“But did he lie?” asked Craigie. “From the look of him, Tony, I’d say he was a harmless old soul who forgets one moment what he said the last. Do you know him well?”
“He’s lived here for three years,” said Beresford, lighting a cigarette. “It was a funny thing to say, harmless old soul or not, but I know he’s a queer cuss. And it was a funny wire, too.”
“How’d you mean?” asked Miller, eyeing not Beresford but a whisky-and-not-much-soda thoughtfully.
The three men were in Beresford’s living-room, and for the first time since the arrival of the police at Auveley Street were able to talk freely. Hitherto, Doc Little, that giant of a man famous for his treatment of the foibles of London’s rich, had been fussing about the flat, ordering this and ordering that for the comfort and well-being of Tricker, who was conscious now and acutely aware of the fact that he was resting on Beresford’s big bed instead of his own truckle. Beresford, well pleased with the minor nature of Tricker’s injury, which Little predicted would be healed within a week, had told his pale-faced valet not to be chuckle-headed, and had outraged Sammivel by demanding Little to send a nurse for the rest of the night; Sam, said Beresford, wanted attention. While Little had been fussing, Miller had sent the police-party back to the Yard and the protesting Arrans packing, while a fingerprint expert was at that moment going through the still palpitating Williams’ rooms for the prints which were there in abundance. Nothing would be left to chance, but the three men in Beresford’s flat knew that the odds against catching the attackers (they assumed the plural) were heavy.
Beresford pushed his hand through his hair.
“I mean,” he said quietly, à propos the telegram, “that if I’d wanted to get Williams out of the way for twenty-four hours, I’d have sent him a telegram from the Scottish Universities, not from Oxford. Our intellectual might have been back here by seven or eight o’clock.”
“I don’t know,” demurred Miller, who was a ponderous man both physically and mentally, but who knew his job from A to Z. “Put two dons together, and they’ll talk for hours. Whoever sent the wire probably relied on that.”
Beresford looked dissatisfied.
“Funny thing to take a chance if they reckoned they would have their shot at me late in the evening, and obviously they were prepared for that. What do you think, Gordon?”
Craigie was smoking a Virginia 3 and wishing for his meerschaum. He wrinkled his nose.
“I’m inclined to agree with you,” he said. “The telegram should have sent Williams a couple of hundred miles away, not fifty or sixty. But that’s incidental. It kept the man away while it was necessary. The puzzle is, Tony, why did they go for you? You haven’t been up to any tricks, have you?”
“What, me?” Beresford looked a picture of outraged innocence. “You ought to know me better than that, old son.”
“Might be someone with a grudge,” suggested Miller, who had worked several times with Beresford and Craigie, and knew a little of the operations carried out through Department Z.
“Too elaborate,” said Beresford decisively. “If it’d been a knife in the back or a bullet out of the blue, I’d have said that someone who remembers the past well was trying to get me. But this thing’s been carefully worked out—and then there’s the bogus bobby to account for. No”—the big man sent a perfect smokering ceilingwards, watching it lose its formation in a grey haze—“no, it’s something new, sons, and something nasty, and somehow I don’t think it’ll be long before we know more about it.” He broke off suddenly. “That’s the front door,” he went on, as a piercing ringing sound shrilled through the room. “I’ll hop down.”
The caller, however, was none other than Samuel Tricker’s nurse, a middle-aged matron who proved to be sharp-tongued, lynx-eyed and uncompromising in her attitude towards Tricker, who wanted to go to his own room.
“Keep him under your thumb,” grinned Beresford, as he left the bedroom, “and don’t let him get saucy, nurse. Be good, Sammivel!”
When the big man returned to the living-room, Miller was putting on his coat, a rejuvenated British Warm, still eyeing the whisky thoughtfully. A very thoughtful man was Horace Miller on things alcoholic. He was always asking himself whether he could carry just one more.
Beresford, who had opened a fresh bottle of Shortt’s XX, thumbed the cork into the neck and handed the bottle to the Super.
