24

The Beacon

Olivia was not hurt.

She did not exclaim when she saw him.

She just stood there, quite still, her fists clenched as if to strike the door again. Her beautiful, violet-blue eyes bright with tears of relief as she whispered:

‘You … all right! Oh, you’re all right!’

‘Yes.’ Garth nodded, reaching her: holding her, hardly knowing what he was saying. ‘Olivia, I … look! Wait here … please. Don’t move out of this room!’

He held her only a moment longer, then pulled himself free and ran out. Back in the room where ‘Brown’ had disappeared, he tried the far door again. Then turned as he heard steps behind him … the Errols: apparently unhurt, but with faces blackened and clothes torn and dishevelled.

‘All right,’ murmured Mike, and Garth stood aside as he levelled an automatic and fired three times at the lock.

The door sagged open.

The Errols reached the room beyond ahead of Garth, who saw Mark step over a little man stretched out on the floor.

It was Washington. His hands and feet were tied together, but he was conscious, and he jerked his head sharply to indicate a small staircase which led from another door.

Garth followed the Errols, but to no purpose. There was no sign of ‘Brown’: no indication of what way of escape he had taken.

They hurried back to the hall below, Mike leading the way down the stairs. The last few treads were damaged, so he leapt them. Beyond him, as he followed suit, Garth saw a scene of unparalleled horror.

The centre of the hall had disappeared.

Three men were lying against the wall, unconscious and badly injured. The girl from the river was bending over one of them. There was blood on the walls, the ceiling and what was left of the floor—blood and worse. Garth surveyed the scene with a sudden nausea.

How many had been killed he wondered? Hammond had been right there ... Hammond....

No! Hammond was there! Standing by the front door, obviously unhurt.

Later, Garth was to learn that it was his own shouted warning which had saved Hammond from injury or worse: he had flung himself backwards, jerking one of the Department men with him through the sitting-room doorway.

There had not been time to pull Ryall or his party out of the way.

‘We can’t get across there,’ Mike Errol pointed out, stopping short at the great, jagged hole in the floor. The ceiling was completely down and part of each wall sagged inwards. ‘See you at the door, Bruce!’ he called.

Hammond raised a hand in acknowledgement.

Garth went with Mike Errol to meet him. The front door itself was badly marked, and debris was strewn about the front garden. Hammond’s face was set, but he forced a smile as he recognised Garth.

‘Hallo!’ he said warmly. ‘Glad you’ve got through. Nice work!’

‘It wasn’t Washington,’ Garth said, wryly.

‘We know that now. We’ve been learning quite a lot. Washington is a Federal Bureau man … Livesey’s personal bodyguard, as well. He told us he’d been called to Chertsey … that’s why we had so many men on hand. And this place was watched of course.’ This time, his smile came more easily. ‘Solving your difficulties?’

Garth swallowed.

‘Some of them.’ He could think only of the man in black: ‘“Brown” …’

‘He’s got away,’ said Hammond. ‘He did it nicely. There was a power-boat in that mooring-shed at the end of the next garden … no one thought of it. So he got clear. The river police have been alerted, of course, but he won’t fall for anything easy. Ah, well, at least Ryall and company are out of the game. And Russi, dead upstairs … did you know?’

Garth grimaced.

‘No … I saw they’d killed Kent. “Brown” did that. I suppose.’ His head was aching abominably and his eyes seemed filled with tiny, painful specks of sand. ‘Is it … is it all you wanted? Apart from Brown?’

‘It is not,’ said Hammond, decisively. ‘He’s killed them to stop them from talking. There’s something else brewing and we haven’t any idea what. How’s Olivia?’ The smile brightened his face again, fleetingly.

‘She’s all right,’ Garth frowned … ‘Listen, Hammond: “Brown” talked freely. He told me he had a contact at Number 27. If it wasn’t Washington …’

‘Livesey or Catesby or one of the staff,’ Hammond shrugged. ‘We’ll find out, in time.’

‘They might know what “Brown” knows!’

