John Creasey - Triumph For Inspector West

Warrender took the drink. “So that’s it!”

“That’s it,” agreed Raeburn.

“You see yourself as a great public figure.”

“I do, George! This country’s never had a real strong man. Moseley tried, but—”Raeburn broke off. “But we mustn’t run before we can walk! Whatever it leads to, I also see you as my right-hand man.” Raeburn pressed his shoulder. “When I ran Halliwell down, I did myself more good than I realised. Instead of going to prison, I raised my stock sky-high. I don’t want to quarrel with you or Ma, but I’m going to do things my way. You just stand by to pick up the pieces. Drink up, George, and forget it!”

Warrender said, flatly: “I haven’t finished telling you about Tenby. He was tailed home tonight. A Yard man was trying to get him to open up in a pub, but Tenby was too quick for him. He dropped a tablet of nicotine into his beer.”

Raeburn looked amused.

“I’m getting really fond of Tenby.”

“He’s got a high opinion of himself,” Warrender said. “I don’t like men in his position who get ideas.”

“So you suggest that we get rid of Tenby now? George, don’t let yourself get carried away. If the Yard is showing an interest in Tenby, just send him away for a while. He won’t mind a holiday, even if you do.”

“You personally can’t take a holiday from police attention unless you go abroad,” Warrender insisted. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. And I’ve already told Tenby that if he does anything else without consulting me, there’ll be real trouble.”

“I’m quite prepared to leave him to you,” said Raeburn, carelessly. “Send him some chocolates!” He finished his drink and stifled a yawn. “George, I’m getting tired of this. Let’s call it a day.”

When Warrender was in his bedroom, undressing, there was a tap at the door. He called: “Come in,” and Ma Beesley plodded in. “So it’s you,” he remarked, glumly. “I wondered where you’d got to.”

“Most of the time I was outside the study door,” said Ma.

“Think that surprises me?”

Ma gave a little clucking laugh, crossed to the bed and sat down, patting his cheek as she passed him. It was a bleak room with ultra-modern furnishings in black and cream, and against that background Ma looked old- fashioned. Her long skirt spread out over the bed; on her plump little ankles were rings of fat caused by shoes that were too tightly laced. She took some pins out of her hair, and two long plaits fell over her shoulders.

“Paul is right about one thing—you worry too much,” she observed. “But you’re right about another: he must be stopped from going about with Eve.”

“What’s made you change your mind?”

“Paul has,” said Ma Beesley, simply. “He’s getting much too fond of her; he isn’t just amusing himself any longer. I thought he was, until I saw him after she’d left tonight. Tcha-tcha! I’d hoped he’d grown out of that kind of thing. If she gets her claws in too deep, they won’t be so easy to pull out.”

“How do you propose to stop her?” inquired War- render.

“I thought we might put her in a compromising situation with another man,” cooed Ma Beesley. “I’m sure Paul wouldn’t stand for that.”

After a long pause, Warrender began to laugh, and to look less worried than he had all evening.

“You old devil!” he said. “Ma, you do me good!”

She gave her little clucking laugh, and patted his cheek again as she passed him.

“Just a minute,” Warrender went on, as she reached the door. “Paul said something about going away for a week. D’you know whether he was serious?”

“I’ve already booked a suite for him and a room for her at die Grand-Royal, Brighton,” answered Ma. “He says he wants to be alone.” She winked. “We’ll let him have this week to enjoy himself, and then we’ll look after him.” She went out, closing the door softly behind her.

The luxury flat was quiet. All was quiet outside, too; only occasionally did Warrender hear a car change gear. He lay awake, looking at the faint light which shone from the street on to the ceiling. It made the darkness a ghostly grey, and he found no comfort from it. He felt wakeful and restless, and kept going over the talk with Raeburn.

Raeburn’s overeonfidenee worried him, and his overriding ambition worried him even more. Did he really see himself as a kind of dictator? Or the real power behind the political and economic scenes? Was he mad? Or was he simply drunk with success?

The stimulus of Ma Beesley’s visit had faded; as always, she had been ready to pour oil on troubled waters, soothing and flattering, so as to make everything run smoothly. Warrender could not be sure that she had meant what she said, was not even positive that she would not tell Raeburn that he was so agitated. He was never sure that he could trust Ma.

