by John Creasey
“Stop them!” he bellowed.
And swinging round, he rushed towards the cage, blindly flinging figures aside, unable in that Stygian darkness to tell friend from foe. Then that familiar voice—O’Ray’s voice—snapped:
“Damn you, Burke! Damn you!”
And then a flash of light split the darkness for an infinitesimal part of a second—just long enough for Burke to see O’Ray, a woman, and another man, close by him; and to see that the empty cage was off, now; going up.
The hiss of the silencer as the shot came seemed like the splashing of a giant wave against a pier. Another followed it.
O’Ray was firing!
And Cator had said:
“A coupla shots darn there—one mebbe—and yer’ll ‘ave a fall.”
22
DARKNESS AND DESPAIR
Sir Marcus O’Ray had realised his game was finished, that afternoon. He had fled by air to Wales with two of the gunmen who had played the part of mercenaries during the last few days of his campaign to get control of Britain’s coal and oil market. He had introduced force into his battle; and later realised that by doing so he had committed suicide, so far as his schemes were concerned. But then, afraid that the first murders would be brought home to him, he had gone ruthlessly on, trying to revive what was, in effect, a corpse. It was doubtful whether he would have succeeded, even without Jim Burke and the Department Z men on the scene, but he would certainly have stood a greater chance of making a getaway.
He might even have fled the country from London, leaving his associates at the Granton pit in the lurch. He would have done, if they had all been men. But there was a woman there, one who had recently played the part of Katrina Fordham... It happened that Sir Marcus O’Ray loved her, and so he went to Wales.
Graydon had prepared for trouble. O’Ray had been sure that his threat to leave that little party of prisoners at the bottom of the mine would gain him at least a twelve-hour respite from Gordon Craigie. But he had lost that chance when Burke had been left, unconscious, in the Bentley. In Burke’s make-up, there was a ruthlessness to match O’Ray’s own—and a complete refusal to accept defeat. He had struck, the men with him never hesitating to back him up; for he inspired that kind of loyalty, wherever he went.
So Sir Marcus O’Ray had realised, in sudden and very real alarm, that he had made a mistake. Where a principle—and public welfare—were at stake, Burke would never barter. When O’Ray saw that, he saw also that there was no escape for him or for his friends. It was the end...
But he had clung to hope, even when he had been driven to descend the mine with Graydon and the woman he loved. If he could only make Burke follow him, he himself could return to the surface with his friends—and start again in the desperate game of bartering his prisoner’s safety for his own. And with Burke out of the way, O’Ray might have succeeded...
But he didn’t get to the top.
The cage was going up again without them: the desperate rush to get through Burke and his men had failed. Now he, Graydon, and the woman for whom he had readily sacrificed his chance of freedom, were at the bottom of the pit in a darkness unbroken by any gleam of light. When the cage came down again, it would bring men used to the mines, and O’Ray knew whatever slim chance he might have had was gone.
Because of Burke.
Something cracked in O’Ray’s mind as he realised it. He knew as well as any man the terrible consequences that might follow the firing of the revolver, but he cared nothing. He was doomed to a life sentence, he was ruined——
So he fired, once... twice...
The silence, after the hissing of the two shots, was absolute. It was hardly broken even by the sound of breathing: they were waiting, all of them, for catastrophe.
It did not come.
O’Ray was the first to move. They could not see him, but if they could have done they would have seen the mad glare in his eyes—would have realised there was no reason left in him. He could not see Burke, could not rely on hitting Burke: but he knew one thing he could do.
Further along the mine, at the coal face, four men and a woman were waiting, blocked in. O’Ray could get at them...
He knew where they were, for he had been down here as they had been forced along the travelling way to the flat, and then to the coal face. He had more experience of being underground than any of the others—and he had in his pocket a powerful electric torch. He could get to the face, all right: he could get to the prisoners!
