Inspector West Takes Charge (24 page)

He heard a heavy thudding on one of the shutters after a crash of breaking glass, and imagined a member of the Home Guard battering heartily with his rifle-butt.

Mark came hurrying.

‘They’ve forced a window. Come on.’

Both men raced towards the side door, and a nearby window. The officer was standing by it, with a policeman and one of his own men. Roger took a tighter grip on his gun, and climbed through the window into a darkened room. His torch shed a ghostly glare over the furniture. He barked his shin on a chair, and winced.

The door was locked.

He stood back and shattered the lock with a bullet. When he pulled at the handle the door opened. He moved very cautiously, peering into the darkened hall. He put a hand to the wall outside, searching in vain for an electric light switch. Except for faint movement of men behind him there was no sound and no sign of movement; it was as if the place was completely deserted.

He opened the door wider and stepped through, then shone his torch about the hall. Furniture was piled up against the front door, and near the light switches. There was something else; a figure lying on the carpet, between him and the switches.

He put out his torch, groping for the light switches as he went round near the wall. Mark and the others stayed by the open door of the room.

The light went on.

It was dazzling enough to blind him. He narrowed his eyes against it, and squeezed back against the wall, where some of the piled furniture gave him cover from any shooting from the twisting staircase. When his eyes grew accustomed to the bright light, he looked at the figure on the carpet.

It was of an old, bald-headed man, who was dead; unless he had the secret of living with a bullet-hole in his temple.

‘Delaroy,’ Roger murmured to himself. ‘I wonder why they had to kill him?’ From the position of the man he judged that Delaroy had been trying to get out when he was shot. But it was Potter he wanted; he did not give a damn for anyone but Potter, and at the back of his mind there was a fear that the solicitor had managed to outwit him.

Then a man spoke from the top of the stairs.

The low ceiling hid the man from sight. His voice was harsh and unfamiliar, and there was a menacing note in it.

‘Get out of my way, West.’

Roger said quietly: ‘You haven’t a chance, any of you. The house is surrounded. You can’t get through.’

‘If I can’t get away from here, I can kill some of you if you don’t stay put. What about
this?’

He paused after the ‘this’, then a stream of bullets spat out from a Thomson sub-machine gun. The staccato bark of the gun was harsh and ominous. A line was furrowed in the plaster not a yard from Roger’s head.

‘Wood won’t keep those bullets out,’ the man said. ‘Stay where you are.’

Roger said nothing.

‘Listen, West. You’ll send everyone in this house out, except me. Got that? You’ll give the orders, in my hearing. Get a deep breath ready for a shout. Your voice has to carry.’

He sent another short burst of bullets. They struck the wall near the door of the room where Mark and the others were waiting. Roger’s heart was thumping. This was insanity. The man might kill him and Mark, and others, but stood no chance of getting away. He had actually acknowledged that in so many words. There seemed no reason in his attitude.

Roger made himself say: ‘Conroy, you can’t save Potter that way.’

‘Who told you I was Conroy?’

‘I know who you are. Throw that gun down and give yourself up.’

‘And be hanged for a job I did ten years ago? I know the odds, West. This is the last chapter for me. I’ll write it in red. What about giving that order?’

Roger heard a sound in the room where Mark was waiting. Conroy must have heard it, too, for he sent a spray of bullets rasping towards the door. He missed the big HG officer, who crawled out of the room on his stomach, then made a leap upwards, flinging something through the air towards the stairs. It was a hand grenade. He plunged towards the foot of the stairs with his hands about his head.

There was a blinding flash, a shout, a clattering noise, and an explosion and blast which rocked the hall. The piece of furniture behind which Roger was sheltering rocked wildly, pressing him tight against the wall. It took him a moment to recover. When he reached the hall, he saw Mark and two Home Guards going swiftly up the stairs. The Home Guard officer was already out of sight. The tommy-gun was on the staircase, where it had dropped when the hand-grenade had exploded. Just above it, sprawling head first, was a big man in grey clothes.

Roger reached him. The man was dead or unconscious, and there was an ugly wound in the side of his head. Roger stepped over him and went on. He heard heavy footsteps ahead, and wondered whether the others would find Potter before he did. He saw doors standing open, men going in and out of the rooms. Mark came from one, but did not see him.

