The Department of Death

by John Creasey

  Craigie said quietly: “Perhaps you’re right. I don’t think you are, but let’s assume it. What next? A vote of no confidence and an application for a transfer to a more efficient organization?”

  There was no feeling in Craigie’s tone, he was as dispassionate as if they were discussing some trivial matter.

  Grant said: “How can I work if I haven’t any confidence in the organization? Loftus did get here yesterday, but he was nearly too late—and he made a joke of it. You watched at the Duke of York’s Steps last night, but didn’t stop the attempt on von Barlack—or on me—it doesn’t make much difference who that man was after, he was after one of us. Did you catch him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I suppose you’ve failed to make him talk?”

  “He’s of no consequence. A hired gunman, given his orders at a street corner and paid in advance. He didn’t even carry one of the visiting cards. He was told to follow von Barlack, and if he saw anyone meet the old man, shoot the other fellow, not von Barlack. You were the target.”

  Grant said: “We’re all sitting birds.”

  “We have to make ourselves sitting birds or we don’t get the results. It’s the one way to force the others into betraying themselves. One way or another, we’ve caught Walsh, the Hilary woman and three other men. We’ve got part of the story. It so happened that you were the one we picked out to do the worst of the dirty work. You’ve had results; therefore the Department’s been successful. We’ve some idea what they’re after. We’ve been able to warn the Congress of Europe; all military documents will be doubly safeguarded from now on. We know that von Barlack’s wife is involved, and now we know about Neilsen. Twenty hours ago we didn’t even know that the hostile organization existed.”

  Grant went to the window. The street looked hazy through the muslin curtains, as if a fog were creeping upon London. He tried to analyse his feelings, and was surprised at what he found. The death of Hilde had enraged him against the Department more than against her murderer. He had been determined to have this showdown with Craigie, no matter what the consequences.

  He expected Craigie to stand him off, after this.

  Craigie said: “We must find out who is behind this, and we must find out quickly. The possibility is that it’s Russia, and too many people are saying that this time they’ve gone too far and we ought to start a preventive war. Such gospel is dangerous, can become deadly. The loss of a life, like Hilde’s, hardly weighs in the scale against it.”

  Grant found himself agreeing; and nodding.

  Craigie went on slowly: “I don’t think there’s ever been a job more urgent than this one. It can work two ways, you know. First, by getting at the truth, finding out who is really the prime mover in it. Second, and in its way more important, if we can get the truth and present it at the opening session of the Congress, we’ll not only undo the harm that’s been done, but we’ll get everyone together under the stimulus of relief. This can set Europe back twelve months or more; properly handled, it can give her a good push forward.”

  Again Grant nodded.

  “Feel more satisfied?” asked Craigie.

  “What happens if we find out the truth, and one nation—a Government—is behind it? If it’s Russia, then war’s pretty well certain. It it’s one of the Free Countries, then—” Grant broke off, for the rest was obvious.

  Craigie said: “Let’s find out the truth before we begin to worry about the consequences. We want Marlene von Barlack and we want Hans Neilsen. We’ve every reason to believe they’re both in England. Every port and every airfield is being watched, we know what private planes are being chartered. I don’t think they can get out of the country, and I certainly don’t think they’ve got out yet. While they’re here, the Department can do quite a job. So can you. Ready for it?”

  “Yes,” said Grant quietly.

  13 / Next Move

  Grant felt refreshed, invigorated.

  Craigie had gone, taking with him a full report of all that Hilde had said, leaving suggestions behind. First, that Grant should return to his flat and wait for news about Marlene or Neilsen to come in; some would. They were more likely to trace Neilsen first than Marlene; and getting him after he was traced would be Grant’s job. Second, that he should plan his own approach to the job more cold-bloodedly. He would be working alone; help would come only in emergency—and only then.

  Words rang in Grant’s ears; pleasing yet with a warning.

