Contraband

by Dennis Wheatley

  ‘Excellent sands,’ Lord Gavin nodded. ‘That is, for the first half mile or so from the shore, but farther out there are certain areas which have cavities of water beneath them, although they appear firm and beautiful to the uninitiated. It is a dangerous thing to take a short cut across the big bay at low tide, particularly at night, if you do not know the location of the treacherous patches. People have died that way, just disappeared beyond all trace, their bodies being swallowed up by the quicksands.’

  The muscles of Gregory’s hands tightened, and he felt that his palms were damp; while Gerry Wells’s freckled face went a perceptible shade paler.

  Lord Gavin went on unhurriedly: ‘That was the reason I had you brought here immediately my people telephoned to tell me that they had caught two spies. It is a great convenience that one of my bases should be adjacent to my private burial ground. The tide is running out. It will be low at six-ten this morning. A stone’s throw from the cottage here we have the river Stour, which flows through Sandwich and empties itself into the sea by a deep channel in the bay. At five o’clock, while the tide is still running out, my men will take you in a boat down the river and out to sea; then they will throw you overboard in a place where it is too shallow for you to swim and which the tide will probably have left dry by the time you are engulfed in the sand up to your armpits. You have a little over three hours now to exercise your imagination as to what will happen after that.’

  ‘God! you’re not human,’ Gregory gasped.

  Lord Gavin wriggled forward in the arm-chair and shuffled to his feet. ‘I am as the God you invoke made me,’ he said with sudden venom and all the stored up bitterness of years seemed concentrated in his voice. His childish body shook with a sudden gust of passion and he spat out at them: ‘You have had health and strength, been able to run and leap, and take your women, during your time. Now, your feet shall be tied by the grip of the sands and your great muscles will not help you. You chose to match your wits with mine, and I have proved your master. In your little minds you plotted to interfere with the work that I would do. All right then! You shall gasp out your lives repenting of your folly.’

  Suddenly the storm passed and he went quiet again. ‘You’ll see to it,’ he said softly to the Limper, and drawing his black cloak about him he left the cottage without another word.

  As the door banged to behind him Wells let out a sharp breath. Little beads of perspiration were now thick upon his forehead. He had been in some tight corners before now, criminal dens in the East End where crooks would have given him a nasty mauling if they had suspected he was a policeman, but nothing to compare with this where he would lose his life unless he could think of a way out.

  ‘Tie their feet again,’ said the Limper, ‘and push them in the scullery.’

  His order was the signal for a fresh struggle. Gregory and Wells both kicked out with savage violence and tried to break away but their arms were still tied and they had four of the Limper’s men against them. The uneven tussle could only end one way. The pugilist hit Gregory in the pit of the stomach; one of the others sloshed Wells on the side of the jaw. The Limper did not even need to go to the assistance of his underlings. The prisoners were forced down on the floor and their ankles tied again with thick cord. Then they were dragged across the room and laid out side by side upon the scullery floor.

  Gregory had given up the fight before Wells, and as soon as he got his strength back he was thinking, ‘If only they shut us in we’ll cheat the devils yet. If Wells rolls over on his face I’ll unpick the knots that tie his arms with my teeth. The rest’ll be easy providing they don’t hear us going out through the window.’ But even as he was planning an escape the Limper’s voice came again:

  ‘Don’t shut the door. Leave it wide open; so I can keep my eye on them in case they start any tricks.’

  The ex-pugilist put a kettle on the hob and then produced a greasy pack of cards. He and his three companions sat down to a game of nap while the Limper picked up a tattered magazine and settled himself in the arm-chair to read.

  A grim silence fell inside the cottage, broken only by an occasional murmur from one of the card players or the squeak of a chair as it was pushed back a little across the boards.

  Gregory turned over twice to ease his position but each time he moved he saw the Limper glance up and stare in his direction.

  For a quarter of an hour, that seemed like and eternity, he decided to try bribery.