“Take it with you,” he said affably, “and make up your mind when you get to the office. Good night, Horace, and don’t forget to ring me about those fingerprints in the morning.”
Miller grinned, making his rosy face more cherubic than ever, and bade them a gruff good night.
As the door closed behind the policeman, Beresford looked inquiringly at his Chief.
“Didn’t you say, earlier on, that you wanted to see me?”
Craigie, still fidgeting and wishing for his meerschaum, nodded and accepted another Virginia 3.
“Yes,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you about Leopold Gorman.”
Beresford opened his eyes.
“Oh-ho! That man’s in the news to-night.”
Craigie frowned.
“I’m worried about him, Tony. He’s been over to Paris on some job or other, and I can’t find out what it is.”
Beresford laughed suddenly.
“So’s Bob Lavering,” he said. “Perhaps they’re both shaking a leg. Even the great can laugh and have their pleasures.”
Craigie grimaced.
“I asked Odell——”
“The gallant Major?” asked Beresford.
“Yes, drat him. He was staying at the Splendide and Gorman was next door to him. I asked Odell to keep his eyes and ears open, and he told me to-night—last night that is—that Gorman told him he was spending a couple of days and nights on the tiles.”
Beresford chuckled again.
“And Gulliver believed him. So we can take it conversely that whatever Gorman was doing, he wasn’t just having his fling.”
“We can,” said Craigie grimly. “I knew that, anyhow. Gorman’s staging something big, but I can’t figure what it is.”
“How did you get on to it in the first place?” asked Beresford.
Craigie leaned back in his chair.
“Nevillson, of the Ministry of Transport, told me that half a dozen big North Country road services have changed hands, but he didn’t know whose money was behind it. Nevillson wanted to find out——”
“The Intelligence,” said Beresford, without much humour, “is going up in the world.”
“I’d asked Nevillson to keep me in touch with anything that he couldn’t fathom,” said Craigie, “because I don’t like the way Gorman’s interests are spreading. He’s just bought up the Mid-Country Playhouse Circuit, and he bought Rundle’s Chain Stores less than a fortnight ago.”
Beresford pursed his lips.
“After all,” he said, “Gorman’s a big-money man, and he’s not the first money-merchant to grab all he can get.”
“I know,” said Craigie. “But Gorman’s not the type to have too much say in public services—and if he goes on as he’s been doing over the past month, he’ll have ten per cent. of the country’s food stores in his pocket, a third of the amusement houses, and a substantial part of transport services before the end of the year. And that,” said Gordon Craigie grimly, “means that he’ll have a lot of power and even more influence than he has now.”
“He’ll be big enough to be dangerous, will he?”
“Yes, more than big enough. And he’s exploited the stock markets in a way that we don’t want him to start in other things, Tony. Imagine what will happen if we have a really severe winter, say, and Gorman’s controlling a large percentage of available foodstuffs——”
“The chain stores only sell it to the public,” Beresford pointed out. “He’s got to buy his stuff from abroad, and if he can, others can.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Craigie. “Gorman’s clever, and he’s getting this monopoly in different parts of the country for foods, transport and amusements. That’s definite. But he’s not the man to work from the wrong end. If he’s got a monopoly for selling—like he’s bought with Rundle’s Stores—you can be pretty sure that he’s got a monopoly for buying too.”
Beresford lit another cigarette from the butt of his first. Watching Craigie, and hearing the Chief’s quiet statement of Gorman’s recent activities, he not only sensed Craigie’s concern, but he felt the stirring of anxiety himself. Gorman had virtually controlled the stock markets for years. He had widespread interests in shipping, and his companies owned a good third of the merchant services of England. So much was known. How much more, Craigie was wondering, did Gorman control?
Craigie snapped his fingers suddenly.
