The League of Dark Men Read online

  That was the first slight indication that Clarissa might have been at the house.

  The girl was answering freely enough now.

  Yes, she knew about Warning and she always read the News-Letter. It made her laugh, although she could not understand half of it. She was not interested in politics. She had never thought much of the Russians, but she did not care much one way or the other about them.

  There had been other servants until three days before. Then Benby and his wife, the butler and housekeeper, had left. They had left during their half-day off. She did not know where they had gone, but she thought they had been told to prepare another house for the family to move into. She had no idea where the other house was. Since the other servants had gone, the two daily women had helped with the housework and she, Daisy, had done the cooking. The men had dished up the meals, and, said Daisy, ‘No one could ever ask for a better employer!’

  That was all Tim could get out of her.

  He gave her a cigarette.

  ‘Now you go downstairs and make some coffee,’ Tim said. ‘We’re going to need gallons.’

  When she had gone, he searched the room and other rooms on that floor. They had not been used recently. He hurried downstairs, finding two Department men on guard on the landing. No one was on the first floor, they assured him. They went into the bedrooms one after the other. There were five on this floor, all well-furnished, two in ultra modern fashion, the others more drab.

  It was in one of the modern rooms that Tim found a screwed up piece of paper. He opened it out, and when he saw the first words of the note, he stiffened.

  It read: ‘Dear Clarissa.’

  • • • • •

  The note was signed ‘Abby’ and was couched in affectionate terms. It was freshly-written, he judged, for the ink was pale. It said that ‘Abby’ hoped to have some time with her in the next day or two, but that there would probably be little opportunity that day. And—she was not to ‘worry’.

  There was no envelope; but the note had originally been folded like an old-fashioned billet doux.

  And it was probably slipped under the door, mused Tim.

  He went towards the door, still troubled about the silence from downstairs, and heard his name called:

  ‘Tim! You there, Tim?’

  ‘Coming!’ He hurried out, for there had been a note of excitement in the call. At the foot on the stairs, a chubby young man was waiting, his eyes glistening with excitement. He put his thumb up and said cheerfully:

  ‘Air-raid shelter, Tim. Not so very mysterious, after all. Devilish long passages, too. We haven’t reached the end of them yet. Wait until you see it!’

  ‘Who found it?’

  ‘Fordham.’

  The old air-raid shelter led from a butler’s pantry. Fordham had found that the pantry, now used chiefly as a storeroom for fruit, had been recently decorated. A ‘new’ wall had been built, covering up the original one, and Fordham had wondered why. The rubber flooring had been taken up and, beneath it, they had found loose boards which, when lifted, led into the underground passage leading to the airraid shelter.

  From below, it was possible to see that originally the shelter had been approached through the pantry, and in the original wall there had probably been a door. The steps leading down had been altered—the two top ones were comparatively new, the cement much fresher and paler than that lower down.

  Electric light glowed along a narrow passage, where Department Z men were walking. Tim caught up with Fordham and Graham. The passage ran for at least a hundred yards, sloping downwards slightly all the time, and when he drew level with Fordham, Tim realised that they were probably standing beneath the next-door garden.

  They had not yet reached the end of the passage.

  ‘Have you sent a message to Miller?’ Tim asked.

  ‘Yes. He’s coming. And we’ve had a message from him,’ Graham said. ‘No one’s caught, I’m afraid. But they might be in the next-door house. We’ll smoke ‘em out.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tim.

  Was there a chance? Was Clarissa somewhere near? Would they find Hammond? His thoughts were crystallising, and he was much more concerned with finding Hammond than Clarissa. He kept pace with Graham and Fordham, and there was just room for the three of them to walk abreast; the passage was much wider here.

  They came upon a door.

  It looked like wood, but when they touched it, it had the coldness of steel. They stood beneath the dim light of an electric lamp, examining it, and Graham said sotto voce:

  ‘We’ll probably need an oxy-acetylene burner for that.‘

  The door opened when he pushed.

