Mystery Mile (20 page)

Mrs Knapp appeared behind him. ‘You stay with me, dearie,' she said. ‘Till they come back.' All five of Mrs Knapp's teeth appeared in a devastating smile. ‘You'll stay with me, won't you, lovey?' she said, and gently drew the unfortunate Oriental into the other room.

Mr Knapp continued. ‘Now then, me first, Bertie second. Then you two lads, then Lugg. Don't forget, soft on the slates an' quiet on the tiles. If you 'ear me whistle, stop dead, an' lie as flat as you can. Now, are you ready?'

‘Any more for the “Skylark”?' murmured Mr Campion. ‘Lovely drying day.'

Mr Knapp raised the window gently and crawled out on to the ledge. After a moment of suspense they heard his whisper: ‘All clear. Come on.'

‘Railin's with spikes on under 'ere, shouldn't be surprised,' said Mr Lugg huskily from the backround. ‘Gently does it.'

The night was clear but moonless. There were people in the farther streets, and a rumble of traffic came to them. Nearly all the windows that lay beneath their path were dark, as Mr Knapp had predicted.

Ahead of them to the east the lights of London made a glow in the sky. The air was warm, and the scents of the great city – fruit, face powder, petrol fumes, and dust – were not too unpleasantly mixed together.

The going was not so much perilous as awkward, after the first giddy twenty feet or so of parapet. Mr Knapp unfolded a collapsible ladder which he was apparently used to carrying, since he managed its conveyance with extraordinary skill. On it they climbed up from the lower roofs of the shops to the fiat lead-covered tops of the houses in Beverley Gardens. Mr Lugg, bringing up the rear, left it in position for the return.

The trip was not without its thrills. As Mr Knapp dropped lightly on to the roof of the second house in the row, a
woman's voice, old and querulous, shouted at him through an open window:

‘Who's there?'

‘London Telephone Service, ma'am. Breakdown gang. Tracing a wire.' Mr Knapp's cheerful tone would have satisfied the most timid.

There was a satisfied grunt from the darkness, and they pushed on again. The sweat was pouring off Giles's face. Both he and Marlowe were law-abiding souls, and were it not for the all-important motive which now impelled them, neither of them would have dreamed of assisting in such an enterprise.

‘It's the next 'ouse after this,' murmured Mr Knapp, and paused abruptly, nudging Campion. ‘Absolutely askin' for it – this lot,' he said, indicating the skylight of the roof on which they now stood. It was wide open. He bent over it and idly ran his torch round the dark room. It appeared to be a studio. The little circle of light rested upon a side table, where, beside a telephone, stood a decanter and a siphon.

‘Wot a spot o' luck if we wasn't busy,' he remarked casually. ‘Afraid we shan't be so 'appy next door.'

One by one they clambered over the narrow stone coping which separated the two roofs.

‘Gently does it – gently,' Mr Knapp whispered as the two amateurs climbed somewhat nervily over it. ‘Keep yer 'eads down. 'Ere we are, then,' he went on to Campion. ‘I ain't actually been 'ere afore, you understand, but I got a nice pair o' binoculars at my place – a present from my old colonel. I've always felt 'e meant to give 'em to me. Now, a jemmy or a diamond, d'you think?'

‘Diamond,' said Mr Lugg. ‘Less noisy. There's no one underneath. Sure this is the 'ouse?'

‘Shut up, 'Appy,' said Mr Knapp. Now that the procedure had been decided upon he set to work with a silent and a practised hand.

The tension among the onlookers became strained, as he drew out a piece of glass on a rubber sucker, slipped in his hand, and raising the catch gently laid the window back upon the leads. All was dark and silent inside the house.

‘Not a bit o' light showin' anywhere,' said Mr Lugg, who had investigated both sides of the building from the roof. ‘Now then, Thos, in with you. I'll see you buried decent.'

Mr Knapp made a careful survey of the interior of the room below, which appeared empty, and then, gripping the lintel firmly in both hands, swung gently into the air and dropped noiselessly into the room.

‘Lie flat,' commanded Lugg. ‘You don't know nothing, none of you. Be ready to nip off like 'ell if there's a row.'