‘Yes, of course. Don’t worry, Garth … we’ll do everything we can. We certainly won’t miss the obvious! I’ve telephoned London and things are in motion. There isn’t much else we can do except start tidying up,’ Hammond said as he surveyed the ghastly chaos.

Then he and the Errols began their task.

The delegates were on their way to The Beacon, that large house on the outskirts of Staines.

They went separately, of course; although it was not surprising that a number of them were on the same trains from Waterloo and that once they reached Staines there was a rush for the single taxi. By the time the big Assembly Room at The Beacon was half-full, word had reached Craigie and Loftus at Whitehall that men whom the Department was watching were gathering there. Hammond was back with the Errols at Chertsey—following the first ‘tidying-up’, he had gone for a session with his chiefs and returned early that morning.

He received the news about half-past four, and did not, of course, know that the meeting was timed for five o’clock. He did know that something important was afoot—and instinct told him it was bad: dangerous. He was obsessed by a sense of urgency—as if he had been awakened by the shrilling of warning alarm-bells.

Yet he had not the faintest idea what was likely to happen. Nothing had been revealed at the Chertsey house. He had found no papers, no clue at all to the ‘grand finale’ he knew intuitively was certainly planned. He had not the remotest clue as to ‘Brown’s’ identity, and no sure knowledge of the spy at Number 27.

Olivia Livesey had been reunited with her father. Catesby remained at Number 27. Washington could offer no help. At Hammond’s request, Garth had ‘cleared the air’—and preserved Washington’s F.B.I. cover—by telling Olivia that he had believed him to be ‘Brown’ and had persuaded her to send for him so that he would be ‘exposed’ to her for what he was.

All of them knew they were being closely watched—except Garth, who was in Craigie’s office, going through a great stack of photographs.

He was seeking one of ‘Brown’, whose puckish face he had glimpsed at Chertsey as he darted from the shrubbery into the house.

The tension in Craigie’s office was an almost tangible thing: it affected them all.

Photographs—photographs—photographs. It seemed incredible that there were so many small men who could conceivably be implicated. British—American—the Axis and neutral countries alike—men of all nationalities.

To Garth, after an hour of staring at them, every face seemed the same.

Then he turned one up—and his reaction was so spontaneous that Craigie half-rose from his chair and Loftus crossed swiftly to his side.

‘Got him?’ he asked sharply.

‘Yes …’ Garth’s voice was strained: ‘Yes, this is the chap.’ He stared at the photograph of the small, faintly-smiling man. He looked something of a dandy and there was a carnation in his button-hole. ‘Yes!’ he shouted, suddenly realising how enormously important the discovery was: ‘This is the man!’

Craigie said, in a curiously soft voice:

‘Well, well, well … Sir Herbert Grey!’

The silence lasted only a few seconds, but it seemed an age. Then Loftus broke it:

‘Aunt Mabel’s husband!’ he drawled, and his eyes were hard but bright. ‘So he’s not dead!’ He reached for the telephone: ‘Now, we’re moving!’

It was a quarter to five.

The Assembly Room at The Beacon was filled with well-dressed and somewhat impatient men and the buzz of conversation was beginning to rise a note or two. It was apparent to them all that something of outstanding importance was to be discussed at this conference and they were eager for the arrival of the Foreign Secretary and his entourage—and, rumour had it, the American Ambassador too.

There was some surprise at the fact that there were no Americans yet in the room.

Outside, several of Craigie’s men who had followed their charges to The Beacon gathered in little groups among the shrubs and trees, Hammond was with them, considering the wisdom of trying to get some of his men into the building.

From the moment that ‘Brown’ had thrown his bomb, Hammond had been filled with a sense of foreboding which deepened with every passing second. He did not think that this meeting was a genuine one. And the more he thought of that bomb, the more vividly he realised the havoc a larger one would wreak in this house.

