The Terror Trap Read online

  All three were men.

  One was young, and ironically enough had celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday on the night of the murder—if it is possible for a man to celebrate anything, when constantly in fear of death. Actually, he had ended the night blind drunk and awakened with a hangover which threatened to last all day—until he saw the morning papers.

  In common with one of the other men, he knew nothing about John Brent’s death until later in the day. But the Press had been swiftly on the scene at seventeen, Brake Street. Fordham had been news when alive; his sudden death made headlines in every newspaper.

  The headlines differed in emphasis, but were pithily informative. Any casual reader could have learned that a middle-aged financier, whose marriage to the only daughter of a European Royal house had caused as much sensation only weeks before, had been murdered.

  He had been shot with a large-bore revolver, he had died instantaneously, and the police held important clues.

  The three men learned these things, thus:

  In the first twenty-four years and nine months of his life, Richard James Lavis had known nothing of fear, hardship or anxiety. In the three months leading up to his twenty-fifth birthday, he had known more than his share of fear and anxiety, although he was still rich enough to live luxuriously.

  Three months before Fordham’s death, Dick Lavis had received a simple threat. It had run:

  “Resign from Granton’s—or you’ll die.”

  He was neither a fool nor a coward, and had laughed at the threat—until someone pushed him in front of a through train at an underground station. By a miracle, he had fallen on his feet and managed to leap clear of the train without touching the live-wire. The next morning, he had received a second threat, worded exactly as the first. Being no fool, he had gone immediately to Scotland Yard, and had been given police protection. It had saved him; he knew that. But twice his life had been attempted, and after each escape he had received the same note:

  “Resign from Granton’s—or you’ll die.”

  The burly, rather floury-looking Superintendent in charge of his case spoke bluntly, after the third escape.

  “We’re doing all we can, Mr. Lavis, but I’m being honest—we can’t guarantee anything. The man behind these letters means business. We haven’t found who he is, and we haven’t caught any one of the men who’ve tried to—kill you.” Superintendent Miller didn’t believe in mincing words. “But we do know three different men have tried, and that makes us realise there’s something pretty big behind it. I don’t like it. If you take my advice, you’ll resign from Granton’s.”

  Dick Lavis had a pleasant face, rather haggard by that time, and dogged grey eyes.

  “I’m damned if I will!”

  Miller had smiled dour approval.

  “Well then, Mr. Lavis—tell me: you have no idea at all why anyone should want you to resign from Granton’s?”

  Lavis had shrugged.

  “No more than I’ve told you. I’m against selling out to the Cropper-Gordon group. But then, so are three others.”

  “And they haven’t been threatened,” Miller had ruminated. He had heard this before, and knew the names of all the directors of Granton’s Collieries, Limited, of which Lavis was one. None of them seemed even remotely capable of attempting murder. Not that Miller was put off by appearances: he had tried hard to find a case against each of the directors in turn, but had failed completely.

  “No,” Lavis had agreed, tiredly.

  Towards the end of the three months, he had fortified himself with drink, to keep his courage up. He could not have said why he was so stubbornly refusing to resign from Granton’s: it was a constant drain on his resources, for the firm was losing money heavily. Yet some streak of obstinacy made him hold on—until that bullet had sent his hat flying, on the morning of his birthday. After that, his courage had dropped to zero and his drink-intake had soared.

  So he had wakened the next day with a head that seemed to be filled with kicking horses, and a tongue like a rasp. He hardly knew how he dressed; hardly knew how he had dragged himself to the bathroom for his shower. When the maid brought his breakfast and the post, he felt a terrible, gripping fear rise up in him. As he sorted through the letters with fingers that trembled, the maid asked:

  “Are you all right, Mr. Lavis? Shall I—?”

  “Yes, yes. I’m all right. Please go—just go!”

  The maid had gone, but she was worried. Lavis was an even-tempered employer; such an outburst meant something was wrong. But then, of course something was wrong. Wasn’t the new footman just a policeman? Weren’t there plain clothes men on guard night and day, back and front of the house—right here in familiar, respectable Hampstead? The maid was beginning to feel nervous, like the rest of the staff.