  Struggling into a sitting position he spoke softly to the Limper. ‘Come here a minute will you.’

  The Limper put down his magazine and walked over to the entrance of the cupboard-like scullery. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just wanted a word with you,’ Gregory said in a low tone. ‘You’re in this game for what you can get out of it—aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s so,’ agreed the Limper non-committally.

  ‘Well, I don’t know what Gavin Fortescue pays you but I’m a bidder for your services. I’m not a rich man myself, although I could raise a tidy sum, but there’s a friend of mine who’s next door to being a millionaire—Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust—you may have heard of him. He looks on me as a sort of adopted son and he’ll honour any arrangement that I make without a murmur. Fix it how you like with the others, but get us out of this and we’ll pay you £5,000, besides seeing to it that you get safely out of the country. It’s Gavin Fortescue we’re after and we can afford to shut our eyes to anything you’ve done if you’ll give us a break. How about it?’

  The Limper’s mouth hardened. Its corners turned down more than ever; making his face suddenly grim and pitiless. He lifted his foot, planted it swiftly on Gregory’s chest, and kicked him savagely backwards. ‘Another word from you and I’ll have you gagged,’ he said contemptuously. Then he turned back to his arm-chair and magazine.

  Gregory’s head hit the stone floor of the scullery with a crack which almost knocked him senseless and made further thinking impossible for some minutes.

  Gerry Wells had listened to Gregory’s proposition with mingled hope and fear. He too had been revolving every possible approach in his madly racing brain; yet could think of nothing. Each time he tried to plan a line of action Milly’s face appeared before his mental vision. Death might not be so bad—a decent death—but it was hard to go now that he had found her. She was so utterly different from other girls; so gentle and unspoiled and lovable. The sort that made a big fellow like him just ache to protect her, and she liked him, liked him a lot. He was certain of it. Not a word of any significance had passed between them but it was just the way she looked at him with shy admiration in her big blue eyes. He thought of the wonderful day they had spent together, their flight over Thanet in the morning and their jolly time on the beach in the afternoon; but he mustn’t think of her now. It was utterly suicidal. He had got to concentrate on getting out of this ghastly mess he was in; and yet he could not. Every time he tried to reason or plan he pictured Milly’s delicate oval face, crowned by its mass of golden hair, rose before him.

  Time drifted on slowly but inexorably. The pain at the back of Gregory’s head was less now and he was trying to formulate new plans. Threats had failed; bribery had failed. They were trussed like sacred offerings for the slaughter. What was there left? If Wells had sent in a report about the base near Dungeness, and the police went there, they would discover nothing. The places where the flares had been, a few tracks of aeroplanes, perhaps, and the marks of the lorry wheels in the dust of the road. But they wouldn’t go there: why should they when the essence of the game was for Wells and himself to gather all the threads of the conspiracy together before the authorities acted? Even if they blundered, and made a premature mop up for some unknown reason, they might raid Quex Park and the Brown Owl Inn and the Café de la Cloche near Calais, but this other base at Ash Level, just inland from the southern arm of Pegwell Bay, was unknown to them.

  How those three hours drifted by neither of them knew and both began to believe that the Limp
er had forgotten how time must be passing. At last he stood up and gave a curt order. The men came in and dragged them out of the scullery into the living-room again.

  Their ankles were untied and they scrambled to their feet. The Limper produced his automatic. ‘Understand now,’ he said. ‘The sands will swallow up a dead body as quickly as a live one. I’ll be behind you while we’re walking to the boat and if there’s any attempt at breaking away I mean to shoot you.’

  They were led out of the cottage and round the corner to its other side. Beyond, through the grey half-light that precedes the dawn, they could see a deep gully with muddy banks. In its bed a narrow stream was ebbing swiftly. They crossed it a little farther down by a plank bridge and came again on to the grassland, up a bank, and across the broad main road from Sandwich to Ramsgate. It occurred to both the condemned men to make a dash for it there. If they were shot down, well—better death that way than what awaited them; yet such is the instinct of all humans to cling to life up to the last possible moment that both hesitated, knowing the odds to be so terribly against them. Before either had decided to start kicking out they were across the road and had been pushed down the far embankment; to a place where the river appeared again having made a hairpin bend.