High up in the gallery surrounding the room, the machine-gunners were hidden behind plush-covered chairs. They had been there, waiting, for some time—still acting on Russi’s instructions: with no slightest inkling or suspicion that he was dead. At a given signal, they would rise and begin their dreadful work.

That would be at five o’clock—and it was fifteen minutes to five.

It had taken half-an-hour to make ‘Aunt Mabel’ talk.

At first she had denied all knowledge of her husband’s activities and insisted that he was dead. Loftus and Craigie had not been kind to her. Garth had heard and watched them, realising how necessary it was, yet hating the pressure they exerted.

Then, without warning, she cracked. She flared into a towering rage which suddenly turned to uncontrollable tears as she admitted the truth. He was alive, but she had seen him very rarely and had no idea what he was doing.

He had told her that it was vitally important she keep his ‘resurrection’ an absolute secret—that he was involved in Secret Service work for the Government. She had begun to disbelieve it only in the past few days, in which she had had to face the fact that the chief of Department Z actually believed him dead.…

She did not know where he was living, but believed he might be at The Beacon. The place was his—he had inherited it shortly before going to America.

‘We would know if he were living at the house!’ Loftus rasped. ‘He’s not!’

‘He … he might be at the cottage!’ she gasped. ‘We stayed there, once, when we went to The Beacon for a few days … to save opening the big house. But he wouldn’t do anything wrong!’ The racking sobs had started up again: ‘I know he wouldn’t do anything wrong. …!’

That had been at ten minutes past four.

Forty minutes later, a powerful car roared through the outskirts of Staines towards The Beacon. Hammond, near the gates, heard the sound and glanced along the road. He recognised the dark green monster as Loftus’s Bentley—and knew at once that Loftus had news!

He sprang into the roadway as the car slowed down to turn into the drive. Craigie was sitting next to Loftus and Garth was in the back: Hammond scrambled over the side to join him as Loftus put his foot down again and the big car raced towards the house.

It did not pull up at the doors, but swung left along a secondary drive. Some distance away, half-hidden by trees, was the ‘cottage’: Aunt Mabel had described its situation exactly. Two or three Department Z agents, recognising the car and guessing at important new developments, sprinted to the scene as the Bentley screeched to a halt.

It was only seven minutes short of five o’clock.

Hammond asked: ‘What is it?’ as Loftus climbed awkwardly from the car, impeded by his artificial leg.

‘Herbert Grey’s alive,’ said Loftus, shortly. ‘He might be here.’

‘Might!’ Hammond beckoned to the men who had come running and as they converged on the cottage, more came from the grounds and joined in the assault. As windows crashed in and men jumped through, revolver and Tommy-gun fire began to add to the din.

Gordon Craigie directed a sortie against the big house by another group of agents, among them, Wally Davidson. Davidson—as always, in a crisis, belying his lethargic appearance—shinned up a cedar tree by the south wall and climbed along a branch to a window. Other Department men were approaching the ground-floor windows as Davidson made a flying leap, balanced on the window-sill, then jumped down into a wide hall where two doors stood ajar.

From somewhere below, startled voices were exclaiming. And along the passage, a man came running: a little man, his face covered in a black mask.…

‘Start now!’ he was shouting. ‘Start now! Start now!’

Davidson shot him. The man’s impetus carried him forward a step or two more, then he stopped short and dropped in his tracks. As Davidson leapt for the nearer of the open doors, he saw a man with his back towards him, at a machine-gun. Davidson fired again, and the man fell.

But a split-second later, from the other three corners of the high gallery, a hail of fire streamed towards him. As he ducked out of sight, bullets pitted the floor about him, the walls, the gallery.

In the Assembly Hall below, there was a sudden stampede for the doors and what threatened to be a disastrous crush.

A few well-judged bursts of machine-gun fire then would have put a finishing touch to all that Ryall had planned. But Davidson, now down on one knee and sheltered by a massive chair, brought down a second machine-gunner—and brought more withering fire on himself, in the process.

