Dennis Wheatley - Contraband

He had a direct way of thinking too, however. That was why they liked each other and why, when one of the great corporations which Sir Pellinore virtually controlled, found their interests threatened, he had said to the board, 'I think I can get you a man. Very able feller. Much more likely to get to the bottom of this business for us than one of those beastly agencies. If you care to leave the matter in my hands…'

Now, Gregory warmed the precious liqueur in the bowl shaped glass with his palms, before sniffing its ethers appreciatively. Then he glanced round the big quiet library where they were sitting after dinner. 'She didn't fool me, you know,' he said.

Sir Pellinore closed one bright blue eye under a bushy white eyebrow. 'Tell that to the marines, my boy. Been fooled often enough myself by women. Not afraid to admit it either. She tipped off that Limper feller and he did the rest. Gad, I'd have given a packet to see you afterwards. How mad you must have been.' He gave his long thigh a ringing slap, and roared with laughter again.

'Not a bit of it,' Gregory protested. 'If Sabine had put the Limper on to me he would have searched me afterwards for a certainty, and taken the telegram when he had the chance, but he didn't. He obviously couldn't have known I had it. All he was interested in was getting Sabine out of my hands under instructions from his boss. Here's the telegram to prove it.'

'Well, maybe you're right.' The baronet took the flimsy sheet and read it out:

COROT CAFE DE LA CLOCHE CALAIS SIXTH 41 44 II 15 THENCE 46 SEVENTH 43 47 EIGHTH 43 AGAIN 47

'What d'you make of it?' Gregory asked.

'Nothing. Never was any good at figures, much less codes. Never had much of a brain for anything at all.'

'No.' Gregory grinned. 'Yet the father of all the Rothschild’s would have buttoned up his pockets and knocked off work for the day if he had heard you were going to pay him a visit in his office.'

'What's that!' Sir Pellinore looked up sharply.

'Well, you know what I mean.' Gregory continued to grin unashamedly. He knew his man and treated Sir Pellinore in private as few of the baronet's co directors would have dared to do.

'Insolent young devil.' Sir Pellinore returned the grin. 'Good thing there aren't many more of your kidney knocking about. World wouldn't be fit to live in. Honestly, though, I can't make head or tail of this thing. However, I've got a pal in the Admiralty decoding department and I'll get him on to it tomorrow. Never do anything yourself that you can get other people to do for you. Remember that my boy. Better than any tip for the Derby. Lots of fools have paid me good money to get other people to do their work for them.'

'I can well believe you,' said Gregory succinctly. 'Have you still got any of that pre-War Kummel?'

'What, the original Mentzendorff?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Only that I've always found it an excellent aid to thought and I can get fine brandy in other people's houses but you seem to have cornered all the pre-War Kummel in London.'

Sir Pellinore brushed a hand over his fine white moustache and got up. He stood six feet four in his socks and could still have flung most men over thirty down his stairs if he had wanted to.

'Drat the boy,' he muttered as he pressed the bell. 'Another bottle gone and even Justerini's can't find me any more. But I'd sooner you drank it than most people I know. At least you appear to appreciate the stuff and I wouldn't mind a spot myself. Now you shall tell me what you really did with that attractive young woman.'

'There's nothing more to tell.'

'Come on, you young rascal. You had her in your room all night.'

'Even so, I promise you…'

'Expect me to believe that! Is it likely! Still, I'll let you off. It's nice to find a youngster who refuses to tell tales out of school. Crawshay, bring me a bottle of Kummel. Out of the bin mind. Not that muck we have for parties.'

'Very good, sir. The under butler bowed in the doorway and disappeared as quietly as he had come.

'Now! Let's have this thing clear.' The baronet sat back in his deep armchair. 'Do you really think you've tumbled on to something or just got yourself mixed up in some shady deal which doesn't matter two hoots to us.'

Gregory shrugged. 'I can't say for certain. It may not concern us at all. On the other hand it may be what we're after. Anyhow, I intend to follow it up.'

'Follow up that young woman is what you mean, my lad.'

'Certainly, but I have a hunch that I won't be wasting my time as far as the other thing is concerned. Remember, it was a Scotland Yard man whom those thugs attacked.'

'That's true. All the same, policemen must have their nights off, like other people, and it's quite probable this wench told you a whole pack of lies to cover up her affair with the fellow. Women are marvellous liars marvellous. Ha! here comes the Kummel.'

The under butler had arrived with the cobwebbed bottle still uncorked upon a salver, and Sir Pellinore took it from him. When the door closed behind the man he said to Gregory,, as he gently tapped the wax off the top of the bottle, 'Never allow my people to uncork old liquor. Servants don't understand that sort of thing these days. Cork's gone to powder, like as not. If so, they push it in and ruin the stuff. One thing I always do myself.' With a skilful sideways twist of the wide spiral corkscrew he drew the cork, smelt it, and then poured out two generous rations. For a moment they both sniffed at the old liqueur, then sipped it.

'By Jove! How right I was to ask you for this,' Gregory murmured. 'Smooth as cream, isn't it, but what a kick.'

Sir Pellinore nodded. 'Pity you didn't have some of this to give the girl at Deauville, eh? But I'll bet you managed without it. Where were we now? You were saying you had a hunch that you'd got on to something really big. What makes you think that? On the face of it, you know, it's only a brawl in a cafe in which it happened that a Scotland Yard man was mixed up.!

'Yes, on the face of it,' Gregory said slowly. 'But I wonder if you remember a conspiracy which took place a few years ago when, by means of arson, sabotage and paid gunmen, a combine endeavoured to gain control of the entire film industry?'*

'Yes, they murdered poor John Bamborough and a number of other people, didn't they? And Hinckman, the Trans-Continental Electric chief, who engineered the whole business, died while evading arrest.'

'He was supposed to have been drowned in a marsh, somewhere down in Surrey, but that's never been proved. However, Hinckman was only the figurehead. There was a far more sinister figure behind the scheme really. A man who controls almost limitless capital and who is believed to have been mixed up with all sorts of financial rackets during the past few years Lord Gavin Fortescue.'

'What, Denver's brother?' Sir Pellinore's white eyebrows shot up into his forehead.

'Yes. He's the Duke of Denver's twin, but whereas Denver is a fine upstanding figure, Gavin is a sort of freak. Not a dwarf exactly but very short, with an enormous head and a tiny little body, like a child's in its early teens. They say that his abnormality together with the fact that he was born second, and so failed to inherit the dukedom, embittered him to such an extent that it turned his brain. The story goes that he even attempted Denver's murder when they were boys together.'

'That's so! I knew 'em both. Know Denver well today but I haven't seen Gavin for years. He travels a lot I believe but wherever he goes he lives as a recluse. He's immensely rich and made every penny out of crooked deals. He hates his fellow men like poison and has sold his soul fifty times over to make his millions. Armaments, dope, white slaving on the grand scale, he's been in them all; but he's so powerful in a subterranean sort of way that nobody's ever been able to get enough watertight evidence to pin anything on him yet. He's not a man, but a warped inhuman devil. I'd put him at the top of the list as the cleverest and most ruthless criminal brain in Europe at the present day.'