  It was Lavis’ house. He was parentless and lived there with an aunt, who was innocuous enough, if a trial to the servants. He had frequently thought of leaving the place and taking a West End flat, but kept putting it off. He was rich enough to do what he liked, so rarely did anything.

  White-faced, he had stood that morning by the table as the letters dropped from his fingers. Circulars... letters from friends... bills.... Was it there? The threat? His hands steadied a little.

  It wasn’t there! The familiar small, square white envelope with its stark, black, printed address, was missing. For the first time since the threats had started, a reminder had not arrived after his escape.

  Tensely, he slit all the envelopes and checked the contents. No, it wasn’t there. He drew a deep breath, and walked to the window—then jerked back. God! He couldn’t even train himself to do as Miller had told him—keep away from the windows, or at least approach them cautiously.

  He did so, now, and saw the solid figure of a detective pacing up and down the street. It gave him some slight feeling of security. At least he wasn’t completely alone, helpless.

  Lavis wasn’t handsome. But a few months before, his eyes had been carefree, his lips ever ready to part in a smile of sheer good nature.

  Now, he seldom smiled. His lips were compressed, a scowl darkened his face, shadows lurked in his eyes. But he was still lean, young, dogged—and very likeable.

  He drank another cup of tea, brooded for a moment, then decided to go and see Miller, at Scotland Yard. Perhaps something had turned up, he told himself as usual. He had either been to the Yard, or telephoned, every morning. Disappointment after disappointment didn’t depress him long enough to prevent his inquiry, next day.

  As he dressed, he glanced at the three papers, still folded on his bed. He rarely read any of them, these days—he hadn’t the patience. But as half of a headline caught his eye, he stiffened. Stretching forward, he pulled the paper open. The headline seemed to shout at him.

  * * *

  RICHARD FORDHAM MURDERED

  FINANCIER FOUND DEAD IN FLAT

  * * *

  “God!” gasped Lavis. “My god!”

  He collapsed on to the bed. His blood seemed to run cold as the two words echoed through his mind, again and again.

  Fordham murdered. Fordham murdered.

  Lavis, without knowing how, knew why.

  For since his last talk with Miller, two of the Granton Company’s directors who had stuck out against selling to the Cropper-Gordon group—had given way. Only two had remained, to fight the sale.

  The other had been Richard Fordham.

  Now, only Lavis was left....

  Before the sale could be effected, the directors would have to vote unanimously. Unanimously. And he was the only dissentient, now.

  * * *

  Sir Joseph Granton was nearly three times as old as Richard Lavis—who had been known to say that Sir Joseph applied the principles he had used in eighteen-eighty to running Granton’s, in nineteen thirty-six.

  But Lavis was not alone in ascribing to its chairman, in some measure at least, the blame for Granton’s failure. Sir Joseph had been short-sighted. He had lost the company hund
reds of thousands in the Italo-Abyssinian war, through selling to buyers who could never pay for coal. There were other things, but that had done more than anything else to bring Granton’s to the brink of bankruptcy.

  Sir Joseph was a tall, benevolent-looking man: white-bearded, gentle, slightly deaf. He was no fool, but he was obstinate. He had built Granton’s up, and thought he knew just how to keep it up. He didn’t, of course, and three months before Fordham’s death he had been forced to admit they couldn’t carry on.

  He was not unduly worried. It was a pity, but who could have foretold the terrible financial chaos of the past few years? Other, older firms than Granton’s had gone in the smash. No man could work miracles.

  Blandly, he had proposed to the board that Granton’s should sell out, to Cropper-Gordon’s. The bigger company had absorbed several smaller ones, of late, and the offer was good—good enough, at least, for Sir Joseph. A little puzzled, a little indignant, he had realised the rest of the board wasn’t with him. But by dint of argument to support his claim that the position was hopeless, he had brought over all but four of the dissentients.

