Murder Must Wait (Department Z) Read online

  ‘Good. We’ve two more “guests”. Have them collected, will you? Where’s Mr. Kerr?’

  ‘In the drawing-room, I think...’ Mold broke off, as the drawing-room door—leading from the right of the hall—opened, and Bob Kerr appeared.

  At one time the most renowned flying ace in England, Kerr had worked for Craigie for two years. Now his left sleeve hung empty, a reminder of one of his encounters on Craigie’s behalf.

  ‘Well, Bill, it’s good to see you!’

  ‘You too,’ grinned Loftus, as they shook hands. ‘I’m keeping you busy, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Not too busy. Brought some more?’

  ‘With the help of these fellows here.’ Loftus nodded towards Trale and Best, who had just come in. Trale had stayed at the Nursing Home on the previous night, but had driven up to London so that he and Best might follow Loftus on his drive down in case of trouble.

  Together all four men went into the drawing-room.

  It was a low-ceilinged room, and the morning sun streamed through the leaded panes of the window. But the sun seemed less bright after Loftus had given the news of Craigie’s injury.

  Kerr’s face hardened, and there was an angry glint in his eyes.

  ‘You’re sure he’ll pull through?’

  ‘Well—he has a good chance.’

  ‘He must pull through,’ said Kerr, in unconscious mimicry of his friend’s words the previous night. ‘How near to breaking the Ring are you?’

  ‘Getting closer. One thing’s sorted itself out pretty clearly. Pinari and the man named Doom—Oundle told you about him—seem to be anti-Ring, I don’t know why. There are two distinct parties—the Ring’s, and Doom’s. They appear to be working together, and I believe that Cunningham thinks they are. However—we’ve got Doom with us. After his effort last night we won’t be feeling kindly towards him. He doesn’t know all of Cunningham’s plans though, and doesn’t know that Hyman and the others are going to Lakka.’

  ‘All riddles to me,’ said Kerr. ‘Fill me in, Bill, will you?’

  Loftus talked—and it became more and more apparent that, apart from the kidnapping of the five men, there was nothing to go on—no inkling of the motives behind the Ring’s plans.

  Kerr said slowly: ‘There is one thing. Now that Cunningham knows you’ve heard his plans, he isn’t likely to go for Tult or Rioldi yet.’

  ‘It isn’t easy to imagine Cunningham backing out of anything he wants to do,’ Loftus said. ‘But he certainly won’t do it through de Casila this time. We may have spiked his guns. Temporarily, anyhow.’

  ‘Who’s watching over there?’

  ‘Oundle and Thornton.’

  ‘Good enough. And Lakka?’

  ‘I thought of going there myself, with Dodo and Best.’

  ‘It’s obviously wise,’ agreed Kerr, ‘but only after you’ve got what you can out of Doom and de Casila. Well, shall we start?’

  At the end of an hour they had to admit partial failure. De Casila, trembling with fear, told them exactly what they already knew—obviously he was not keeping anything back.

  Doom, like Pinari, talked only up to a point. He did not claim that he knew nothing. But with a blind, unexpected courage, he refused to divulge any information which Loftus did not already have.

  ‘The only consolation,’ Loftus said bitterly, ‘is that they can’t help Cunningham any more. I’m afraid to act against Cunningham yet; there may be others above him, and we’ve got to get at the heart of this Ring.’

  ‘We’ll get a lead, sooner or later,’ said Kerr. ‘I...’

  He broke off, as he saw his wife approaching them.

  Lois Kerr was not beautiful, but possessed a subtle charm. Her fair, shoulder-length hair made an attractive frame to her oval face, with its broad, serene brow, and laughing eyes.

  But her eyes were not laughing now. Her expression as she came towards them made Kerr catch his breath. Loftus made no attempt to greet her; Trale just stared. Both knew her well, both knew that she was carrying news that would come as a shock; bad news.

  ‘I’ve told Mold to get the doors barricaded,’ she said quietly. ‘I was in the village when a man asked at the Post Office for us. He was in one of three cars, all crowded with men. I directed them the long way round and tried to phone you, but...’ her breast was rising and falling rapidly, as she finished with a rush—‘all the telephone lines in the village have been disconnected. And all the roads are blocked.’

