Strike for Death Page 16

  Even before Grannett and Harrison had arrived, Malcolm Munro had felt uneasily that the experiment was going to be a flop. His father was more adamant than ever; throughout dinner and immediately afterwards he resolutely refused to concede the need for reconciliation or compromise.

  “Got to fight them,” he said flatly. “It’s got to come sooner or later. Got to let them know who’s master.”

  It was useless to keep saying that he was living in the past.

  “I still feel that they’d take an offer, and that if they did ask for more in a few months you’d have a much better case for refusing,” Amory argued.

  “The case is good enough now,” insisted Sir Ian. “No, Bob, my mind is absolutely made up. I won’t be blackmailed, and I won’t be pushed around.”

  Malcolm was finding it difficult even to hide his exasperation.

  “Give me some more coffee, and put plenty of milk in it, that was as bitter as aloes,” said Sir Ian. Malcolm poured out, and handed him the cup. His father drank again, quickly as always, and there came a footstep outside the door. “I warn you I shall give Grannett the raw edge of my tongue if he’s impertinent.”

  “Remember he’s coming at my invitation,” Malcolm said.

  “No reason why he shouldn’t behave himself,” his father retorted.

  A manservant opened the door.

  “Colonel Harrison and—ah—Mr Grannett, sir,” he announced. The pause before and the slur of ‘Mr’ was obviously deliberate on the part of a tall, pale-faced footman, but Grannett appeared not to notice. He came in without haste, a little behind Harrison, wearing a neatly pressed navy-blue suit, a soft white collar. The firelight glinted on his rimless glasses and red hair.

  “Ah, George, come in. Grannett.” Sir Ian looked at the shop steward as if at a laboratory specimen.

  Malcolm pushed up a chair.

  “What will you have to drink?” he asked. Brandy glasses were warming, liqueur glasses stood on a silver tray by the side of a dozen bottles ranging from Drambuie to Cointreau.

  “Just a cup of coffee, please,” Grannett said.

  “Brandy, George?” Sir Ian looked at Harrison.

  “Thanks. Yes.” Harrison sounded abrupt, and looked like a bleached effigy of a soldier, and the dark bags under his eyes made him appear to glare.

  Sir Ian picked up his coffee, sipped, grunted, put the coffee down, and took a saccharin tablet from a jewelled snuffbox. Grannett put his coffee down close to the old man’s.

  After a pause, Amory started the ball rolling, pleasantly enough. The only purpose of this informal talk was to try to avoid the strike. Sir Ian listened, pulling his collar as if it were much too tight, and drinking his coffee.

  “Damn thing’s choking me,” he said abruptly, and tugged. “Well, let’s hear what you have to say, Grannett.”

  Grannett put his case concisely and without emphasis, but Sir Ian did not even let him finish properly.

  “Nothing you’ve said is new, or justifies the claim for an increase,” he declared arrogantly. “We don’t know how Mark 9 will turn out yet. Early signs are favourable, but there could be a recession in world markets or another crisis at home. Any one of a dozen things could turn the tide the other way. The wage bill is already higher than the company can safely stand.”

  “Absolutely right,” Harrison approved.

  “I know that things are not as favourable as Grannett seems to think, but we have a year’s orders for Mark 9 on the list,” Amory said.

  “And will lose half of ’em if we don’t deliver to time. And if we have more of the kind of delays we’ve been having these past few days, we’re bound to be late.”

  “I know, but that isn’t Grannett’s fault. He—”

  “Perhaps he’ll be good enough to prove it,” said Sir Ian.

  Malcolm raised his hands, as if in surrender. Harrison, paler than ever, took his cigar from his mouth, looked at the half-inch of palegrey ash, and then put it back again.

  Grannett, sitting in a small armchair and showing no sign of embarrassment, paused for a moment, then stood up and smoothed down his coat. He was wearing a black tie and a wide black armband.

  “It’s obvious I’m only wasting my time here,” he said, in his deliberate, restrained voice. “I can only hope you other gentlemen can persuade Sir Ian that the men will strike if the claim isn’t met.”

  “I take it they will consider an offer,” Amory put in quickly.

