The Doorway to Death

  Copyright & Information

  Doorway To Death

  First published in 1957

  © John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1957-2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of John Creasey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2014 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  EAN ISBN Edition

  0755136756 9780755136759 Print

  0755140087 9780755140084 Kindle

  0755138430 9780755138432 Epub

  0755146468 9780755146468 Epdf

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  John Creasey – Master Storyteller – was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron.

  Creasey wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the ‘C’ section in stores. They included:

  Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.

  Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the One Party Alliance which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.

  He also founded the British Crime Writers’ Association, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing. The Mystery Writers of America bestowed upon him the Edgar Award for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate Grand Master Award. John Creasey’s stories are as compelling today as ever.

  PROLOGUE

  Michael Quist studied the cheques very closely through a magnifying glass, and then put the last one down on the desk in his small office. It had been altered cleverly, from one hundred and seventy-five pounds to nine hundred and seventy-five.

  He had spent the day checking payments against invoices, and found some other small mistakes, but all of those could be put down to error.

  There was no question of error with the last one. It was in favour of Thomas Cole and Company, and passed and endorsed on the back by T. Cole. Undoubtedly three other cheques, each made out to a different small firm, had also been tampered with; he had found these after scrutinising every cancelled cheque that seemed even slightly suspect.

  There might be others.

  The remarkable thing was that each altered cheque had been passed by the bank, although he had spotted the alteration quickly. Anyone who specialised in scrutinising cheques should have queried it.

  No one had.

  But the bank cashier who had scrawled his initials over these, in approval, was a certain Charles Henry, who worked closely with Saxby’s; and Henry was usually eagle-eyed in scrutiny.

  How was it he had passed these?

  Normally, Quist would have taken the cheque to the secretary, but the great man was away in America for the next two months. Gorringe, the second-in-command and now in charge, would doubtless applaud his junior’s acute observation, and arrange things so that he, Gorringe, and not a comparative newcomer to the accountancy staff, took the credit.

  “And that would be a pity,” Quist mused, still tense with the excitement of his discovery. “I think I’ll probe a bit myself.”

  The first essential thing was to have a look at other cheques drawn in favour of the same firms, to get access to the bank statements without arousing anyone’s curiosity, and try to have a complete survey ready by the time the great man returned. He must watch future cheques closely, too. If any newly-drawn ones were altered, he would have to report to Gorringe at once; the damage was already done with these, so delay should do no harm. The more he discovered for himself, the more difficult it would be for Gorringe to usurp the credit.

  To Quist, this was a heaven-sent opportunity to prove his value to Saxby’s. He set about the task carefully, but at once, and it was not long before his suspicions of Charles Henry, the bank cashier, grew stronger.

  Chapter One

  Fear

  Charles Henry was dozing when the telephone rang. It startled him, as it always did these days, and he sat bolt upright in his armchair. His back was to the window, the lawn, the flowers and the evening sun. From the garden there was the sound of a hedge being clipped.

  Henry placed his large hands on the arm of his chair, and heaved himself to his feet. He was big and overweight, and the movement was an effort. He looked round swiftly, almost furtively, but the clipping continued uninterrupted, a kind of peaceful reminder of living. There was no other sound, until the telephone blared out again.

  It was in the hall of this small, suburban house.

  Henry ran his hands over his balding head, and moved towards the door, still physically powerful although well past his peak, for he was in his sixties. He was wearing grey flannels and an open-necked shirt, and the trousers were unbuttoned at the waist. He did the buttons up as he reached the hall, snatched up the telephone, and cut the ringing short.

  “Hallo?”

  A man said: “Who is that?”

  “This—this is Charles Henry speaking.” Henry clenched the telephone tightly, and looked about him, up the flight of narrow stairs to the landing, then towards the front door, which stood ajar, letting the bright light in.

  The man at the other end of the telephone said: “There’ll be another one tomorrow,” in a flat voice.

  “No!” ejaculated Henry. “No, I can’t! It’s impossible so soon!”

  “Tomorrow, and don’t forget,” the man said, and rang off. Henry did not put the receiver down immediately, but stood looking at the partly open door, which swayed gently in the evening breeze. His breathing was short and laboured, his jaw and lips were set, and a film of sweat which had not been there before was on his forehead. Slowly, he put the receiver down, and as he did so new and different sounds came in. Footsteps in the garden, a girl calling: “Hallo, Mike,” and then more footsteps, undoubtedly Sybil hurrying to greet her new boy friend, eager for a quick kiss, a hug, a smile. They were a few yards away, and yet might have been a thousand miles from here for all the help they were to Charles Henry.

