ‘Bad luck,’ said Carruthers. ‘You would pick on a business like this to start with, wouldn’t you? None of it’s really running to form, as far as I can gather. Bits and pieces that don’t match or gel sticking out all over the place, and with Gordon taking a trip——’ The flippancy of the words hid a real anxiety. ‘Odd how everything always goes back to Craigie. No news, I suppose?’ The last sentence was deliberately casual.

  ‘Not yet,’ admitted Hammond.

  He opened the door with his key, and was stepping across the threshold when Carruthers suddenly snapped: ‘Get down!’

  Hammond paused in the middle of a step, and then Carruthers hooked his legs from under him, dropping to the floor at the same time. Hammond went down heavily, while Carruthers, whipping a gun from his pocket, snapped: ‘Come out of there!’

  Recovering himself slowly, Hammond looked up to see Marion stepping from the bedroom. By then Carruthers was on one knee, staring dazedly towards the girl.

  Hammond spoke with real irritation. ‘What the devil was that for?’

  Carruthers straightened up slowly. ‘Er—’ he said, ‘I—er—thought—oh, Christmas, what is this? The flat with a hundred doors?’

  Hammond rubbed his elbow ruefully, but was beginning to smile.

  ‘It’s all right, Marion, Carruthers is a bit too zealous! Let that serve for an introduction, will you?’

  Carruthers beamed at Marion as he put his gun into his pocket. ‘Apologies and all that,’ he said brightly. ‘I thought you were drawing a bead on us. Hammond didn’t warn me that the most beautiful woman in London was at his flat. I can’t think how he overlooked it. How do you do?’

  Marion smiled gravely, as Hammond called out: ‘Carruthers, come in here, will you?’

  In the large bedroom, Hammond was bending over the little man on the floor, while Hilary Crayshaw lay in bed, her face chalk-white, sheets tucked up to her chin.

  Carruthers took the situation in quickly, without experiencing any surprise. Surprise was not an emotion which came freely to any Department Z man.

  Hammond looked up.

  ‘Give me a hand with him,’ he said. ‘I’ll take his legs.’ Carruthers gathered his head and shoulders up gently, while Hammond contrived to raise the man’s wounded leg without causing him much pain, and together they carried him into the living-room.

  Marion spread a blanket on the settee, and they lowered him gently on to it.

  Hammond looked down on to the recumbent figure. ‘You came to shoot Miss Crayshaw, did you?’

  The yellowish eyes widened, there was fear in them, but he answered promptly, as if knowing that delay would serve him no purpose.

  ‘Y—yes.’

  ‘Who sent you?’

  ‘F—fryer,’ muttered the little man, and gasped. ‘My leg, you must get a doctor, my leg——’

  ‘All in good time,’ said Hammond, without expression in his voice. ‘You came to shoot and got shot instead. A little pain will help you to remember that. Who is Fryer?’

  ‘He—he’s the Boss,’ gasped the little man. ‘Oo-oo my leg, I can’t stand it any longer. I can’t stand it!’

  ‘Where does he live?’ Hammond demanded.

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘Where does Fryer live?’ Hammond repeated.

  ‘Sacre dios, I do not know. Have I not told you? I have never visited him, he always sends messages, he——’

  ‘As a Spaniard, even an anglicised one,’ said Hammond contemplatively, ‘you know the persuasive power of pain.’

  Esteven gasped: ‘No, no, I cannot tell you, I will tell you everything I know of Fryer!’ There were beads of sweat at his forehead and his upper lip, and the yellowish whites of his eyes showed as he strained his eyeballs upwards. ‘Never have I visited Fryer, always I have seen him by appointment.’

  ‘It would be a pity to delay calling a doctor to staunch your wound,’ suggested Hammond. ‘One understands that time is important in such cases.’

  ‘It’s not a lie, it is the truth!’ screamed Esteven. ‘Always I see him outside, always!’

  Hammond said: ‘Where do you meet him?’

  ‘Mostly—mostly at the Lamplighter, the Lamplighter!’

&nb
sp; Marion saw Hammond start. ‘What is Fryer like?’

  ‘He—he is a big man, a big man!’

  ‘So are several hundred thousand other people in London,’ said Hammond, his voice suddenly taking on a savage note. ‘Don’t stall, Esteven. What’s he like?’

