Bluebolt One (14 page)

Verity was making for a wooden stairway which led up to a gallery running along the far wall of the warehouse and suspended over the vast space. Off this gallery offices opened, seemingly the offices of the various executives and directors.

He stopped at a door marked:
P. J. Canasset, Managing Director
, knocked, opened the door, and stood aside. Shaw and Pelly walked in, and Verity left them. As Shaw entered he felt his pulse quicken.

From behind a desk a bald, fleshy man got up to greet them, a flabby man with overmatched clothes, a man not quite English, though it would have been hard to point to an exact nationality; a man whom Shaw had recognized immediately as the man who had been at the Ship’s Biscuit the night before, alongside the African behind that naked coloured girl, the man who had fired at him. A piece of sticking-plaster covered the gash made on his face by the broken glass of the window. The man’s eyes were wary, suspicious, but he didn’t appear to have recognized Shaw as the one who had been on the window-sill. Shaw didn’t find that surprising; after all, he hadn’t been in sight for long and the light would probably have caused a reflection on the glass until it had shattered.

Shaw decided to keep his knowledge of the night-club and the Cult to himself for the time being. It would be more of a shock, would have a more salutary psychological effect when he got the man back to what they called the ‘grill-room’ in the Outfit.

He said, “Mr Canasset, I’m making enquiries about a young lady. . . ."

Canasset blustered it out to the end and he seemed absolutely confident.

He knew nothing whatever about any girl and although he admitted having a black Jaguar in the firm’s garage, its number was not that of the one Shaw had followed.

Shaw said, “Well, you won’t object if I just take a look round the premises, will you? After all, if you’ve nothing to hide . . . .” He shrugged.

Canasset snapped, “I’ve nothing to hide—and you’ve no authority to search my premises.”

“No, that’s quite true. But I assure you that some one’s going to take that look round, and it might suit you better if I, and not the police, did it.”

Canasset glowered, then made a gesture of resignation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but . . . oh, very well, then. Just to satisfy you.” He reached out for a telephone. “I’ll get Verity to show you—”

“Oh no, you don’t!” Shaw was on his feet already. He took two strides forward and his hand came down in a hard grip on Canasset’s wrist. “You’ll come round with us yourself—if you don’t mind! And there’s absolutely no need to tell any of your staff what you’re going to do. Right?”

Canasset’s lips tightened murderously. He snapped, “When you’ve finished, I shall report your behaviour to the proper quarter, I assure you. I have friends—”

“I’ll take a chance on getting a black mark, I think.” Shaw let go of the man’s wrist and stood back. “Now—let’s go. I’ve got a gun handy, and it’ll be right behind you all the time even if you can’t see it I suggest you take me straight to Miss Ross—”

“There’s no Miss Ross here, damn you—”

“All right, all right, we’ll see. I may as well warn you, if you try anything I don’t like, I’ll shoot. We know this is big business, Canasset, and I’m not taking any chances now. When we’ve found the girl you’re coming with me, and you’re going to talk.” Shaw grasped the man’s shoulder. “Get going.”

Canasset, his face furious but with no trace of fear in it, moved to the door.

Canasset led the way down the wooden staircase into the body of the warehouse. Tight-Upped, he asked, “Where d’you want to go?”

“Everywhere. We may as well start with this building as any other.”

“You won’t find anything. You’ll get nothing but trouble for yourself as a result of this.” The man seemed utterly confident as though he scarcely needed even to protest any more. Shaw had one nasty moment of self-doubt and then his hand went inside his jacket and he said in a quiet voice.

“Just lead the way, Mr Canasset.”

Canasset was right, though; it didn’t get them anywhere.

Canasset grew more and more confident as Shaw grew wearier with his unavailing search; but Shaw fancied that the managing director was in fact keeping his eyes on the go as much as he and Pelly, continually looking, as Shaw suspected, for a means of letting some one know what was going on just in case Shaw should stumble on something which he didn’t want known about.