  It didn’t matter to Sir Joseph that he was selling Granton’s for—in effect—a song. It didn’t worry him that the Cropper-Gordon group, both by undercutting and at times more dubious methods, had helped in the ruin of Granton’s. He didn’t agree that the Company should go into voluntary liquidation, and call in the official receiver to settle its affairs. No—sell now, he told them: sell while they could.

  With the obstinacy of a man who has always had his own way, Sir Joseph refused to budge. First one dissentient gave way; then a second. That left Fordham—he couldn’t understand Fordham, the man was supposed to be such a wizard—and Lavis. Lavis, Sir Joseph thought, would be easily won over. Fordham was the problem.

  That refrain echoed frequently in the old knight’s mind, and it was echoing that morning, as he took his tea and papers from his valet.

  “Thank you, Dobson—dammit, Gulliver. I’ll be down at eight-thirty.”

  “Very good, sir. Good morning, sir.”

  Gulliver was comparatively new. Dobson his predecessor, had died two years ago, after attending Sir Joseph for forty years.

  Now, Sir Joseph sipped his tea, and opened his paper.

  Then stared. Tea slopped from his cup on to the white coverlet. He didn’t notice it.

  “Bless my soul,” he muttered. “It can’t be! Fordham, of all people. What a terrible thing!”

  And, sixty seconds later:

  “Well—it’s sad. Just married, too. But he won’t be in the way of the sale, now, poor fellow. And we won’t have much trouble with young Lavis—obstinate young idiot!”

  If he could have seen Dick Lavis, that morning, he would have realised the truth of that prediction.

  * * *

  The third man knew of the death of John Brent. The third man was Craigie, of that little-known Whitehall institution known, for convenience, as Department Z. Seated in his office which at that early hour looked more like a bedroom, for Craigie frequently slept there—he read the official reports of the murders, which had been sent him from Scotland Yard.

  The Hampshire police had had no option but to call in the Yard, for Mary Brent’s story had been told, and Fordham was dead, killed very much in the same way as John Brent. So much, the reports told Craigie.

  Craigie was grey-haired and looked sixty, although actually he was forty-nine. There were deep lines at the corners of his eyes, deeper ones about his drooping lips. He looked gaunt and tired, the first due to his beaked nose and pointed chin; the second to his reading of the murder reports.

  Suddenly he stood up and stretched. A light gleamed in his eyes, and as he reached out a lean, blue-veined hand for his pipe, he seemed years younger. Anyone who knew Craigie well would have realised he had reached a decision—and the decisions of Gordon Craigie were apt to be far-reaching. For he was in fact the leader of that peculiarly intangible organisation known as British Intelligence—or, if you prefer it, the Secret Service. No man could have shouldered the troubles Gordon Craigie had borne without looking, at times, years older than he was.

  A gentleman who had suffered from the Department’s activities, and therefore disliked Craigie, had once called his agents a set of glorified policemen. There was certainly a very high degree of co-operation between Craigie’s men and the police. Department agents did indeed, at times, take upon themselves the more onerous duties of Yard men—who, without exception, they admired.

  But in the ordinary way, crime was a matter for the police, and Craigie was satisfied to leave it at that. Crime which either had international complications, or was likely to have, was a different matter and immediately became the business, also, of the Department. Many affairs had started innocently enough (from the international outlook) and developed unpleasantly, as those who have read other books about Department Z’s activities will know.*

  The murder of John Brent by itself would not have interested Craigie. The murders of Brent and Fordham, and their obvious connection, did. Fordham was a financier of no small standing, and many of his recent manipulations had covered a wide area of Europe. His murder was certainly a matter for Intelligence.

  Craigie had just finished a job that had tired him, physically and mentally. He had been looking forward to a few weeks’ rest, or at least an easing of pressure, and had been depressed when the Fordham affair came up. But gradually he had thawed, and now he was ready to grapple with whatever might arise.

  So Gordon Craigie smiled, as he had often smiled before, and looked at his watch. It was half-past eight.

  “If Burke isn’t up,” he said to himself, “he ought to be.”