Probably no one knew Raeburn as well as she did; she was always at his side, suggesting, prompting, even influencing his thoughts. Had she the same grandiose dreams? She seldom left the flat, and never failed to appear when Raeburn rang for her. Her attitude never varied, either, and Warrender had never known her to lose her temper. She had worked with them for ten years; only he had served Raeburn longer than that.

All three had worked smoothly together, defrauding elderly widows at small continental resorts, never aiming too high, or attracting the attention of the local police. For who would suspect fat, friendly Ma Beesley of swindling?

The currency problems of the neighbouring countries proved another fruitful source of profit, and Raeburn had begun to spread his wings. He always had the bright ideas. Both at home and abroad, he had turned property buying, made a fortune, and begun to study the Stock Exchange. Now he controlled a financial empire, was beginning to enter the industrial and commercial spheres, and seldom put a foot wrong.

Then Halliwell had come, as a ghost. In the early days, they had found him in Southampton, managing a successful wholesale business, exactly the type of going concern Raeburn had then wanted to control, for he provisioned many ocean-going ships. Halliwell, easily bribed, had been used to handle smuggled goods, and later to plant a fire bomb on board a sea-going tramp, which was heavily insured at Lloyds. The ship, with a largely fictitious cargo, had sunk.

Afterwards, Halliwell, doing a smaller job, had been caught, convicted, and jailed. Not until he came out of prison had Raeburn realised that Halliwell knew who was behind the organisation.

Warrender had always feared something of the kind. He had been the go-between in the early deals, but had soon employed others, making his own arrangements by telephone, and keeping in the background. Ma Beesley also proved to have a genius for organisation. A few agents caught by the police had been well paid for their silence; the number who knew either Raeburn or Warrender rapidly decreased. So did their criminal activities, for Raeburn now found money making money. There had been rumours about his financial activities until he had bought the Cry, and really appeared in the public eye.

They went from success to fabulous success, until a letter had come from Halliwell. Warrender had told Tenby .to watch Halliwell, and Tenby had seen Raeburn seize the chance to murder the man.

For years, Tenby, a distant relation of Raeburn, had been used for small jobs, without realising how frequently he had made himself remarkably useful. He had started out as an assistant to a pharmaceutical chemist in the East End, where he had learned a great deal about dispensing and drugs; soon he was practising various forms of crime. For a time he had specialised in doping greyhounds, and had fixed several races for Raeburn in the early days. Humble, willing, and unscrupulous, any unpleasant little job went his way. He was the last direct connection between the days of crime and the days of legal plenty.

After Halliwell’s death, he had offered to say that he had been an eye witness and the accident had been unavoidable, but Melville had objected strongly to calling a witness with a police record.

Then Tenby had suggested using Eve Franklin. True, he had warned them that Brown might cause trouble, but no one had dreamed how bad it would be. But to Warrender, the real danger was less in Tenby than in Raeburn’s attitude towards him; in his general attitude.

Now he was losing his head over Eve. If Ma was seriously determined to part Raeburn from her, undoubtedly the surest way would be to make him jealous.

Warrender grinned.

He had been lying between waking and sleeping for some time when he heard a faint scratching noise which kept on and on, until he realised that someone was moving in the flat. He eased himself up on one elbow and strained his ears, and the sound kept on.

He sat upright.

The noise was coming from the hall, and he realised that someone was trying to pick a lock.

Only Raeburn locked his door at night.

CHAPTER X

NIGHT ALARM

WARRENDER PUSHED back the clothes and got out of bed. The springs creaked faintly, but the scratching noise still went on. He groped for his slippers, straining his ears to catch every sound. He stretched out his hands to put on the light, but withdrew it quickly; a light might show under the door.

He could just make out the shape of the door, and touched the handle. He turned it carefully, in case it should squeak, but it made no sound. He opened the door and saw a faint light in the hall. This came from a torch which stood on a small table and shone on to Raeburn’s door. In the light he could see a man’s hands working at the lock, and the figure of the man crouching down with his back half turned towards him.

Warrender began to creep forward. There was no need for a weapon, a surprise attack should suffice, for the other was intent upon his task. Three more steps and he would be on him.

He heard a rustle of sound and his heart seemed to turn over. He swung round as a man came at him, and shouted at the top of his voice. He saw the man at the door leap, and felt a blow on the side of his head which sent him reeling towards the wall.

Then a door opened and light streamed into the hall, but Warrender was protecting his face with his upraised arm, and could see nothing. A terrific crack on the elbow made him feel sick, and he dropped to his knees.