‘Where is he?’ the Home Guard officer demanded. ‘He can’t have ducked out.’

‘There’s another floor,’ Mark said.

Roger thought: ‘I wonder if there’s a cellar?’ He voiced the thought, and Mark called back: ‘It’s being covered. You all right?’

‘Yes.’ Roger’s head was ringing from the explosion; and he was suffering from the reaction. Three times in the past three days he had been so nearly dead that he had almost resigned himself to it.

His stomach was queasy, and he had to fight for self-control.

Then he saw Potter.

There was a cupboard on the landing, its door half-open. Potter emerged from it; long and thin, his face in shadows, his hands raised in front of him. He ducked back into the cupboard when a Home Guard appeared, then appeared again when the man went into another room. Roger stood close to the wall. Potter ran towards the landing. His face was set very bleakly, his lips a thin line, his eyes narrowed so that they looked like little steely slits.

He went into one of the bedrooms which had already been searched by the police and Home Guard. He did not close the door behind him, and Roger reached it, fingering the automatic. There might be something else to discover yet.

Had
Potter been under pressure?

Roger watched him through the crack of the door.

Potter went across the low-ceilinged room, and opened first the shutters and then the window. A cold breeze blew in, rustling the curtains, and the moonlight alone enabled Roger to see.

Potter looked out.

In the grounds someone shouted: ‘Watch that window! The second one along!’

Potter turned about, but did not close the window. His face was hidden, but he was muttering under his breath. He neared the door, and looked round, visible then in the light from the landing.

Footsteps approached, slowly. A shadow was thrown across the room; the shadow of a long figure with something pointed above the shape of the head; a rifle and bayonet. Potter stared towards it, then hesitated, before putting his right hand to his pocket. He drew out a gun. Roger stiffened, and crept forward. Potter approached the door very slowly, and then there was a sound at the window and a man’s head and shoulders appeared.

Potter swung round.

He raised his gun. The man in the window was a clear target, unable to save himself. Roger moved, swift and soft, and struck Potter’s gun-arm upwards. The report and the flash of a shot came almost simultaneously. Potter swung round. Roger knocked the gun out of his hand, pointed his own gun towards Potter’s stomach and stared into the cold grey eyes.

Potter made a quick movement, to free himself.

Roger drew back and shot out his left fist, striking Potter on the side of the chin. The blow sent the man staggering. Hurried footsteps sounded outside and on the stairs as Potter fell back.

‘It’s all right,’ Roger said. ‘Switch on the light, will you?’

‘Can’t,’ a man said. ‘The black-out’s not up.’

‘Soon fix that,’ said a man by the window.

How unimportant everyday things seemed. Here was Potter, reeling under the blow, disarmed, and helpless. When the light came on, he was leaning against the wall, fingering his chin. He looked a very old man, and his expression was dazed not venomous or malignant, just dazed.

‘This the man you want?’ asked a Home Guard.

‘That’s the man,’ said Roger. He put a hand to his pocket for handcuffs. Potter stared, and then slowly extended his hands. The handcuffs clicked as Mark rushed into the room.

‘You’ve got him! I don’t believe it.’

‘You can believe it,’ said Roger. ‘Have you found anyone else?’

‘Not a soul except the two fellows you’ve seen. Where was he?’

‘In a linen cupboard,’ said Roger. ‘It was as easy as kiss your hand.’ He looked into Potter’s eyes, and said: ‘Now then, Potter, you’re coming with me.’

Potter said with an effort: ‘I have nothing to say. Nothing to say.’

Roger sat in Lampard’s office at Guildford. The effect of Hauteby’s kick had not entirely faded, for Lampard looked very pale especially about the lips and the eyes. But he smiled once or twice during the story, and Mark’s asides.

In front of him were the documents.

‘So we have the complete case, West,’ he said. ‘It’s a time for mutual congratulations.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Roger seemed doubtful.

‘Only suppose?’ Lampard raised his eyebrows. ‘Surely you don’t expect more?’

‘I don’t know what to think,’ said Roger. ‘It must be the reaction. I didn’t really believe we’d get Potter so completely. He must have been crazy to try to fight it out.’