“It’s worrying me,” he said unnecessarily. “I don’t like it a bit, Tony. It’s not as if everything was split up among a thousand or so individual firms. Everything’s run—food, clothes, shipping, coal and petrol, to mention a few of them—by syndicates. The petrol ring’s as tight as an oyster; four firms control petrol supplies in England, and there aren’t more than two dozen big combines in the world. You can imagine what would happen if a man like Gorman, concerned solely with making money, gets control of petrol.”
“Up goes the price,” muttered Beresford grimly.
“And up goes everything,” said Craigie. “Prices are controlled by expenses, and the petrol expense is a big one. The general increase wouldn’t be big, of course, but it might not stop at petrol. Well”—the Scot looked at Beresford with a sudden smile, that smile which made Gordon Craigie a man loved by all who worked for him—“how do you feel about it, Tony? I must find out what Gorman’s doing, and I’d like you to tackle the job. It might not give you much of a thrill,” he added, with a chuckle.
Beresford thought suddenly of the events of the past three hours, and there was a gleam in his eyes as he answered.
“If to-night’s any criterion, it’ll give me a long box, old son. I’ll tell you what, Gordon.”
“All right. What?”
“I’ll wager you a month’s supply of my Virginias to a year’s supply of your black twist that Gorman was behind the porch trick and the shooting.”
“No, you won’t,” said Craigie decidedly.
And each man knew, as the Chief of Department Z picked up his hat and coat, that the other believed Gorman was trying to make sure that the tentative inquiries from Department Z stopped; and they knew, too, that the world would stop before that happened.
Two days went by, dull days to Tony Beresford, save for a spin into Surrey with Valerie Lester as a companion and a tête-à-tête lunch with that refreshing young woman of the New World. The vitality of Valerie Lester made Beresford admire her, and her vivacity made him laugh. It did not occur to him then, but twice Diane Chester laughed at him, and he wondered why, not knowing that the ways of fate with a man and a maid were like an open book to Diane, who above all things was a woman, beautiful by accident.
The Arran—or the Unholy—Twins had spent one riotous hour in Beresford’s flat, demanding to know what had happened and what was going to happen and whether they couldn’t have a share in it. Beresford was tempted to rough-house them, but Tricker’s nurse, christened Maria by the exuberant Twins, sent them packing. Maria looked, Beresford said, like becoming a fixture. Samuel Tricker had overcome his early repugnance to womanly care, and seemed reluctant to admit that he need not be bedridden. Beresford grinned, and persuaded Doc Little to certify that Tricker was suffering from nervous shock and light concussion. After that one mad night, the Auveley Street flat was becalmed.
Beresford arranged with Craigie for the Arran Twins to be detailed on the Gorman job, and then visited the Twins’ flat. This was towards the evening of the second day after the attacks, a Wednesday of bright May sun and cool winds.
“Work, boys,” he said simply as he dropped into a chair.
The Arrans looked at him with disfavour.
“We can’t work to-night,” drawled Timothy, smoothing his shiny hair. “We are engaged.”
“Got a friend of a cousin from America,” jerked Toby, “and we’ve——”
“Promised to entertain her, Tonee-ee,” drawled Tim.
For the first time that he could remember, Tony Beresford went red.
“Work, I said,” he insisted, “and lay off the funny stuff, darn your eyes, or I’ll get Craigie to cut you out of the Service.”
Timothy looked at Tobias and Tobias looked at Tim, and they nodded, their faces masked with mock-seriousness and their right hands on their chests.
“He’s got it—got it bad,” said Tobias.
“And so that he may entertain the wench,” drawled Timothy, “he’s pushing his job on us. We won’t stand for it, old son, we won’t stand for it.”
Beresford eyed them in silence, and his refusal to rise to the bait took the edge off their so-called wit.
Tobias, the dark one, took three glasses from the sideboard, while Timothy, the fair one, opened a bottle of Shortt’s. The Twins did most things together, and despite their physical dissimilarity held the same views on sport, politics and women. When they were not being offensive by trying to be funny they contrived to be amusing.
“Whisky before dinner,” said Beresford, “means drunk before midnight. Here’s how, sons, and now listen.”