After a time it began to seem pretty hopeless. In the firm’s garage Shaw found a black Jaguar; but it bore the registration number as indicated earlier by Canasset. Shaw was positive there had been a switch of number-plates for the job, but he couldn’t prove it; the records showed the car’s true registration as the one Canasset had given, and Shaw could get nothing out of the garage foreman. Nevertheless, he examined the car minutely just in case there should be any traces of the girl. There was nothing. Further, Shaw could find no evidence of a back entry to the yard, and the sole means of entry and exit appeared to be by way of the Calcutta Street gates, a fact which Canasset confirmed when he was asked. The man looked briefly triumphant, gloating, when he noticed Shaw’s baffled expression.

It was only as they were crossing the yard back to the big warehouse that Shaw caught sight of something which looked as though it could have interesting possibilities. Beyond a boiler-house there was a dark passageway built on to the side of the warehouse itself, and ending, so far as he could make out, in a blank brick wall.

Plainly, though, it must lead to something more than that.

Shaw said, “I’ll just take a look along there.”

“Certainly. It only leads to the cellars.”

“Which you haven’t mentioned before, have you... I think we’ll just go down for a look round.”

Canasset said, “They haven’t been used for years.”

Shaw looked at him sardonically. “You mean they haven’t been used for the storage of goods.”

“Hava it your own way.” Canasset shrugged.

As they came under the lee of the passage roof into the shadows, Shaw brought his Webley right out and jabbed it into Canasset’s back. He felt a prickly sensation run along his spine; he was certain now that he was getting nearer the heart of things, even though Canasset didn’t appear worried. He said harshly, “Careful what you do. Remember what I told you. If this is a trap, I’ll shoot first.”

“It’s no trap. I told you—we’ve nothing to hide. You’re making a big mistake.”

They were at the end of the passage now and there was little light. Shaw groped along, kept his gun in the small of Canasset’s back. Canasset stopped, reached up, and flicked a switch. A dim light came on overhead and showed up a heavy, iron-bound door set in the warehouse wall and a dirty, red-painted sign which read: NO ADMITTANCE WITHOUT AUTHORITY OF WAREHOUSE MANAGER Canasset took a bunch of keys from his pocket and opened up a glass frame beside the door. From this he took the key of the cellar. Shaw asked, “Why the ‘No admittance’?”

“Because it’s not safe down there—stairs are rotten and the floor’s shaky, but we don’t want to waste money on doing up a place we never use. Is there anything else you want to know?”

“Not for the moment,” Shaw murmured.

Canasset put the key in the lock and turned it. Then he lifted an iron bar set in brackets across the entrance, and swung the door itself back on its hinges. Reaching forward, he fiddled with another switch, and a second light came on inside, a feeble yellow light which showed up wooden steps descending into the blackness.

The hairs at the back of Shaw’s neck seemed to rise up as he and Pelly followed Canasset carefully down the steps. The place was damp, forbidding, mildewed perhaps from the river’s seeping nearness; a stuffy, dank smell came up, a smell like the grave.

It was, Shaw thought fancifully, just like that—opening up a grave. He shivered. It had the air of having been used more for some kind of prison than as a store, and indeed part of the smell seemed to come from age-old human sweat and misery, from close-packed humanity like a present-day Black Hole of Calcutta. . . in Calcutta Street, Canning Town . . . Shaw checked himself. Imaginings didn’t help at a time like this, he needed his wits about him. But in solid fact these building were old, had seen much history, might have been used for many things in their time. The smell, now he came to think of it, seemed to hold some of the pungency of African sweat... could this, perhaps, be one of the meeting-places of the Cult, then? That was something he would find out from Canasset when they got the man back to the Admiralty.

Dimly in the light’s radiance, though this didn’t extend far into the gloomy places, he saw that the vast cellar was partitioned off by thick walls into cubicles with narrow alleyways running between, rather like a wine-cellar. Once, it had very likely been such a place.

Canasset turned at the bottom of the steps and said, “Well—there you are. You’ve seen the lot now. I told you there wasn’t anything down here.”

His voice seemed to echo round the walls as they stood in that small pool of light from overhead, echo away until it was lost in the total darkness beyond, leaving behind it a silence which seemed to reach out clammily and touch Shaw. The whole place had a wrong feel, an evil feel. It was almost as though there was some physical presence there, eyes watching him from the dark. He shivered suddenly, caught up again in those vivid imaginings, hearing again the horrible throb of those African drums last night, wondering what could have gone on down here too, what ceremonies, perhaps, what gruesome rites had been performed recently in the name of the Edo Cult to leave their aura in the atmosphere.