‘He was simply desperate, and like most desperate animals clung to hope as long as he could,’ reasoned Lampard. ‘The man Conroy was much the same. He knew that once we caught him, he would be finished. He preferred to die fighting. He is dead, by the way, but he admitted killing Delaroy, who was Potter’s sleeping partner in all this business. Potter had gathered together a gallery of rogues and a complexity of motives bigger than anything I’ve ever known. You can see that.’

‘There are some things I don’t see,’ Roger said. ‘Potter came into the open when he could have made a fortune out of
Dreem.
That’s why it doesn’t make sense. I can’t believe he would have gone in for wholesale murder unless he was under pressure he couldn’t resist. Someone had influence over Potter as he had over Clay and the other crooks.’

Lampard shrugged. ‘Stubbornness over the Prendergast “accidents” certainly brought results,’ he admitted. There was a curious tone in his voice, almost as if he was keeping something back. He seemed glad when the telephone rang: ‘This will be your call to the Yard.’

Roger leaned over the desk and lifted the receiver. A girl said;

‘Your personal call to Mayfair. Hold on please. Hallo, Mayfair 00121. You’re through.’ A deep voice said: ‘Hallo, West, what’s all this about?’ It was Chatworth.

Roger drew a deep breath.

‘I thought I’d better ring you at your home, sir, with stop press news. We’ve got Potter for murder and conspiracy to murder, and probably on about a dozen other counts.’

The Assistant Commissioner made a sound over the wires, a cross between a cluck and a chortle.

‘I’m very glad to hear it. Very glad indeed. Is it too much to hope that he has talked?’ Chatworth contrived to make it sound as if Roger should have forced Potter to talk his head off.

‘He hasn’t yet.’

‘Well, keep at him. Don’t spoil a good job. I understood you to imply that Potter will be convicted of murder, but there are others, West. There are always others! Have you explored every other possibility? That little idea you had, for instance, that someone was -what was the phrase - pushing Potter.’

‘I’ve tried it,’ said Roger. ‘I still believe there is someone, sir, but there’s no evidence. No one who has talked, and that includes Hauteby, Maisie Prendergast, and Petrie, appears to have any doubt that Potter was working for himself. I think they would have named the man if they knew him or said if they’d suspected anyone.’

‘Yes,’ conceded Chatworth. ‘Yes, I suppose so. I don’t want to throw cold water over your achievement, West, but
do
try all you can. Ring me later. Meanwhile congratulations on what you’ve done so far.’

Roger heard the receiver click at the other end, and replaced his own slowly. Lampard and Mark were on edge, and Mark said explosively: ‘The old basket can’t want anything more.’

‘He wants exactly what I want,’ said Roger. ‘I wish he would learn to talk without a sting in every other sentence.’ He looked moodily at Lampard. ‘He’s bitten by my bug. That someone’s behind Potter.’

‘Supposing you come home with me and have some breakfast,’ Lampard suggested. ‘You need a rest, too.’

Lampard lived near the station, and introduced his wife, who looked as young as Janet and was nearly as pleasing on the eye. She had been warned to expect Mark and Roger, and breakfast was sizzling on a hot plate. Lampard threw off the cold, formal manner and became positively human, although the first time Mark heard him call his wife ‘darling’ Mark nearly choked.

Little was said about the case until they had left the house and were walking back to the station.

Lampard said conversationally: ‘The report on Harrington is satisfactory, I’m glad to say. Miss Transom I’m sorry, Mrs Harrington had been persuaded to go back to Yew House. Petrie had made a full statement, as you know. The story in those documents is clearly corroborated. Mrs Prendergast will live to hang, but I think Petrie will escape that; he won’t live for a trial. I feel rather glad, don’t you, Mr Lessing?’

‘Yes,’ said Mark.

‘So we have everything explained and everything pigeonholed.’ Lampard smiled. ‘Except for the one remaining obsession, of course! Hallo, here is Dr Tenby.’

The doctor was approaching the station from the opposite direction. He stopped at a sight of the trio, and smiled a little grimly. ‘You were nearly late, Lampard.’ He nodded to the others. ‘I’ve checked it.’

‘Checked what?’ asked Roger.

‘Do you know, I have an uncomfortable feeling that Lampard is going to put something across us,’ said Mark. He sent a sideways glance to Lampard, whose lips were curving. Tenby gave a short laugh, then compressed his lips. They filed into Lampard’s office. Tenby took a small bottle from his waistcoat pocket, and handed it to Lampard.