by John Creasey
So far, none of the men known to have been blackmailed by Carosi had been visited, all seemed normal.
Everything was normal at Grant’s London apartment until Roger West arrived. When the door was opened Michael Grant and his wife stood together, with little Arthur Morely near them in meek silence.
Chapter Nineteen
Family Party
‘Well, well,’ Roger said as the door closed behind him, and it was hard to keep the sneer out of his voice. ‘Quite a family party. What are you celebrating?’
Morely just looked at him reproachfully.
Christine said: ‘Please, Mr West,’ and stopped.
Grant said: ‘You’d better come in,’ and led the way into a fine room, with modern furniture, and great windows, overlooking one of London’s lovelier squares. When they were all there, he went on: ‘You think I’m a heel. Right. I let Carosi go once, and helped him a second time, because I considered my first duty was to my wife. I’d do it all again. If you think I enjoyed doing it, you’re wrong.’
His wife looked so very lovely, yet not radiant now: acutely distressed.
‘And I think my son-in-law was right,’ Morely put in, gently. ‘What do you think you would have done in the same circumstances, Mr West?’
‘I don’t know,’ Roger said harshly. ‘I didn’t have to try myself out. I haven’t come here to pass judgement on whether you did the right or the wrong thing, Grant. I came to find out if you know anything you haven’t yet told us.’
‘I do not.’
Roger flashed a red disc in front of his eyes.
‘Have you ever seen one of these before?’
He looked into Grant’s face, and saw how pale it was, felt quite sure that Grant had seen such a disc. Did the sight of it frighten him?
‘No,’ he said brusquely.
‘Don’t lie, Grant. If you—’
Grant raised his head and spoke in clipped, angry tones: ‘Don’t shout at me, and don’t call me a liar. My answer was no. That’s final.’
‘Listen to me,’ Roger said icily. ‘Outside, thousands of people are being robbed, many being injured, some being killed. That is Carosi’s work. There is just a chance we might be able to stop it before it becomes too late. There’s something else: Carosi has your father and several other wealthy people under his thumb. Nothing has happened to them yet, but it’s likely to before long. If only for your father’s sake—’
‘I’ve never seen one of those discs before.’
‘All right,’ said Roger, savagely, ‘you’ve never seen one before. I still think you’re a liar. Now—’
He saw Christine Grant move forward. Grant had seemed to be avoiding her deliberately, but Roger paused to let her speak, and Grant could not avoid her when she said: ‘Michael, it’s time you told the whole truth.’ When he didn’t answer, she took his arm and Roger could almost feel the pressure of her grip, could hear anguish in her voice. ‘I know why you’ve helped Carosi, I know that you’re afraid of what he might do to me if he ever finds out that you’ve tried to help the police. But I can’t live on other people’s lives any longer. If Carosi isn’t caught, whenever he robs and blackmails and kills I shall think that I owe my life to it—to every crime he’s ever committed.’
‘Don’t talk like that!’ Grant cried.
‘But it’s the truth, Mike, it’s the simple truth. Do you think I could ever be really happy? Could you?’
Grant looked tormented.
Morely murmured, more softly even than usual: ‘I’m sure the Inspector would not inform anyone who had told him—’
Grant snatched at the disc in Roger’s hand.
‘All right,’ he rasped, ‘I’ve seen one of these. My father had one. I’ve seen other men show him one when they went to see him. That was when I first discovered there was trouble. But that’s all I know. How far does that help you?’
‘Have you seen anybody else carrying them?’
‘No.’ Grant’s arm was held about Christine’s waist as he went on: ‘There isn’t another thing I know to help, West; you’re only wasting your time.’
There was just one more question to ask: ‘Why did Carosi let you go?’
‘I’ve told you often enough. I struck a bargain with him, my wife’s safety for his. He kept his side of it. I hope to God I don’t live to regret not keeping mine.’