A shot rang out.

Then a scream pierced the silent darkness which was closing down over his mind, and he collapsed. He did not lose consciousness, but was only vaguely aware of what was going on. There was a confused babble of sound, voices, another shot, scuffling noises, the thumping of feet. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and got to his knees. The light dazzled him, but he could see Ma Beesley in the hall. The front door was standing wide open.

Two men were rushing towards it.

Warrender saw a small gun in Ma’s hand, and croaked: “Ma, don’t! Ma!”

Flame from the gun showed clearly, but the men ran on to the landing, their footsteps echoing. Suddenly Maud appeared, her angular figure framed in a doorway.

Ma Beesley stood in the middle of the hall, wearing a huge white nightgown which made her look like a balloon.

“Ma!” Warrender gasped.

“Lend Mr Warrender a hand, Maud,” Ma said, as she crossed to Raeburn’s door and tapped on the panel. “It’s all right, Paul,” she called. “You can come out.”

Raeburn had been hiding from the danger!

Warrender realised this, as Maud helped him to his feet and into a chair. He was sitting down, his head in his hands, when Raeburn’s door opened.

In a blue silk dressing-gown, his hair tousled and his face pale, Raeburn stood staring, for once neither poised or suave. “What the hell’s all this? I heard shooting.”

“You heard shooting, all right,” Ma Beesley agreed. “I wounded one of the pair, too.”

“Wounded?”

“That’s right,” Ma said, and held up her gun. “George thought he could be a hero and deal with them with his bare hands, but I didn’t take any chances.”

“Who—”began Raeburn, hoarsely.

“Thieves,” Ma Beesley interrupted quickly. “Just thieves, Paul, there’s nothing to worry about. Maud, dear, go and make some coffee, will you?”

The maid went off, closing the kitchen door behind her. Ma stood looking from one man to the other, her fat face wreathed in smiles, as if all this were a huge joke.

“Thieves, I don’t think,” she said. “Someone came after you, Paul. They were trying to get into your room. I have been wondering lately whether you oughtn’t to have a bodyguard.”

“But who was it?” demanded Raeburn, no longer a great man. “Who would want              V

“That’s one of the things we’ll have to find out,” said Ma, smoothly. “We’d better stop discussing it now; someone is coming up the stairs. It’s another story for the Cry, anyway. Paul. Isn’t it a pity you can’t blame West for it?” She chuckled, then hurried towards the door, to find a porter in the doorway.

The telephone bell rang in Roger’s ears and he stirred, without at first realising what it was. He felt Janet move. The ringing persisted, and almost on the instant he became wide awake. He stretched out his hand, and lifted the receiver from the instrument by the bed.

“What is it?” began Janet, drowsily.

“You go to sleep,” said Roger. “Hallo?”

“Hold on, please,” came a man’s voice.

Roger hitched himself up more comfortably, and glanced at the window. It was still pitch dark, except for a faint glow from a street lamp. The illuminated dial of his watch showed up on the bed table. It was nearly half past three.

Then the night-duty Superintendent at the Yard spoke: “Handsome, there’s been a burglary at Raeburn’s- flat, just been reported. Thought you’d like to know. Here’s a chance to look round.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” Roger said, very softly. “Do me a favour and call Turnbull, will you?”

Roger was wide awake when he got out of his car outside the block of flats in Park Lane. A policeman told him that the lift was waiting at the ground floor; he hurried inside, and found another constable on duty at the lift.

The front door of the flat was standing open, and light streamed into the passage. A porter was outside, whispering to a third policeman; the Yard DI, who was in charge, had left nothing to chance. Inside the flat, men were talking, and Roger paused in the doorway, looking into the study where Raeburn, Turnbull, Warrender and Ma Beesley were gathered. Turnbull, always a fast worker, lived only a minute’s drive from here. On the desk was a silver tray, and the whole group was drinking coffee.

Roger Went in. “Good morning,” he said, briskly.

Raeburn, standing opposite him, saw him first. There was only hostility in his eyes, but he smiled and raised a hand. “Good morning, Chief Inspector.”

Warrender’s right eye was puffy and nearly closed up, and his lips were swollen. Ma Beesley, in a blue dressing- gown, overflowed from an upright chair, her grey plaits hanging over her huge bosom, her bright little eyes turned towards him.