  ‘But...’ objected Trale.

  ‘It can’t...’ began Loftus.

  ‘It’s happening,’ said Kerr. ‘Someone’s calling for the invalids.’ He smiled without humour, and pressed his wife’s arm. ‘Take the maids upstairs, I’ll look around below.’

  But as he spoke Loftus, glancing out of the window, saw a large saloon car turning a bend in the drive, less than a hundred yards from the house. Close behind it came another.

  Loftus drew his gun.

  15

  Village Visit

  The approach of the three carloads of men had been as swift and as ruthless as Loftus would have expected of anything directed by Hugo Cunningham.

  The Englishman had been released soon after Loftus had left 18, Rue de Mallet, by a Diana who had appeared to be on the border of hysteria. After his release, he was the same cold, decisive and frightening man she had known for some months to be the chief working agent of the Ring.

  Diana had been asked to stay in her room. From the study next door—a room Cunningham used when he was in Paris—she had heard the murmur of his voice, and had guessed that he was talking into a telephone. Before midnight Cunningham had sent for her. His instructions were brusque.

  ‘You will leave for Lakka, Miss Woodward, at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.’ He watched her closely; and her eyes showed surprise at the mention of Lakka. She did not overdo her curiosity by asking questions; no one made a practice of questioning Cunningham’s orders.

  ‘In Lakka, we finish our work very soon. You will have the full reward for your labours.’ His smile might have been genuine, yet she fancied it held a hint of something horrible; she felt then that he did suspect her. But she showed no emotion, and Cunningham went on:

  ‘You will go by air. You will be followed, but I shall arrange to look after your safety. You might yet be even more valuable to us. Goodnight.’

  Diana had slept fitfully, her thoughts on Loftus and Hugo Cunningham and the Ring—and what the future had in store for her at Lakka.

  Cunningham had made arrangements by telephone for the ‘German’ to be followed. The reports had come in. He had been trailed to England by Doom—as Loftus now knew—and Doom, playing a puzzling double game, had telephoned Cunningham with his information regarding his quarry’s true identity. Soon afterwards Cunningham received news first of de Casila’s capture, then of Doom’s.

  Although he would have made no great effort to get de Casila into safety, he knew that he had to try to rescue Doom.

  Had any of the Department Z men been able to see him while he had made his preparations they would have admired the impassiveness of the man against a succession of adverse blows. With the same cool, calm detachment which had made him the leading active member of the Ring, he made his plans.

  There were men of the Ring in plenty in England—and for that matter France, Germany, America, and elsewhere. Cunningham had arranged by telephone for certain of these men to be ready and had flown, some hours after Doom and Loftus, to England.

  At a house in Bayswater Road, he had shown his first sign of anger. Doom had been acting without orders when he had been kidnapped. Cunningham sent his men to look for him, but he would have known nothing about the house at Emsby but for the chance meeting of some of these men with Trale and Best.

  Once he knew the location of Loftus and the other Z agents, Cunningham worked fast. When his men arrived at Emsby, their first task was to cut the telephone lines leading from the village. It meant, of course, that the Post Office would soon
make inquiries, but Cunningham had no intention of wasting time.

  Not knowing that the attractive woman driving a small Morris was an ex-member of Craigie’s organisation, he had allowed her to leave the village after she had directed him to Three Gables. Then the three roads leading from the village had been watched, each guarded by two armed men, sitting in a parked car.

  To all intents and purposes Emsby, and Three Gables, were cut off from the outside world. Perhaps for an hour, or even less, for Cunningham believed that half an hour would serve his purpose. It was one of the few occasions when he led his men in person. There was to be no easing up, no scruples, just a cold-blooded attack to wipe out those of Craigie’s men at the house, and to recapture or kill the prisoners.

  • • • • •

  Something of the nature of the coming attack forced itself on the minds of the four Department Z agents; Trale and Best because they had already experienced the viciousness of de Casila, which would probably be the same as that of Cunningham, Loftus because he had met the man himself and knew that evil of which he was capable, and Kerr because of what Loftus had told him.

  ‘Move fast,’ Kerr urged. ‘You stay here, Bill. I’ll get down. Next floor up, Dodo, and stop them getting too close.’