Roger went out to his car, feeling cold and helpless. He flicked on the radio, and heard the flurried comments from the Information Room. The situation was even more chaotic than it had been, there seemed to be no end to it. He asked if there was any special news of Sir Mortimer Grant, Raffety, Dana and Harrison, and there was none. He drove back to the Yard, with the feeling that the key that he was looking for lay within his grasp, and that it had to do with Carosi’s reasons for freeing Michael Grant and Christine.
Sentiment? The keeping of a bargain? He didn’t believe that either was possible. It must have been to Carosi’s advantage or he must have done it under pressure.
Under pressure?
Could anyone exert such pressure that Carosi would give way?
Why had he released the Grants?
Roger caught his breath as a new idea flashed into his mind. He pulled into the side of the road and let himself think over it, and the more he thought, the more possible it seemed. He flicked his radio on, and Information Room answered quickly.
‘West here. Put me through to the Assistant Commissioner at once.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Hurry, hurry, hurry!
‘That you, West?’ Chatworth sounded gruff and tired, and made it clear that he did not expect good news.
Roger said, tensely: ‘I’ve just seen a new angle, sir, and it might take us just where we want to go. I’ve thought of a possible reason for Carosi allowing the Grants to leave Kinara. Supposing one of Carosi’s associates, one of great importance, didn’t want them hurt? A relation, who—’
‘Are you crazy?’ Chatworth interrupted. ‘Sir Mortimer Grant has been a victim of Carosi for ten years or more!’
‘I wasn’t thinking of Sir Mortimer Grant,’ said Roger. ‘I’m thinking of a man who came out of prison just before all this began. Until he was released, Carosi was out of the country. Soon after, Carosi came back to start afresh. The man I mean has been in and out of it all the time, just a pathetic old man who seemed to be hovering near the fringe of it, but—’
‘Do you mean Arthur Merely?’ Chatworth almost screamed.
‘I mean Arthur Morely,’ said Roger. ‘Don’t shout me down, sir, but listen. It did begin after Morely came out of prison. He’s kept cropping up in this, too. He’s obviously deeply fond of his daughter. Carosi as we know him wouldn’t have hesitated to kill Grant, but something made him stop. Both Grant and his wife could have been killed: they weren’t. If Morely’s involved, he could have forced Carosi to hold his hand. I think we ought to have Morely trailed everywhere he goes, but it’s got to be done so well that he won’t know that he’s being followed.’
There was a pause before Chatworth said: ‘Well, at least it can’t do any harm.’
The police kept track of Arthur Morely everywhere he went. Unexpectedly, he went towards the London docks after leaving his daughter and son-in-law, to tea at a dockers’ cafe, and watched ships and barges unloading. Now and again he stared across the river, where barges were loading large barrels. Sometimes he smiled. Then he began to inquire for work aboard ship. Several times he was refused brusquely, but eventually he was told that the Snow Queen, at Simley’s Wharf down river, was hard up for men for a six months’ voyage.
He got a job, and spent the night at a hostel near Simley’s Wharf.
All this, Roger knew.
But he almost forgot it in the news sensation – the disappearance of wealthy men and men in high po
sitions. Not only Raffety, Sir Mortimer Grant, Dana and Harrison were affected, but men in social, business and political spheres were disappearing by the dozen.
From early morning till late evening, men of great renown and repute had left their homes, their offices or their clubs, and had not returned. None was actually missed until the early evening, when three who were to attend a conference between an Employers’ Federation and the Ministry of Works failed to appear. Others, including politicians who should have been to the House of Commons, had vanished in the same way.
None of the missing men reappeared that night.
Scotland Yard faced another influx of urgent calls which came from relatives of the missing men and from the provinces.
The middle-aged Chairman of the Midas Trust, perhaps the wealthiest single corporation in Great Britain, Lord Cardiss, left his taxi near Aldgate Station because of a traffic block, and walked to a small warehouse off the Mile End Road, where he had been ordered to meet an agent of Carosi, who would present a red disc with a specified number on it. He entered the yard hesitantly. A little man in his shirt-sleeves pointed towards an open door, and Cardiss went into the dark warehouse. Inside, rows of huge wooden barrels stood on end.