There was a soft click from the room below them, and the tiny circle of Mr Knapp's torch was seen no more. They waited listening, every nerve strained, anxious to catch the least sound from the silent house below them. The minutes passed with agonizing slowness. Still Mr Knapp did not return.

At last even Lugg began to show signs of uneasiness.

‘Thos ain't the chap to stay in a nasty spot fer fun,' he muttered nervously. Marlowe edged nearer, Giles behind him.

‘Can't we go in?' he said. ‘After him?'

‘You'll stay where you are,' growled Mr Lugg.

Campion, who was bending over the dark square of the open skylight, suddenly dodged back. ‘
Cave
,' he whispered.

An unnatural stillness fell over the whole party. No one breathed. At last a welcome whisper sounded out of the darkness.

‘Give us a hand, matey.'

Lugg and Campion thrust down an arm each, and the next moment Mr Knapp, nimble and monkey-like in the darkness, scrambled softly out on to the leads beside them. His rapid breathing was the first thing they noticed.

‘Keep low,' said Mr Lugg. ‘Keep low.'

They were lying flat upon the roof, and Giles, whose face came suddenly very close to Knapp's, saw that he was considerably shaken.

‘She's in there all right.' His squeaky cockney voice was ominously subdued. It rekindled the apprehension in the minds of all his hearers.

Marlowe moved forward involuntarily, and Campion himself stiffened where he lay close to the skylight.

‘They've got 'er on the next floor down,' said Mr Knapp. ‘I didn't find 'em at first. The bloke with the red beard is all alone in a sort of drawin'-room they've got lower down. I come back, an' as I reached the second floor I 'eard a sort o' guggly noise, an' I found there was a long room that runs the 'ole width o' the 'ouse, along the front. It 'ad a kind of 'arf glass over the door, a curtain coverin' it. That's 'ow I missed it goin' down. I nipped up on a chair an' 'ad a look.'

He paused, and his voice when he continued was pitched a tone or so lower.

‘There was six or seven o' 'em,' he said, ‘all nasty-lookin' coves. Ikey Todd 'isself an' two or three of ‘is pals. There's a long table down the middle o' the room. The girl's sittin' at one end of it, tied into a chair. They're all askin' 'er questions, one after the other – old-fashioned police methods. An' sittin' on the other end o' the table was that dirty little Ropey. 'E's got a fishin' rod in 'is 'and. I couldn't quite see wot 'e'd got on the end of it – looked like a needle or something. 'E was wavin' it about in front of 'er eyes, looked 'e'd scratched 'er face with it once or twice already. Made me sick to look at it.'

After the first chill of horror which his story produced upon his hearers, each reacted to it after his own way. Lugg and Campion knew as well as Mr Knapp the sort of men with which they had to deal.

Giles and Marlowe, on the other hand, merely realized that the girl who was extraordinarily dear to them both was being subjected to a particularly ghastly torture in a room beneath their feet.

Before any of the other three had time to prevent them, they hurled themselves one after the other down into the attic and charged into the house like a couple of bulls.

Lugg and Knapp clutched at each other.

‘Shall we nip off?' said Knapp nervously. ‘They've done it now.'

Even the redoubtable Lugg hesitated. As a man of experience he knew what the mêlée below stairs was likely to resemble.

‘Wot's that?' Knapp, already nervy, almost screamed. The
two men, swinging round, were just in time to see a slight figure drop silently over the coping on to the next roof.

‘It's Bertie,' said Mr Knapp,' ‘'ooking it.'

The faithful Lugg was shaken to the core. Then, as the noise below suddenly broke into an uproar, he caught his friend by the collar and thrust him into the attic.

‘Come on,' he said. ‘Lost 'is nerve for a spell. See it 'appen in the war. We've got to take blasted good care we don't lose ours. Now then, pile up them boxes for a bloke leavin' in an 'urry. I told you wot'd come of bringin' amateurs. Last man up locks this 'ere door.'

As he spoke he was moving about with incredible swiftness, dragging the odd lumber in the room to under the open skylight, to facilitate an exit.

Somewhere beneath them Biddy screamed. The sound touched the last spot of chivalry in Mr Lugg's unsentimental heart.

‘Come on, Thos,' he said. ‘'It anythink you see, and ‘it like 'ell – s'long as it ain't me.'

