The Terror Trap

by John Creasey

  In the last two years, however, O’Ray’s oil interests had started to overtake Fordham’s. All along, it was obvious O’Ray had had more money and a sounder backing. Nevertheless, Fordham had still been well ahead at the time of his death. The summary ran:

  * * *

  Controlling

  Substantial Share

  No

  * * *

  Interest

  Interest

  Interest

  Fordham:

  40%

  20%

  40%

  O’Ray:

  25%

  35%

  40%

  * * *

  But it was not until the news came in from abroad that Craigie realised the full extent of O’Ray’s scheme, and then he marvelled at the unscrupulousness of it. For O’Ray had spread his interests to every European coal-producing company with the exception of Soviet Russia.

  “So,” Craigie murmured to himself, “the strike won’t worry him. He’ll get it, either way. The foreign producers will step into our markets during the strike, but during the strike, he’ll push up the price to the consumer. He can influence British and Continental prices both: in fact, he can do what he likes.”

  Craigie stared at the figures. It was startling that one man could gain such power.

  But that wasn’t all.

  Both O’Ray and Fordham had been fighting for a controlling interest in oil. That was why Fordham had worked like mad to get the Ranian concession, and his success there must have been a big blow to O’Ray. In short, each man had been fighting for the control of coal and oil—the two major fuels. Given that, they could have worked one with the other. It was a mighty vision; the extent of it fully explained the ruthlessness of the killings. For it was obvious to Gordon Craigie that Sir Marcus O’Ray had made one fatal mistake. He had tried to get the Ranian concession by killing Fordham and then forcing Katrina Fordham’s hand; so the murder of Fordham would have served two purposes. First, Granton’s pit would have been controlled, for Lavis’s resistance would not have amounted to much, afterwards. Second, the Ranian concession would have passed into O’Ray’s hands.

  They wouldn’t now, thought Craigie. He had enough against O’Ray, he believed to convict the man; certainly he could kill his scheme to control coal and oil.

  But—he couldn’t stop the strike.

  Craigie reached for a particular telephone and spoke for some ten minutes to a Very Important Personage. That done, he called Sir William Fellowes, Police Commissioner, and told him bluntly—that he wanted O’Ray arrested and held—and that there would be no opposition from the Home Secretary.

  “Consider it done,” Fellowes promised.

  But he failed to keep that promise, for a very good reason.

  For at that very moment, a Daimler saloon was driving up to O’Ray’s Grosvenor Street house, and at the same time a man in a low-crowned trilby hat lurched into the garden at the rear. At the front, Wally Davidson of Department Z was on watch. He suspected the Daimler’s driver, and he was ready for trouble. It came—in the shape of a volley of bullets from a Thompson sub-machine gun; Davidson’s head just seemed to split inside, and he crumpled up. At the same moment, O’Ray opened the front door of the house, hurried down the steps and entered the Daimler, which roared off again only seconds after it had drawn up.

  At the rear of the house a second Department Z man, Martin Best, heard the rattle of the machine gun and saw the man in the low-crowned trilby a split-second before the man saw him.

  He guessed in a flash what had happened at the front, and didn’t waste time or pity. He fired three times from his pocket and the American crumpled up, his machine-gun clattering to the ground from beneath his coat. Best saw his hands clawed his stomach, and came away wet with blood.

  He didn’t waste a second look on him: he went through the house like a tornado and out through the front door. And swore savagely at the sight of Wally Davidson, his colleague and very great friend, sprawled in an apparently lifeless heap, while three trickles of blood stained the grey-flagged pavement beneath him.

  20

  O’Ray Makes an Error

  It was half-past three when Burke telephoned Craigie from Swansea. Burke had bathed, been patched and bandaged up, and been gently and wonderfully massaged with soothing embrocation. Walking was still an ordeal; but it was already less so than it had been, and he could at least be pleased with the way things were going.

  He wasn’t so cheerful when he heard Craigie’s report.

  “How is Wally?” he asked.