  “Loftus and I both think you’re the most likely man, Grant. We shouldn’t let you near it if we didn’t. We shan’t let you continue if we change our minds.”

  Grant reached his flat and found a different porter on duty; he felt sure that the man was a C.I.D. officer. Nothing was said; well, anyone could lock the stable-door after the horse had bolted. There he went again, he must get into the right frame of mind—an aggressive frame of mind, not critical of Craigie. The lift wasn’t working; he walked up the stone staircase. With every step he remembered Hilde’s body as it had lain half inside the lift and half outside.

  He entered his flat and looked round.

  No one was there.

  He went to the window, peered out and saw a man walking past the front entrance on the other side of the road. There was something familiar about the fellow; and he carried a furled umbrella.

  He turned into one of the office buildings opposite.

  Grant watched, pulse quickening.

  He saw the man again, approaching a desk in the front room on the second floor. From there, this flat could be watched; every visitor could be seen and reported. There was no doubt that it was the man whom he had seen the previous morning.

  He telephoned Craigie and reported.

  “We’ll look after it,” Craigie said, and rang off.

  Had he been more curt than usual, or was that imagination?

  Grant prepared and sat down to a cold snack, and went through the whole affair from its sudden beginning. There was much he might have missed. One mystery after another had been cleared up; yes, Craigie was right. The supreme mystery, and therefore the supreme question, remained: who was behind all this?

  Neilsen? A group of zealots? Russia? Or some other nation?

  Grant had finished his lunch when the telephone-bell rang. He jumped up, edgy for news.

  “Go to the Colladium, main entrance, will you?” asked Craigie. “You’ll get a message from there. Good luck.”

  There was certainly no curtness about that.

  Grant was outside the Mauville Street entrance to the Colladium Theatre of Variety in exactly twenty minutes.

  There was a matinée at the theatre; that was the first and mild shock that Grant received. The foyer and the entrance lobbies were thronged, patient queues stood at the box office, commissionaires tried to get some order, the staircases were crowded; it was almost impossible to pick out any one individual. Grant stood on the steps, expecting someone already there to come and speak to him, but no one came. He peered at the people as they passed, saw no familiar faces. The English took their pleasures soberly. Only a few young girls looked as if they were eagerly anticipating the musical show which had been running for over a year. The commissionaires began to shout: “Take your seats, please, take your seats!” The crowd thinned out, but no one came up to Grant. It was almost as if he had been tricked into coming here—as if someone had spoken for Craigie.

  A man jostled him.

  “Sorry, old boy!”

  “That’s all right.”

  “Didn’t do any harm, did I?” The man made as if to brush him down—and slipped something into his coat pocket. “Forgive me, won’t you? Should be a good show.” He went gaily into the theatre, leaving Grant with a new tension. Grant looked right and left, making sure that no one saw him put his hand to his pocket. He turned away from the street as he took out a slip of paper. A commissionaire bellowed: “Hurry, please—stalls, left-hand side—your ticket, sir.”

  The paper Grant had been given was
a ticket for the show.

  He turned it over as he followed the stragglers towards the auditorium, and saw the pencilled words on the back. “N. is in second box, dress circle level.” His heart missed a beat as a programme girl said aggrievedly: “Come along, please” He gave up half his ticket—and watched the girl toss it into the counterfoil box. The curtain was going up and he had no time to look towards the boxes. He was on the right-hand side of the stalls, rather near the edge, and unable to see the occupants of the boxes on that side clearly. The first chorus song started, the anticipatory hush fell upon the audience, a man complained as Grant slipped past him into his seat. A woman behind said as he settled down: “Oh, what a nuisance!” She meant his head and his shock of black hair; whenever he went to the theatre he sat at the back of the stalls or the dress circle, where he couldn’t obstruct anyone’s view. He shrank down in his seat as far as he could, conscious of the nuisance he was causing, and looking across the theatre. He hardly saw the chorus, colourful, sprightly, dancing and singing as if their lives depended on it; certainly he didn’t hear the words.