The door closed behind him, and a man came near. He felt a pain in his right arm, exclaimed aloud and said sharply: ‘What’s that?’
‘Okay, okay,’ the man said easily, and showed his red disc. ‘You’ll be okay.’
Cardiss lost consciousness ten minutes later, and was doubled up and pushed into one of the barrels. The lid was put on, and, with dozens of other barrels, was loaded into a lorry.
All were marked: Fruit for Export.
That afternoon and the following morning, a stream of barges went sluggishly down the Thames and moored alongside the small ocean-going cargo steamer at Simley’s Wharf, a little up river from Tilbury. Simley’s were general shipping merchants, although they specialized in fruit and flowers, which they shipped mostly to and from the Continent and Ireland. It was not a large firm, but its reputation was good.
The cargo boat, which had two stumpy funnels, a low bridge and a thick, clumsy-looking hull and stern – she looked as if she would roll badly in anything approaching a heavy sea – was dirty and smelly. The name painted on her bows was the Snow Queen, and she was registered at Lloyds with the rest of the small Simley fleet of coastal and ocean-going boats; they were little more than tramp-steamers.
According to the Bills of Lading, which fully satisfied the dock and customs officials, she was being loaded with a special kind of oil produced from gas – a great deal of this was shipped abroad – and the oil was in one hundred gallon barrels, as the Snow Queen wasn’t a tanker.
No one took any special notice of the fact that some of the barrels were loaded into ‘A’ hold, but that most went into ‘B’, while some were stored on deck. There was no need to lash the deck cargo until just before the ship weighed anchor; it was due to leave on the morning tide, a little after dawn.
She carried a few passengers.
After dark on the night following the outbreak of crime, a short, stocky man, wearing a pale Homburg hat and dressed in an overcoat of American cut, strolled about the deck, accompanied by a youth who looked somewhere in his late teens. They could only just be seen from the wharf. Had there been a brighter light, anyone watching would have realised that the ‘boy’ was much more like a woman.
‘Well, Julieta,’ said Carosi, ‘we have succeeded completely. We are not suspected, you see. Who is to know that I own Simley’s and many other small wharves? No one, Julieta, except you. And who is to guess what kind of cargo we carry?’
He gave a little laugh.
‘No one,’ agreed Julieta. ‘It is successful.’
‘I promised you that. And who would guess that the barrels in “A” hold contain the men for whom the police are searching?’ murmured Carosi. ‘Oh, they are quite safe. They will be a little cramped, of course, but that does not matter. They will be more cramped tomorrow!’ He laughed again. ‘And by tomorrow, I shall tell the police I have them, and will state my price for their release.’
‘Yes,’ said Julieta.
‘You have little to say,’ complained Carosi. ‘Have I not done all I promised to do?’
‘I wish that the tide ran earlier,’ said Julieta. ‘It is a long time until dawn.’
‘You need not worry,’ said Carosi. ‘No one will suspect us. The police have been so busy with other things. I saw to that. It is not even yet mentioned in the newspapers that these men are missing.’ He pointed towards a barrel which they could just see through the gloom. ‘That is marked “51”. Fifty-one gentlemen are my guests. And when we are out to sea, the message will be delivered to their relations. For each of these men, and each is very wealthy, I shall require one hundred thousand pounds in gold or jewellery, delivered to good friends who have their orders and will obey. I control their whole fortunes, so they must always serve me.’
‘Yes, it is a triumph,’ Julieta said tonelessly.
‘And although we lost Kinara and cannot send the captives there, it does not greatly matter,’ said Carosi. ‘We have succeeded in every way, except for Kinara. By attacking Grant and his wife, I distracted the attention of the police. Simply by the incidents at Uplands, my dear Julieta! It is always successful. One makes an attack here, and strikes somewhere else. I am almost sorry for West. The newspapers—have you seen them all, Julieta?’