  “Touch and go,” said Craigie, soberly, “and I’m afraid it’ll be go, Jim. But—you must get Wigham. We’re completely fogged by O’Ray, but your man’s on Wigham’s tail and that should get us to O’Ray, in time.”

  “I’ll get him,” Burke swore, with more determination than conviction. The news of the Grosvenor Street attack had taken the wind out of his sails. Moreover, Lloyd—the Swansea man—was not back, and he had not telephoned any report. It was more than possible that he had gone the way of the others.

  “Try,” said Craigie. “Has Toby arrived yet?”

  “Yes. An hour ago.” Burke remembered, suddenly: “What about the other business, with Fordham and O’Ray?”

  “You were right,” Craigie told him, quietly. “The thing was too big for us to see, Jim. At the bottom of the Granton business was O’Ray’s determination to use it as a start for the strike, so as to get control. He has foreign interests so the strike wouldn’t harm him a great deal. And he’s been fighting Fordham on the oil game, with the idea of merging coal and oil.”

  Burke said slowly:

  “A very clever gentleman, Gordon. But he’s finished, now, after the Grosvenor Street shooting.”

  “He’s been ready for trouble,” growled Craigie, “or I’m a Dutchman. He’ll have a getaway prepared. So hurry.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” said Burke.

  When he returned to Toby Arran and Bob Carruthers, he told them, grimly, what had happened. And three members of Department Z thought of one thing only: the need to get O’Ray—Wigham—Graydon—and the gunmen. In one batch.

  “And don’t forget,” Burke told them, “we haven’t traced Katrina Fordham yet. Or her—‘double’, is that the word?”

  The telephone shrilled out and he bent stiffly to the instrument. But as he listened, he forgot his aches and pains. Carruthers and Arran watched him, sharing some of the excitement he obviously felt.

  He replaced the receiver at last.

  “Wigham’s heading back for Granton’s field! So he must have a damned good reason for going there. Oh—my side!”

  “It’ll teach you to be gentle,” said Toby Arran, but he helped the big man down the stairs, a David and Goliath spectacle that made the middle-aged telephonist beam. But she would have beamed at Burke in any situation.

  Ten minutes later, the three stopped at Police headquarters, and collected Superintendent Lewis; further along they picked up George Pickering. At four o’clock, with darkness already beginning to settle across the black countryside, they started for the Granton field in Toby Arran’s Bentley.

  They did not get a good reception from the crowds in Swansea. Groups of people stared at them bitterly, here and there a woman cried in condemnation. But Burke hardly noticed it. He wanted to get to Granton’s. He urged Toby to hurry, and cared nothing for the agony the speed caused him.

  “Another quarter of a mile,” said Pickering, suddenly. “Ah hope we get Smith—or Wigham, as ye call him.”

  “Your hope is a mild one, compared with mine,” Burke told him. “I——God!”

  The thing came out of the blue.

  A crackle of sound, a dozen stabs of flame through the darkness; the thudding of bullets into the wheels and sides of the Bentley, the terrific roar of a bursting tyre!

  The Bentley seemed to screech in human agony as Toby wrenched at the wheel, trying desperately to keep the car on its four wheels, but i
t lurched sickeningly, like a live thing. Pickering and Lewis sprawled against Burke, and Pickering’s elbow jerked up like a ramrod against Burke’s chin.

  A sound like the rushing of water surged through Burke’s head; and then blackness came.

  The Bentley steadied, miraculously. Toby, sweating and swearing, brought it to a standstill and as soon as he dared, reached for his gun. But before he touched it a dazzling beam of light shot out from nearby. A laconic, nasal voice said:

  “Put ’em up—and march.”

  Two machine-guns reinforced the argument. Toby Arran opened the door and stepped into the road. Carruthers followed him. Bewildered and shaky, Pickering and Lewis did as they were told. There was a mutter of voices as all four men were frisked and automatics were taken from Toby Arran and Bob Carruthers. Then blackness swallowed six men; one with a machine-gun in front, one with a machine-gun behind, and four tight-lipped, helpless captives in the middle.

