Murder Must Wait (Department Z) Read online

  ‘What I was going to say,’ Mark resumed, ‘is that I propose we cut it. You can sprain your ankle or break a leg, and …’

  ‘Nice of you,’ murmured Michael. ‘Unhappily, I feel in the best of health, little one.’

  ‘Don’t call me little one!’

  ‘Touchy,’ mused Michael. ‘That’s a pity. You’re a month early, y’know. It’s September before you usually start agitating for something to do. But let me put on record here and now that I refuse to take part in any scheme for rehabilitating tramps …’

  ‘That was your crazy idea …!’

  ‘Or helping discharged prisoners—perhaps that was my idea? It cost me twenty-five quid and …’

  ‘It just didn’t work out as it should have done,’ snapped Mark. ‘And I found Pitcher, didn’t I?’

  Pitcher was their man, and undoubtedly Mark had found him—through the humdrum medium of a Domestic Agency. Pitcher was of a height with the cousins, but fat with it.

  ‘And,’ continued Mark, belligerently: ‘Hurlingham is off. Dammit, it’s nearly eighty in the shade already! And don’t talk to me about filial duties. I’ve had …’ He stopped, and his scowl gave way to an expression of almost seraphic content.

  ‘We will go,’ he announced, with an air of finality, ‘to Richmond, and take a boat out.’

  Mike stared.

  ‘Of all the crazy notions …!’

  ‘Let me remind you,’ Mark imitated his cousin’s drawl to excellent effect, ‘that we have entered into an agreement whereby we have alternative choices of occupations and amusements, and solemnly we have declared that each shall respect the other’s decision. You chose Brighton—Brighton!’—he shuddered— ‘last week-end. I choose Richmond, this.’

  Mike groaned. ‘So be it. But you, in a punt …! And I can’t swim …’

  ‘Let’s get off,’ Mark urged, suddenly full of energy. ‘Pitcher. Pitcher! Where the devil …?’

  ‘It’s his day off,’ murmured Mike.

  ‘It would be! Well, you ‘phone the pater that we can’t …’

  ‘Whoever chooses an occupation,’ intoned his cousin, with patent enjoyment, ‘makes all the arrangements. Proceed, old son.’

  Mark proceeded—and duly made excuses to a parent who was not noticeably surprised. The pair of them left 55c, Brook Street, collected their jointly-owned Talbot from its garage, and drove off—albeit unwittingly—into the service of that Department of British Intelligence known as Z.

  There are those who have never heard of Department Z, and very many have no idea that it is the ultra-secret section of our entire Intelligence Service. Even fewer are aware that while its director, Gordon Craigie, is as little-known as a permanent Under-Secretary, virtually nothing can happen in the capitals of the world which does not reach his ears with astonishing speed.

  Still less known is the large, ungainly-looking man named Loftus—William Loftus—who, at the time concerned, was leading active agent of the Department. Or of Ned Oundle, that spindly, spidery man with the improbably soulful-looking eyes, who acts as chief lieutenant to Bill Loftus.

  But it happened that they were both near Richmond …

  * * *

  ‘Well, old son?’ Mark demanded.

  ‘Not bad,’ drawled Mike, which was an admission.

  They were lounging at either end of a punt moored to a shady bank, close to the Old Deer Park. The lapping of water was music in their ears as they watched two swans make their majestic way down-river. It was cool: they had lunched well at a riverside pub, and their pipes were drawing smoothly. For Mark, it was a triumph.

  ‘No polo,’ he murmured, dreamily. ‘No noise. No baking in the Hurlingham heat. Above all, no …’

  ‘Women,’ Mike finished for him. They liked to be known as misogynists, although at times their behaviour hardly supported such a claim.

  ‘Let us be fair.’ Safe for the moment at least from feminine wiles, Mark could afford to be magnanimous. ‘They can be all right. I mean, some of them are quite good to look at—and I’ve known some intelligent …’

  ‘But never a combination.’