He gave himself a slight shake, ridding himself of such fancies. He said, “I’d just like to look right through.”

“All right” He saw Canasset’s shrug. “Go where you like.”

Shaw’s mouth tightened and he kept all his senses on the alert, ready for anything that might happen now. Canasset was being just a little too co-operative, he fancied, too carefree, and he didn’t like that. He jabbed with his gun-muzzle, and Canasset moved on into the dark, holding a cigarette-lighter above his head to give a fitful, flickering illumination.

Below the cellar in a close, airless room leading off a damp passageway at the foot of some old and foot-worn stone steps, a buzzer sounded and a big African with a fuzz of crinkly, greying hair reached out for a house-telephone. He was sitting at a couple of upturned packing-cases with planks laid across them to form a rough desk. The sleeves of

his white silk shirt were rolled up. His left wrist carried an expensive gold watch while his right forearm showed a healed scar. . . the mark of the Black Widow.

He said, “Sam Wiley here.”

The voice—Verity’s voice—said, “They’ve gone down into the cellar.”

“Very well. You are quite certain it is the man Shaw?”

“From MacNamara’s description, yes.”

“Ummm. . . .The African thought for a moment, his brow furrowing and the heavy lower lip jutting, fingers rasping at his cheeks. Then he said, “He evidently suspects very strongly—is that the impression you had yourself, Mr Verity?”

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact I had.” Verity’s voice was high, frightened. “I can’t make out why Mr Canasset didn’t take him down to the cellar at once—”

Wiley’s tone was soothing, almost a croon. “He is doing so now, isn’t he? We didn’t want to have to do this, for it will draw more attention to the premises, but now I shall have to deal with him after all.” He paused. “After that, we’ll have to move out at once, I think. I’ll go up and watch Shaw now.”

“Do we leave in the Jag?”

“No, no . . . not the Jag. The tunnel. Will you please see to that, Mr Verity?”

“Yes, of course.” The line clicked off and Wiley got up, moving quietly, cat-like. He patted the bulge in his pocket, moved over to a cupboard, and brought out a curious, bottleshaped object made of some flexible, opaque material. Gently he pressed the sides and a cloud of a powdery substance shot out. Wiley seemed satisfied. After this he opened a door leading off the room and looked through to where two more Africans were playing with dice.

He said, “Stand by. If the worst comes to the worst we’ll be moving out—within the next ten minutes. Get the girl ready. Any trouble with her, you know what to do.”

He slammed the door and went out of his own room and along the passage. Halfway along he stopped and took a heavy crowbar from some clips on the slimy wall, pushed it through a hole which looked as though it had once carried a large pipe, and bore down heavily on its end. Inside the crumbling brickwork of the wall something moved, and there was a slow gurgle of water. Wiley then pushed the crowbar right through the hole until it slipped from his hand and fell with a splash into the water. A filthy smell came through the hole, but Wiley seemed scarcely to notice it.

He went quickly along the passage again and up the stone steps, moving very, very quietly as he had been accustomed to do when hunting as a young man in the West African jungle.

As Shaw followed Canasset along a centre aisle he flicked on his own lighter and peered into each vat-like cubicle as he passed.

Each and every one was empty—empty of everything save the filth and decay of years. Rats scurried ahead, their feet making a small clatter among loose bricks and stone and rubble. Reaching the end of the central alleyway, Shaw turned and came up another lane to the right. Still there was nothing out of the ordinary.

He had reached the pool of light again by the foot of the steps when he heard the scream. It was dim and faint, muffled as though it was coming from a long, long way off or from behind thick walls, but it was quite unmistakable. It was a woman’s scream, the high-pitched, terror-filled cry of a young girl.

Shaw stopped dead.

He reached out for Canasset’s shoulder, grasped it, and swung the man round savagely, his lips drawn back. In the overhead light from that single yellowed bulb the man’s face was dead white and he was trembling. Shaw’s teeth came together with a snap. He said, “That settles it, Canasset. You’ll take me to that girl now or I’ll give you something you won’t forget in a hurry. I won’t kill you, Canasset, because you’ll be needed alive. But I’ll damn near do so—I swear that!”