  There were things that Department Z agents didn’t make a practice of doing, and one was arguing with machine-guns without some preparation.

  Ten minutes later, a telephone bell rang in Gordon Craigie’s office in Whitehall. Craigie lifted the receiver—and for the first time in his life heard a voice on that line he didn’t recognise; only men whom he knew very well indeed had the number of that office.

  It was a pleasant voice, mellow, and with a hint of laughter in it. Craigie’s lips tightened as he heard it.

  “Craigie? This is O’Ray——”

  “Go on,” said Gordon Craigie, very softly.

  “Thank you.” Sir Marcus O’Ray laughed a little. “I persuaded Carruthers to part with your number, Craigie, under somewhat severe pressure.”

  “Yes,” said Craigie, in that soft voice.

  “I’m ready to admit you’ve beaten me,” conceded O’Ray. “I made a big mistake in worrying about the Ranian concession. But that is by the way. I want to leave England, Craigie, with my friends—and I need a clear passage.”

  “I can well imagine that,” said Gordon Craigie.

  “In different circumstances,” said O’Ray, “I should have found that remark amusing. Listen, Craigie. I have Mrs. Katrina Fordham here, alive. You would not like her to die. I have Burke—”

  Craigie’s eyes narrowed, but he did not speak. O’Ray paused for a moment, then went on:

  “I hoped that would be a shock, but it doesn’t matter. I have Carruthers, as you will have inferred, Toby Arran, and two gentlemen whose names I don’t know but appear to be of some importance in Swansea. At the moment, all of them are in a cage—”

  “A what?” snapped Craigie.

  “In a cage—the cage that goes down the shaft of a coal-mine, Craigie. I have the engine-room working, and I have the pit-head adequately fortified against any immediate trouble from the police.”

  “Go on.”

  “You are a man of exemplary patience.” Sir Marcus O’Ray laughed again. “As soon as I leave the telephone, I am sending your friends down, and I shall persuade them to get to the coal face. They will be in the dark, Craigie. Have you ever been in a mine with lights? If you have, you can imagine what it is like without. They will stay there until I have your assurance that I can leave England—with my friends. And please don’t think,” he added gently, “that I shall leave myself open to a trap. I shall guard against that very efficiently.”

  There was a pause.

  O’Ray ended it by saying: “Well?”

  “You know perfectly well that I won’t bargain with you,” said Gordon Craigie, crisply.

  Sir Marcus laughed.

  “I was afraid you would need some persuasion. No Craigie. Think. Your friends will be three—four—five hundred yards below the ground. They will be able to wander along travelling ways that stretch a mile or more north and south. They will be in absolute darkness—the darkness that drives men mad. Unless your answer is ‘yes’, none of them will ever come up alive.”

  “They will,” said Gordon Craigie.

  “I don’t think you quite appreciate the position.” O’Ray might have been speaking to a young and obstinate co-director: “I have men here who know how to operate the engine-room, and I can thus lower or haul up a cage to suit myself. If I was really convinced you meant ‘no’, I would immediately destroy that engine-room. The cages could not be moved. And I would, of course, make sure that the other shaft was blocked——”

  “You’re wasting your time,” said Craigie.

  “I hope not.” O’Ray’s voice was very gentle. “At the moment, we have reached the point where your friends are wandering beneath the ground in darkness—in a positive blackness, Craigie. They will have no food. They will breath gases that are not good for men—which are, in fact, very painful; for I shall interfere with the air shafts. Obviously. And I shall leave with each one of them a box of matches and a candle——”

  He paused, and for the first time the real horror of this situation bit into Craigie’s mind. O’Ray realised the effect of his words. He went on, more softly:

  “Try and imagine it, Craigie. Darkness—for hours. Silence. Lost in the bowels of the earth, Craigie—and with matches and candles. How long do you think they will last without lighting one?”

  Craigie didn’t answer. O’Ray went on:

  “They’ll light those matches, Craigie. They’ll light them because they won’t be able to stand it—and then...”

  Craigie felt sick with the horror of it.

  O’Ray chuckled, a light, easy chuckle.