  ‘Agreed. Agreed!’ Mark repeated, more firmly. ‘Picture two here, right now. We’d have to make conversation, flatter them, feed them on chocolates, scrape out of a theatre tonight by the skin of our teeth. We’d—what the devil’s that?’

  ‘That’ was a loud, sharp noise, quite close at hand. The cousins sat up abruptly, and stared towards a nearby thicket. They could see nothing through the mass of willow branches, bramble and shrubs—but about their ears, that sharp report still echoed.

  ‘It sounded like a shot,’ Mark murmured.

  ‘Damn right it did.’ Cautiously, Mike eased himself forward. ‘It might have been a keeper …’

  ‘If it was a shot, it came from an automatic.’

  Mike continued to peer around, saying:

  ‘You could be right, but then, again, you could not. Listen!’

  A new sound was coming towards them. Slow, almost stealthy, and certainly strange. It seemed all wrong that anything so untoward should be happening in that peaceful spot. Yet something about the shot, and the furtive movements following it, filled them with a sense of uncertainty, almost of foreboding.

  And then a voice came: low-pitched, masculine.

  ‘Through here … steady with him …’

  ‘I can’t see out the back of my neck—mind his head!’

  ‘Don’t shout!’ snapped the first man. ‘Anyhow—’ a low-pitched chuckle which was not of humour—‘he won’t be needing his head again.’

  Mike looked at Mark, and the expression in his cousin’s eyes mirrored his own. The stealthy approach was clearer; they could hear bushes being pushed aside, hear the snapping of twigs and dry branches. The implications were clear enough. A shot, the talk of carrying a body …

  ‘There’s a gap …!’

  The Errols had contrived to reach the bank without making a noise. They could see, at the point where it met the river, the path along which the unseen men were coming. As they crept towards it, with the noise of approach growing closer, they heard the chug-chug-chug of a motor-launch further up the river. The chugging grew louder. The Errols cursed at the sound, which was muffling the movements of the men in the thicket.

  And then things happened, it seemed simultaneously.

  The launch came into sight, and made for the spot where the punt was moored. There was a man standing in it, a girl behind him, another man at the wheel. As it roared towards the bank the two men in the thicket, just visible now to the Errols, stopped in their tracks—and one swore.

  ‘By God—that’s Loftus!’

  There was a pause, a heavy thud—and then suddenly a man’s head appeared, face upwards. There was an ugly wound in his forehead, and he looked dead. At the same moment they heard a click—faint, almost insignificant—but to Mark and Michael Errol, ominous.

  The safety catch of an automatic?

  Mark chanced it. He moved—and Mike followed. As they burst through the undergrowth to the path, they saw a thick-set, grey-haired man with an automatic in his hand—which he was pointing towards the launch …

  Mark dived for his ankles in a perfect Rugby tackle, as Mike went for his taller companion.

  The gunman swore savagely as his shot went harmlessly into the water. Almost in the same moment, the gun flew from his grasp as he and his friend were brought crashing down together. But in the moment of success, came failure. A boot struck Mike under the chin, and he loosed his hold, stars whirling in his head.

  The tall man was up in a flash. With cold-blooded accuracy, he aimed a second, vicious kick at Mike’s head—and this time, Mike slumped down unconscious.

  Mark heard the launch cut out—and held on like grim death to his captive’s ankles. But he sensed the threat from the tall man, in time.

  As that vicious foot lashed out at him, he rolled sharply aside—then sprang up with the ease of a man in perfect trim, and cracked his
fist towards the other’s chin. He did not connect. The tall man moved his head a fraction of an inch—and sent a pile-driver to Mark’s stomach. Mark covered, but only partly avoided the blow, and he gasped. Then the tall man flashed his hand to his pocket, and Mark saw the glint of grey steel—

  He lunged for the man’s legs, as the shot came.

  The echo of it clattered about the thicket—but it hadn’t hit Mark. His opponent, obviously an expert in rough-and-tumble, kicked again at his head. Mark, unable to dodge it completely, almost went the way of his cousin. He was expecting a bullet at any moment; he heard the crackle of shots close by, but felt no hurt.

