Prepare for Action Page 4

  Meanwhile, Lannigan was talking into the telephone to a man he often spoke of as ‘he’. The man had a deep, resonant voice, and a bluff, hearty manner, evident even over the telephone. He heard Lannigan’s report, and then said heartily:

  ‘You tried, old fellow, you did your best. Perhaps he’ll come to see you. Don’t forget, get all you can from him.’

  ‘Can I come to see you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said the hearty voice with all the goodwill in the world. ‘You will be careful, won’t you? I am not anxious to be brought into the limelight at this interesting stage!’

  ‘I can handle anyone who follows me,’ said Lannigan. ‘I’ll be with you in half an hour.’

  He replaced the receiver, picked up his hat, and hurried into Queen Street. He saw no one, not even Mike Errol, for Mike was standing in a porch where he was hidden from Lannigan, waiting until the man had turned the corner before following.

  6

  Lannigan Suggests

  Mike did not think that his quarry knew that he was being followed. He trailed Lannigan to a house in Chelsea, some miles away from Ainsworth’s flat; Mike reached the house and began to learn all he could about its owner or tenant, in exactly the same way as he had inquired about Lannigan.

  He felt annoyed when he heard that the owner’s name was ‘Smith’.

  Mr. Smith was sitting in a luxurious armchair in a luxurious room in a luxurious house. He was not a large man, but comfortably built, displaying an embonpoint which he made no effort to disguise. He smiled often and very widely, showing too many teeth. His sleek black hair, slightly streaked with white, was brushed straight back from his forehead. Surrounded by modern but expensive furniture, with some good water-colours on the beige coloured walls, his feet resting on the thick pile of a plain Indian carpet, his beringed hand holding a glass towards a decanter of whisky and a soda syphon on a small table by his side, he beamed into Lannigan’s face:

  ‘Now, my friend, what startling idea has smitten you? What can have entered your mind which you cannot say into a telephone?’

  ‘Sooner or later we’ve got to look after Ainsworth, and it seems to me that it ought to be sooner. If he gets the wrong ideas, he might cause trouble.’

  ‘I had considered that, Lannigan.’

  ‘How are we going to do it?’

  ‘A way will be found,’ said Smith.

  ‘Listen to me,’ said Lannigan intently. ‘Rita called on Ainsworth, and from all accounts they had a shouting match. When she came back she talked about killing him. There was a woman in the opposite flat who heard, and probably saw, her. She—Rita—scratched and marked Ainsworth’s face. She’s been separated from him for years, but he can still make her red-mad with jealousy. Supposing, then, that she has a fit of jealousy and kills him? We can fix it. We can fix a suicide for her, too, or let the police have her—it won’t make much difference either way. If the police have her, we can help them enough to make them think we’re on the level. How does it sound?’

  ‘Not perhaps original, but it’s an idea certainly. We shall need to kill Ainsworth without making a mystery about it, and a jealous wife can provide a motive which will satisfy most people, as well as the authorities. We shall need a little more time, while you work on Ainsworth.’

  ‘Give him three days,’ said Lannigan. ‘That ought to be enough. I’ll send Rita out with some of the others this evening, and they can get her tight. I’ll fix it that Ainsworth crops up in conversation—I’ll tie his name up with someone else. If she’s drunk, she’ll lead off the way she did to me, and there’ll be all the evidence we want that she talked of killing him.’

  Smith regarded him fixedly for some seconds, and then threw back his head and laughed.

  ‘My dear Lannigan! Such artistic fervour; you really are invaluable! Proceed with this little drama of yours.’

  ‘Right, I’ll fix it.’ He paused, and then asked: ‘How are the other things going, Mr. Smith?’

  ‘Very well, Lannigan, very well indeed. I have an interview this evening with Sir Edmund. Ah! The great Sir Edmund!’ Smith’s beam disappeared, his face took on an expression of pretentious authority, and his voice deepened. ‘I insist, sir, I insist on a full explanation, here and now!’ He broke off, and laughed.

  ‘Quayle to a T,’ admitted Lannigan admiringly.

  ‘Not Quayle. Sir Edmund!’