He knew what he was doing, and the knowledge made him laugh—a high-pitched, inhuman laugh that shivered along the pit, filling the mine with vast echoings that sent a stab of horror into the woman beside him. The laugh of a mind unhinged by all that defeat signified—that made her realise, suddenly, that all hope was lost. She fainted, but no-one saw her fall. Graydon was near her, but he was concerned, now, with one thing only. That was to stay by the shaft-bottom, so that if an explosion came he would have some chance at least of getting out alive.
He didn’t move. He waited in a ferment of terror, his only conscious thought, a wish that he had never started to work with O’Ray. For the man was mad.
A madman with a gun, at the bottom of a pit...
In that eerie, almost tangible blackness, Burke and his men could hear the echoing of O’Ray’s feet, but had no idea at all what direction he had taken. They stood there, helpless—until suddenly a thin pencil of light split the darkness. It might have been ten yards away, or a hundred: they had no way of knowing. But:
“Two of you with me!” Burke snapped at once, and raced in the wake of that thin, moving pencil of light.
Twice, he stumbled over the tub-rails, but he ran on, the two men close behind him. He hardly noticed the way their echoing footsteps seemed to fill the place with cavernous rumbling. Nothing mattered but that flickering pencil of light ahead.
O’Ray was there...
Burke ran on grimly, his men well on his heels.
Then suddenly his leg cracked against something hard and he went flying, cracking his chin painfully on the flinty ground. Blood streamed down, but as he pulled himself to his feet, he felt the shape of a small platform, little more than knee-high.
“Be careful, there,” he warned, scrambling on to it. “A two-foot platform.”
The others clambered after him. They were on the landing, now, and although they didn’t know it, were within a few hundred yards of the coal face.
Then suddenly, the pencil of light went out.
Fast upon it, came O’Ray’s voice.
“Come on, Burke!” he taunted. “I’ve got—a knife!”
“Either of you got anything that’ll cut?” Burke murmured.
“Yes,” said one of them, quietly. “Here—”
Groping in the pitch darkness, Burke touched the proffered object. It was a clasp-knife, with a four inch blade that he opened as he started to walk, now, towards the unseen madman. He had travelled some twenty yards when he heard ahead of him the sound of breathing, magnified out of all proportion. He stopped, and a moment later one of his men cannoned into him.
“You both stop here,” he murmured. “In case he comes back.”
He went on, alone, through a darkness that was like a thick, black wall. He was breathing as softly as possible, and could still hear O’Ray.
But was O’Ray five yards ahead, or twenty?
Then it happened——
The torch light came again, less than two yards ahead—blinding him absolutely. He heard O’Ray scream in sudden frenzy; then felt the crash of his body against him. O’Ray’s knife ripped his shoulder and his own knife was knocked from his hand.
But the torch clattered to the ground, and the light went out.
Blood was streaming from the wound now, and his left arm was virtually useless. But Burke closed unhesitatingly with the frenzied O’Ray, knowing the danger not only to himself but to the others, if he could not disarm him. Again and again, as they struggled, he felt the sting as the madman�
��s knife pricked him: O’Ray was concerned only with killing. He had to be stopped. Burke made one superhuman effort—and managed to get his right arm round the man in an iron-hard, immobilising hug.
And suddenly he found O’Ray’s right hand with his own.
With the strength of desperation, he kept the hand in a vice-like grip as he caught O’Ray’s little finger—and bent it back until it cracked.
The knife dropped to the ground, and O’Ray started to scream.
His screams echoed through the shaft—magnified a thousand times as they rose and fell. Then suddenly they stopped, and his body went limp. Burke relaxed his grip and slumped back against the wall. He was sobbing for breath, now; hardly able to stay on his feet. He knew he could do no more, alone. He could hear noises—new sounds, separate from his breathing, and O’Ray’s—but knew it could well be the buzzing in his own head. And he could do nothing: he was all in. He leaned there, helpless...
And then O’Ray gasped out:
“I’ve got you—Burke! The shots—didn’t do it—by the shaft. But down here—down here, Burke—they’ll bring—the place down!”