  The footsteps stopped; they were kissing. Henry could not see them, but he knew.

  “Oh, God,” he breathed.

  Then he heard another sound, and turned his head swiftly, almost as if in fear. He stood gaping towards the head of the stairs.

  His wife stood there.

  She was looking at him in a way which had become almost normal in the past few months, as if in despair; as if her love for him was kept at bay by the bar
rier which had come between them. She had always been the lover and he the beloved, but the years had brought them together so closely that until recently they thought and talked and worked and played as if of one mind.

  A few months ago all that had ended.

  “Charles,” his wife began, and stopped.

  Henry didn’t answer.

  “Charles, why don’t you tell me what it is? Why do you keep it to yourself?” Grace Henry began to move towards him, one stair at a time, her small, pale hands tight on the banister rail, her voice carrying not only to the hall but outside, where Sybil and her Michael were still silent.

  To the wife, also, these two might have been a thousand miles away; all she could see and think of was her husband.

  “Charles, I can’t stand it any longer. You look—you look like death.”

  He didn’t speak.

  She reached the bottom stair.

  “Charles, you must tell me what it is,” Mrs. Henry persisted in that low-pitched yet carrying voice. “I can’t stand the strain any longer, I really can’t. Is—is it something at the bank? Have you embezzled some money?” When her husband didn’t answer, just stared as if unseeing, she became shrill in desperation: “I don’t care what it is, I don’t care how bad it is, but I must know. I can’t help unless I know. Charles, in God’s name, tell me what it is.”

  “You help, Grace,” he said, in a voice as tense as hers, but hoarse and uneven. “You help by—by just being yourself. It—it won’t be much longer. Then—then perhaps I’ll be able to tell you about it. But it will soon be over, I—I’m sure. Don’t worry me now.”

  “That’s what you always say,” Grace protested, still shrill and insistent. “You’ve been saying exactly the same thing for weeks—for months! It’s no use, I’ve got to know.” She moved towards him and clasped his big, soft hands. “Charles, can’t you see that? I’ll do anything I can to help. I don’t care what you’ve done, but we can’t go on like this any longer.”

  Henry moistened his lips. The pale flesh sagged beneath his chin, there were pouches beneath his eyes, and a kind of frightening helplessness. He freed his right hand, patted hers in a futile gesture, then moved away.

  “I’m sorry, Grace. I have to go out for an hour or two this evening. I won’t be any later than I can help.”

  “Charles,” said his wife, now in a low-pitched, determined voice, “you’re not going out tonight and you’re not going anywhere again until you tell me what is affecting you like this.”

  “Now, now, Grace, please.”

  “I can’t put off any longer, I must know.”

  “Grace, please.”

  “You’re not going out of this house until—” Mrs. Henry began. But abruptly she broke off, because of the change in her husband’s expression. She saw him as she had never really seen him before; in anger which put fire into his eyes, roughness in his voice, and brutal strength into his hand as he gripped her wrist.

  “Don’t keep nagging me! I’m going out. I’ll go where I like and when I like, and I won’t have any interference from you or anyone. Is that clear?”

  She was shocked into silence.

  He shouted: “Is that clear?”

  “It—yes,” mumbled Grace, all determination gone. “Yes, Charles, I—I only want to help you.”

  “The way to help me is to stop nagging, and pestering me with questions,” Charles Henry said. “Let’s understand that once and for all.”

  He pushed past his wife and started up the stairs, without looking back even at the landing. Grace Henry turned and watched him. Tears shimmered in her grey eyes, but did not fall. She was a tall, slim woman, who had kept her figure remarkably in middle-age, but whose hair was iron grey and whose face was beginning to show lines which betrayed her years. She wore a dark blue linen dress, trimmed with white, and with a wide white belt; but its youthfulness was lost on her.

  Her husband went into the bedroom, and the door closed.

  Outside, in the garden, Sybil Henry had heard the telephone ringing, and at first had not given it a serious thought. She had known that both her mother and her father were indoors, so one or the other would answer it. It held no terrors for her, aroused no fears. She knew that her father wasn’t well, and was worried because that seemed to distress her mother, but the anxiety did not go deep. If challenged, she would have denied the reason for this: that her affection for her father did not go very deep, either. He was part of the background of life, but these days he did not affect her life very much, for she was at home only at weekends and occasionally on holiday.