  “Will you let me know what arrangements you are making for my free passage? Mine—and of course, my friends?”

  Craigie pushed a weary hand through his thinning hair.

  “Ring me in an hour,” he said, in a dead voice.

  “I shouldn’t leave it longer,” O’Ray told him genially, “because Burke and his friends will be getting nervous, by then. Big men are particularly afraid of the dark, I’ve heard.”

  O’Ray rang off. For a minute afterwards, Craigie sat in his chair, staring at nothing. It was—impasse. It would be absolutely impossible to rescue the men—and Katrina Fordham. He didn’t see anything for it but capitulation. He’d asked for an hour. He could get the thing approved in ten minutes, if he urged it enough.

  Suddenly, tensely, he lifted the receiver again, and spoke to Timothy Arran, at Byways, in Surrey. He said:

  “I’ve just heard from O’Ray. He says he’s in Wales, but it might be a trick. Watch everything closer. That’s all.”

  As Craigie replaced the receiver, he looked old, haggard, defeated. The thing had come so swiftly, at a time when he had thought it was only a matter of hours before the end——

  Although even the end, as Craigie had seen it, had been inconclusive. He had confidence in himself, and his men, sufficiently to think they would get O’Ray and those who worked for him. But he did not believe strongly enough in the Government to bring to a swift conclusion the stoppage that had laid the coal-fields idle and which, gradually, would grip British trade in a stranglehold. The commercial life of the country would be in the throes of a creeping paralysis.

  Craigie knew how far this thing could go.

  There were mutterings already of a Transport strike. There was real alarm in Government departments, for even the big men saw the danger signals. The spark of discord had been liberated; if it touched the powder-keg of national trade unionism, it would mean calamity at a time when Britain was fighting desperately to improve trade figures, when comparative prosperity—prosperity, that was, compared with the desolation of so many other countries—suggested that we had at last turned the corner of industrial depression.

  Craigie didn’t see that he could do anything at all. It was beyond him, a matter now for the Ministries of Labour and Coal; for the Government itself. Craigie’s part had always been beneath the surface. His task was to prevent the trouble starting, but this time he had failed. He told himself wearily that even had he heard, beforehand, of the threats again
st Dick Lavis, he would not have seriously considered the possibility of widespread trouble. But he might have sent someone to look at the Granton fields; in fact, he would have done.

  The thing could have been stopped then, but Craigie had come into it too late. He didn’t blame Miller. No-one could reasonably have suspected that the effort to force Lavis out of the Granton board of directors was in any way connected with the working conditions at the mines.

  But it had been. And from it, this had come.

  Craigie knew his capabilities, as well as his limitations. He knew that if he telephoned the Home Secretary and put the position bluntly, arrangements would be made by which O’Ray and his men escaped from the country. Afterwards, every effort to find them would be made; but while those six people were at the bottom of a mine, to try and arrest O’Ray was to invite mass slaughter.

  Craigie thought of the darkness of the pit, the torment...

  He clenched his fists, cursing his helplessness. He might have tried to fight if he had been at the field, but here in London there was nothing he could do but capitulate.

  Just a quarter of an hour after Sir Marcus O’Ray had rung off, Craigie’s telephone rang again. Craigie lifted the receiver, wearily.

  “Fellowes,” the Chief Commissioner announced himself, into Craigie’s ear. “I’ve just heard from Swansea—”

  “So have I,” said Craigie, grimly.

  “What do you know?” asked Fellowes.

  Craigie told him, briefly.

  “O’Ray was wrong in just one thing,” the Commissioner growled. “He hasn’t got Burke. I’ve heard from Police Headquarters there and from the sound of it, hell’s let loose. And Burke’s in the middle of it—what’s that?”

  “I’m going up there,” Craigie repeated. “Are you coming?”

  “I was going to ask you,” said Sir William Fellowes. “By air to Swansea will be quickest. I’ve called for a ‘plane at Heston. How soon can you get here?”

  “Ten minutes,” said Craigie. “I want a word with Pullen* first.”