Burke felt himself go ice-cold. If O’Ray fired a gun here—!
He tried to move, but it was hopeless. Blood rushed to his head and pounded in his ears. He thought, hazily, of Carruthers and the rest, trapped somewhere in this black labyrinth, but the chill of horror he had felt had faded now. He felt no emotion at all: nothing.
His thoughts floated, detachedly. There would be an explosion... he would die... they would all die...
“I’m going to shoot, Burke!” O’Ray’s voice was a giant whisper, rising and falling.
Burke heard him—and through his daze, understood. He was still slumped against the pit wall; his body warm with spilt blood, his head droning. Seconds stretched like minutes as he waited in a kind of dull agony for the flash of flame that would eat the oxygen—would start the explosion that in turn would wreck the mine...
He could do nothing to prevent it. He’d fought to a standstill.
His head seemed to fill, suddenly, with the thudding of dynamos. As he slithered, unconscious, to the ground, a voice growled: “Ye would, would ye!”
The voice was Pickering’s—and Burke would have marvelled at the speed with which that stocky figure moved. The Yorkshireman was on top of O’Ray before the madman realised he was near. Before he could use the gun in his hand, he was lifted off his feet with a punch that sent him sprawling.
The gun dropped to the floor—and Pickering froze where he stood.
For what seemed an eternity, he stood there, waiting...
“My God!” he gasped, as the third, slow second passed: “we’re safe!”
O’Ray had not lied to Craigie about Katrina Fordham.
When Pickering and the others were forced at machine-gun point into the cage and down the mine, they had found the widow there. She was white with the shock of her experience, but she had lost none of her poise or self-control. Throughout the time the five of them were herded together at the coal-face—waiting for death, or worse—she maintained a dignified silence.
They had been forced along the travelling-way, stumbling over the rails on which pit-ponies had once dragged their tubs of fresh-hewn coal. They had been left at the coal-face, still under cover of the machine-gun, while Graydon and the other gunman built an imprisoning barrier of coal which they could not hope to break through for at least an hour. And they had been given, as O’Ray had told Craigie, candles and matches. If Pickering had not been with them, they would certainly have been driven to light them, in time, for the blanketing darkness was unnerving.
They had waited till the footsteps of Graydon and his gunmen had faded into silence, then all four men had started to remove the coal barrier, piece by piece. Their nails were broken, their hands torn, but in the impenetrable darkness, they had worked doggedly on...
And suddenly they had heard new sounds—had heard, unknowingly, O’Ray’s footsteps grow nearer... nearer... finally stop. And soon afterwards, they had heard the fight.
The grim struggle was still in progress when Pickering had at last managed to clear a hole through the coal, big enough to squeeze through. More used than any of them to the darkness, he had moved swiftly, reached O’Ray in time.
The ordeal was over, at last.
Three hours later, Burke was able to move. He was still fairly shaky, he was wearing more bandages than even he had ever done, and his left shoulder had been stitched. But he was not only alive: he was conscious and he could think.
He was in the manager’s office, with Pickering, Lewis—and the real Katrina Fordham. He had been told that O’Ray was unconscious, although he would live, and that the other woman was suffering only from shock.
“What about Wigham?” he asked.
Superintendent Lewis smiled drily.
“There isn’t such a man,” he said. “He’s made a confession, Burke. He says he’s seen you, and you know him——”
Burke stared.
And then, suddenly, as he saw the oddly creamy face of the man Graydon in his mind’s eye—he saw the freckled face of Tommy Wigham. Both men were much of a size without the freckles and given a nose that wasn’t snub, hair that wasn’t red, Wigham might easily be—
“Graydon!” he gasped.
Lewis nodded. “The same. Do you feel like reading his statement now?”
“No, thanks,” said Burke, weakly.
It was almost as bad a blow as the rest put together. That Wigham should have hoodwinked him—Wigham and Graydon be one and the same! The resemblance was so obvious, now that he knew.
“It’s time I retired,” he grunted, grimacing.
