Death Stands By (Department Z) Read online

  ‘Right-ho,’ said Kerr again.

  He replaced the receiver and turned round slowly. He looked at Lois Dacre, and yet did not seem to see her, and she was horrified at the expression in his grey eyes. She tried not to break the silence, but the question forced itself from her lips.

  ‘Bob—what’s happened?’

  ‘Two of Craigie’s agents have died,’ he said quietly. ‘One a particular friend of mine. I—— God! I’ll get Griceson and Jeffs if I have to break their necks. The blasted swine!’

  Lois Dacre said nothing, for there was nothing to say; but in that moment she learned something that she had never known before. She learned something of what was needed in the make-up of Craigie’s men.

  • • • • •

  Craigie had given instructions that Lois Dacre was to go alone to the house in Chelsea where she was to meet Griceson and Jeffs. Kerr disliked the idea, but he did not propose to break orders, and Lois seemed capable of taking care of herself.

  It was while they were at breakfast that Burke said:

  ‘Supposing the flat’s being watched, Lois? You’ll be seen, and that’ll finish you.’

  ‘I don’t think I will be seen,’ Lois said calmly. ‘You and Bob will be leaving first, and if there’s anyone watching, you’ll be followed. There’ll be no one left to follow me.’

  ‘I thought of it that way,’ admitted Kerr. ‘What time will you be leaving?’

  ‘Half past nine,’ she said, ‘and you’ll have to be away by nine. You’ve only ten minutes.’

  Bob Kerr and Lois Dacre were facing each other across the breakfast-table in what Burke privately thought was a futuristic manner. Unnoticed, he strolled from the room.

  Kerr said nothing for a moment. Her cool grey eyes seemed to steady him.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  Kerr smiled.

  ‘Lois, you know what might happen?’

  ‘I’ve known it might happen for some days,’ said Lois Dacre, ‘but if I can do anything to help stop war, I’ll do it. Of course, if Jeffs or Griceson get the slightest idea of the truth, they will not waste any time. In case they start getting tough, I’ve got these.’

  She slipped a small paper packet from the neck of her blouse. It was held by a small pocket, close to the skin, and when she opened it he saw three white tablets. His brows darkened as he said:

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Cyanide.’

  Kerr drew a deep breath.

  ‘You’ve certainly prepared for trouble,’ he said sombrely. ‘And you’d use it, of course. Why are you doing this? You’ve never worked like this before, have you?’

  Lois Dacre shook her head.

  ‘I haven’t done it before, but I’ve often wished I could. Life isn’t exciting, Bob. There’s so much to do and little of it worth while. I’m glad I joined Craigie. I think he’ll use me again. I lost my father in one war, and two brothers in another. It killed my mother.’

  There was nothing Kerr could say, but he understood why she was prepared to take any risk to stop war.

  He stood up slowly.

  ‘I see. Yes, Craigie will find work for you. That is if you want to keep working for him. There are other occupations.’

  It was the nearest thing that Robert McMillan Kerr had ever made to a proposal, and the smile on Lois Dacre’s lips was very gentle.

  ‘Are there? We won’t think of them yet, Bob. In any case, it’s going to be touch and go this morning.’

  Kerr nodded. More than ever he hated the fact that she had to go alone, and yet he realised that Craigie was quite right. It was the only way to get success. Arran and Beaumant had been sacrificed for the Department, and the effort to stop war. If Lois Dacre had to go …

  ‘Lois,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to try to talk. But you will come back. If anything happened, Griceson and Jeffs won’t last long.’

  She said very quietly:

  ‘Be careful, Bob, please. I think you’re in bigger danger than I am.’

  ‘Ready, folk!’ cried Jim Burke from the door, and then offered his right hand to Lois.

  ‘When this is over, Pat would like to see you,’ he said. ‘My wife. Come on, Bob.’

  It was a remarkable fact that for the first time Bob Kerr and Lois Dacre shook hands. A moment later the door closed behind the two men.

  Lois Dacre stood for a moment then walked swiftly to the window and looked out to see whether they were followed. She saw Burke and Kerr walk along the street towards Piccadilly, and at the same time she saw the Rolls-Royce, which had been standing further up the road, moving after them.