  Here the channel was deeper and the stretch of water wider. Swiftly and silently it raced towards the sea in an endeavour to keep pace with the out-going tide.

  They were led along to a little wooden landing-stage, running out above the mud, at the far end of which a stout-looking rowing boat was moored. Another moment and they were hustled into its stern. Two of the men took the oars while the other two and the Limper crowded into the seats which ran round its after-part.

  The Limper sat in the middle with his pistol drawn, Gregory and Wells on either side of him, and beyond each of them one of the other men, holding them firmly by the back of their collars in case they attempted to jump overboard.

  The ex-pugilist, in the bow, cast off the painter and, without any effort on the part of the oarsmen, the boat was carried by the swift current towards the sea.

  Dawn had broken and, as the boat emerged from between the two banks into Sandwich Haven on the southern portion of the bay, the captives saw the vast area of sand stretching before them. The river continued; its deep channel twisting and winding between the flat stretches which, at high tide, would be covered by the sea. Only the quiet splash of oars now broke the silence of the early morning. Not a soul was to be seen across all the wide expanse, or upon the steep cliff over a mile away to the northern extremity of the bay, although Gregory and Wells both searched them with frantic glances.

  Another few moments and they reached the spot where the river met the outgoing tide. It was rippling gently along the golden sand, yet running out with such speed that every little wavelet broke ten yards farther to the seaward, leaving a fresh stretch of damp, faintly shining sand exposed to view.

  The men pulled vigorously and the boat began to heave a little on the gentle swell. Wells’s face was now a mask of whiteness in the early morning light while Gregory’s eyes were deeply sunk in his face on which the tan showed unnaturally grey.

  The Limper produced a pocket compass and, steadying it as well as he could, took a rough bearing.

  ‘Turn her,’ he said. ‘We must do the job about fifty yards to the left from here.’

  The men plied their oars again. The tide was now only a distant ripple so that its rapid approach was hardly perceptible. A few more agonising moments passed for the prisoners then the Limper jerked his head in Wells’s direction.

  ‘Undo his hands,’ he said. ‘If the sands shift and they’re washed up later it’ll look as though they were caught by the tide.’

  The man obeyed while the Limper thrust his gun within two inches of Wells’s mouth. ‘Make a move,’ he said, ‘and I’ll blow your head off.’

  Gerry Wells’s arms were free. His impulse was to lash out but his hands had been tied behind his back for over five hours. His muscles were cramped and stiff and when he tried to move he found that the effort only resulted in agonising pain.

  The Limper gave a quick glance round. No boat was to be seen. There was no one on the shore. Full dawn had hardly come and the faint, still lingering, twilight must obscure their actions from any distant casual watcher.

  ‘Over with him,’ he grunted.

  Too late Wells wrenched his arms forward. The man beside him stooped, placed a hand beneath his knees, and tipped him backwards over the gunwale.

  The oarsmen were dipping their oars, keeping the boat more or less in position, so that it drifted only very slightly. The Limper jabbed his automatic against Gregory’s face while the man beside him loosed his hands and pulled the cord away. Like Wells, his arms were almost paralysed from having been tied behind him for so long, but he jerked himself to his feet, his eyes wide and staring.

  ‘I’ll make it ten thousand,’ he gasped.

  The Limper only showed that he had heard by the sneer which lifted his upper lip and an added pressure from the muzzle of his pistol on Gregory’s cheek.

  For an instant Gregory’s right leg twitched under him. If he could only knee the Limper in the groin, flashed through his mind, but the pistol would explode automatically with the contraction of the Limper’s finger upon the trigger and the bullet would shatter his face into a bleeding mass of pulp.

