The Death Miser (Department Z Book 1) Read online

  As each man spoke Quinion realized more fully the far-reaching effects of the scheme. Every Power in the world would have high officials corrupted by their association with the organization. In each Power one man would be at the head of the organization, and in turn would be directly responsible to the World Council, at the head of which was to be the man whom Quinion knew as The Miser. Two of the greater Powers were to be outside the war, thus enabling food supplies to be maintained, but supplied only through the Council. Outside of the two countries bitter hatred of one nation for another was to be carefully nursed into blazing flames. Hessley would be at the head of affairs in Great Britain, Brundt would control activities in Germany, and Kretterlin would hold sway over the Soviet. Men of world-wide fame were mentioned as leaders of the other great Powers.

  And war was to be fanned into flame by a series of ghastly outrages in towns near the borders of European and Asiatic countries!

  Quinion wondered whether he was going mad. Standing at one end of the trolley-tray, with de Lorne at the other, his face held a vacant expression which suggested that he was not only deaf, but half-witted. Beyond beckoning them from time to time and pointing to whichever decanter held the favourite spirit, none of the men who sat round the table appeared to notice the servants. The grinning skull which crowned each man’s head, the mummy-like face of the man who sat at the head of the table, his great amber eyes turned only to the speakers as they took their turn, the tremendous powers which the organization controlled and the fearful campaign that it was staging, all seemed part of a terrible nightmare from which he would wake up in a sweat of terror. From time to time he eased his neck and swallowed hard.

  Julian Hatterson had finished speaking of the food combines which would be controlled, and The Miser, still sitting motionless, seemed to be weighing his words. He spoke suddenly, with that mellow voice which could change in a moment from silkiness to arrogant harshness.

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen. The plans have been perfectly conceived and admirably carried out. We have now but to wait for confirmation from countries which are not represented here to-night; then we can strike; and we shall strike according to the following instructions.…’

  He paused for a moment, looking at each member of the company as though inviting comment. None came, and he went on slowly. Quinion, regarding him through half-closed eyes, thought madly that Death was speaking. For the words spelt death for millions of people!

  ‘On the third of October every broadcasting station will be run by our agents. Notice will be given out recording the various outrages which have occurred in various parts of the world. Speeches will be made of an inflammatory nature calculated to stir the blood of all who listen, filling them with a lust for vengeance which can only be brought about through war. In some cases the broadcasting stations of one country will transmit the speeches from another, until it will be impossible for the ruling Governments to make any other decision than settlement by war.’

  The great amber eyes glowed with a fanatical light against which the parchment-like skin seemed to take on an even greater resemblance to death.

  Death speaking!

  The Miser went on:

  ‘There will be such slaughter as never before—but only by that slaughter can our ends be achieved. It will mean death; death to millions; and death to the madness of World Peace. That death I have been planning all my life; it is the nature of man to fight, and man shall fight! We of the World Council will control the destinies of all the nations, because of the power which we shall hold.

  ‘But remember—it will mean death. And to any who may feel soft-hearted only death can come. We shall be ruthless. We must have power—which is wealth!’

  The voice had lost its mellowness. It was harsh, cracked with madness, broken with fury. One thin, emaciated hand was raised and clenched.

  ‘So will our plans materialize in the Death of Peace. I have hoarded that death throughout my life, scheming, planning, praying for it. Now it is at hand!’

  The awful eyes glared feverishly at each member of the Council, but before he spoke again there came interruption.

  Quinion heard the commotion outside the door before any of the others had noticed it. He drew de Lorne’s attention and the two men stood ready for action at the slightest need.…

  The Miser’s hand crashed downwards—and at the same moment the door burst open.

  Arnold Alleyn stumbled into the room. One side of his face was lacerated fearfully, and the congealing blood against the whiteness of the rest of his skin had a ghastliness which seemed to freeze the members of the meeting; even the leader seemed aghast.

  He spoke suddenly, harshly.

  ‘What is it?’

  Arnold Alleyn tried to speak, but could not. One trembling hand pointed towards Quinion and de Lorne.