And then he glanced up—and found himself looking into the beautiful eyes of Katrina Fordham, ex-Princess of Rania. There was a wan smile on her face—a smile for the courage of this man.
“Tell me,” he quizzed, still not completely certain: “I didn’t see you at Brake Street, did I?”
Katrina Fordham shook her lovely head.
“It’s all in the statement,” Lewis put in, quickly. “I think Mrs. Fordham ought to get back to Swansea—and so should you, Burke, for that matter. I’m told Sir William Fellowes and a Mr.—Craigie, would it be?—are on their way down. I’ve left a message for them to wait at Swansea.”
“Thanks,” said Burke. “Then let’s get going.”
He tried to get up, and failed. Pickering helped him, smiling: he had thought from the first that the big man was capable of ‘doing something’.
“Steady, lad,” he cautioned. “T’car’s outside—easy does it.”
Five minutes later, Burke was in the car and heading towards Swansea. And for a while, he didn’t even try to think.
23
BURKE WAKES UP
Burke didn’t succeed in thinking for the next forty-eight hours.
He dropped into a heavy sleep—which others called a stupor—within minutes of entering the car outside the manager’s office, and didn’t rouse from it for twenty-four hours.
The nurse at the Swansea hospital heard him say: “Then blow it up, blast you—blow it up!” and gave him half a glass of milk, which he gulped down with obvious relish. Unhappily for Burke, Toby Arran and Bob Carruthers happened to be in the ward at that moment, and it was a long time before they let him live that down...
At the end of a further twelve hours, he opened his eyes and kept them open for more than an hour; then for the next twelve hours, kept dozing, on and off. On the morning of the third day, he wakened normally—and at once remembered that there was a strike on.
It took him twenty minutes to get out of bed, and ten minutes to cross the ward. As he reached the door, a nurse came in. She handled him gently but firmly.
“But my dear, good, sweet girl!” protested Burke, finding himself hopelessly unequal to her, physically. “I tell you I must see Cr—that is, I must see someone, urgently—it’s about the strike——”
“You just
lie down, and you’ll feel better,” he was told.
“The doctor will be here inside an hour.”
“Nurse,” said Jim Burke, more firmly, now that he was back in bed: “I want to talk about the strike——”
“You’ve been asleep for a long time,” smiled the girl. “There isn’t one.”
“Eh?” Burke stared incredulously. “No strike?”
“Now just keep quiet,” she soothed. “And mind that arm, or you’ll have trouble with it.” She smiled again. “The men went back to work this morning, if that makes you any happier.”
“Any happier?” Burke echoed, faintly. “It makes me want to kiss you! Nurse—dear, sweet, nurse—can you bring me a nice, weak cup of tea, and a biscuit? And a newspaper—one of today’s, and one of yesterday’s if you can. But, please—hurry!’
He had to wait for the doctor’s approval before he saw the newspapers—to read that the Union leaders had indeed persuaded the men to go back, pending the report of the Ministry of Mines’ commission. Side by side with this announcement was a three-column headline telling of:
* * *
KNIGHT CONFESSES TO MURDERS O’RAY STIRRED UP TROUBLE IN PIT
* * *
In the next two or three days, many things happened. A stiff, sore, but happy Burke bade good-bye to Mike Cator, Pickering, Lewis, and a host of others, and returned to London by train. Burke and Carruthers were together for part of the journey, and Toby Arran made a talkative third. But at Reading, Patricia joined them—and for the rest of the run to Paddington, Toby and Bob decorated the corridor while Burke and Patricia talked of many things...
Dick Lavis, Burke learned, was well on the way to recovery: Mary Brent was helping him, and being helped in turn. The cottage in Surrey was still in effect a nursing home, but there were no armed guards now. There had been nothing untoward since Wigham’s—or Graydon’s—ploy with the poisoned grapes. Clearly, the O’Ray faction had never had sufficient forces to make any attempt against the cottage. Its solitary position and its armed guard had made it doubly safe.