  She saw the man in the tonneau of the Rolls, and the tommy-gun in his hands. The gun was trained on the two men walking along the pavement, and she knew that once it opened fire they hadn’t a chance. Her automatic was in the bedroom, and all she could do was to shout. She flung up the window …

  At the same moment strange things seemed to happen to Jim Burke and Bob Kerr. Before the machine-gun opened fire they separated, Burke leaping to the other side of the road, Kerr back towards the flat. Lois’s cry was stifled on her lips, and she watched wide-eyed.

  The machine-gun started, and twice its bullets spat out. But almost at the same time Burke and Kerr pulled their guns, and she saw the foot-long stabs of flame disgracing the sacrosanct quiet of Auveley Street. The Rolls was travelling fast now, but she heard the explosion as the front tyres were punctured, saw the wheels turn towards the right, saw Kerr take a tremendous leap to safety and heard the Rolls crash.

  She didn’t look out again.

  She was trembling, and yet there was a smile of satisfaction on her lips. Kerr and Burke could look after themselves, and were not likely to be caught napping.

  While she had to play her part at 28 Trite Street, Chelsea.

  • • • • •

  The man named Jeffs was standing in a room on the second floor of 28 Trite Street, Chelsea. He was looking very passive as he stood there, with his very broad shoulders almost spanning the window. His hair was cut short at the back, but long on top, and it helped with his shoulders to give him a top-heavy appearance.

  Lois Dacre had never learned that his other name was Cornelius. It was as absurd as Jeffs, for he did not suit the names, unless he was standing still with his eyes narrowed. Then he looked tough. When those eyes widened, with all their brown softness, he looked a different man.

  He turned suddenly from the window and eyed Griceson. Griceson was sitting by a desk—he seemed always to be at a desk—with his chin cupped in his hands.

  Jeffs smiled, and his mellow voice came smoothly.

  ‘My dear Griceson, I just can’t understand you. A little success, and you’re on top of the world. A little set-back, and you look as though you’re facing death. Cheer up, man, it won’t be as bad as that.’

  Griceson moved his right hand impatiently.

  ‘How can you tell?’ Still he spoke in that deliberate, hesitating way, as though he were anxious to disguise the cadence of his voice. ‘With the Department after us——’

  ‘They started too late,’ said Jeffs. ‘Can’t you understand that?’

  ‘It’s not too late,’ flashed Griceson. ‘He told me that Mueller’s body must be found yesterday, and I couldn’t find it.’

  Jeffs smiled blandly.

  ‘There’s too much mystery about “him”,’ he said. ‘I’ve never met the gentleman, although you seem to know him well. How can he do so much damage?’

  ‘You’ll meet him this morning. And he can kill, Jeffs.’

  ‘And so can we.’ Jeffs was as bland as ever. ‘I’ve no objection to using a knife or a gun, my friend, if you have. You’re letting it get you down too much. Who is “he”, anyway?’

  ‘He might decide to let you know today,’ said Griceson.

  Jeffs smiled.

  ‘My dear Griceson, you don’t seem to think as fast as you should. You’re working for this fellow——’

  ‘And so are you!’ snapped
Griceson, quickening his words for once. His voice was higher, and Jeffs’s eyes narrowed, almost as if he had recognised something. ‘Listen, Jeffs. We had three places, with twenty-five men, working for us until two days ago. Now we have a bare dozen men. The others are dead or captured. Branner, who actually killed Mueller, is a prisoner, and he might talk——’

  ‘Branner will not,’ Jeffs said with conviction.

  ‘I wouldn’t like to be sure,’ said Griceson. ‘If he were just with the police I’d agree, but the Department Z men might do anything—anything to make him talk.’

  ‘You have a high opinion of the Z men,’ Jeffs said.

  ‘And with good reason. They’ve smashed us in twenty-four hours, haven’t they?’

  ‘No. They’ve smashed the lesser part of our organisation, Griceson, but that is all. We’re still safe, and there’s no reason to suppose they’ll locate us here. Only you and I know the address now, with the girl Dacre. Which reminds me, she should be along at any minute.’

