Contraband gs-1

by Dennis Wheatley

  'And then?' snapped Gregory. 'Go on, quick.' 'I remained there till they had dragged Aunty, struggling up the stairs, past me. Directly they'd gone I rushed down and out of the house by the back way. I hadn't understood then what Lord Gavin meant when he spoke of the police spies having been dealt with. Then I found them all in all in an awful heap there in the driveway only fifty yards from the house. I heard aeroplanes coming in as I stood there, feeling sick and faint, and saw through the trees that a lot of bright flares had been lighted on the lawn. II was so horrified at the sight of those dead men I don't know what I did next. I think my brain must have gone blank but I suppose I ran back here. The next thing I knew was that I was crouching in the comer shivering with terror when you came in and flashed your light on me.'

  'I wonder why they didn't lock you up too,' Gregory said suddenly.

  She shook her head. 'I don't think they even know I live here. Aunty got Lord Gavin's consent to my boarding with her when she took the place but he's so queer about her never having visitors we were afraid he might change his mind afterwards. That's why I've always kept out of his sight. They've been here very little until the last few days and I've never met any of them face to face.'

  Gregory's sharp questions and Milly's stuttering replies had occupied no more than a couple of minutes, but time had slipped by while Gregory and Rudd were running from the plane, and later creeping round the back of the house. In spite of their well organised getaway from Hook Quay over half an hour had elapsed since they left Wells staring after them as they raced off into the darkness.

  It was now twenty minutes to one and, from Milly's report of what Lord Gavin had said when the Limper's message came through just about midnight, the planes had been due to arrive at a quarter past twelve. They must have been there then for over twenty minutes and would be leaving any moment now.

  From Gregory's glimpse of the lawn through the trees, before he had entered the house, he knew that fifty or sixty men at least were gathered there. He might find Gavin's plane and get Sabine out of it but someone was almost certain to spot him and the odds were hopelessly against his being able to get her away safely.

  He almost wished that he had surrendered to the certainty of Sabine's arrest, given the police the information which he had beaten out of the Limper, and enabled Wells to concentrate the forces of the law here; but it was too late to think of that now. Standing there, grimfaced and silent, he racked his brain for some refuge to which he might take Sabine if only he could deal with the pilot of Gavin's plane; but every second was precious and he dared not wait to formulate any complicated plan. Suddenly he turned to Milly.

  'Do you know if there's a spare key to the Bell tower?'

  She nodded towards the sideboard. 'I think there's one in the drawer on the left. Aunty keeps all the keys in there.'

  Rudd wrenched the drawer open. Gregory shone his torch down into it and Milly snatched up a heavy old-fashioned key from among the rest.

  'This is it.'

  'Right,' said Gregory. 'Rudd must come with me; I need him. We don't want you mixed up in the fighting but are you prepared to act like a little heroine?'

  'I I'll try,' she stammered.

  'Bless you! That's the spirit! Now this is what I want you to do. As they've been signalling from the Bell tower the door of it is probably open already. You know the Park and the path round the back from here, across the drive, up to the tower through the wood. That's well away from the lawn so it's unlikely you'll run into anyone. If you hear any of these people you can hide in the woods till they've gone past. I want you to get to the tower, see the door's open, and put this key into the lock on the inside on the inside remember. That's what's so important. Think you can do it? Gerry'11 be mighty proud of you if you will.'

  That reference to Gerry Wells was just the psychological touch needed to give Milly renewed courage.

  'All right,' she said, throwing up her head.

  'Well done!' Gregory squeezed her arm. 'Directly you've got that key in the door go in among the trees and hide there until the trouble's over; get as far from the lawn as you can. Blessings on you my dear.'

  The three of them left the house together. Milly to skirt its back and make her way through the dark shrubberies; Gregory and Rudd together, past the museum buildings and the conservatories, into the coppice which lay to its right front; at the far end of which, they knew, lay the hangar that housed Lord Gavin's plane.