  Fordham snapped: ‘Careful!’

  Tim took his automatic out and, pressing against the wall on one side, kicked the door open and rushed in. He fully expected an attack; he seemed to hear the ringing of shots in his ears, but there was no sound; nothing happened, nothing moved. He went to the wall and sought for a light switch, just as he had done in the hall.

  He pressed it down.

  They were in a large, square room. It was well-furnished, as a sitting-room, and there were bunks at the sides, but no bed-clothes; it had obviously not been used for sleeping in for some time. The furniture was good, the distempered walls looked clean and fresh.

  There were two doors.

  Tim went across to one, Fordham to the other. Tim stepped inside a bathroom and lavatory combined; no one was in there. He went back into the main room, thinking that Fordham would probably have reached another passage, one leading in a different direction. As he approached the second doorway Graham was disappearing through it.

  Fordham exclaimed: ‘Hammond!’

  Tim hurried after him, his breathing harsh; for there had been alarm in Fordham’s voice. He pushed past Graham, and saw Fordham bending over Hammond’s recumbent form. It was impossible to tell at a glance whether Hammond were alive or dead, but there was no doubt about the condition of another man who lay on the floor near Hammond, in a small book-lined room, reminiscent of the library.

  He was shot through the chest.

  He was a handsome man, but even in death there was a sneer on his lips; and Tim recognised Abbott, Wilkinson’s aide.

  Slowly he turned to Hammond.

  11

  Poor M. Nassi

  Tim Kemble sat in an armchair opposite Craigie, and Loftus lounged against the mantelpiece, with the fire scorching the ends of his trousers. All of them looked tired, for it was after three o’clock. Tim had been back half an hour.

  ‘Why should they kill Abbott?’ he asked. ‘Damn it, he was one of them. And why did they leave Bruce alive? He’s had a crack over the head which broke the skin and laid him out, but there weren’t any other signs of injury. At least, I couldn’t see any. He’d been drugged. The doctor said that it was morphine. We found the puncture in his forearm, so it was injected. He was breathing evenly and he looked all right; I don’t think we’ve anything to fear for Bruce. But Abbott—can you make any sense out of it?’

  ‘Give us time,’ pleaded Loftus.

  ‘I suppose there must be a reasonable explanation,’ Tim conceded. ‘Now we know what they did, it’s easy enough to understand. They went downstairs, along the passage, through the main shelter which was underneath a house on the other side of the road, and then into the grounds of that house. Miller had his men on the wrong side of the grounds. The beggars just walked off, without anyone to question them. We found car tracks going towards London. There was a shed, nicely warmed with oil heaters, where they’d kept the car.’

  ‘How far was the second house from Hatch End?’ asked Loftus.

  ‘The better part of a couple of hundred yards. Oh, I’m not blaming Miller,’ Tim went on. ‘It just didn’t go our way, but—why did they kill Abbott? He was one of the gang.’

  ‘Bruce may be able to tell us something in the morning,’ said Craigie. ‘You get some rest, Tim.’

  Tim went out into the bitter cold nigh
t, to struggle through the snowbound streets and with his gloom.

  Loftus was yawning when Craigie looked up, and then Craigie started; they both laughed.

  ‘We’ll take forty winks here,’ said Craigie, and between them they opened what looked like another wide cupboard, where two single built-in beds were all ready. They pulled them down and slackened belts and collars, talking over the partial failure at Hatch End.

  Abbott had been shot through the chest in exactly the same way as Parmitter, and with the same calibre bullets. Obviously it had not been from the same gun or by the same man.

  Wilkinson’s pretended lameness, Loftus thought, proved that he had wanted to make it appear that he was incapacitated. He had been forced into violence by Hammond’s tactics.

  ‘We might hear something from George, I suppose,’ he said, ‘but I hope he waits until morning. He’s probably enjoying himself with Nassi at this moment!’