  ‘Unless they caught her,’ flashed Griceson and Jeffs shrugged his shoulders. Jeffs disliked any man who could show fear as Griceson was doing now.

  ‘Now stop worrying, Griceson.’

  It was an odd fact that Griceson flinched at the words, although they had been spoken without the slightest change of tone.

  And then, very suddenly and harshly, the telephone on Griceson’s desk burred out. Griceson stared at it for a moment without moving. Then he took the receiver off and spoke into it. Jeffs was watching him closely, and he saw the eyes in that alabaster face widen with sudden, unadulterated fear.

  Jeffs waited, very tense.

  A taxi drew up outside the house, and he saw Lois Dacre climbing out. She turned towards the house while Griceson muttered into the telephone then banged it down.

  Jeffs snapped:

  ‘What was it? Talk, can’t you?’

  ‘It was Allwing. He was watching Kerr’s flat. The attack on Kerr and Burke failed. Failed! The car’s smashed—all its occupants are prisoners. Four of them, Jeffs—another four gone. We’ve only eight men left including you and I——’

  ‘And the girl,’ said Jeffs quietly.

  He was amazed at the change in Griceson’s expression. The light-grey eyes inflamed with hatred and the words came quickly.

  ‘The little bitch! Allwing saw her in Kerr’s flat! The moment she arrives, I’ll——’

  ‘Why does your mind always run on killing?’ asked Jeffs mildly. He seemed to take the news coolly, although he had had a shock. ‘If she was there, she’s either living with Kerr or else working for Craigie. Probably the latter. And if that is so, she will know a great deal. A little persuasion should make her talk, my friend. Now keep quiet, and try to look pleasant; she is coming up the stairs.’

  18: ‘Him’

  Lois Dacre had not the slightest idea that she had been seen. She had believed that the only men near the flat working for Griceson and Jeffs had been in the Rolls, and she had known that there was nothing at all to fear from them. She had not known that a gentleman named Richard Allwing, who had been with Branner when Mueller had died, had been watching from an opposite flat.

  When she had thrown up the window, Allwing had seen her. Now, without the slightest inkling of the danger, she walked along the landing of 28 Trite Street and tapped on the door which Jeffs opened immediately.

  She had never liked Jeffs, although he had not convinced her that he was the killer type that Craigie’s men were working against.

  There was only benevolence in Jeffs’s eyes as he nodded to her and closed the door.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Dacre. It’s good to know you escaped safely. And we had no time then to thank you for enabling us to get away from those two remarkable gentlemen Burke and Kerr.’

  Lois smiled, and took off her hat.

  ‘Oh, that was nothing. I was afraid it was all up.’

  ‘You’re a very conscientious worker, my dear,’ said Jeffs.

  She was not sure whether there was a tinge of irony in his words, and she looked at him sharply. He was smiling blandly. But Griceson seemed stiff and more immobile than ever. His odd eyes turned towards the girl, and she could not stop the cold shiver that ran down her spine.

  ‘Good morning.’ If anything he was speaking more slowly than usual, and there was no trace of the panic and hatred that had been in his voice a few minutes before. ‘I’m glad you are punctual. We are expecting our visitor within the next ten minutes.’

  So, thought Lois, the man who mattered was coming here. And there would be some of Craigie’s men watching, even if they were not near the house. She was alone with these men, men who killed or ordered murder without the slightest compunction, and if they suspected her double part for a moment she would have short shrift.

  ‘Am I to see him?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course.’ Jeffs did the talking. ‘You haven’t heard, have you, that we lost four more men this morning. Men who were trying to get Kerr——’

  ‘Another four!’ Her eyes widened, and had Jeffs not been sure of Allwing’s information he would have been convinced that she was really surprised.

  ‘Don’t get worried, my dear,’ said Mr. Cornelius Jeffs, ‘we’ve enough for what we want. Today, I’m happy to tell you, the thing will be finished over here.’