Then Craigie came in through another door, with several of his men. Three bursts from automatic pistols were enough. The stampede below grew more frantic, but the Department men who had broken in on the ground-floor began to restore some kind of order. Craigie, himself, tight-lipped and anxious ran along the gallery towards Wally Davidson, whose head he could just see.

Davidson was still kneeling, when he reached him. His eyes were open, and there was a curiously twisted smile on his lips. The chairs and carpet about him, like the wall behind him, were pitted with bullet-holes. Only his face had escaped: Craigie saw at a glance the wounds in his chest and stomach.

‘Stopped ‘em,’ he croaked. ‘Stopped ‘em, Gordon. Nice … work!’

And as he fell forward at Craigie’s feet, the living voices of the men below became a valediction for Wally Davidson.

David Garth, knowing nothing of what was happening at the big house, rushed the cottage with Loftus and Hammond and the others. The resistance broke quite soon, with little damage on either side. Russi’s men went scuttling away like rats into the grounds—where they could only fall into the arms of police or other Z agents.

Watching some of them flee, Garth caught a glimpse of one that he recognised.

‘Catesby!’ he shouted, pointing him out. ‘Catesby!’

Hammond, by his side, grunted and fired at the running figure. He missed once, but his second bullet brought the American down and they raced towards him. They reached him as he put his hand to his mouth.

Then Garth felt Hammond grab his shoulder and drag him away. He was still gasping for breath as Hammond, standing back and looking at Catesby’s writhing body, said as if to himself:

‘We miss too much … a lot too much!’

‘What’s that?’ asked Mike Errol, coming up to them.

‘Catesby’s killed himself … as he killed the gunman who tried to get Garth. Remember? We thought the fellow had swallowed the poison himself, but Catesby, I fancy, managed to drop it into his mouth.’

Errol stared: ‘My oath, yes! He did slap the fellow across the face. I … oh, well! Is Garth all right?’

‘He will be. What about…?’

‘It’s all over, I gather. And not a minute too soon!’ Mike looked grim and dishevelled, but there was a bright light in his eyes.

A similar gleam was in the eyes of Loftus, Craigie, Hammond and Garth, when, a few hours later, they were seated together in Craigie’s office. Graham Hershall who had insisted that they resume their seats, was leaning against Craigie’s desk, a cheroot jutting from his lips.

The Prime Minister had said little: Craigie had done most of the talking.

‘We’ve a lot to learn yet, sir,’ he was saying, now. ‘But we have the bones of the story. Sir Herbert Grey went over as our representative on Lease-Lend—but also representing certain British interests. He saw a chance of sabotaging much of the scheme. It would slow down supplies but it would put money in the pockets of himself and his principals. He did not board that aircraft which crashed, but someone who could be mistaken for him was on board. And as no one doubted it was Grey, neither the man’s presence aboard nor the crash itself can be considered accidental.’

‘H’mph,’ said Hershall, moving the cheroot to the other side of his mouth.

‘Thus, having arranged the crash of the airliner, Grey delayed Lease-Lend agreements and gave himself and his principals time to arrange to provide supplies from foreign and British companies abroad in which they had controlling interests. Ryall, who worked for Grey in this country, was also a representative of Berlin. He discovered what Grey was doing and arranged for pro-German interests in America to do the same—delay production of foodstuffs and other non-military commodities till they could cash in on it. Some American isolationists and certain obstructionist politicians, with commercial interests over here, helped them—unwittingly or wittingly. Ryall himself was out to slow down our war effort, as well as making fat profits for his pro-German faction in the States. Who, of course,’ Craigie added, drily, ‘were carefully disguised as excessively patriotic “good Americans”, fighting to preserve their great country’s heritage of private enterprise and industrious commerce.’

‘H’mph!’ Hershall growled again. ‘Go on!’

‘Well, for the rest … I think we shall find that Grey proposed to appear again when it was all over—and when his interests had made their profit. I don’t know how. But what he said to Garth suggests that he expected to be in favour with the Government. Kent, by the way, was badly in need of money. He first sold information from the M.O.P. to Ryall—then got further into the mess and didn’t have the guts to get out. Garth was told to take the papers from Kent’s flat to incriminate himself—and steer suspicion away from Kent.’