  • • • • •

  George Henry George was not exactly enjoying himself. There were two reasons for that.

  In the first place, M. Nassi of San Patino had left the Haymart Hotel and, for some reason unknown to Department Z, had elected to patronise a small hotel near Reading. That night of all nights, travelling to Reading had been fraught with danger and difficulty. George had departed a little after ten o’clock, leaving his snug but anxious Polly without any hope of hearing from him until the next morning. He had with him one automatic pistol, two fresh clips of ammunition, one hypodermic syringe filled with an adrenalin solution which would induce almost immediate unconsciousness if required, and one knife. True, it was a remarkable knife, fitted with many blades; in the possession of anyone less favoured by the police it would undoubtedly have been regarded as a cracksman’s tool. He had, also, some pieces of cord, a candle, a plentiful supply of matches and, a thing which worried him most, a mask which covered the top half of his face. He regarded himself as well-equipped for his venture, which was to persuade M. Nassi to explain what he had been doing with Parmitter, why he had changed his hotel on such a day—and, in short, to glean any odd piece of information.

  He had with him, also, Mark Errol.

  They sat side by side in George’s roomy Jaguar. There were chains on all four wheels, but in places they could have done with not chains but an aeroplane to get them easily over the blocked roads. Traffic was snowbound on either side of them, even on the outskirts of London. When they reached the top of Putney Hill, quite unaware of what was happening only a mile away at Hatch End, a little group of policemen, A.A. and R.A.C. scouts and helpful citizens warned them that it would be folly to go on.

  ‘But we must,’ protested George.

  ‘You haven’t got a chance, sir,’ said a sergeant of police. ‘Not as far as Reading. You might make Kingston, but the by-pass is pretty hopeless. There’s been a dozen smashes along there tonight.’

  ‘There are by-roads,’ said George.

  ‘Try them at your own risk, sir. If I was you, I’d turn back.’

  That had been the advice given to them every time they met scouts and police along the road. Four times they had been compelled to alight and help to move a car which was stuck across the road in front of them. There were plenty of stranded motorists about, sitting miserably in their cars, and cursing the weather. Only two or three drivers had got beyond Kingston since five o’clock.

  They took the chance, and by sheer persistence, they reached the outskirts of Reading. There was a steep hill leading into the town, and there the Jaguar, swerving to avoid a car jutted out from the side of the road, piled into a snow-barrier.

  From there, they walked.

  Just after three o’clock they reached the Akers Hotel, which was a short distance from the centre of the town, on the London Road.

  The journey was one reason why George was not enjoying himself. The other was the fact that there seemed no way of getting into Akers Hotel. One side was piled up with snow which reached halfway up the windows. On the other side, which had been to the leeward, the ground floor windows were barred.

  George surveyed the hotel and reflected aloud:

  ‘You know what we want to make it a real night out?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘No Nassi,’ said George.

  ‘I thought you had a sunny nature.’

  That was before I had to try to climb up that wall,’ George told him. ‘Oh, well. Women must weep.’

  He had chosen the one spot where he might be able to get to a window and force his way in. One look at the doors had convinced him that it was practically impossible to force them without making too much noise; his stiff, cold fingers were not dexterous enough. But the south side of the hotel was comparatively free from snow, and there were window ledges on which he could get a foothold.

  There was one good thing; no police were likely to be patrolling the streets.

  ‘Which window are you going to try?’ asked Mark Erro.

  ‘The middle one. It’s immediately above the back door, and might be to a landing,’ said George. ‘Give me a leg up, will you?’

  Mark bent his back.

  George climbed to the first window ledge without much trouble. He was just out of Mark’s reach, but Mark stood waiting to lend a hand lest he should fall. George thrust his frozen hand into his pocket and brought out a small torch. He shone it against the window and then pressed his face close to the glass, shielding it with his free hand. He swayed to and fro, his heart jumping, and suddenly lurched against the window which gave out a hollow, booming sound.

