Carriers of Death (Department Z)

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  Carriers of Death

  by

  John Creasey

  1

  Work for the Arrans

  Their friends admitted that Timothy and Tobias, the Arran twins, were sunny-tempered folk, although Toby in particular could rid himself when the need arose of a flood of invective that was more than colourful. Both the Arrans were small, dapper men and if Tim was handsome to the point of absurdity, Toby’s cheerfully ugly face was at least enlivened by a pair of fine, grey eyes. Those eyes held an expression that was not altogether pleasant as he stood, half-clad, before his dressing-table mirror, a letter in his hand.

  ‘Women,’ he was saying bitterly. ‘Women! They’re all the same and they always mean trouble. The Lord alone knows why He made ’em. If I had my way, I’d tell this perishing little pest just where she could go.’

  Immaculately clad, as ever, Timothy perched on his brother’s bed and surveyed him with what Toby always termed his owlish look.

  ‘On the other hand,’ he said slowly—where Toby spoke with the staccato abruptness of a machine-gun, Timothy always drawled—‘we can’t let the old boy down. And if the poor girl—what is her name?’

  ‘Smith.’

  ‘Oh. The Derbyshire Smiths?’

  Toby’s voice took on a note of patient entreaty: ‘Try,’ he implored, waving the letter, ‘to be a little less of a blithering idiot. Try—not that I think you’ll succeed—to knock this one simple fact into your thick skull. Miss Smith is arriving here at three o’clock this afternoon, the time we proposed to take Glennia from Southampton. Try, drat you, to realise that if we wait for her, we shall miss the boat. If we miss the boat, we’ll be late in New York. If we’re late in New York, we shall miss Craigie—and for all we know he’ll have an urgent job for us. Where’s my shirt?’

  ‘Am I your keeper? Be reasonable, Toby! It isn’t the girl’s fault, and we promised.’

  ‘You promised,’ Toby corrected acidly.

  ‘You dirty dog,’ drawled Timothy, unruffled ‘You were there when I promised old Potter we’d keep an eye on her, any time he wanted, so it’s your fault as much as mine.’

  ‘You mean it doesn’t matter if we miss our boat, providing she catches hers! Why can’t Potter look after his own nieces, instead of letting them litter London for us to pick up?’

  Timothy Arran digested this in contemplative silence, then rose slowly and walked to the door.

  ‘There are times,’ he announced, ‘when you’re impossible. There are other times when you’re worse—and this is one of them. Catch your bally boat: I’m waiting in London for Miss Smith.’

  Alone, Toby automatically selected shirt, collar and tie, and dwelt on the cussedness of fate. Normally, he admitted, he would have been glad enough to have shepherded the girl: Potter was a North Country friend of the Arran family, and his niece was travelling alone to the South of France. An old man and a cautious one, apparently, Potter was convinced that no girl of twenty-two could safely negotiate London by herself, and he had accordingly written to the Arrans asking them to look after her for the single day and night she would be spending in the capital. He had left it so late that it was impossible for the Arrans to wire or telephone regrets: Miss Smith was already on her way to London and would arrive in the early afternoon.

  Toby’s gloom deepened every minute. He had looked forward to the trip to New York with more zest than usual. For one thing, it was a year since his last decent sea voyage, and he was a good sailor. For another, Gordon Craigie had made one of his rare excursions away from England and Whitehall, and the Chief of Department Z had arranged to meet his two agents at the Manhattan Hotel on the fifteenth of February. It was now the ninth, and the next fast ship was to miss Craigie, who would be starting back from New York on the seventeenth. The real trouble—as Timothy might have divined had he been a little less annoyed—was that Toby really was convinced that Craigie must have found a job for them in the States. True, Craigie had maintained it was a holiday trip, pure and simple. But Toby had known Craigie for seven years and had learned most that there was to know about the man...

  Some ten minutes after Tim’s departure, Toby regarded himself in the mirror, delivered a satisfactory verdict, scowled and said aloud: ‘Blast Miss Penelope Smith!’ and left the flat. He knew that if his brother had been working—or what the Department called working—Penelope could have gone to perdition. But the voyage was to be a holiday trip—and dammit, Timothy had hinted, they could surely put their holiday off to help a friend?