  18

  Quinion Goes to Town

  APART from the two men themselves, Kretterlin was the first to realize the significance of that trembling hand. For a second time his chair crashed back to the floor, and for a second time his vast voice roared out. And it was to the diversion that he made that de Lorne and Quinion owed their escape. For the Russian, instead of aiming straight for the psuedo-servants, hurled his words at the tall, immobile figure of The Miser.

  ‘I told you, you fool, I told you!’

  The great beard jerked up and down and the deep-set eyes were blazing with fanatical fury, until a moment later a vast hand suddenly swept into the Russian’s face and he was sent hurtling to the floor. Quinion, realizing that only seconds stood between him and escape, had leaned one hand on the table and vaulted over it. De Lorne did the same. Quinion’s voice, quiet but imperative, broke the stunned silence.

  ‘Your gun, Peter!’

  He was at the door, glancing backwards towards The Miser and the other would-be rulers of the world. He saw a wicked-looking gun leap into Simon Hessley’s hand, but before the latter had it under control Quinion had fired; Hessley dropped his automatic, cursing and shaking his right hand, from the fingers of which blood came coursing. Struggling madly to extricate himself from the chair on to which he had fallen, Kretterlin roared furiously in his native tongue, but apart from him and Hessley none of the others seemed able to move until Quinion and his companion were in the hall.

  The fight was not over yet. Already there were three servants in the hall, and from the passage came the sound of running feet.

  De Lorne sent the first man down with a right to the jaw, and the second, as he leapt towards Quinion, doubled up in anguish when the Hon. James let fly at his solar plexus with a straight left which had the force of a ramrod behind it. The third, catching sight of Julian Hatterson at the door of the room and seeing the automatic in the shop-king’s hand, made a desperate attempt to guard the front door; he was short of average size, however, and Quinion, catching him bodily round the waist, heaved mightily and sent him sprawling towards Hatterson; the latter’s bullet bit deeply into the servant’s thigh.

  De Lorne, meanwhile, had opened the front door, and with Quinion close on his heels tore out towards the main road, which lay some fifty yards ahead. Neither of them wasted time in looking round; if they were fired at from behind, the chances were against good marksmanship, for the clouds hid a harvest moon and it was almost impossible to see more than three or four yards ahead.

  Neither men spoke. The urgent need was to get onto the main road and well on the way to Runsey village, and every atom of strength and gasp of breath was needed. Quinion cursed the dragging folds of the cloak which he still had round him, but it would have been suicidal to have stopped long enough to take it off; he gathered as much of it as he could under one arm and raced on.

  His mind was working swiftly as he ran; one thing which worried him was the fact that Alleyn, having reached Cross Farm, must have had some means of transport. Had he secured a car, and was the driver waiting outside the grounds of the house? He was fairly sure that it was the case, and he realized that if the driver w
as one of Alleyn’s men, and had heard the noise from the farm—already half-a-dozen shots had been fired and they were coming faster upon each other—he would provide a well-nigh insuperable obstacle.

  He caught his breath as he saw the side lights of a car in front of him. It was standing in the road, and the driver was peering towards the farm. Quinion heard him talking to himself.

  ‘Wot the ruddy blazes ‘ave I ‘it, now? Sounds like ‘Ill Sixty an’ a bit o’ riot hact.…’

  Quinion was less than five yards from the man, with de Lorne only a foot or two behind. The Cockney—still talking to himself, a form of Dutch courage which Quinion had often found useful—was crouching back against one of the large white concrete blocks which marked the end of the drive.

  ‘Strike me if they ain’t got a blinkin’ Lewis!’ The revolver fire was a regular fusilade, and was getting nearer every second, to the driver’s obvious alarm. ‘Hif it ain’t a ruddy harmy, major! ‘Ere, bilking or no bilking, I’m orf.…’

  Quinion stopped, and holding de Lorne’s arm, whispered breathlessly.