  Lannigan left the house soon afterwards, and Mike Errol faithfully followed him back to Bayswater. Mike stayed near the house for some two hours. At five o’clock Rita Ainsworth walked quickly along the street and entered the house. Soon afterwards the large man walked amiably along the road, winking deliberately at Mike as he passed. Mike sauntered after him, and they stopped when they were round the corner, but in a position where they could keep the house under surveillance.

  ‘Well, what happened?’ demanded Mike.

  ‘I had a good tea, Mike, a very good tea,’ said Martin Best. ‘We’ve a date at the Cherry Club tonight, old boy, what about that?’

  Mike eyed him in wonderment.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it! But she might give us something interesting, so keep the date.’

  Their relief, in the shape of two youthful-looking men, came just before half-past five. Best went off without passing 51a again, while Mike sauntered past the house without glancing up at it. Those who had taken his place did not see any movement at any of the windows and assumed that he had gone unobserved.

  Mike hurried to Brook Street and Loftus’s flat. When Mike had finished his report, Loftus said: ‘So now we have to find more about Lannigan and Smith.’

  ‘Smith my hat!’ exclaimed Mike.

  ‘Some people are entitled to the name,’ protested Loftus. ‘We’ll get some photographs tonight, and I’ll arrange for some of Lannigan and Smith. Now, about Regina. I’ve been thinking that it will be wise if you don’t go to the Chelsea flat. If Lannigan is interested in Ainsworth, and he is, he might recognise you. She’ll have to be looked after, but I don’t think you’re the man for the job at the moment. Sorry.’ He smiled, and Mike scowled but raised no further objection. ‘I wish we knew how deep this business was,’ Loftus went on. ‘I’ve combed that diary through and found little, except mention of three people who appeared to annoy Regina’s father nearly as much as Quayle did. He didn’t know them at the office, but saw them sometimes in the evening.’

  ‘Am I seeing them?’ asked Mike.

  ‘One of them,’ corrected Loftus. ‘I’ve arranged with Regina for you to go through the contents of the box, and the man her father didn’t like lives on the outskirts of Radstock. He’s a Colonel Thomas Ratcliffe. He owns some shares in a colliery company there, and you can offer him another five thousand, at par. It will look as if you’re a stockbroker’s tout.’

  ‘Can do,’ agreed Mike, a little lugubriously.

  ‘There’s a train about half-past seven in the morning. I think I’ll have someone else at the Cherry Club to watch Rita Ainsworth,’ Loftus continued, ‘so you can sleep in peace.’

  ‘Bill, you’re putting something across me. Everything was fixed up too smartly when I brought Regina along. What is behind it?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mike. I didn’t know then. All I do know is that we had a note in the records that some papers which Regina’s father was preparing before he died were “lost” for three days after his death. We just had that, and no more. When you telephoned the other evening, we looked up Brent’s record, and found it. Add that to the fact that we’ve been interested in Quayle, and his assistants, for some months, and you have as much as any of us know. We can’t find what Quayle is doing, and we’re not even sure that he’s doing anything. But it’s a case we must work on, especially since Regina was followed by Lannigan, and Lannigan is interested in Ainsworth’s wife. As she’s been separated from Ainsworth for a long time, the most likely reason for her visit is one prompted by Lannigan.’

  ‘You’re a plausible beggar! Where’s Craigie?�
�

  ‘At Number 10.’

  ‘What’s brewing? Anything about this show?’

  ‘No. Hammond and Wally came back from France this afternoon, with some news about one or two of the hot-spots there, and they want a full report at Downing Street. Hammond’s with Gordon, telling the tale.’ To neither of them did it seem remarkable that two agents had been to Occupied France and back within forty-eight hours, for it was a normal enough thing for Craigie’s men. ‘The only way it affects us,’ added Loftus, ‘is that Hammond’s back sooner than we expected, and when he’s had a good night’s sleep he can have a look at the Quayle end.’

  Mike nodded, and left the flat to go to his own, only a few doors away.

  • • • • •

  Loftus was pouring himself out a drink when he heard a key scrape in the lock of the door. With a smile he stood up, and was taking another bottle of beer from the cabinet when Craigie and Hammond entered.