  ‘Oh well,’ Toby mentally conceded, and headed for the shipping company’s office to cancel their booking for the Glennia. That done, he walked to the Carilon Club—and was irritated to find no one there able to offer him a game of billiards: for February, the club was remarkably empty. Taking a copy of The Times, he dropped into an armchair—and promptly found fault with the leading article. In fact he was so incensed by the leader-writer’s views that the voice at his elbow startled him.

  ‘A telephone call for you, Mr. Arran. From your residence, sir.’

  ‘Oh, thank you.’ Toby threw The Times aside, earning a glare from a retired Colonel as he cantered to the telephone in the lounge. The voice of his manservant greeted him.

  ‘I thought I might find you at the Club, sir. I thought I should communicate with you at once. There is a cablegram from America, sir.’

  ‘Is there, b’God,’ said Tobias. ‘Right, Heggson, I’ll be along. Telephone around and see if you can find Mr. Timothy, will you?’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Toby replaced the receiver, his eyes agleam. He would be more than disappointed if the cablegram was from anyone but Craigie, and as he taxied from the Carilon Club he told himself there was no one else in America likely to send him an urgent message. Was this to be a ‘come at once’ summons? If so, poor Penelope would be deserted and Mr. Potter badly let down.

  One glance at the somewhat childish wording was all Toby needed: the cable was from Craigie. He took it into the library and set to work on it eagerly. To a man who knew the prevailing code it was easy enough to decipher, and minutes after he had reached the flat, Toby was leaning back in his chair and smiling beatifically. There might be times, he admitted, when Penelope Smith was well on the side of the angels, for the message ran:

  ‘RETURNING LONDON FOURTEENTH STOP MAKE ALL ENQUIRIES GREGORY MARLIN EIGHTY-EIGHT WARRITER STREET LONDON.’

  If Potter and Penelope Smith had not upset the Arrans’ arrangements, the twins would have been on the mid-day train to Southampton, and have known nothing of the cable until their return weeks later.

  If he failed to receive an acknowledgement from the twins, Craigie would have cabled someone else—and the Arrans would have cursed till they were blue, at starting late on the job. They took a quiet pride in his confidence in them: Craigie often testified that although he had had many men working for him more capable of playing a leading part in any venture, he had never known two more doggedly and reliably ready, at any time, to walk off blindly at his nod into the death that might be waiting round the corner. Moreover, while Craigie probably lost more men through marriage than through those mysterious causes familiar to all who have read of the Department’s activities, the Arrans remained single and so far unattached.

  Theirs was a peculiar life. They could be said without exaggeration to have dedicated their lives to serving England in the most ‘hush-hush’ jobs in the world—with a cheerfulness and willingness it
would have been hard to beat. They would have been embarrassed even to think of themselves as the unsung heroes they assuredly were; but subconsciously at least they would not have hesitated to apply the term to Gordon Craigie. They knew that he had his finger on the national and the international pulse, and that there were times when danger threatened: perhaps of world-wide holocaust, perhaps of assault on Britain’s mandated territories or commercial interests. They knew that when Craigie scented such a danger, he set to work and he called on them; they were the general utility men of the Department called Z or, by the pedantic, the British Intelligence.

  Probably the Arrans worked as they did for the love of the game itself, for they were a pugnacious couple and did not object to the whine of bullets or other things as unpleasant. They had borne a charmed life, watching a hundred men go into the turmoil of international intrigue and die through it—men like Matthews and Carris, Bob Curtis and Righteous Dane. Splendid men, all of them, and men the Arrans had been proud to know—although they would not for the life of them have voiced that pride. They had seen others fall by marriage and scarce forborne to jeer—although Timothy Arran had once fallen very heavily in love. The girl had died; which perhaps explained a lot...