  “They might, but it would have to be a good one.” Grannett nodded to Sir Ian and the others. “Good night.” He turned towards the door, and Malcolm went to it with him, opened it, and preceded him on to the landing.

  Sir Ian did just say: “Good night,” but Harrison kept silent.

  Malcolm closed the door. A big chandelier, burning forty electriclamp bulbs, spread a soft glow about the white panelling, and the pictures which were worth a fortune. Grannett looked round with a kind of smile which wasn’t easy to understand, and said: “Oil and water don’t mix, that’s about the truth of it, Mr Munro.”

  “It was my idea that you should come here,” said Malcolm ruefully. “Just another of my mistakes. I’m sorry it turned out such a complete flop.”

  “The trouble with your father is that he’s still living fifty, years ago,” Grannett said. “It’s true of a lot of big employers, too. They don’t realise it, but we’re no longer in the days of unemployment and starvation wages and patronising owners, but in an age when a man insists on getting a fair wage for a fair day’s work. If you look at the output per man in the factory, Mr Munro, you’ll find that it’s higher than anywhere else in the motor car industry, and that’s a fact. You’ve got a lot of damned good workers, and they give the fair day’s work. They mean to have the rest of it fair, too.”

  They were nearly at the foot of the stairs.

  “I still hope we can put off a strike,” Malcolm said. “If we get one, I shall still feel that it was my fault.”

  Grannett turned to look at him, straightly.

  “Because of my brother? I shouldn’t worry about that any longer, Mr Munro. Oh, I was bitter about it at first, I don’t mind admitting, but I’ve seen more of you today, and I’ve also weighed things up a bit better. You lost your head once yesterday, and I lost mine later. Now we’ve both learned from the experience. There are just two men who stand in the way of the wage increase and good labour relations and record output. That’s your father and Colonel Harrison. If you and the others can’t make them see reason, don’t blame anyone else, Mr Munro.”

  They were standing in the hall when the front-door bell rang, almost as a climax to Grannett’s words. A door opened, not far off, but Malcolm didn’t wait for a servant to come: he opened the door himself.

  Roger West stood on the doorstep.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve even followed me here,” Grannett said, as if exasperated. “You can’t work night and day.”

  “Only until the job’s finished,” Roger said. “There have been more than enough tragedies in this affair to risk another.” He paused, but obviously had more to say, and the others waited. “Grannett, a man named Arthur Winn, a night-shift labourer in the Paint Shop, says you paid him and another man to round up the gang which attacked Mr Munro last night. Three, including Winn, attacked Mr Munro again later. What have you to say?”

  Grannett looked utterly dumbfounded.

  But it was neither he nor Malcolm Munro who spoke next: it was Harrison, who came rushing to the landing, calling out in a desperate voice.

  “Malcolm, fetch Dr Jeffrey! Your father’s been taken ill, don’t lose a moment.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Runaway

  Harrison stood at the top of the stairs, looking like a ghost.

  Grannett, still shocked, was in the front doorway. Roger was between him and the Divisional plain-clothes man watching the front of the house; there was another at the back. Malcolm turned to stare at Harrison as if he couldn’t believe what he said, but s
ight of the Works Manager must have convinced him. He swung round.

  “Doctor’s across the road,” he said, and pushed past Roger and ran. A street-light showed his disappearing figure, and a Yard man after him. Harrison moved away from the head of the stairs, while Grannett stood staring at Roger, his grey-green eyes still rounded as if in disbelief. It would be easy to believe that he had not realised what the shouting was about; that he could think only of Roger’s abrupt question.

  A woman’s voice sounded from the stairs: Tessa Lee’s.

  “Let me see if I can help.”

  Vaguely came Harrison’s voice: “He looks—dreadful.” Grannett gripped Roger’s arm, with fingers so powerful that the pressure hurt.

  “If Winn told you that, he lied.”

  “Do you know a Robert Pegnall?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s at the police station with Winn. They’ve been accused of the attack on Munro yesterday, and both say you paid them to do it.”

  Grannett said again: “It’s a lie, West,” but his voice trailed off.

  Upstairs, a man said: “It can’t be,” in a hopeless kind of way, and his voice carried only because all the doors were open.

