Inspector West Takes Charge

Inspector West Takes Charge

First published in 1942

Copyright: John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1942-2010

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior 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 damages.

The right of John Creasey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

This edition published in 2010 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

Typeset by House of Stratus.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

www.houseofstratus.com

John Creasey – Master Storyteller - was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as
Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron
.

Creasy wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the ‘C’ section in stores. They included:

Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.

Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the
One Party Alliance
which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.

He also founded the
British Crime Writers’ Association
, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing.
The Mystery Writers of America
bestowed upon him the
Edgar Award
for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate
Grand Master Award
. John Creasey’s stories are as compelling today as ever.

The kitten rubbed against Roger West’s legs in the darkness, making him jump and switch on his torch. In the light two large eyes glowed. Then it stretched, and disappeared.

Roger continued his brisk walk, heels ringing on the pavement, until the white blur of a painted gatepost showed in starlit darkness. He turned into the gateway, taking out his keys and inserting one by sense of touch. He stepped into the dark hall, kicked against something which shouldn’t be there, and went sprawling.

The torch shot from his hand and fell on the carpet, the keys rattled, and as he flung out his hand to save himself he touched the top of an umbrella stand. That crashed, too.

A stream of light came from a door on the right of the small, square hall. Outlined against it was a woman with dishevelled hair. She wore a dark blue dressing-gown which covered her feet except for the points of red slippers. She stared at Roger accusingly.

‘Hallo, darling,’ he said. ‘Not in bed?’

‘Just as well,’ said ‘darling’. ‘What have you been up to?’

Roger stood up gingerly.

‘I think I’ve brought you a present,’ he said.

‘So I should think. It’s a quarter to one. Where is it?’

‘That’s what I’m wondering,’ sighed Roger, peering about the semi-darkness. ‘What’s that just behind you?’

His wife refused to look behind her.

‘I knew you had all the other faults but I thought you could hold your beer,’ she said. ‘Stop joking.’ Then suddenly she swung round. ‘What’s that? Something touched my leg, I know it did!’

‘I warned you,’ said Roger. ‘I know it touched mine, and I knew it meant trouble. Keep quite still, now, don’t move.’ He pulled the skirt of the dressing-gown up slowly, and a dark grey shape flew towards a chair. A plaintive
miaow
followed.

‘A cat!’ exclaimed Janet West. ‘Why on earth did you bring a cat home?’

‘Kitten,’ corrected Roger. ‘And it brought me. Puss, puss! Come and let’s have a look at you.’ He bent down on one knee and peered beneath the chair. ‘Scared out of its life,’ he remarked, standing up. ‘What happens now? A saucer of milk?’

‘We’ve hardly got enough for morning tea.’

‘We could open a tin. Sweetheart, did I tell you that you have the most adorable nose?’

‘Did I ever tell you that you have the most deplorable nerve?’ Janet looked round at the sound of another
miaow,
‘I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea,’ she admitted.

Roger filled the kettle while Janet poured milk into a saucer and put it as near the kitten’s nose as it would permit. It examined the milk suspiciously, and began to lap.

‘It’s famished!’ declared Roger.

Janet carried the tea tray into the lounge, where a few embers glowed in a tiled grate. The kitten followed, arching its back, and then curling itself into a ball near the fire.

‘The kitten at home,’ remarked Roger. ‘What shall we call it?’

‘I don’t say I wouldn’t like a kitten,’ Janet admitted, pouring tea, ‘but someone will come looking for it in the morning. Did you really fall over it?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Roger. ‘I was drunk. My wife told me so. Ah, a cup of tea’s good. I had a snack at Mark’s,’ he went on, ‘but that was just after seven. We got stuck into this blasted Prendergast job then, and I didn’t realize it was so late.’

‘Before long I’m going to rule bachelor friends off your calling list,’ said Janet. ‘Mark can go to bed and get up when he wants to, but you haven’t time to spend chasing after imaginary crimes. I wish Mark had never put the idea into your head. Why shouldn’t three people die in the same family within six months? Just because you don’t like Prendergast’s taste in trousers that doesn’t make him a triple murderer. Only you and Mark ever think about it, and if the whole of Scotland Yard is satisfied I don’t see why it’s youngest Chief Inspector shouldn’t be.’

‘All of Scotland Yard except me?’ mused Roger. ‘I wonder. What it is to be a policeman!’ He eyed the kitten thoughtfully, and lit a cigarette. ‘You’re right in one thing, sweet, I don’t like Claude Prendergast’s trousers, and she’s too overpowering. Now they’ve inherited the money she’ll start buying sables, and he’ll invest in a Rolls-Royce.’

‘You’re much too bright for one o’clock in the morning,’ said Janet, stifling a yawn. ‘I must go to bed.’

‘Shut that thing in the kitchen first,’ Roger urged.

When Janet had gone, he leaned forward and stirred the embers, wooing a lick of flame. The Prendergast business was becoming an obsession, perhaps. Every time it began to fade, Mark Lessing gave it life and colour. Confound the Prendergasts!

Mrs Prendergast made two of her husband in size, and gave him no chance to wear the trousers, but flamboyancy and ghoulish enjoyment did not make her a murderess. Few would give either Claude or Maisie Prendergast - what a name for that female mountain - credit for cold-blooded murder; or rather, three cold-blooded murders. If credit was the proper word.

Mark was right in one respect. It had been a peculiar series of accidents. First there was Septimus, drowned in his swimming pool with only the vaguest suggestion of a bruise on the back of his head, no real evidence that he had been hit. Sibley, the Home Office pathologist, refused to say that violence had been used, and the verdict at the inquest had been
death by misadventure.

Septimus Prendergast’s fortune, nearly a million pounds, even after the death duties had done their damnedest, had been enjoyed by his son Monty for only three weeks. Then Monty had fallen over the edge of a cliff in Cornwall. No one knew why he had been in Cornwall, but everyone knew that he would not walk along a cliff on a bleak winter’s morning out of
joie de vivre
or a desire to slim. There had been no evidence of foul play, however.
Death by misadventure
again, and death duties took a few more hundred thousands from the Prendergast fortune before Waverley Prendergast inherited. Waverley had been knocked down by a car, and the driver did not stop.
Death by misadventure,
after police SOS calls over the radio had brought no response.

Claude Prendergast was the only known living relative. After death duties had hit the jackpot again, Claude took over something like four hundred thousand pounds, Delaware, the Surrey house, and 48 Braddon Square, the London house. Not to mention the business worth at least thirty thousand a year. In six months Claude had jumped from an allowance of two thousand a year, more than his father had really considered him worth, to a capital of four hundred thousand pounds plus the shares, and thus profits from Prendergast, Blight & Company Limited, far better known as the proprietors of
Dreem
cigarettes and
Dream
tobacco.

‘Dreem, the tobacco of your dreams’
cooed the commercials. No one stood to inherit after Claude, and there was a condition in the original will, Septimus’s will, which left the money to charities if it passed out of the family. Not one or two large charities, but seventy-four, no single one having more than 3 per cent of the final residue. No motive there, even if a reasoning and logical member of the CID ever allowed himself to think that the executive of any charity would commit murder for the profit of an organization. No one had had a motive except Claude and Maisie. The
Dreem
shares were innocent, too; they had to go on the open market.

‘There’s one possibility outside Claude and Maisie,’ Mark Lessing had said earlier that evening. ‘Someone might want to break up the company. But Maisie is clever behind that purple exterior of hers, she knew what was coming. Depend on it, she will have the money settled on her in the next few months, and then off will pop little Claude. We can’t stop a settlement; we don’t know what lawyer she will use.’