  For tense moments they stumbled through the undergrowth, not daring to show a light, then they emerged cautiously from

  behind the hangar into the open. Two hundred yards away, on the far side of the lawn, they could see the dark bulk of the other coppice with the Bell tower rising from it. No lights showed at its steel mast now. Its purpose of guiding the planes in had already been served.

  Gregory peered out beyond the angle of the hangar. Bright flares still lit the lawn. The planes reposed before them in an irregular row. One or two men, the pilots probably, stood near each but the majority were gathered in a solid crowd on the gravel sweep before the house. At the open front door Lord Gavin's small hunched figure, supported by two sticks, was silhouetted against the bright light of the hall. He was evidently giving the foreign agitators, whom he had imported, his last instructions before they dispersed to spread anarchy in the great industrial areas.

  His plane was already outside the hangar; its nearest wingtip no more than a dozen yards from the spot where Gregory crouched. For a second the wild thought entered his head of attempting to make off in it; but the men by the other planes were within such easy range it seemed certain he would be shot down before he could scramble on board and get the machine into the air. Besides, he was not sure yet that Sabine was in the plane. If she were not he would have bungled things for good and all.

  He turned to Rudd. 'Got your pocket knife handy?' he asked in a quick whisper.

  'Yes sir.'

  'Good. We'll need it to cut her free if she's there. Don't wait to be shot at but shoot first if they try to stop us. Ready now? Come on!'

  Going down upon his hands and knees he came out into the open and crept swiftly towards the waiting plane. Now, he blessed the friendly darkness and the clouds that hung, low and threatening, obscuring the stars. The nearest men visible in the flickering light from the flares were a good fifty yards away.

  With a last crouching sprint Gregory reached the body of the plane and wrenched open the door. The light on the far side of it came through the windows sufficiently for him to see the interior of the cabin. A long bundle lay in the after part of it behind the two rear seats. It was Sabine, a cloth wound round her face, her arms and ankles lashed with rough cords and a couple of weighty iron bars fastened to her feet; trussed ready for Gavin's men to heave into the sea once they were well away over the Channel.

  Swiftly but cautiously Gregory and Rudd drew her limp body out and laid it on the grass. Rudd's knife bit into the cords. Gregory unmuffled her face, pressing his hand lightly over her mouth to prevent her screaming before she realised that it was he who was manhandling her.

  Another moment and they had her on her feet, limp and half dazed, supported between them.

  'Think you can run, my sweet?' Gregory said softly.

  She flung one arm round his neck. 'Mon dieu! those cords, they almost stop my circulation,' she whispered, 'wait, I will be better in a minute.'

  'Hang on to her,' Gregory breathed, removing her arm from his neck and gently passing her to Rudd. Then he went down on his knees again and, creeping forward a little, peered under the nose of the plane. Its pilot, who had been hidden by the bulk of the machine before, was standing within seven yards, his back turned, looking towards the house. A murmur came from the gravel drive and then the sound of crunching feet. Lord Gavin had finished his address to the red servants of evil and the crowd in front of the doorway was breaking up.

  There was not an instant to lose. Gregory dived back behind the plane and spoke to Rudd. 'They're
coming; you'll have to carry her. Fireman's lift and gun in your right hand. Too late to make a detour, we'll have to chance a dash across the open.'

  Rudd stooped and threw Sabine across his strong shoulders as though she had been an infant. Without a word he plunged forward straight for the Bell tower. Gregory followed, walking swiftly backwards, ready to fire instantly they were spotted and covering Rudd's retreat.

  Rudd had traversed sixty yards before they were seen; then a cry went up from one of the men by the flares. In a second Gavin's pilot swung round with a drawn pistol in his hand. He fired from his hip and the bullet sang past Gregory's head; but Gregory had had him marked already. His pistol cracked, the man's knees gave under him, and he crashed forward on his face.