MESSRS LUGG AND
Knapp descended the narrow stairs to the second floor with considerably more caution than their immediate predecessors had shown, although this care was now slightly ridiculous, since the noise proceeding from the room below contradicted any idea that the occupants were listening for a further attack.

As they reached the landing they saw their objective immediately. The room was brilliantly lit, and crowded with people. They crept along the passage, keeping out of the shaft of light from the doorway. As they approached, a man staggered out and collapsed over the banisters, and the noise within the room increased in fury. Somewhere in the throng a voice was swearing continuously in a high-pitched stream, the monotonous tone sounding clearly above the deeper voices and the crashes of overturning furniture.

‘'Ere goes,' whispered Mr Lugg, hitching his trousers and grasping his life preserver. ‘I ain't 'eard any shootin' yet.'

‘They daren't risk it 'ere,' muttered Knapp, sliding along the wall behind the larger man to the doorpost, round which he peered.

Giles and Marlowe had evidently charged straight through the surprised gangsters and made for Biddy. At the moment when Lugg and Knapp arrived, the girl was still bound to her chair, and the two young men, although remaining beside her, were not making any further progress towards getting her out. They were both badly cut about. Giles's cheek was laid open to the bone, and Marlowe was laying about him with his left hand, his right arm hanging limply at his side.

Clearly they had only managed to get into the room by the
suddenness of their attack. The angry gangsters had only just collected themselves.

An immense Jew standing with his back to the doorway suddenly raised his voice above the din. ‘Put 'em up quick, both of you. Sit on 'em, boys.'

He stepped back a pace, his gun levelled, and Mr Lugg, seizing the opportunity, darted into the room and caught him a vicious blow just above the ear. He grunted like a pig and sprawled forward.

Knapp made a dive for the gun, but a heavy boot descended on his wrist and the revolver was snatched out of his grasp. The next instant the butt descended vigorously on the back of his head, and he went down without a sound.

The prompt dispatch of his partner stirred Mr Lugg to fury. Flinging out his left hand, he brought down a heavy picture frame over the sprawling figures, which, while it did no appreciable good to the cause, added most successfully to the confusion.

‘The Guv'nor'll be up in a minute,' shouted a voice. ‘'Old 'em till then! 'E'll deal with 'em. 'Tain't the police.'

‘The police'll be here any minute, you blighters!' yelled Giles. He was growing visibly fainter every second from loss of blood, but he was still game and struck about him savagely. Even as he spoke a man closed with him and they rolled on to the floor together.

The position of the rescue party seemed hopeless. There were still two gangsters without immediate adversaries, one of whom had a gun, and Biddy remained fastened in her chair. Marlowe was fighting like a maniac in spite of his injured arm. The sweat was trickling into his eyes, and his black hair hung over his face in damp strands.

It was at the precise moment when Ropey was kneeling upon Lugg's outstretched arms and was slowly but surely forcing his neck back, and strangulation seemed certain, that without sound or warning all light in the place disappeared.

‘Switch don't work,' said a voice out of the darkness. ‘Look out! There's somethin' comin' up the stairs.'

Lugg finding himself under the chair in which the girl sat, set to work to unfasten the bonds, his fingers moving deftly in the darkness.

Fighting ceased momentarily, and there was a general movement towards the door. There seemed to be the sound of many feet coming up the stairs.

‘Is that you, Guv'nor?' A strangled voice from the room spoke eagerly.

‘In here, officer, in here.' The voice was unrecognizable, and at the same moment a torch shone into the room.

‘The police!' shouted someone, and there was a stampede to the doorway. The first man out sprawled and went down like a log.

‘'Ere,' said another voice, ‘there's only one of 'em. Out 'im!'

The last words were drowned by a small explosion – not very loud, but curiously ominous in sound. The torch went out, and almost immediately everyone in the room became aware of something insidious in the atmosphere which choked and suffocated them.

Someone attempted to light a match, and a startled exclamation broke from him. ‘Smoke!' he shouted. ‘Fire!'

‘Pull yourselves together,' shouted a second voice. ‘Someone's foolin' us. It's the Guv'nor.'

The fumes became more and more intense. Giles, staggering to his feet, heard a whisper that put new life in him:

‘Return tickets ready, please. Get the girl out, you fool.'