  The injunction to investigate the activities of the unknown Mr. Marlin left them in no doubt: Craigie had found something in the States to worry him. The fact that he was returning to England ahead of schedule, and wanted a dossier on Gregory Marlin ready and waiting, meant that he expected developments on this side of the Atlantic, and the Arrans were accordingly all agog. They blessed Penelope Smith—and tossed for which of them should meet her and which make the first, tentative enquiries about Mr. Marlin.

  ‘Heads,’ Timothy offered, hopefully.

  ‘Tails,’ said Toby with great satisfaction. ‘Bad luck, old boy! Tuck Penelope away safely for a few hours; I’ll phone the flat as soon as I can. If I haven’t called before five, I’ll get through to the Eclat.’

  ‘Go steady,’ Tim warned, and Toby grinned as he headed for his bedroom.

  ‘Do I ever do anything else?’

  In tacit proof of his natural caution, he proceeded to spend a full five minutes in his selecting, from a nice assortment of major and minor weapons, of two automatic pistols and a thin knife.

  He slipped the latter between his suspender and his leg: he was hardly likely to need them that day, but one never knew... Returning to the sitting-room, he bade Timothy farewell and set off to find Warriter Street, E.C.4 in a jubilant mood. The hunt was on again, and he couldn’t wait to get started.

  Mr. Gregory Marlin was a tall man, spindle-shanked, and unpleasantly thin. His skin was the colour of yellowish parchment, but his face was remarkably smooth: the parchment effect, oddly enough, did not make him look old. A reliable observer would have put him down as thirty-five—and been within a year or two of the mark. His hair was thick and straight, his clothes untidy and his shoes large. He looked more like a scientist or a man of letters, but was in fact one of the Stock Exchange’s most astute and successful brokers—qualities not always found together.

  At the time that Timothy and Toby were first discussing Penelope Smith, Gregory Marlin had been having an early lunch with two of his most important clients: Sir Miles Bradley and Charles Moran, both industrialists of international repute. The lunch was successful, for Marlin reported a profitable burst of selling, and Moran and Bradley always liked to make money. They shook hands with their broker at a minute past two-thirty and, both mellowed by sherry, returned to their own offices voting Marlin a queer customer but a damned good fellow.

  Gregory Marlin was smiling to himself as he walked from the restaurant to his offices. He wondered sardonically what the others would have thought if they had known just what he was planning and just why he needed the money that came from his commissions. He had a bank balance of something over a hundred thousand pounds, and he was anxious to increase it to a million; there were ways and means, particularly to a man without scruple.

  At two-fifty he entered his office. On passing through the ground floor passage of the building he had seen a small, remarkably ugly man who was gazing vacantly at the board which proclaimed the names of the people and companies who shared Number 88. Marlin was a man of varied faculties, and had noted the glance that passed between the hall-porter and the ugly man.

  As he settled at his desk, he found himself wondering if the man could for some reason have bribed the porter to point him out. The unease was only momentary, however. Immersed in a welter of figures that were promising in the extreme, and filled with satisfaction at the way certain market prices were going, he soon forgot everything but money—until his telephone bell ran. Recognising the deep voice of the speaker at the other end of the wire, he frowned.

  ‘Hello, Benson. What’s worrying you?’

  ‘I was just coming to see you, Marlin,’ said his caller. ‘But I passed the entrance. Have you been out to lunch?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been back twenty minutes.’

  ‘Then you probably saw him. A little man with an ugly face?’

  ‘Yes?’ Gregory Marlin’s annoyance at being interrupted changed to concern. Benson was looking after one end of the little scheme Marlin hoped to bring to a head within the next few months, and Benson was not a man to raise an unnecessary scare. ‘Why?’

  ‘Have I ever told you,’ Benson parried, ‘of that man Craigie?’

  ‘Craigie? I don’t—wait a minute.’ Marlin’s lips tightened suddenly, and his eyes narrowed. Of course. According to Benson, Craigie and his precious Department agents were likely to be the biggest stumbling block in his campaign. ‘Yes, I remember. What about him?’