  ‘He is big—he has black hair—he is American! Let me go, I can tell you no more. I can tell you no more!’ He broke into a frenzied outburst, whilst the sweat streamed down his cheeks. ‘Always I have to obey Fryer, unless I do I am killed, and always I obey. Never is it much, only once before has it been to kill. I wished to refuse, but Fryer——’

  He broke off, muttering little more than an unintelligible gibberish. Hammond hesitated, and then looked round towards the door. He did not appear surprised to see Marion, but said easily: ‘Will you take down what he says? There’s a pad in that bureau.’ He nodded towards a small writing-desk, and in a few seconds Marion was sitting at it with paper in front of her and a pencil poised.

  Hammond went to Esteven: ‘Stop gibbering!’ The man paused, and Hammond went on: ‘You’ve always taken Fryer’s orders, no matter what they’ve been and they’ve included murder. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, yes, please fetch the doctor quickly. I have killed, I killed Ferdinand, I killed him!’ He was writhing, not in pain but in mental agony.

  Hammond’s heart leapt, and he paused only long enough to give Marion time to write down the confession. Then he asked: ‘Did you try to hang the girl?’

  ‘I—I was forced to, Fryer was with me, there were others, I could not help myself!’

  ‘That’s too bad,’ said Hammond.

  He asked a dozen questions, and the answers came with varying degrees of reluctance; the important thing was that they came. Esteven admitted that he and Fryer and another man he had known as ‘Patsy’ had been at the Lamplighter on the night of the attack on Ferdinand and Hilary Crayshaw. They had come from the club to Ferdinand’s flat, where Hilary, quite drunk, had started to dance, taking off her shoes and stockings. But for Ferdinand’s restraining influence she would have stripped herself completely; it had happened that way before, Esteven said.

  Then the girl had collapsed, and Fryer had taken something from her bag; what it was Esteven swore that he did not know, and Hammond did not think the man would lie in that one non-essential while telling so much that damned him. Fryer had then announced that the girl was to be killed. Ferdinand, who worked with Fryer on matters of which Esteven had little knowledge, had strongly, even violently, opposed this. After some argument, Fryer had appeared to give way. He had left the flat, but later returned. Between them Esteven continued, Ferdinand had been overpowered and strangled; the girl had been lowered into his, Hammond’s flat, and Esteven had followed. He had carried out Fryer’s instructions implicity, and strung the girl up behind the door.

  The next day Fryer had told him that the girl was not dead. Hammond gathered that her recovery had been used as a threat to make Esteven even more acquiescent in whatever Fryer wanted; it was easy to see that the little man had been terrorised.

  On the failure of a second attempt, Esteven had received instructions to try yet again; and in fear of his life, he obeyed.

  ‘How did you get upstairs?’ Hammond asked.

  ‘There is—a fanlight,’ Esteven gasped. ‘It is blackened but it is there, leading from the loft. To reach the roof from the next-door house is easy; I am small and quick to move. I came in that way.’

  Carruthers grimaced, and muttered:

  ‘The simple explanation. Who’d think of a fanlight, when he could conjure up an invisible man?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Hammond. ‘In fact it was as well, I think. That’ll do fine, Marion. Will you ‘phone for a doctor—what’s the name of the Department’s man, Carruthers?’

  ‘Doc Little,’ said Carruthers, and gave Marion the doctor’s number.

  By then Esteven was lying still on the settee. There was no movement except for a shiver which convulsed his whole body from time to time.

  Hammond did not think that the man would be in a condition to talk further; and he had said enough. Hammond stepped to the bureau and glanced through Marion’s notes. He was still pondering over them when a man of enormous girth, a little out of breath from mounting the stairs, entered the flat and was introduced by Carruthers as Doc Little, once an active agent of the Department. He examined the wounded leg, pulled at his pendulous under-lip, suggested an ambulance and a nursing-home; within half-an-hour both Esteven and the doctor had gone.

  Carruthers, at Hammond’s suggestion, went with them: there was always a chance that the man would know more.

  Hammond lit a cigarette and sat back in an easy chair; Marion thought that she had rarely known a man who could relax so completely; she remembered the speed of his earlier movements, and the decisiveness of his method with Esteven, almost as if it were something she had experienced in a dream. About Hammond’s rather dreamy face there was no hint that he could act with such force and ruthlessness. She was aware then, of the strength and character in the man; but she saw further than that. He had done what he had, because he knew the desperate need for it. He was working for a cause; it was part of him, a dangerous part, and he would let nothing stand in the way of its triumph.