  Neilsen sat in the box on the far side. There was no questioning his identity; his likeness to Hilde clinched it, and his face showed up clearly in the light which came from the stage.

  Two other men were in the box; Grant didn’t recognize either of them. All three seemed intent upon the performance. Grant found himself looking first at the stage, then at the box, and still felt self-conscious. The audience began to laugh in little outbursts; they hadn’t settled down to full enjoyment yet.

  Someone was whispering at the end of the row of seats. He heard paper rustling, then his arm was jogged. A programme girl stood in the gangway, the man next to him handed him a slip of paper.

  “Thanks,” he whispered, and nodded to the girl. She slipped away into the darkness. Everyone near was looking at Grant, most of them glaring. He turned the paper the right way up; it was a programme, and he could just make out the scribbled writing, in ink, across one corner. He flicked his lighter. The note read: “Look after N. We’ll see to the rest.”

  The rest? What rest?

  Someone had come into Neilsen’s box—a little man, who bent over and spoke to him. One of the others got up and went out at once. Neilsen’s gaze turned back to the stage, where cross-talk comedians were making the house rock with laughter. Even Neilsen smiled. Grant made sure that he would remember the face of the man who had gone out, then saw another man sidle into the box.

  He couldn’t do much about Neilsen while he was jammed here in the stalls. If he could get into the next box, it would give him a real chance. Craigie had managed to get him into the theatre, but with the wrong ticket. Should he leave here? People often stood about behind the boxes.

  Suddenly the house lights came on, and a man and a woman entered the box next to Neilsen; as suddenly, the orchestra struck the opening chords of La Marseillaise. Feet scraped, chair-seats banged back as the audience rose to its feet.

  The Foreign Minister of France and his lady bowed to the audience as the anthem finished, there was a spontaneous outburst of applause. The Foreign Minister waved his gloves, his lady raised her hand. Then the lights began to fade.

  Grant turned round.

  “Sorry.”

  He pushed his way towards the gangway, ignoring the frowns and the glares of those whom he disturbed, hurried to the back and then up to the circle. As he went towards the boxes, the first man he noticed was Faraday. Faraday flickered an eyelid at him, but made no other sign of recognition. That wink seemed to say: “Look after N. We’ll see to the rest.”

  He slipped into the back of the dress circle. From there he could see Neilsen clearly, would know the moment the man moved away, and would be able to follow him. But there was more in this than Neilsen.

  The band struck up a loud and catchy tune. The chorus came dancing on, singing lustily, the audience was absorbed—and all the time those cold, watchful eyes kept shifting, up and down, up and down, along the rows of people. Neilsen paid no attention to anything but the stage; nor did the Foreign Minister.

  He was a small man, with a face beloved of cartoonists, one of the best-known faces in the world. This man had spent his life working for unity among the nations of Europe; was seeing the realization of a dream. His middleaged wife looked tiny, chic, beautifully dressed.

  They were holding hands.

  A man stood behind them, as watchful as all the rest. He was in the shadows, and Grant could not see his face clearly.

  The singing and the dancing and the music grew wilder, the great auditorium resounded to it; and then Grant saw the man behind the Foreign Minister put a hand on his shoulder and jerk him to one side. At the same time he pushed the woman.

  From the stalls came a vivid flash.

  Grant heard a muffled report as he saw the flash. This was followed by a stir among the people near the gunman. Down there, a man jumped to his feet; and above the singing and the music there came a wild scream.

  People started up, some jumped to their feet. In the dress circle hundreds craned their heads forward in a great wave.

  Neilsen sat without moving, without appearing to have noticed anything amiss. The music stopped at the proper time, the chorus curtseyed, a storm of applause broke out from those among the audience who had noticed nothing amiss. But down below a man was running desperately along one of the gangways towards the exit doors. People shot out their feet to try to trip him up; he jumped over them. Several of the men from the boxes moved off, doors banged.