  Torn between racing up to find out what had happened, and trying to judge the effect of the accusation on Grannett, Roger turned towards the plain-clothes man.

  “Wait here with Mr Grannett, will you? Grannett, I want to talk to you again before you go.” Roger turned and ran for the stairs, hearing the mutter of voices in a room which seemed to be on the left of the landing. He reached the open door. There was a kind of tableau, set in a frame of much beauty; fine bookcases, lovely pictures, wine-red velvet curtains, a richly coloured carpet, a coal fire with the firelight flickering on brandy glasses, on the polished furniture, and on Sir Ian, who was on the floor.

  Gathered about him were two men and the girl, all standing back, appalled. The old man’s back was arched, and he seemed to be touching the floor only with his head and his heels. His pupils were dilated so that his eyes looked staring and blank. There was only one explanation of that awful spasm, and Roger knew exactly what it was.

  Sir Ian had been poisoned with strychnine.

  The girl noticed Roger, and asked despairingly: “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Get boiling water ready, bowls and towels, prepare a bedroom quickly, and get a servant to find out if there’s any permanganate of potash in the house.” Roger spun round, and saw a landing window close to him, and lights some little way off, probably across the street. He opened the window, and the chilly night air struck cold against his forehead. Now he could see Malcolm standing against the light which streamed from a house nearly opposite; he could see the Yard man, too.

  He shouted: “Munro! Can you hear me?”

  There was a pause, but Munro swung round on the porch.

  “Monro!”

  “I can hear you!”

  “Tell the doctor to bring a strychnine antidote.”

  “What?”

  “A strychnine antidote!”

  “Got it!” Munro shouted, and turned and seemed to dive into the house across the road. The Yard man who had plunged after him was standing close by; a man to mark for future promotion, he was as close as Munro’s shadow. Roger wiped his forehead and turned round. He was ten yards from the door of the room where Sir Ian lay, and the light shone out, but he heard nothing. He reached the doorway, and saw the room empty except for Sir Ian, who seemed to be coming out of the convulsion. Where were the others? Roger glanced round and saw Harrison approaching. Then Sir Ian collapsed and lay flat on his back. He looked dreadful, although his pupils were contracted now.

  Roger went across and knelt by his side.

  “It’s all right,” he said very quiedy. “The doctor’s on his way, sir. You’ll be all right.”

  The old man, the dynamic old man, the founder and creator of Munro’s, the reactionary, the industrial visionary, the vigorous, forceful, dominating, and domineering old throwback, was weak and helpless. His eyes were half closed, as if he were going to lose consciousness; the pain had been dreadful beyond words, Roger knew, and during the spasm Munro had been fully conscious, of everything.

  “Do you know what you took?” Roger said. “Do you know if anyone gave you—”

  “Coff—ee,” Sir Ian said, in a sighing voice. “Very strong—coff—ee. Always take—saccharin. Did—didn’t sweeten properly, took—another. The—the doctor will be here soon, won’t he?” he pleaded.

  “Any moment now,” Roger said, and hated himself for going on: “Did anyone put anything into your coffee?”

  “Anyone?” asked Sir Ian, vaguely. His eyes closed. “Anyone? That Grannett man, he’s a devil. Mustn’t give way. Must hold out. Once we give way—”

  A cold breeze came into the room, as if the front door had opened and closed quickly; and almost on the instant the old man’s body quivered. His hands moved, he gripped Roger’s, he cried: “No more, can’t stand more, can’t—”

  And then the sound was strangled in his throat and he went into another convulsion, while men ran up the stairs.

  Tessa Lee stood in the doorway, carrying water and towels, appalled.

  The old man’s pupils were enormously dilated, he seemed to stare at Roger, as if pleading for a relief from pain.

  A small, grey man came hurrying, with a pad in his hand and a small blue bottle in the other. “Mind away.”

  “Sorry.” Roger moved. The sickly smell of chloroform came, suddenly overpowering, and made him gasp. He stood up. The doctor was pressing the pad over the old man’s mouth and nose, knowing exactly what he should do and doing it expertly. Gradually the convulsions eased, and the old man’s eyes closed gently.