The Arrans grew serious and attentive.
“You, Tim,” said Beresford, “had better get over to Paris and see what you can find about Bob Lavering. He went over there five days ago, and his man’s heard nothing from him since.”
“That’s a police job,” protested Timothy.
“I don’t want it to be a police job,” said Beresford. “The Sûreté isn’t all it could be these days, and I want to learn something quick, without letting anyone know we’re inquiring.”
“What’s Lavering done to deserve the interest?” asked Toby, lighting an inevitable cigarette.
“Nothing yet,” said Beresford. “But he’s engaged to Adele Fayne, and Adele’s been seen several times with Leopold Gorman lately, and——”
“Gorman, is it?” muttered the Twins in unison.
“Gorman it is, so be careful. How are the ’planes running from Croydon, Tim?”
“There’s a Paris ‘bus at seven-thirty or thereabouts.”
“You’d better catch it,” said Beresford. “You’ve two hours or more to pack a brush and get to Croydon. Toby——”
“Sir,” said Toby Arran.
“Do you know Oxford?”
“I know how to avoid being sent down from,” grinned Toby.
“Know Mieklejohn, the Trinity don?”
“You forget,” said Toby gently, “that Trinity was once my home from home, and Mieklejohn my foster-mother.”
“I don’t,” said Beresford, whose cricket blue was a light one. “I wanted to make sure there is a Mieklejohn at Oxford. Do you know him well enough to visit him?”
“Well enough not to want to,” grimaced Toby.
“Swallow your pride and look him up to-night,” said Beresford. “Don’t ask him point blank, but find out whether he had a visit from a Nicholas Williams on Monday afternoon. Telephone me what he says, and then follow Tim to Paris, and check back on Major Odell’s visit last week.”
“The Gulliver Odell?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“Not well. I heard this morning that he’s been hanging round Adele Fayne’s skirts for the last couple of days.”
“Has he, then!” Beresford reflected on this item of social chatter, and passed on. “Well, I want to know just how much Odell saw of Leopold Gorman last week—they were in Paris together. Both of you can telephone me from Paris, and if I’m not in, get through to the office. All set?”
The Arrans said that they would be, in a brace of shakes, and Beresford left them, very thoughtful as to Odell’s devotion to Adele Fayne. Was there anything behind it? Was Gorman watching Odell because the Major had let slip the word that he had been asked to keep a careful eye open?
He didn’t know, but he hoped that the Arrans’ investigations would lead towards knowledge, not only on the subject of Major Gulliver Odell, but on the matter of Bob Lavering’s absence from London.
There was nothing, of course, to suggest that Lavering was being forcibly kept away, but Beresford sensed that things were a long way from being straightforward where the son of America’s foremost landowner was concerned. For a month, Bob Lavering—who had been at Cambridge with the big man, and who was one of the few Americans who could hold a cricket-bat as though born to it—had been at Adele Fayne’s beck and call. He thought he was in love, and Beresford, while hoping that he would get over it, had admitted to himself that Lavering had been thoroughly smitten. Yet, without warning, Lavering had gone to Paris, and stayed there for the best part of a week, while Major Odell and Leopold Gorman—which latter gentleman was appearing in public much more often than was his wont—played ducks and drakes with Adele Fayne. Or so it seemed.
Yes, Beresford told himself, the Lavering business was funny. And his theory was confirmed at half past ten on the following morning, when Timothy Arran telephoned him from Paris.
“I’ve found Lavering,” said Timothy. “He’s staying at a third-rate hotel near Montmartre, and he’s in a darned bad way, Tony. Ptomaine poisoning, according to the doctor bloke.”
“I’ll be right over,” said Beresford swiftly.
“Half a mo’,” said Timothy Arran. “There’s more in it than that, but I can’t say too much, because I fancy I’m being overheard. Only be ready——”
“What for?”
“Anything, any time, anywhere,” said Timothy. “I’m staying at the Royale, but you’ll find me with Lavering at a place called the Hôtel Divante.”