  Gregory ducked to escape the bullets of the men by the flares. As he did so a series of sharp coughs told him that they were firing at him with pistols which had Mauser silencers attached. Suddenly he sprinted forward, covered fifty yards before he stopped, swung round, and fired again. One of the men by the flares staggered sideways with a scream.

  The lawn was full of racing figures now. The scattered group by the house was surging forward in a long irregular wave. Lord Gavin still stood on the doorstep, waving one of his sticks and shouting something which Gregory could not catch. Rudd had already covered two thirds of the way to the Bell tower when Sabine cried: 'Put me down! I can manage now.'

  He slipped her from his shoulders. She stood rocking for a moment then began to stagger forward while he turned and fired at the nearest of the running men. The man ran on, Rudd fired again. The fellow spun round and fell.

  Rudd's intervention gave Gregory another chance. He bounded forward. Both of them fired twice into the mass of shouting figures that were thundering across the grass, then they turned and ran on together.

  A bullet ploughed up the ground at Gregory's feet, another whistled past his ear, a third hit the gun in Rudd's hand, knocking it out of his grasp.

  Gregory halted and emptied the remaining contents of his automatic into the oncoming mob. Rudd lurched forward, grabbed up his pistol, and dashed on again. Next instant he came up with Sabine. She was now no more than twenty yards from the Bell tower.

  Jamming his now useless automatic into his pocket Gregory pounded up beside them. Each caught Sabine by an arm and half carried, half dragged her towards their goal.

  'Come on! Come on!' shrilled a treble voice and Milly's form loomed up by the tower. She was holding the door wide open for them.

  'Good God!' gasped Gregory as they dashed through the entrance. 'Why didn't you hide as I told you to?'

  She shook her head. 'I had to stay and help if I could.' Then she flung her frail weight against the heavy door and banged it to. Rudd grabbed the key and turned it in the lock.

  For a moment they remained there panting in the close musty darkness. Sabine was lying on the ground; Gregory leaning against the wall as he sought to ease the strain of his bursting lungs. He pulled his torch out of his pocket and flashed it on. Rudd and Milly were standing just behind the door.

  'Get back, you fools!' he shouted. 'They'll be shooting through that door!' Rudd grabbed Milly and thrust her away from it into a safe corner.

  Sabine was on her feet again. She snatched Gregory's torch and turned in on the door; then she sprang forward and shot the bolts at its top and bottom.

  'That's better!' her voice came huskily. 'They could have blown in that lock.' As she spoke a bullet crashed through the door splintering its woodwork. She swung round towards Gregory.

  'Why why did you bring me here? It would have been safer to have hidden in the coppice near the hangar. You could have carried me there without bringing this hornets' nest about our ears.'

  'I thought of that,' he replied swiftly, 'but there are dozens of them. When they found you missing from the plane it wouldn't have taken them five minutes to beat the coppice for us. We'd have been caught with no protection.'

  A thunderous beating came upon the door. Shots thudded into its stout oak panelling; one clanged upon the metal lock. Gregory remained leaning against the wall. He only shrugged now at this fresh clamour and smiled in the darkness.

  'Don't get scared any of you. That door's old and solid. It'd take them an hour to break it in and they can't spare the time. They know every policeman in Kent is on the lookout for them and that they'll be caught if they don't get away from here before one o'clock. It's five to now.'

  Sabine stretched out a hand and grasped his quickly. 'Mais non,' she cried. 'Gavin believes all the police are concentrated miles away on Sheppey Island. He's killed the men who were set to keep a look out here. There is no one to give a warning of what they do and the village is too far for anyone there to hear the shooting. Gavin will send for saws and cut the bolts out of their sockets; or get a battering ram for all that mob to break down the door. He thinks he is safe here for an hour two hours yet. If help doesn't arrive soon nous sommes tons morte.'

  While the battering outside continued Rudd was flashing his torch round the lofty chamber. From holes in its wooden ceiling ten ropes dangled; the last few feet of each covered with a thick wool grip. They looked like a group of inverted bulrushes.