  ‘Let him start up, Peter—then board him.…’

  The words were hardly out of his mouth than the engine roared into action, and the driver let in his clutch fiercely, with an added jerk as a bullet hummed past his windscreen, and pressed hard on his accelerator. The engine roared protestingly but did its bit.

  It was not until he had travelled a mile at something over forty miles an hour that the driver realized the presence of his passengers. Quinion, leaning out of the window at the peril of his life, for the bus was swaying from side to side and the hedge was dangerously close, indulged in a little gentle banter. He had only just recovered from the discovery that the ‘car’ was a not very sound taxi.

  ‘Cabby,’ he whispered, ‘go as fast as you can but get us there safely.…’

  The Cockney applied his brakes with that convulsive movement which is the birthright of every London cab-driver who isn’t sure what to do.

  ‘Gord!’ he muttered. ‘I’ve got hem wiv’ me.…’

  ‘Only some of them,’ said Quinion cheerfully. ‘Ease off those brakes, and move … oh, curse you! …’

  The taxi was rattling along at a good fifty miles an hour before the Hon. James recovered from the shock which followed the driver’s speedy compliance with instructions. Quinion’s head had hit the woodwork of the window with a thud which made even de Lorne grin in sympathy.

  ‘Hard luck, Jimmy. You seem to have scared the chap.’

  ‘Scared him? I’ll make him wish he’d never been taught the difference between the lighting switch and the steering wheel.’

  ‘But for him,’ interrupted de Lorne piously, ‘and the Grace of God, we should be arguing with that Miser friend of yours and suffering something far worse than a bang on the head. Doesn’t that look like the first cottage?’ he broke off. ‘Better tell him to stop.’

  Ducking through the window the Hon. James advertised his reappearance by hooting the horn of the cab.

  ‘See that pub along there?’

  The cabby nodded without lifting his gaze from the road ahead.

  ‘Then pull up outside, will you?’ Quinion began to draw back into the dark regions of the cab when he caught sight of the driver’s face as the man glanced round furtively. He eased himself through the window again.

  ‘Percy,’ he said affably, ‘I think you and I are going to get along famously.’

  The Cockney frowned, screwed his mouth in preparation for a complete and emphatic denial and then relaxed into a wide grin as he applied his brakes.

  ‘Do yer? Now I wonder wot makes yer, guv’nor.’

  The Hon. James opened the door of the cab as the vehicle slowed down, and jumped into the road, trotting alongside the cab until it reached a standstill.

  ‘A perfectly sound question,’ he announced grandly. ‘You see, Percy, a couple of days ago we cooked breakfast together, and now we’re going to try a spot of beer together.’

  The cabby was climbing down from his seat, with his back to Quinion, muttering the while.

  ‘You know,’ he commented conversationally, ‘between you an’ me, boss, I been wonderin’ where the blazes I’d ‘eard yer before. What’s yer gime, guv’nor? Larst time you was ‘opping out hafter the poor cove conked out at the caff, and now …’

  Quinion placed his large hand over the driver’s mouth.

  ‘Things of that black nature can only be discussed after the ball. Come and have a drink.’

  Half an hour later the taxi driver was reclining on the easiest chair in the bar parlour of the Tavern. He was enjoying himself as only men who are celebrating a rare holiday from wife and home can enjoy themselves. For the barmaid of the Tavern was comely if not beautiful, and it being after hours—de Lorne, being a resident, could be supplied with beer without fear of the law—she was able to devote her full attention to Percy. The driver had explained, between frequent tankards of dark brown ale, that after leaving Quinion on the previous morning he had stopped at a home from home in order to ‘have one’, overstayed his time and overworked his capacity, and had been compelled to lay up for a bit. Just as he was about to start for London he had been hired by Alleyn to go back to Cross Farm.

  The cabby’s one regret was that he had not made Alleyn pay first and ride after, but a neat piece of note passing on the part of Quinion comforted him; he accepted Quinion’s instructions to be ready for a quick run to town philosophically.

  Quinion and de Lorne went into the private parlour, and the Hon. James put through a call to Victoria Nought. He was speaking to Gordon Craigie within two minutes.