  It was then that Loftus fired the first shot. The flame seared out from his gun, and a bullet kicked up a spurt of dust in front of the tyres of the leading car. The second shot hit a tyre, and with the roar of the burst, the car slewed round. It had been travelling at less than twenty miles an hour, and no great damage was done, but the hail of shots that followed sent their visitors scuttling for cover in a shrubbery.

  ‘Nice work,’ said Martin Best from the stairs. ‘Fun fast and furious, I gather. What the hell’s next?’

  ‘Guess,’ retorted Loftus, ‘and load fast.’

  At that moment a staccato outburst of firing came from below stairs, and fast upon it another from a window somewhere above. Best and Loftus, looking down from the landing window, saw the last of the men from the third car bolting for cover.

  Flashes of flame came from the shrubbery, but the nearest attacker could have been no closer than fifty yards from the house, and Cunningham found himself up against a factor he had not expected. To reach the house his men had to cross that dangerous fifty yards of open ground.

  There was a lull. Now and again footsteps sounded somewhere in the house; odd noises; a window was shut. The front door was barricaded with a large settee and a heavy oak settle. The two other entrances were equally well protected.

  What would Cunningham’s next move be?

  Loftus had not seen the Englishman, but he felt instinctively that he was nearby.

  ‘Damn it,’ Loftus muttered aloud, ‘I can’t shoot him. Even if I had the chance, I daren’t! Alive, he might lead us to the others.’

  ‘Cut out the first sign of insanity, Bill,’ said Best. ‘How about a sortie?’

  ‘If you’d like to die,’ said Loftus.

  The shooting had started from below stairs again, and now it seemed to be coming from the drawing-room. Loftus and Best dared not leave their point of vantage, but as the shooting grew fiercer they cursed the luck that had planned the main attack in that direction.

  Downstairs, Lois, her face expressionless, was reloading a gun for her husband.

  Mold and another servant were crouching back against the wall and firing fast. Kerr was lying on his stomach as bullets hummed into the room.

  Across the lawn one of Cunningham’s cars was moving slowly towards the house, the driver bending low over the steering wheel. Behind it were at least six men, hidden most of the time, aiming to get near enough to rush the drawing-room. The five miles an hour which the car was doing seemed quite fast. The car approached with a sort of dreadful inevitability.

  ‘Try upstairs,’ Kerr called to Mold.

  The man rushed out of the room, but the car drew nearer. There was anxiety in Kerr’s eyes as he turned towards Lois.

  Her quick smile reassured him, and he turned back, shooting at a pair of legs but missing. The next moment Mold started shooting from a room above.

  The attackers paused. Then the car door opened and the driver, arms raised, slumped to the ground. But a few seconds later the car came forward again, pushed by the men behind. Yard by yard it edged towards the drawing-room window.

  Suddenly Loftus appeared in the doorway.

  ‘How’s tricks?’ he asked, seeing at a glance that he was right to leave the landing. If once the car reached the window, the battle would be over. ‘We can’t shoot holes in it and we can’t throw bombs at it,’ he added, ‘but there’s the next best thing. Do you buy beer in barrels?’

  Kerr swung round, his eyes glinting.

  ‘Why the devil didn’t I think of that. Simpson!’

  A servant was already hurrying out of the room.

  As the car stopped, while the firing from the drawingroom grew fiercer and Loftus, reloading fast, joined Lois and Kerr, the sound of heavy trundling came along the passage. Simpson was kicking a small barrel with his right foot and hopping after it. And as the barrel rolled into the room another came along the passage. They were full, too heavy for the average man to lift with ease. Loftus bent down and picked one up as if it were a tankard.

  ‘Keep them busy,’ he muttered.

  Hugging the barrel against his chest he walked to the window. Bullets whined about his head, but luck was with him for a few vital seconds. He put the barrel down outside the window, and kicked it lightly with his foot. On the gentle slope it rolled, sluggish and erratic, towards the car. For a moment Loftus feared the dodge had failed to work, but the barrel lurched at the last moment, and rolled plumb between the car wheels, sticking against the front axle. The car stopped. The harder the men behind it pushed the firmer the barrel wedged into the turf.