  ‘You’re just in time,’ he greeted them.

  ‘Good,’ said Hammond, but there was a lack of heartiness in his voice which made Loftus look up abruptly.

  Hammond was a ‘brown’ man. He was dressed in brown, his hair and his eyes were brown, his moustache, cut close but covering all of his upper lip, was of the same nut-brown colour. As Loftus’s successor as leader of the active list of the Department’s agents, he was doing an admirable job.

  Loftus unscrewed the stopper, and said quietly:

  ‘Now what’s the trouble?’

  ‘What isn’t the trouble?’ asked Hammond. Larger than Craigie but smaller than Loftus, he walked with a lithe, easy step, and sat leisurely on the corner of the desk. ‘I haven’t wanted a drink so much in years. Here’s how.’ He drained his tankard, put it on a newspaper, and thrust both hands deep in his pockets.

  Then Craigie said:

  ‘It’s just possible that what we’ve heard is connected with Quayle. If it is, we haven’t long to work in, Bill.’

  ‘How long?’ asked Loftus quickly.

  ‘A fortnight,’ interpolated Hammond slowly. ‘A fortnight at the most, and we want six months.’

  Craigie said quietly: ‘That’s not a joke, Bill. Bruce and Wally brought some papers back from France. They were in code, and they were deciphered between the time that we left here and went to Number 10. They prove conclusively that Vichy has been bartering with Berlin, giving details and advance information about our Commando raids on the French coast. They account for the strong opposition we’ve had recently. Since there’s a leakage about the raids, it’s possible there’s a bigger one, concerning our plans for a general invasion of the Continent. There hasn’t been a more serious leakage of information during the war.’

  7

  Ainsworth Is Confidential

  Loftus did not alter his expression except to draw his brows together in a deeper frown.

  ‘I’m trying to see why we’ve only a fortnight,’ he said. ‘If the leakage is working now, news of anything we’ve planned for fourteen days hence has reached the other side, so it will have to be cancelled.’

  Craigie said quietly:

  ‘It’s complicated, Bill. Roughly, this is the position. We’ve a man in Vichy who sees these reports when they get through. A code-message from him dated last night says that no report of any immediate operation has reached French headquarters. It comes from this country, and we might be able to check it.’

  Loftus half-closed his eyes.

  ‘Let me get this straight. Vichy is getting hold of super-super confidential dope about our raids. Surely, then, the present invasion plans will have to be altered.’

  ‘Plans are now well advanced,’ said Craigie slowly. ‘Some of our people are over there at this moment. A big percentage of the underground movement in France is already prepared. True, they can be stopped, but if they are, it means the end of invasion hopes for this year, and another winter might give Germany time to get together again. Does that make it easier to understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Loftus. ‘But I don’t see how the “fortnight” comes into it. This information might be on the way to Vichy now.’

  ‘It’s not likely,’ said Craigie. ‘We’ve been told that the news generally arrives twelve hours, neither more nor less, before the projected attack. The reason for that isn’t obscure. There’s a release of the plans about fifteen hours before the raids take place—a general release to all commands involved. As soon as they’re sent round, someone hocks them to Vichy. As the big attack isn’t coming off for fourteen days, the probability is that a similar process will work there.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Loftus doubtfully. ‘When you say invasion in a fortnight, do you really mean it?’

  ‘The official version is a large-scale raid and a prelude to invasion if general conditions are suitable.’

  ‘So we’re really getting down to it,’ said Loftus slowly. ‘Well, well.’ He drew deeply on his cigarette, and regarded Hammond with a crooked smile. ‘You’ve unearthed something this time, Bruce! Who’s going to look after the Vichy end?’

  ‘I’m sending Tallboys over tonight. He’ll contact Stewart, who sent the message, and they’ll keep an eye on Vichy and what happens there. If the information gets through they’ll be able to send a warning and we can arrange a last-minute cancellation. Hershall agrees that it’s the only line to take.’