  She felt as if she had known Bruce Hammond for a long time.

  He looked up as she came out of the bedroom. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Still asleep.’

  ‘Good. It must be some sleep, but it’s as well. Quite a little lady, isn’t she?’

  ‘The chief cause of that must lie at the door of the one who first gave her the drugs.’

  ‘Ye—es. That’s so. Do you always look for the cause before the effect?’

  ‘It’s the sensible thing to do.’

  ‘I can see you’re right,’ mused Hammond. ‘The effect of this whole shindy is pretty obvious, but the cause of it is what we’re after. However, I think we’re nearer. Fryer and the Lamplighter together should give us something, and we’d better try the place tonight.’ He paused. ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘Ten past four,’ she said, glancing at her wrist watch.

  ‘I wonder if there’s anything in the way of food in the larder?’ asked Hammond.

  ‘I’ll find out.’

  ‘We’ll find out,’ he amended.

  There were no biscuits, but there was bread, butter, jam and a small tin of sardines. They carried everything on a tray into the living room, where they sat opposite each other. Marion poured out while Hammond, suddenly dropping the half-humorous banter in which he had been indulging in the kitchen, said quietly:

  ‘The thing Fryer took from the bag might or might not have been the gold cross.’ He frowned. ‘You don’t know much about that but you’ll learn. Whatever it was, it frightened her out of her wits. Her father behaved very differently from the way she had expected,’ he added slowly, and stopped abruptly.

  An atmosphere had sprung into the room, something entirely new, inspired by his words and the way in which they were uttered. He was looking at her intently, and yet she did not think he was seeing her.

  ‘Very differently from the way she had expected,’ he repeated sotto voce. ‘The key-words to the whole problem, I think. I wonder if it’s possible——’

  He broke off. Marion made no comment. He looked at her with a one-sided smile.

  ‘You’re good, Marion, too good in some ways! Not a single “What the hell are you talking about?” ’

  ‘I could ask questions,’ Marion said dryly.

  ‘No, don’t!’ He broke in hastily. ‘Just go on as you are doing. I’ve a fixation,’ he added, this time looking into her eyes and undoubtedly seeing her ‘—about questions and answers and ideas. If I get an idea and share it, I react badly to the chance that the other fellow thinks it’s balderdash. Often it is,’ he added with a grin. ‘Can you put up with me?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  Hammond said ruefully, ‘You’re la
ughing at me. There’s nothing like a woman to make a man feel his own unimportance. However, I think we’re getting places. We’ve solved several of the minor problems, and we can now move forward towards the next objective—the Lamplighter.’

  ‘You seem to know it.’

  ‘Yes, Hilary mentioned it as a night club. Quite the latest thing. You’ve been Rip van Winkling if you don’t know it.’ His eyes smiled at her. ‘I think it would be an idea if you and I went along for an hour or two this evening.’

  He prepared to take her acceptance for granted, and passed his cup. ‘Is there another? ... thanks.’

  The front door bell rang sharply.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Marion.

  She was better placed, for to get up he had to move a table. He watched her walk across the room and open the hall door, and then heard her explain. He was up and round the table within seconds; then he saw Loftus.

  Half-hidden by Marion, Hammond saw a shorter man than Loftus, with bull-like shoulders and a pale round face. He knew at once why Marion was startled; he was nearly as startled himself to see the Prime Minister walk towards him.

  15

  What Craigie Knew

  Hammond’s expression grew blank; he neither smiled nor frowned, but waited for Loftus. Hammond was aware of the intent gaze from Hershall’s eyes, felt that the Prime Minister was trying to assess his value and his worth.

  Then Loftus said: ‘This is Hammond, sir.’

  Hershall nodded.

  ‘You’re having quite a time of it, I’m told,’ he said easily. ‘Is there any tea in that pot? Loftus made me miss mine.’ He smiled, and Hammond’s tension relaxed. Here was a man who might ask for impossibilities and often get them done, but who would remain human and understanding.

  Hammond looked at Marion.

  ‘There’s a kettle on,’ she said.

  Hershall turned his head towards her, as Hammond murmured an introduction.

  ‘Excellent! I feel like bartering half my kingdom for a cup of tea at the moment!’ He smiled warmly as she hurried to the kitchen.