John Creasey - Triumph For Inspector West

Two men loomed out of the darkness, and smashed blows at him. He jumped to one side, and ran. Brown swung his left fist at the nearer assailant, and buried it in his stomach. The man backed away, but struck at Brown’s head. Brown staggered, kept his balance, fended the man off, and darted in Deaken’s wake.

The fog swallowed him up.

He heard thudding footsteps, but could not see more than ten yards in front of him. He struck a lamp-post with his wounded right arm, and winced at the pain, but did not let it slow him down. Number 54 Berry Street was halfway between the kiosk and the main road. His pursuers would not be able to see which house he had entered; if he could once reach 54, he would find sanctuary.

The footsteps stopped.

‘Deaken’s okay,’ thought Brown, slowing down.

He could hear the men coming after him, groping their way through the fog, then a hollow noise was followed by a vicious oath. One of the men had banged full tilt into the lamp-post.

Brown went into a gateway, trying to see the number on the door of a house. He wasn’t quite sure where he was, but couldn’t be far away from 54.

“Sixty-two,” he muttered.

Now he crept along the pavement, reached Number 54, and found the front door ajar. A man was breathing heavily inside the narrow passage. Deaken’s wind had always been short. Brown pushed the door wider open, and stepped inside.

A fist crashed into his face.

The blow came so suddenly, and with such a shock of surprise, that he did not even try to defend himself. He reeled back against the wall, and the man who had struck him appeared from behind the doorway. Deaken was crouching against a door at the foot of the stairs, just out of sight; and he screamed.

The assailant struck Brown across the face. Brown felt blood trickling down his chin, and licked his lips. A third blow banged his head against the wall; another sent a stab of pain up his wounded arm, and he gasped aloud. His assailant grabbed his arm, and began to twist. The pain was so great that Brown felt the strength ebbing from his body.

“Shut that door!” a man ordered.

The front door slammed, and the light went on.

Fog eddied into the hall, but when Brown looked round he could see the men waiting there. They had been hiding in the rooms. The man who had hit him was a hulking fellow, with thick, wet hps, and little porcine eyes. His hands were red and huge. Deaken was in the grip of another man near the stairs. Two others stood by, one of them small and thin-faced, with hair growing far back on his head. The yellow light shone on his forehead and long hooked nose. He was dressed in a suit; the other men were in old Army uniforms.

“Take them upstairs, Andy,” said the thin-faced man.

“Okay, Joe,” said the big one.

Deaken didn’t need ‘taking’; he was eager to walk up the stairs. Andy gripped Brown’s shoulder, and pushed him forward. Brown felt a warm, sticky patch on his arm where the wound had opened. He was almost too weak with pain to move, but Andy kept kneeing him from behind, and he had to go up.

Andy pushed him into a back room.

“Keep yer trap shut,” he ordered.

He stood by the door, towering above both men. Deaken snivelled and began to talk, and Andy clouted him across the face. Deaken dropped on to a camp bed while Brown leaned against the wall, his senses swimming.

It seemed a long time before Joe came into the room, smoothing his bald patch.

Deaken jumped up.

“I don’t know nothin’,” he screeched. “I don’t know a thing. I only come along because—”

“Shut up!” said Joe, and turned to Brown. His little eyes were narrowed and watering, and there was a dew- drop at the end of his nose. He kept rubbing his hands together, making a sliding noise. Andy was breathing noisily through his mouth. The sound of traffic from the Mile End Road was deadened; there was no noise of footsteps outside.

The little house was on a terrace, and the tenant and his family were out. It had been offered to Brown and Deaken while they were on the run, and they had spent the previous night there. The furniture of the bedroom was poor and old-fashioned; the single light was little more than a dim yellow glow; they could have seen almost as well without it, in spite of the fog.

“How did you like what you got, Brown?” Joe inquired, evenly.

Brown said nothing.

“How would you like some more? ”

“I can give ‘im plenty,” Andy said.

“That’s right—plenty more where that came from,” agreed Joe. “Brown, why did you go to Raeburn’s flat?”

Brown licked his lips. “I was going to beat him up.”

“Why?”

“That’s my business.”

“We’ll see about that,” Joe said.

He went for Brown with a rain of blows which made even Deaken cry out in muffled protest. Brown was pushed round the room, trying desperately to defend himself. He kept banging his arm against the wall. His knees felt weak, and now and again he stumbled, but Andy reached forward and hauled him to his feet. By the time Joe stopped, Bill’s face was puffy and swollen and streaked with blood; he could hardly get his breath.

“Why did you want to beat Raeburn up?” asked Joe.

Brown muttered: “He murdered my brother.”

“So you think he murdered your brother. What made you think so, Brown? Don’t waste time.”

Brown muttered: “Try and find out.”

“Bill, he’ll bash you again!” cried Deaken. “Andy,” said Joe in a menacing voice, “ you have a

At the third blow from the giant, Brown began to talk.

He was talking or answering questions for over twenty minutes. Joe learned that Tony had been with Eve on the night of Halliwell’s death, and learned exactly what Katie Brown had told Roger. He pressed for more, probing to find out whether Brown could give evidence or whether all he had was hearsay, until Brown was half stupid with pain and fatigue.