  ‘Today!’ she said slowly. ‘I’m glad. It’s been worrying.’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Jeffs. ‘Now, I’ll admit that only Mr. Griceson knows who is coming this morning. But as the three remaining leaders—I think I can call you a leader, for you have really been invaluable—we should greet the gentleman who had inspired our cause.’ Jeffs was smiling. ‘We can discuss our plans for escaping—or separating—after the interview. Griceson is a little worried, for we had strict instructions to discover Mueller’s body yesterday.’

  Lois sat down. She was acting perfectly, and Jeffs admired her nerve.

  ‘I think there’s been too much fuss about the body,’ she said. ‘If we hadn’t tried to get it, the Z men would never have discovered “Wilton” and we would have had little or no trouble.’

  Griceson almost snarled:

  ‘We had orders to get the body!’

  The girl’s cool grey eyes looked at his.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m not thinking about whether we did what we had to or not, but whether it was wise. This leader of yours works from a distance, and he can’t tell just what’s the best thing to do. He can’t imagine the strength of Craigie’s Department, for instance.’

  Griceson shrugged. Jeffs was tempted to come out with an accusation against the girl when the car drew up outside. It was a Daimler, and a small chauffeur jumped out like an automaton, opening the door and clicking his heels. Lois Dacre and Jeffs craned their necks towards the window but Griceson sat there, his head on his chest, staring … staring.

  Griceson was afraid. There was no pose, Lois knew.

  She saw the top hat, the polished shoes, and the portly stomach, but she could not see the man’s face. Jeffs was smiling. The talk with Lois Dacre would be postponed until ‘he’ came.

  Who was he?

  Jeffs, who had worked for many years for Sir Julian Crabtree, had no idea. Jeffs was a man of parts, and he had been given many exacting jobs by the murdered knight. In some ways his appearance was against him, in others it was an advantage, for no one suspected the cleverness behind that low forehead, hidden by those gentle brown eyes. But Jeffs knew that the man now entering the house—he had a key—had arranged for the death of Sir Julian Crabtree, had arranged for the murder of Gustav Mueller, and set the whole vile scheme into operation. Jeffs was more than interested. The newcomer had a breadth of vision that few possessed. He was prepared to set two nations fighting, and perhaps the rest of the world. A man who was coldly determined to get just what he wanted.

  Lois Dacre’s heart was beating faster than usual. The steps were coming up the stairs, slow and measured. The man had reached the top. He was w
alking along the passage. He stopped by the door, and they heard the handle turn.

  The girl watched the door opening, fascinated, her lips parted a little, her eyes gleaming. It flashed through her mind that Craigie or Kerr would have given worlds to have been here just now. Then the door opened wide, and the man stood there for a moment, his head perched back, his top hat shining, his white waistcoat with the gold watch-chain spread over it strangely banal.

  Lois Dacre saw his face.

  Cornelius Jeffs saw his face, and Jeffs’s eyes narrowed, his lips opened. Griceson looked up, all the dread of the world in those oddly dilated eyes.

  ‘Oh no,’ thought Lois Dacre, ‘it can’t be. It just can’t be!’

  And yet it was. The one man in the world she would never have dreamed concerned was standing here, looking at her with a sardonic smile twitching his full lips. The man who had almost thrown a fit at the news of Crabtree’s death, who had sent—or tried to send—every policeman in England on the search for the murderer.

  Mr. Arnold Marency was looking at Lois. Lydia’s father!

  • • • • •

  Mr. Marency entered the room quietly and closed the door behind him. He looked from Lois to Griceson, and his lips tightened. He seemed to ignore Jeffs, but spoke to the girl.

  ‘Something of a shock for you, Lois, but knowing you have helped us so much I know you’ll be pleased. Sit down, my dear; don’t stand there staring; even we old ‘uns have a little life left!’ He chuckled, and to Lois the sound seemed obscene, but the laugh was better by far than his voice as it sharpened and he addressed Griceson.

  ‘Well—Where’s Mueller’s body?’

  Lois was watching them both, and she saw the way Griceson flinched backwards in his seat.

  ‘I’ve done everything—everything I can!’

  ‘It hasn’t been very much,’ said Marency harshly. He talked as though he had been used to ordering Griceson about all his life, knew exactly what reaction to expect. ‘Well, where’s the report?’