  The doctor said: “We’ll do gastric lavage. Get me a big jug of warm water, boiled if possible.” He opened a small leather case which he’d dumped on the floor, and took out another small bottle. “Was it you who shouted for the antidote?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know what you’re about. Mix half a teaspoonful of this in a gallon of water, no more; make it a third of a teaspoonful. I’ll get the stomach pump.” He looked up at Tessa. “Need a big bowl or a bucket,” he said, and then saw Malcolm, who seemed utterly lost and alone in the doorway, his face set, his eyes staring at the limp figure of the father who was so close to death. “Help her,” the doctor ordered, as if he knew that the younger man needed something to do.

  The young couple went hurrying out.

  “Shouldn’t think there’s a chance in a thousand,” the doctor said to Roger. “If I’d had any sodium amytal I’d have brought it and tried an intravenous, but there’s none at the house, only at the surgery. Mind telling me who you are?”

  “I’m from Scotland Yard.”

  “Well, you’ve got a case on your hands,” said the doctor. “I’ll stake my last pound that Sir Ian wouldn’t commit suicide, and it certainly wasn’t an accident, so you’re looking for a murderer.”

  He talked as if Sir Ian was already dead.

  “Yes,” Roger said, and stirred the potassium permanganate briskly, having it ready as the girl and Malcolm Munro returned. “Must leave you to it,” he said then, and straightened up. As he reached the door, Malcolm stretched out a hand, appealingly.

  “Will he—?” he began.

  “I don’t think there’s much hope,” Roger said. “He was poisoned, almost certainly within the last hour. He said his coffee was very bitter tonight I’ll need to question everybody here.”

  “You’ll have a job,” Malcolm Munro said. “Harrison and Bob Amory have gone chasing after Grannett, with one of your chaps. Grannett took to his heels.”

  Roger went towards the landing and the stairs as fast as he had ever moved in his life.

  A few minutes before, Grannett had been standing in the hall with one Divisional detective, looking out into the garden, his stocky, powerful figure hunched, the porch light glinting on his narrowed eyes. He co
uld hear sounds above him, and could hear West’s voice, as plainly as if West was still speaking. On the drive was another detective, a biggish man.

  Grannett had hardly moved, even when he heard a cry from outside.

  That took him completely by surprise. The two detectives jerked their heads round as the cry was repeated, low-pitched but coming clearly to their ears. One of the detectives shone a torch, and a powerful beam of light shone out and then lost itself in the darkness, but it fell upon a man who began to move to one side.

  There were running footsteps from the house across the road. First, the doctor, then Malcolm Munro.

  Face set and hard, Grannett moved to let them pass as soon as they arrived. He saw the man outside draw nearer, and then caught a glimpse of him. It was Colonel Harrison, his ever-bright eyes shimmering.

  There was a gun in Harrison’s hand.

  A detective ordered: “Put that gun down at once.”

  Amory called out from behind Harrison: “Don’t be a fool, George! The police will handle Grannett.”

  For a split second, Harrison and Grannett stared at each other, and there was murder in the Works Manager’s eyes. Then Munro raced in on the heels of the doctor, and Harrison was cut off from Grannett’s view. Grannett swung round and ran towards a door at the side of the stairs, leading to the servants’ quarters. He heard a shout, and guessed that the detectives had started after him. He pulled the door open and entered a narrow, brightly lit passage. The door slammed behind him. He reached another doorway and a middle-aged woman stood gaping at him.

  “Where’s the back door?” Grannett asked swiftly. “Quick, where is it?”

  “Through—through there.” The woman pointed to a passage which turned right, off this. He sprang towards it. There was the back door, and a strong breeze was blowing along the passage. There were footsteps, then a detective’s voice, demanding: “Where did that man go?”

  Grannett reached the door. It was locked but not bolted or chained, and he turned the heavy key and pulled it wide open, on to darkness. He ran out on to a paved courtyard, and then light shone dimly from a window which he couldn’t see, and more shone farther afield, from a street-lamp. He could just make out shrubs, trees and bushes, and what looked like a high wall. If he made for the street he would have to run towards the front of the house, and Harrison. He heard footsteps; and then Amory calling again sharply: “George!”