“That’s fine, that’s fine,” Joe said, when it was finished. “If you’d told me all that before, you wouldn’t have got hurt. Not so much, anyway.” He grinned. “But it’s a pity you’ve seen me and my friends, isn’t it? Because you’d talk to the narks, wouldn’t you? You’d—”

A man shouted from downstairs.

Joe swung round. “What’s that?”

His answer was a thud and a gasp, then footsteps sounded on the stairs. Joe moved swiftly toward the door, taking out an automatic. Andy pulled the door open.

A man at the top of the stairs shouted: “Get out of my way, or—”

He broke off, as Joe appeared.

From behind Joe, Andy called: “ West! ”

Joe had kept completely cool during the moments of crisis, and now he said, quite evenly: “You’ve had it, copper.”

He fired.

Roger fired from his pocket as he jumped aside. The other man’s bullet smacked into the wall near his head. Joe staggered back, clutching his chest, and his gun dropped from his fingers.

“The cops, armed, ” breathed Andy. “Gawd!”

CHAPTER XVIII

SILENT JOE

“BROWN’S IN hospital but he confirmed his wife’s story,”

D said Roger to Chatworth, an hour later. “Deaken’s all right, as scared as a rabbit, but not hurt. We’ve another dish of hearsay evidence, as far as Eve Franklin is concerned, but nothing that leads direct to Raeburn.”

“What about this man Joe?” asked Chatworth.

“He’s badly hurt. I didn’t have time to take aim,” said Roger. “He’s being operated on now. The other men seem dumb. They say they only know Joe’s Christian name, and I haven’t been able to find out anything about the man. But I will.”

“You’d better. The Home Secretary thinks your resignation would clear the air a lot.”

Roger caught his breath. “Are you making me ?”

“I told him if you were suspended, I’d quit,” Chatworth said bluffly. “But we want results soon. Yesterday —well, go on.”

Roger said, slowly: “Thank you, sir. I think we can get Raeburn eventually, but if you feel that I ought——”

“I said, go on.”

Roger said: “Brown says that the man Joe told him he was after Raeburn, but I don’t pay much attention to that. We might find a Joe-Tenby connection, and I’m also working on that angle. I don’t think we can complain about today’s progress.”

“No, but this campaign against you must stop soon,” Chatworth said.

Roger leaned back in his chair, and drew at his cigarette. He was hungry, his eyes were tired from the strain of driving through the fog, and Chatworth had given him a nasty shock.

“It won’t stop until we’ve dropped the case or got Raeburn,” he said. “It’s shrewd and very clever— Raeburn flaunting himself as a champion of the rights of the people, and winning a lot of sympathy. But there’s a sharp contrast between the newspaper campaign and Raeburn’s usual tactics against us, and this violence,” Roger went on. “It’s almost as if two different people were behind it. Raeburn’s completely lost his head, or else he can’t control the forces he’s let loose. Either way, I think it will give us a break.” It had to. “I hope we’ll get something out of Joe soon. I’ve left a man by his side.”

Chatworth nodded dismissal.

At half past three, Roger heard that the bullet had been removed, and that Joe was making reasonable progress. He had not yet spoken a word, but if he had a good night he might be questioned the following day.

Tenby was interviewed, but when shown a photograph, professed not to know any Joe. He said that he had been in his rooms all the morning, and certainly he could not be linked up with the attack on Bill Brown on the present evidence. Efforts to identify Joe went on all that day and the following morning, but without result. He seemed to have no history. The other three men, Army deserters, had been staying at a doss house; according to Andy, they had met Joe in a pub.

Joe had paid Andy fifty pounds, and the other two men twenty each for the job.

Roger saw Joe the following afternoon. The wounded man was out of danger, and conscious, but would not say a word. After twenty minutes, Roger gave up, left instructions with the detective on duty in the private ward, and had a talk with the sister in charge.

“There’s no reason why he should behave like this,” she said, “and he’s spoken rationally enough to the nurses, sir. He’s had a nasty wound, of course, but—”

“You think he’s acting dumb?” asked Roger.

“I do rather think so.”

“Silent Joe,” mused Roger. “Well, thanks very much.”

He was very thoughtful as he drove away from the hospital.

When Roger reached the Yard, Turnbull and Peel were waiting for him. The two had returned from Brighton in the wake of Raeburn and Eve. Eve had gone to her rooms in Battersea, and Raeburn to the Park Lane flat; both were being kept under observation. They had no idea why Raeburn had changed his plans; he had simply paid his bill after lunch, and driven back. The fog had cleared except in the heart of London, and the journey had been uneventful.

“And you’ve nothing special to report?” Roger asked.

“There’s nothing new at all,” admitted Turnbull.

“Well, we’ve had some luck here,” Roger told him, and explained.

“If you ask me, Raeburn’s seen the red lights,” Turnbull said, with satisfaction.

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

“But we haven’t really set them at danger,” Turnbull argued. “We haven’t done anything to make him rush back to town, anyway.”