  He decided to duck and take the risk, but the man who had held him, and the other who had dealt with Wells, came at him simultaneously, pushing him violently upon the chest and shoulders so that his knees gave beneath him and he went overboard with a loud splash.

  Spitting and choking he came up with his mouth full of sea water; shaking the drops from his eyes he glanced wildly round. The boat was already heading back towards the river mouth; its crew pulling lustily. Then he saw Wells, a dozen yards away, floundering about in the shallows.

  It was a matter of seconds only before his feet touched the sand. He tripped upon it, regained his balance, and stood up. The water was only up to his middle, but instantly he stood he felt the sand giving beneath his feet, so that he was in to his ankles before he could pull them out again.

  He flung himself flat and began to swim out to sea, knowing that his only chance lay in reaching deeper water, but the tide was ebbing with terrifying swiftness. As he lunged out his toes kicked the bottom; interfering with his stroke so that his hands swept downwards and his nails scraped on the sand below him.

  Gerry Wells was staggering from side to side, trying to fight his way towards the shore, but at every step he took the sand gave like oozy mud under his feet and he felt himself sucked down.

  ‘On your face you fool,’ shouted Gregory desperately. ‘Try and reach the deeper water, then we’ll swim for it.’

  ‘I can’t!’ gasped Wells. ‘I can’t swim. But the tide’s running out! If I can reach firm sand I’ll get those devils yet.’

  The depth of the water had now decreased to a couple of feet. Gregory floundered on but at every stroke he took the sand was churned up by his feet behind him.

  Wells stuck. He could advance no farther. He stood there in the shallow water waving his arms wildly as he endeavoured to fling himself forward, but his feet had sunk right in and the sand had him in its grip up to the calves of his legs.

  ‘Help,’ he bellowed. For God’s sake give me a hand to pull me out.’

  Gregory turned a little and splashed towards him but his knees were now touching bottom at every movement that he made.

  The light was brighter now; almost full day. In the distance the Limper’s boat appeared; a cockle shell heading towards land up the channel.

  Gregory could swim no farther. He began to crawl forward on his stomach knowing that to distribute his weight was the best way of preventing himself from sinking.

  Wells had gone down to above his thighs and was still shouting wildly.

  At last Gregory reached him and, although he knew that he could never pull him out, extended a
hand towards him. The Inspector grabbed it, drawing Gregory towards him, but the suction of the sand was so powerful that he could not free his legs.

  Gregory’s knees and elbows were embedded. Every second he shifted his position so that the sands should not get a grip on him. ‘Lean forward, distribute your weight,’ he bellowed, but Wells had been sucked down to the waist and could only scrabble at the low water in front of him with outstretched hands.

  Both of them could see the mark of the receding tide as it approached now by leaps and bounds. At one moment they were struggling in six inches of water, the next it was down to three and, almost before they had time to realise it, the sea was gone, leaving them stranded in the glittering sand.

  Gregory felt it well up about his thighs and, wriggle as he would, there was no way to free himself of it. The tiny particles formed a glutinous mud which would not even bear his weight, more or less distributed as it was. His knees were buried and it trickled over the hollows behind them. Wells had sunk up to his arm-pits.

  Both of them visualised the awful moment when the sand would be above their chins, when they could no longer lift their arms and were dragged down by the constant sucking motion, so that the sand reached their lips and entered their mouths in spite of all their efforts, choking them as they sank.

  They began to scream at the top of their voices, yelling for help with all the force of their lungs, but not a sound came back to them from the desolate wastes that spread upon either hand, and no human figure appeared upon the distant cliff tops.

  17

  The Raid on Barter Street

  Both men had sunk up to their chests. Waving their arms frantically above their heads they bellowed for help, but the Limper’s boat had rounded a bend in the creek, where it met the land, so that it could no longer be seen from the shore and there was now no soul within sight or hearing.