  ‘More uses for beer, Bill,’ remarked Kerr.

  ‘Uses without end,’ chuckled Loftus. ‘Damned bad shots those chaps. Another temporary check, but I’ve got an idea. Have you any hoses?’

  ‘Bill,’ said Kerr slowly, ‘you’ve a genius for this. From the top floor, I fancy, and...’

  But before they could go on, firing started again from the landing, and Best let out a shout that would have roused the dead. And as Loftus went back, moving fast yet seeming in no haste, he recognised the tap-tap-tap sound coming from outside; the staccato yap of a machine gun.

  Again Cunningham had used a car, and crouching behind it were two men with tommy-guns. The landing window had been smashed to a thousand pieces; plaster on the wall opposite was breaking into a white powder, filming the stairs and dropping over the balustrade into the hall. The air seemed black with smoke, and slowly, under the cover of that withering fire, a small party of men approached.

  Lois called up from the drawing-room, her voice hardly audible.

  ‘Do you want...’

  ‘Those hoses, if they’re long enough,’ shouted Loftus.

  Lois ran towards the kitchen Simpson at her heels.

  Beneath the landing window was a blank wall. Loftus saw that two men were carrying ladders.

  ‘Close,’ he said, in the clipped manner he had used since the attack had started. ‘We may do it. Nasty if we don’t. Seen the captives, Martin?’

  ‘In an attic room. Why?’

  ‘They must be getting worried. Oh, good work!’

  For Simpson and Mold had appeared carrying a heavy garden hose, which twisted from the passage leading to the kitchen like a thick black snake. Loftus snatched the nozzle from Simpson.

  ‘Water on?’

  ‘Yes...’

  Loftus nodded, and turned the hose on full. A gush of water spurted twenty feet into the air, and showered down on the advancing men. The machine-guns had momentarily stopped, and swiftly Loftus directed the water towards them.

  It went with a huge gush, flooding the car and the men crouching behind it. It was not fierce enough to send them off their feet, but enough to make them lo
se their hold on the car for a few seconds. In those seconds Best, Mold and Simpson had rushed to the window, and now a hail of bullets spat from their guns towards the drenched, defenceless attackers, who were halfway between the car and the house. Two men dropped in their tracks; two others raced back for cover; and the men holding the tommy-guns were in plain sight. Best picked one off.

  ‘Good practice,’ he said. He touched the trigger again, catching the second machine-gunner in the leg. The man fell forward, his cry of pain reaching their ears clearly. Again a silence fell, uncanny and intense, as though both sides were gathering strength for the third attack and the third defence.

  Loftus brushed his hair back.

  ‘Turn it off, Mold, it’s served its purpose,’ he ordered. ‘We’ll stop anything short of an aerial attack.’

  But as he spoke they heard the sound, far away and yet clear enough and frightening. The droning of an aeroplane engine.

  16

  Ingenuity of Martin Best

  ‘Of course,’ Bill said, ‘it can’t have anything to do with this shindy.’

  ‘Naturally not,’ drawled Best. ‘Quite a normal thing for an aeroplane to fly over. The pilot’s probably a secret lover of Lois.’ He grinned; there was no change in his cheerful manner,

  Loftus was watching the machine as, losing height all the time, it zoomed over the house and skimmed the trees at the end of the drive. A few seconds afterwards the sound of the engine stopped abruptly.

  ‘It’s landed in the meadow on the other side of the road,’ said Mold. ‘I’ll tell Mr. Kerr.’

  Best nodded, and turned to Loftus who was gazing out of the window.

  ‘I wonder how much time we’ve got?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Work, my lad. Cunningham must know he can’t keep this up all day. The stories that will probably be buzzing round Emsby now are bound to help us. How far are we from Farnham?’

  ‘Less than twelve miles,’ said Loftus, ‘but there isn’t a chance in a thousand of getting through. Why Farnham?’

  ‘Barracks there,’ said Best, thoughtfully. ‘And more aeroplanes. Twelve miles doesn’t seem so far. A word or two on the telephone would probably do the trick. An uncle of mine is a something-or-other—yes,’ he added, and there was a dreamy expression in his eyes, ‘it might work.’