‘All,’ said Julieta.
‘That is well. I am pleased with what they say. One and all they think it has been planned by the great Carosi, and West was the policeman in charge of finding me.’
He watched her intently as he mentioned West again, but she showed no change of expression.
‘And now we shall sail away, and never come back,’ Carosi said. ‘Aren’t you pleased, Julieta? And aren’t you proud—of the greatest criminal ever known? The greatest—’
‘Perhaps except one,’ said a little man mildly, and he appeared at their side. ‘Just except one. Because no one ever suspected me, Carosi, not even Julieta! I am supposed to be just a poor wife-murderer, whereas in fact I killed her because she knew that you and I worked together. In prison I laboured long on all these plans, didn’t I, Carosi? Where would you have been without me? Tell me that.’
Arthur Morely smiled into Julieta’s face, and then began to laugh.
Carosi laughed, too, putting a hand on Morely’s shoulder.
As they stood laughing, slow-moving barges passed close by, and two cars came on to the wharf. Then powerful lights shone out without warning, from the barges as well as the shore, and men sprang towards the cargo-boat and climbed aboard.
The crew came running, to fight.
Morely cried: ‘No!’ and then saw West, armed, and nearer than any of the others.
Carosi drew a gun.
West called: ‘Drop it, Carosi, or—’ and then two men, fighting near him, fell against him. And he lost his gun.
He saw the trio together, and knew that they could not hope to escape. He saw Morely despairing, and Carosi very still and erect, with that so-called Chinaman’s smile – and with the gun in his hand.
He knew that Carosi meant to kill him. In this awful moment of failure, Carosi would want that above all else.
Then Roger saw Julieta strike Carosi’s arm aside, so that he could not fire. West leapt; but before he could reach Carosi, the man had turned his gun upon the girl.
‘At least we’ve got Carosi alive,’ Chatworth said, soon afterwards. ‘And Morely, too. All the captives, and all the stolen goods. Clean sweep, Roger, thank God. I’m only sorry about that girl.’
‘Yes, it was hard,’ Roger said, but he did not really think so.
It was far better that Julieta should be dead.
Series Information
Pub
lished or to be published by
House of Stratus
Dates given are those of first publication
Alternative titles in brackets
'The Baron' (47 titles) (writing as Anthony Morton)
'Department 'Z'' (28 titles)
'Dr. Palfrey Novels' (34 titles)
'Gideon of Scotland Yard' (22 titles)
'Inspector West' (43 titles)
'Sexton Blake' (5 titles)
'The Toff' (59 titles)
along with:
The Masters of Bow Street
This epic novel embraces the story of the Bow Street Runners and the Marine Police, forerunners of the modern police force, who were founded by novelist Henry Fielding in 1748. They were the earliest detective force operating from the courts to enforce the decisions of magistrates. John Creasey's account also gives a fascinating insight into family life of the time and the struggle between crime and justice, and ends with the establishment of the Metropolitan Police after the passing of Peel's Act in 1829.
'The Baron' Series
These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
Meet the Baron (The Man in the Blue Mask) (1937)
The Baron Returns (The Return of the Blue Mask) (1937)
The Baron Again (Salute Blue Mask) (1938)
The Baron at Bay (Blue Mask at Bay) (1938)
Alias the Baron (Alias Blue Mask) (1939)
The Baron at Large (Challenge Blue Mask!) (1939)
Versus the Baron (Blue Mask Strikes Again) (1940)
Call for the Baron (Blue Mask Victorious) (1940)
The Baron Comes Back (1943)
A Case for the Baron (1945)
Reward for the Baron (1945)
Career for the Baron (1946)
Blood Diamond (The Baron and the Beggar) (1947)
Blame the Baron (1948)
A Rope for the Baron (1948)
Books for the Baron (1949)