  'All right,' said Gregory with sudden decision. 'If we've got to summon help after all we'll use the bells.' He sprang forward and caught at one of the ropes bearing down his full weight upon it. A loud clang sounded high up in the tower.

  Rudd seized another rope and Milly a third. The noise outside the door was drowned in a horrible cacophony of vibrating sound. Without rhythm or music the great bells above their heads pealed out in horrid irregular clamour clash boom dong bing which seemed to shake the very ground on which the bell ringers stood.

  Sabine ran to Gregory and shouted in his ear: 'The lights on the steel mast! The controls are in the next room. I will make signals with them.' She dashed away and a moment later was tapping at the instruments S O SS O S SOS.

  Rudd now had a bell rope in each hand and was swaying from side to side as he pulled them alternately with all his vigour. Gregory tugged at first one, then another until the whole peal of ten bells was in motion; thundering out a vast and hideous discord which could be heard over half Thanet.

  After a couple of minutes Gregory left Rudd and Milly to keep the din going, rushed up the narrow winding stairs in a corner of the chamber until he reached a long slit window cut in the thick stone wall, and peered out.

  From it he saw that the attempt to force the door had been abandoned. Gavin Fortescue was standing near the flares; waving his sticks and evidently ordering the pilots to their various planes. As Gregory watched, a new commotion started. A car roared up the driveway and halted in front of the house. Dark figures sprang out of it. Another 'car and then another came in sight.

  The bells were so deafening that he could not hear the coughing of the silenced automatics, but stabs of flame, piercing the darkness near the museum building, told him that a battle was in progress between the reds and the constantly arriving squads of police.

  He glanced at his wrist watch and saw that it was one o'clock. The bells could not have been pealing for more than five minutes. How could the police have got here so quickly, he wondered, but he did not pause to think of possible explanations. Instead, he leapt down the, narrow stairs, yelling for Sabine, and waving his arms to stop Rudd and Milly tugging at the bell ropes.

  As they ceased their pulling he shouted: 'The police are here! Quick! Open that door, Rudd. I've got to get Sabine away. We'll use Lord Gavin's plane while they're fighting it out together.'

  Rudd wrenched back the bolts. Milly unlocked the door and tugged it" open. All four of them ran out into the half-light which came from the flares.

  The bells were still clanging faintly behind them, but now they could hear the sound of shots as the waves of police, descending from fresh cars and lorries which were arriving by both drives every moment, dashed into the fray a hundred yards away. Lord Gavin had disappeared. The backs of h
is men were now towards the tower.

  As Gregory and the rest burst out of its entrance there was a crashing in the undergrowth behind them. A body of police who had been sent to take the conspirators in the rear were just emerging from the coppice.

  Someone called upon Gregory's party to halt, but he took no notice, urging Sabine on beside him. They raced across the open lawn towards the hangar, but, as they reached it, another phalanx of police emerged from the opposite coppice and Marrowfat's voice boomed out into the semidarkness. 'Halt there you, or I fire.'

  They were caught between two forces; as the" police who had emerged from the Bell tower coppice were hurrying up in their rear. Another moment and they were surrounded.

  With a sinking heart Gregory realised that the game was up.

  Beside Marrowfat loomed the tall figure of Sir Pellinore, the bulky form of the Chief Constable, and the tall but slighter Gerry Wells.

  As Gregory halted he gulped in a quick breath, and then stared at the Inspector. 'How did you manage to turn up here so quickly?'

  Gerry Wells grinned. 'When you tipped me off about Bell being the word instead of Mermaid I tumbled to it at once that meant the Bell tower at Quex Park. It took me five minutes to phone Canterbury, so the Superintendent could concentrate the others when he go there, and you'd obviously sneaked your car round near Hook Quay. You had the heels of me but I didn't lose much time, once I got started, and the others seemed to have arrived here altogether.'

  Milly stepped forward and touched his arm. 'It's been terrible,' she murmured. 'But I feel safe, now at last because you're here.'