  ‘You’re twenty minutes early,’ was Craigie’s greeting. ‘Anything much?’

  ‘Bursting with news,’ said Quinion. ‘I shall have to come up to town.’

  ‘Have to?’ queried the chief of Department ‘Z’.

  ‘Yes, positively. Meanwhile, there’s not enough down here to look after everything. There ought to be a small army, not two or three. What about it?’

  The man at the other end hesitated for a few seconds. When he spoke his voice was even more deliberate than ever.

  ‘Is it serious, Number Seven? Or just a precautionary measure? …’

  Not for the first time Quinion confounded the necessity for speaking in riddles over the telephone. He was almost tempted to speak plainly, but the possibility of being overheard was too great.

  ‘I think it’s desperate and vital. Get as many as you can over here and tell ‘em to call at this place and ask for a man named Lorne.’

  ‘All right.’ Quinion could almost see the thin lips of the speaker puckering at the corners. ‘I’ll send them by road.’

  ‘And you,’ said Quinion, replacing the receiver and turning to de Lorne, ‘are the man named Lorne. You’ll have to forget the “de” for a bit; it’ll do you good. Listen. Inside three hours you will have two large carloads of plainclothes men here. Take them to the farm and keep an eye open for anything and everybody. If you see anyone going out, don’t stop them but follow them. Between now and the time they arrive you’d better wake the garage proprietor up and hire all the buses he’s got that can do more than ten miles an hour. That’s all … only keep an eye open for Smithy; I’m afraid the poor blighter has got mixed up in the meeting, but he might be under a lucky star too. All clear, Peter?’

  ‘All clear,’ confirmed de Lorne.

  ‘Good,’ said Quinion. ‘Now I’m going to London … unless that driver is soused again.’

  ‘Do you mean to tell me,’ demanded de Lorne incredulously, ‘that you’re going to London in that cab? Jimmy, you must be growing grey.…’

  The Hon. James leaned forward and slapped his friend on the back. He was feeling almost happy, now that the adventure at Cross Farm had ended in the discomfiture of The Miser and his band of budding dictators. There were several things at the back of his mind which worried him, and others which puzzled, chief amongst the latter being the sudden appe
arance of Arnold Alleyn at the meeting, without his wheel-chair, and full primed with the fact of the changed identities of the servants. Of the former, his chief concern was for Reginald Chane and the man called Smith; but the triumph of the evening overweighed his fears for the two men.

  ‘I’m going to town in that cab because I fancy no one will think I’m fool enough to do it. The Miser and his men are probably planning all kinds of messy ends for me, but it’s a hundred to one against them thinking of keeping an eye open for the taxi. Got me?’

  ‘Got you,’ said de Lorne. ‘Good hunting.’

  19

  News from Aunt Gloria

  IT WAS nearly five o’clock when James Quinion, resplendent in evening dress which he had picked up from Runsey Hall on the way to London and changed into during the journey, reached the house near Whitehall. He dismissed the cabby, watched the taxi out of sight, and ascended the short flight of steps.

  Gordon Craigie was dressed in pyjamas and a multicoloured dressing gown which, in its infancy, had made Quinion blink. He was sitting in the easy chair and smoking the drooping meerschaum; Quinion took his pipe from his pocket, incidentally removing an unsightly bulge in his coat, and calmly appropriated Craigie’s tobacco.

  The chief of Department ‘Z’ surveyed the vision of sartorial perfection grimly. He kept a watchful eye on his pouch, and stretched out his hand for it as Quinion absentmindedly slipped it into his own pocket.

  ‘Sorry,’ apologized Quinion. ‘That tobacco’s nearly as good as mine, Gordon.’

  ‘Humph,’ commented Craigie. ‘You look as though you’ve been dining out. What’s happened?’

  ‘So many things,’ said Quinion, ‘that I’ll probably fall asleep before I’m through. You wouldn’t care to change chairs, would you? That one looks far more comfortable.’ He grinned hopefully, but Craigie shook his head.