Craigie glanced at Garth.

‘Catesby, working for Brown, didn’t know about that.’

He turned back to the P.M.

‘You, sir, and the President, knew that plans for immediate post-war food and basic-commodity distribution had to be finalised urgently. You arranged these conferences, to that end—and with so many British and American key men together, Ryall saw his chance to do lasting harm to the Allies. Grey saw what he was doing and encouraged it. Clearly he had only one aim: to ensure that his Empire and foreign companies—the controlling interests were still “his”, held in his wife’s name—would finally be the only ones in any real position to supply the wanted goods.’

Craigie’s hooded grey eyes were bleak.

‘At a guess, the man was no longer wholly sane. No Englishman who could condone, let alone assist at such a thing, could be. The murder of so many really key men—leading world specialists, many of them, in their own fields—didn’t trouble him one iota. And the fact that his plan could mean death by starvation of millions of other human beings didn’t even affect him.’

He grimaced:

‘From what he said to Garth, he seemed to feel that he was proving his patriotism by ensuring that his Nazi associate did not live to profit by post-war Anglo-American shortages, and world want.’

Hershall nodded, his pugnacious face creased in a scowl.

‘It could hardly have been a darker crime—except in the event of its success. I don’t need to tell you how I feel, Craigie,’ he added gruffly. ‘Well, I must be off, I’ve a meeting across the road.’

He nodded to Craigie and his two chief lieutenants, then suddenly strode across to Garth and held out his hand: ‘Well done, Garth!’ he said. ‘It won’t be long, now, before you’ll be able to say exactly what you like, on any platform!’

He was chuckling as he went out, and Garth was smiling. But it was a preoccupied smile, which faded as he turned to Craigie.

‘Why was Kent’s copy of the report allowed to get to Ryall? Since I heard of the destruction of that food …!’

Loftus chuckled.

‘No destruction, Garth. The report you “stole” was a fake, anyhow. Livesey was told the stuff had been destroyed, to get the story circulating at Number 27. We hoped it would help us learn who was the man we wanted there … who of course was Catesby. Anyway, thanks to Aunt Mabel, we got moving in time to get him along with all the rest. He worked for the American interests controlled by Grey. We used Lady Grey because of her present control of those American … and other … interests, all of which could obviously one day matter very much indeed. We had no idea at all, of her husband’s continuing existence!’ he added drily.

‘She didn’t know much more than that, herself,’ Craigie said quietly. ‘I well believe she thought he was on “hush-hush” work—he told her that British Intelligence had supplied a “double” for him, so they could use Grey on some very secret work and after the crash had allegedly given him permission to tell her he was alive only on condition he could guarantee she would not divulge the fact.’

Garth was shaking his head in amazement at the ramifications of the whole business … and at the extent of the Department’s awareness and control of events.

‘We don’t often miss the obvious,’ said Hammond, with a crooked smile. ‘Although things didn’t go just as we expected with you, Garth. We didn’t think they’d move so fast. You looked a safe man to plant inside Ryall’s organisation … and I don’t think Ryall himself knew just how quickly they would move. He made contact with you at first because Kent was reaching the end of his sphere of usefulness and he wanted someone else who could get the information for him. There’s just one thing …’

Hammond hesitated and Garth asked: ‘What is it?’

‘Miss Duval discovered what Kent was doing,’ Hammond told him, quietly. ‘That was why she was killed. Her murder was used to intimidate you, Garth … but you were not the cause of it, Some sort of satisfaction, I hope, in knowing that?’

Garth said slowly: ‘M’mm … Or shall we say, some sort of consolation.’

He left Craigie’s office, not long afterwards, but he did not go to his flat. He went to Queen’s Gate, where Olivia was waiting for him.

If you would like a complete list of Arrow books
please send a postcard to
Arrow Books Ltd, 178-202 Great Portland Street, London WI