  She had been trimming a low hedge of box privet, an easy job, and kept glancing round towards the street and the corner, hoping that it would not be long before Michael came. When she first saw him, he was cycling; she went on clipping, deliberately, anxious not to give away the fact that all her inclination was to fling down the shears and rush towards him. He stood the bicycle against the kerb, and came into the garden, tall, brisk, lithe. He wasn’t exactly dashingly handsome, but it was easy to forget that, especially when laughter seemed to spring from his eyes.

  He didn’t speak, and in a way seemed to imply that he knew what she was feeling; for there he was, smiling, inviting her to hurry to him, almost drawing her near by a kind of magnetism. And she could not help herself; she actually ran the last few steps, and he looked eager and delighted as he first hugged and then kissed her. The things they said didn’t matter.

  “Hallo, Sybil. Am I late?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It’s criminal. That’s a nice hedge.”

  “Is it?”

  “Magnificently trimmed.”

  “My mother does it once a week.”

  He grinned. “Liar.”

  All this time they had been standing very close to each other, looking into each other’s eyes. Two or three neighbours were in sight, in nearby gardens, but the couple were oblivious of this, as of the house. Except for the soft breeze, the evening was warm, the sun touched the tops of the trees which grew along the winding street, caught the coloured tiles of the roofs and, where hedges were low, the flowers in beds and in borders. The world of Laurel Avenue was of colour and brightness.

  This was really the first time that Sybil had been quite sure how she felt about Michael Quist. She had known that she liked the way he looked, smiled, moved and walked; how he kissed, yet did not presume that she wanted only caresses. He had interested her since they had first met, a few weeks ago, and tonight she had looked forward very much to his coming. The moment when she had first seen him her heart had leapt, telling its tale. Then he had virtually willed her to hurry towards him. Now her heart was beating fast and she could still feel the pressure of his firm body and of his lips in the kiss of greeting. He was no longer smiling in that rather bold, gay way; there was the tension in him, as of a new discovery.

  “Sybil,” he said, rather abruptly.

  “Yes?”

  “There’s something I particularly want to tell you. Can you come out for an hour or so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Need a coat?”

  “I’ll get my handbag, and tell mother,” Sybil said.

  “Right.”

  She turned towards the front door, which stood ajar. They had heard nothing of her father speaking on the telephone, for they had been in that other world.

  Now Quist saw Sybil turn away from him, and her swift, graceful movement made him catch his breath. She wasn’t really small, and she had – everything. The sun’s rays caught the side of her face, with its smooth, clear, creamy skin, her fine hair, drawn rather lightly back from her forehead, her little, snug ear. She was wearing a green cotton dress, and he did not realise how subtly it emphasised her figure. Her legs and ankles were beautiful.

  Then he heard a woman say, as if angrily: “Charles!”

  Sybil missed a step, startled, and didn’t go on. There was a long silenc
e, before the woman, her mother, went on to say in a voice which Quist hardly recognised: “Charles, why don’t you tell me what it is? Why do you keep it to yourself?”

  The way Sybil turned to look at Quist, as if hating the fact that he heard, seemed to give added significance to the words. There were more, which he didn’t hear clearly because a motor-cycle passed along the street, its engine noisy and offensive. Sybil didn’t go any nearer the house, and Quist moved towards her, putting an arm firmly round her waist. They stood quite still, looking at the open door, hearing everything now but seeing nothing. Sybil seemed to hold herself very taut. Quist glanced down and saw the tension at her lips, the way her hands were clenched.

  Then Charles Henry shouted. The rage was all too evident; he sounded as if he hated his wife.

  “Is that clear?” he bellowed.

  Grace Henry said something in a voice pitched so low that Sybil and Quist couldn’t hear what it was. There were movements, as of footsteps, but Sybil didn’t move. Quist’s hand was at her waist, and he squeezed gently, trying to give her some comfort. She stared at the doorway, and said: “I’m sorry.”

  “There’s no need to be.”

  “I must go and see mother.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes very bright.

  “Mick, you do understand, don’t you?”

  “I understand perfectly,” Quist said. “You may be needed here. I gather that they don’t—” He broke off.

  “What?”

  “Quarrel often?”

  “Hardly ever, until lately.”

  “No need to go on,” Quist said gruffly. “It’s none of my business. There’s just one thing.”

  Her eyes asked him what that was.

  “If there’s any way I can help, let me know.”

  “I don’t think there is, but I’ll tell you,” Sybil said, and suddenly took his hands. “Mick, please don’t go away yet. Why—why don’t you clip the hedge for five minutes? This may fizzle out, and I may be able to come.”