  ‘I can imagine that the P.M. doesn’t like it,’ said Loftus reflectively. ‘It’s a wonder he hasn’t stamped over here and started telling us what to do.’

  ‘He said he’d be over,’ said Craigie.

  Loftus and Hammond looked along Brook Street, and suddenly they stiffened, for a small party of men turned the corner. The leader was a man of medium height, with rounded, packed shoulders and a broad, pale face. Jutting from his lips was a cheroot, which gave him a formidable, aggressive air. He wore a round hat, and carried a walking-stick which he swung vigorously.

  Behind him were two well-dressed men whom Loftus knew to be members of the Special Branch at Scotland Yard.

  Hammond glanced at the big man, smiling.

  ‘So you were right, and here he is,’ he said.

  ‘Ye-es.’ Loftus glanced in the other direction. ‘There are times when I wish he wouldn’t wander about so carelessly as he does. Think what a man with a machine-gun could do!’

  ‘Why think about it?’ demanded Hammond.

  ‘Force of habit,’ said Loftus shortly.

  He continued to look about the street, and Hammond followed his example, while the Rt. Hon. Graham Hershall, Prime Minister of Great Britain, stamped along the pavement, energy, decision and urgency in every movement.

  A car turned the corner of the road. Loftus and Hammond peered towards it, but for a moment they said nothing. The car gathered speed, and both men saw a movement at the near-side window. It was no more than a movement of something on which the slanting rays of the evening sun glistened.

  Hammond moved fast. His right hand went to his pocket, his left elbow cracked against the window pane. The report of breaking glass echoed high and loud about the street, and Hershall glanced upwards in surprise. Hammond leaned out of the window with an automatic in his right hand, while Loftus bellowed in a voice which carried for half a mile;

  ‘Get down, Hershall! Get down!’

  Hershall hesitated for no more than a split second, and then flung himself forward. Behind him, one of the Special Branch men did the same thing. The other snatched a gun from his pocket.

  Hammond fired towards the car.

  At the same moment a spray of bullets from a tommy-gun swept the pavement, the staccato tapping loud and clear. The roar of Hammond’s gun, as he fired four times, drowned the lesser note. Loftus, unable to move swiftly because of his leg, had to stand and watch.

  He saw the policeman who had drawn a gun fall headlong. He saw the little clouds of dust and chippings from road and sidewalk going into the air as a bullet struck not an inch from Hershall’s feet. He heard shrieking and
shouting from the far end of Brook Street, and saw the car slew to one side, a rear wheel punctured by Hammond’s bullet.

  By then Loftus also had a gun out.

  The car lurched sickeningly, while Hammond climbed through the window, lowered himself, and then dropped to the pavement. As he fell, Loftus saw that the driver of the car was getting control again, and in spite of the flat tyre was going at speed.

  The driver turned the car towards Hershall.

  Hammond steadied himself on the pavement not twenty feet from the car and only five or six from Hershall. He knew that nothing could save the Prime Minister if the car continued on its path, and he ran forward, firing at the driver. His bullets passed through a small gap in the window, and he saw the man sprawl forward; but the car did not change its course.

  It did slow down.

  The man with the tommy-gun at the back had lost his hold, but regained it then. He trained the gun on Hammond, but before he fired Loftus fired twice. One of the bullets knocked the snout of the machine-gun aside, the other struck the gunman in the shoulder.

  Hammond reached the car.

  The window was only half down, but he pushed his hand through, and when he exerted pressure the gap widened. He leaned forward and gripped the steering wheel, jammed into position by the weight of the driver, who had fallen against it. Hammond forced it round; the car altered its direction, and the engine stalled.

  Half in and half out of the car, Hammond could not see what was happening.

  Loftus and Craigie, who was at the front door by then, saw Hershall scramble to his feet while the car still moved towards him, and back away. The Special Branch man, who had also gone down, deliberately jumped in front of Hershall to take the first shock of the crash if the car came on. But Hershall was out of danger a split-second before Hammond turned the wheel.

  Craigie stayed in the doorway.

  By then a hundred people were in Brook Street, some standing and staring, others running. Police whistles were shrilling out, the heavy stamp of feet was thundering in the air.