  No sound came from inside the hotel, nothing appeared to have been heard. Now he could just see into the room—and it was a room, not a landing. On the far side was a single bed. Still swaying unsteadily, he examined the window.

  The catch was not fastened.

  He searched his pocket for his knife, which he had already opened—and dropped the torch. It went out as it hit the snow.

  ‘All right,’ he called softly, ‘keep it out.’

  It was difficult to find the bottom of the window by touch alone, but he persisted, and thrust the knife in between the old-fashioned sash-cord window and the frame. Akers was obliging in that respect, at any rate. He pressed gently. The narrow blade was very tough and would not break easily. He kept levering, and suddenly the window squeaked up an inch.

  He stopped abruptly, and listened; he heard no other sound.

  Once the start was made, getting the window open wide enough to get his fingers on to the bottom was fairly easy. At last he was able to put his knife away. He blew on his fingers, protected only by thin gloves, so as to give him freedom of movement, then put them beneath the window and pulled upwards. He could only do that by leaning backwards, only his grip on the window saved him from falling.

  One hand slipped.

  He lurched backwards, his heart in his mouth, but managed to hold on with the other hand.

  He tried again, and the window went up with a sudden spurt, groaning horribly. Having made so much noise, he might as well make a job of it, George decided, and thrust the window right up.

  He put one leg inside the room, and whispered to Mark:

  ‘I’m okay.’

  Then he climbed in.

  He stood for a moment by the open window, wishing that he had his torch. He could hear no breathing. Gradually he found himself able to see about the room, and he stepped towards the bed. A man was sleeping. He could just make out the pale face and the dark hair.

  The man stirred in his sleep.

  George took out his hypodermic syringe, and murmured: ‘Sorry, old chap. Duty calls.’ The man stirred again. George rubbed his hands to try to get them warmer, peering closely all the time. He could make out the shape of a bedside lamp, and wished that he dared switch it on.

  Then he picked up the sheet in front of the man’s face, thrust it over the mouth and nose, and pressed. The man jumped violently, and let out a muffled gasp. George felt for the man’s shoulder, which was hea
ving up and down, then plunged the needle in. The man jumped and gasped, but the sheet smothered the sound. George maintained his pressure, using both hands because the man was struggling so violently.

  It seemed an age before the struggles weakened.

  At last, George withdrew his hands.

  ‘Very sorry,’ he murmured, ‘but you’ll only have a headache in the morning.’ He put on the light, and a bright glow spread about the room. He went to the window and whispered down: ‘I’ll find the door and open it.’

  Mark waved.

  Five minutes later, George had opened the side door of the hotel, and with noiseless footsteps they walked towards the reception desk. They looked down the visitors’ book, and immediately found that Nassi had registered and was in Room 17.

  ‘Something,’ whispered George. ‘Mark, I must get warm.’

  ‘Let’s try the kitchen,’ suggested Mark.

  Using only the torch to light the way, they made two unsuccessful efforts to find the kitchen, then came upon it. From a small room leading off the kitchen came a blast of hot air which made their watery eyes glisten. It was the boiler-room, and the fire was glowing red through the cracks at the side of the boiler.

  George took out a hip flask.

  ‘What with this and that,’ he said, ‘we’ll be all right. What’s the time?’

  ‘Getting on for four.’

  ‘We’ve got about a couple of hours, then.’ George gave Mark the flask, then took a warming sip. ‘Yes, we’ll be all right,’ he repeated. ‘Five minutes down here and we’ll be as lissome as a lark.’ He hummed to himself, his spirits fully restored, while Mark spread his hands about the boiler, welcoming the fierce heat. ‘Careful of chilblains,’ George said. ‘Or do I mean chaps? Ready?’

  ‘Righto,’ said Mark.

  The air in the passage and on the stairs was chill, but when they reached Room 17, he was able to handle his knife without any difficulty. The door was locked. George took one look at the lock, and chuckled softly.