  Grant stood quite still, watching Neilsen.

  The applause died down, and a shot rang out.

  It came so suddenly into the lull, seemed to cause a vacuum; then the silence was broken by a roar and a wave of screaming that brought pandemonium. Grant stood gripping the hand-rail in front of him, watching panic, trying not to look away from Neilsen.

  Panic!

  And he saw other things.

  Neilsen stood quite still, staring downwards. No fear that he would run. Men jumping up from their seats and throwing their arms up in the air as if hot cinders were falling on them. Women waving and screaming—panic being made worse by the frantic behaviour of the few; but the few weren’t behaving like normal beings.

  The chorus began to dance and sing and the band struck up again, but the din from the auditorium was louder, drowning every sound from stage and orchestra pit.

  Above all this there came a sharp explosion; a second, then half a dozen in quick succession. There were vivid flashes, too, but these weren’t from guns; fireworks were being tossed about the auditorium—a deliberate incitement to panic.

  Now, most of the audience was standing, moving, surging towards the gangways. Here and there a woman fell, there were groups of people, pushing where a person still sat down, preventing others from passing. Dense crowds were jammed in the gangways. Then Grant saw the police come in, and knew that Craigie had prepared for such an emergency as this.

  Neilsen leaned forward unsmiling against the balcony of the box. He was exceptionally handsome, with greying blond hair, and he viewed the wild scene as if he were looking at a movie-screen, not as something really happening beneath him. More fireworks exploded; the screaming and the shouting grew louder. The men who had tossed the fireworks had mixed with the crowd; you couldn’t pick out the agitators from the real audience.

  A voice blared out: “Fire!”

  There was no sign of fire; and that wasn’t a normal voice, someone had shouted through a loud-speaker. The cry was repeated: “Fire, fire!” Others took it up, and the crush towards the doors and in the gangways grew wilder, real panic was here. The police moved in steadily and calmly. One of them, an inspector in uniform, scrambled over the orchestra pit to the stage and spoke through the microphone there.

  “There’s no fire, take it easy. There’s no fire.”

  “Fire!” blared the other voice.

  “He’s trying to panic you, but Londoners don’t panic,
said the inspector. “Take it easy, or you’ll get hurt. No sense in that.”

  “Fire!”

  Grant saw the man who was shouting that false alarm, not ten yards away from him.

  He spoke into a tiny instrument fastened to his coat and didn’t actually raise his voice. No one else appeared to have noticed him. Grant took a step forward, then stopped. Watch Neilsen. The inspector spoke again, but the powerful voice drowned his words.

  “There’s fire! Fir—”

  A man with a round, inane face appeared; a Department man named Plummer. He came out of the crowd near the balcony doorway and, with delightful nonchalance, clipped the panic-spreader on the ear. The man swung round into a pile-driver of a punch and reeled back against the rails. Plummer hit him again; Grant thought he heard the sickening crack of his neck.

  The man fell.

  Plummer grinned and dusted his hands, and as he did so stiffened. The expression on his face changed completely—there was a screwed-up look of agony—as he toppled slowly forward. He fell upon the man he had just knocked out.

  Someone else took up the cry: “Fire!”

  Grant knew that Plummer was dead; knew who had killed him; and saw Neilsen looking towards the gangway.

  Watch Neilsen.

  Grant was jostled by the crowd, hardly heard the reasoning, reassuring voice of the inspector on the stage. But the voice of reason was gaining a hearing, the crowd was moving less wildly, the look of strain had gone from many faces, men who had been white and drawn were reassuring their women folk. Some young children were being carried shoulder high.

  Down in the stalls, some people began to sit down again, and into a lull a stentorian voice bellowed: “Get on with the show!”

  Someone laughed; the band started up again.

  Neilsen went to the back of the box.

  14 / Neilsen