Triumph For Inspector West

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.”