  And he walked across the room, and picked up the telephone.

  3

  WORK FOR BURKE

  Just an hour before Craigie lifted the telephone to call him, Jim Burke had climbed from his Talbot outside a small, delightful Elizabethan cottage in Surrey, and walked smilingly towards the gate.

  When he was smiling, Burke looked handsome. When he wasn’t, his face held a wooden expression that made many think him dull and detracted from his rather good features. He was a big man, six-feet-two and broad-shouldered to match, and he walked with the easy stride of a man in the pink of condition.

  Standing twenty yards from the cottage, he looked up at the latticed windows. They were wide open, but the flowered curtains were drawn, by which Burke judged the inmates were still in bed. He glanced at his watch: seven-thirty. With a grin, he stooped down and collected a handful of small pebbles.

  He tossed the first stone up to the window, and it tinkled against the glass. Nothing else happened. Untroubled, Burke waited a minute, enjoying the lovely autumn morning.

  The early mist had almost gone, leaving only a faint haze in the hollow beyond the cottage. A yellow sun was sending its warm rays across the grass of the lawn, waking the flowers from their night’s sleep. A bed of Californian poppies beneath the front room window was the first to open wide and welcome its warmth, but the marigolds were awake, soon, in all their golden glory. In the single ash standing sentinel on the dew-bathed lawn, a blackbird perked its head on one side as if examining the intruder; the sun very bright on its yellow beak.

  In the distant woods autumn was beginning to paint the leaves in a thousand tints. The mist was thicker there; a deep, bluish haze. Somewhere in the hills, a village nestled: the white stone of its church tower shone in the sun.

  Burke turned away from contemplation, and tossed another pebble up. It tinkled, but still nothing happened. He tried a third, without results.

  “All right, young lady,” he murmured. Moving a foot to the right, he took more careful aim and tossed a pebble into the room. He heard it hit the floor, and bounce.

  There was a response, this time. He heard a vague rustling, followed by a slight thud and a muttered ‘damn’.

  Smiling, he waited. The curtains were pulled aside at last. A dark, prettily disordere
d head appeared, and a pair of sleepy blue eyes in a face Burke thought perfect blinked down at him.

  “I hope I didn’t disturb you,” he laughed.

  “Jim! You idiot!” The girl’s sleepiness vanished and she laughed back. “You unholy brute! Barging down here and—”

  “Shhh!” Burke teased. “Language like that on a morning fit for the gods. And am I hungry!”

  “There’s a café along the road,” said Patricia Carris, sweetly. Then laughed again. “Oh, don’t worry—I’ll be down in a second.”

  “Not soon enough,” said Burke.

  “It’ll have to be,” Patricia withdrew her head, then popped it out again. “Jim—there’s nothing the matter?”

  There was anxiety in her voice. She had seen Burke go, many times: she was always afraid, when he left her, that he would never come back. But the warmth of his voice reassured her.

  “No, nothing—yet. Hurry, darling.”

  Moments later, the door of the cottage opened and Patricia stood on the threshold. She was wrapped in a dressing-gown of softly-glowing silk and her feet were thrust into ridiculously pretty mules.

  “Come in, idiot,” she invited. “You know the kitchen—you can start getting breakfast.”

  “Anything to oblige,” said Burke. “Where’s Martha?”

  “Still asleep,” said Patricia, pointedly, and Burke grinned. “What made you come?”

  “You,” he told her simply, and meant it. “I thought you’d like a canter. I’m free, this morning.”

  “Divine,” said Patricia. “Just give me ten minutes. And you’d better boil eggs—they’ll be safer than bacon!”

  As she ran up the oak stairs and disappeared from view, he strolled into the kitchen and set some eggs to boil. Then as he began to cut bread and butter, his thoughts turned to Patricia.

  How long ago was it, since he had first met her? Six—nearly seven months? It must be—yet he seemed to have known her all his life. He frowned suddenly, remembering the affair that his meeting with her had started* God, but it was good to see her like this—cheerful, smiling, without those haunting shadows in her eyes.