  Squinting through fractionally open lids, he caught a glimpse of a man—and darted out a hand as the fellow passed. There was a snuffled oath—and then a thud that seemed to shake the earth. Eyes gleaming, Mark scrambled up.

  What looked like a young mountain was on the ground at his side. But before Mark could realise what was happening, the mountain erupted—the man on the ground came upwards like a volcano, and nothing short of a Camera could have withstood his weight.

  Mark Wyndham Errol thudded into a tree.

  The man-mountain came after him, his huge fists clenched. Winded, aching, alarmed—but thankful that there seemed to be no gun—Mark steeled himself for the unavoidable knock-out as one great fist was aimed his way.

  Then:

  ‘Bill—that’s not him!’ came a woman’s voice.

  In the split second between the start of that punch and the woman’s cry, something quite unbelievable happened. The fist unclenched. Palm and fingers hit against Mark’s face—but spread widely to cushion the impact: buffeting him only, like a blow from a broom. At the same time, a deep voice roared:

  ‘Then where the devil …?’

  ‘That way …!’

  The big man swung round, and disappeared down the path. Gasping, bloody-faced and helpless, Mark stared at the woman who was hurrying towards him.

  Two women!

  Some minutes before Mark Errol had declared that some of the species could be quite good to look at—and assuredly, these were. One, slightly taller than the other, had the most glorious blue eyes, the loveliest corn-coloured hair imaginable. The other was as dark as the first was fair, very much smaller—almost petite—but of an equally dream-like loveliness.

  Neither was smiling.

  Mark gaped.

  Mike, coming round, groaned as he tried to move—then opened his eyes and looked up. He saw the visions, and his eyes opened wider.

  Suddenly from somewhere very close, there came the roar of a car engine. Even in their bemused state, the Errols heard the taller of the lovely women say:

  ‘They’ve gone—we’ve lost them!’

  And in her voice there was something akin to despair.

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  John Creasey

  Master crime fiction writer John Creasey’s 562 titles (or so) have sold more than 80 million copies in over 25 languages. After enduring 743 rejection slips, the young Creasey’s career was kickstarted by winning a newspaper writing competition. He went on to collect multiple honours from The Mystery Writers of America including the Edgar Award for best novel in 1962 and the coveted title of Grand Master in 1969. Creasey’s prolific output included 11 different series including Roger West, the Toff, the Baron, Patrick Dawlish, Gideon, Dr Palfrey, and Department Z, published both under his own name and 10 other pseudonyms.

  Creasey was born in Surrey in 1908 and, when not travelling extensively, lived between Bournemouth and Salisbury for most of his life. He died in England in 1973.

  ALSO IN THIS SERIES

  The Death Miser

  Redhead

  First Came a Murder

  Death Round the Corner

  The Mark of the Crescent

  Thunder in Europe

  The Terror Trap

  Carriers of Death

  Days of Danger

  Death Stands By

  Menace

  Murder Must Wait

  Panic!

  Death by Night

  The Island of Peril

  Sabotage

  Go Away Death

  The Day of Disaster

  Prepare for Action

  No Darker Crime

  Dark Peril

  The Peril Ahead

  The League of Dark Men

  The Department of Death

  The Enemy Within

  Dead or Alive

  A Kind of Prisoner

  The Black Spiders

  This edition published in 2016 by Ipso Books

  Ipso Books is a division of Peters Fraser + Dunlop Ltd

  Drury House, 34-43 Russell Street, London WC2B 5HA

  Copyright © John Creasey, 1939

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage

  Contents

  1Loftus Is Annoyed

  2Diana Woodward

  3Sea Scrap

  4Flat Fracas

  5Mixture—Not As Before

  6The Ring

  7Heroic Effort

  8A Gentleman of Commerce

  9Chez Diable

  10Discoveries

  11Mr Cunningham—Gentleman

  12Accident

  13Ordeal for Trale

  14The Nursing Home

  15Village Visit

  16Ingenuity of Martin Best

  17Buried—Dead or Alive?

  18People at Lakka

  19Cunningham Laughs

  20Last Effort

  21Last Word