  ‘Arran, outside your place, is one of Craigie’s men,’ said Benson softly. ‘I don’t like the look of that. Craigie’s in America at the moment, and he may have got on to something over there. Heard from Northway lately?’

  ‘No.’ Northway was handling the American angle of Marlin’s affairs and suspicion leapt into the broker’s mind. ‘Do you think he’s been talking?’

  ‘There’s no need for him to talk if Craigie’s interested in him,’ Benson told him. ‘Craigie has ways and means of discovering a lot of things. I wondered why he’d gone to America and I’m beginning to be afraid he’s smelt something.’

  ‘I see,’ said Gregory Marlin, very softly. ‘I see. But Craigie’s in America, you say? And this man Arran isn’t likely to discover anything by watching me. Provided you go carefully...’

  ‘Arran and his other men,’ Benson interrupted, ‘have a remarkable way of getting information, Marlin, and I think you’d be well advised to put paid to him. I know—’ At the other end of the line Benson was smiling to himself: there were few men in the country who knew anything about Department Z beyond the fact that it existed, and many refused to believe even that: ‘—that Craigie is short-handed. Since Burke left him after the O’Ray job, he’s found no one to replace him. Craigie was still in America this morning, and I am assured has no plans to leave before the fourteenth. It looks as if he’s leaving it to the Arrans to look after this end of the job for him. And if the Arrans were to fade out before he gets here...’

  Benson broke off, but Marlin hesitated for a moment, a dozen thoughts flashing through his mind. He summarised them slowly:

  ‘You’re taking a lot for granted, Benson. Arran may have been outside by accident.’

  ‘You can cut that idea right out,’ Benson told him emphatically. ‘Arran’s watching you. Which means his brother will be in it, too.’

  Marlin’s thoughts raced. ‘But if you do get rid of Arran,’ he objected, ‘you’re giving the game away, man!’

  ‘Craigie won’t need telling,’ Benson said grimly. ‘He knows.’

  ‘You seem very sure of yourself.’

  ‘I watched Craigie’s men working, once.’ Benson laughed shortly: ‘I didn’t like it. Now he’s scented trouble with you, he’ll stick to you until he’s got you—or you’ve got away with wh
at you’re after. And the only way you can do that is to start cutting his claws first.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Marlin insisted. ‘Granted you’re right, and Craigie’s dangerous. If you kill the Arrans, he’ll need no more telling he’s on the right track.’

  ‘He doesn’t need any more!’ Benson retorted, impatient. ‘Here’s the position, Marlin, like it or not! Craigie’s after you, and short-handed or not he’ll do the damage if you don’t make the odds too heavy against him right away. There are only five really good agents in England at the moment—as far as I know. Their names will mean nothing to you so we’ll leave them. Two of those men are working on another job; the Arrans are on this. Get rid of that couple and the odds are reduced.’

  ‘Ye-es,’ Marlin scowled. ‘But that means murder—and murder means the police.’

  ‘I’ll look after the police,’ said Benson, ‘And as for murder—you’re not getting squeamish, are you? What you’ve got to worry about is speeding up the job. How long will it take you to get everything clear?’

  ‘A month, at least.’

  ‘Say, three weeks after Craigie’s back? We ought to get away with it. Listen, Marlin. You want this thing to go through and it doesn’t matter a damn what damage you do. But let the Arrans get properly busy, and you’ll be running a risk all the time.’

  Again Marlin hesitated, tapping his desk with a silver pencil. Then finally he nodded, in silent decision. He had never found the other man let him down yet—and he had good reason for his great faith in Benson’s ability to cover up crimes, both minor and major.

  ‘All right, Benson. Go ahead.’

  ‘Good.’ There was no expression in Benson’s tone, and Marlin could have told from that alone that he was preparing the job in his mind, as coolly and cold-bloodedly as Marlin would have made a debtor bankrupt. ‘I’m at a call-box two hundred yards from your office. I’ll get a taxi right away, and meet you outside Number eighty-eight. Then I’ll drop you at the club—Arran is bound to follow me afterwards. He’ll feel he knows where to find you, so he’ll be more interested in your friends.’