Beware of Johnny Washington

by Francis Durbridge

  Hargreaves gave no sign as to whether he was impressed by this argument, other than by making a brief note on his pad.

  ‘Did you see the night watchman before he died?’ he asked. Locksley nodded.

  ‘Yes, sir. He was in pretty bad shape, of course, and I thought he wouldn’t be able to say anything. But the doctor gave him an injection, and he seemed to recover consciousness.’

  ‘Well, what did he say?’ urged Hargreaves with a note of impatience in his tone.

  The superintendent rubbed his hands rather nervously.

  ‘I couldn’t be quite sure, sir,’ he replied dubiously, ‘but it sounded to me rather like “Grey Moose”.’

  There was a sound of suppressed chuckle from Kennard, but the deputy commissioner was quickly turning through his file.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said suddenly. ‘A report on the Oldham case—you remember Smokey Pearce died rather mysteriously soon after. He was run over by a lorry—found by a constable on the Preston road—there was an empty jewel case on him from the Oldham shop.’

  ‘That’s right, sir,’ said Kennard. ‘But we couldn’t get him to talk …’

  ‘Wait,’ said Hargreaves. ‘He did manage to get out a couple of words before he passed out … “Grey Moose”.’

  ‘The same words exactly,’ said Locksley, his eyes lighting up. ‘But what the devil do they mean? It might be a brand of pressed beef—’

  ‘Or one of these American cigarettes,’ put in Kennard.

  Hargreaves waved aside these interruptions.

  ‘It must mean something,’ he insisted. ‘Two dying men don’t speak the same words exactly just by coincidence.’

  Locksley nodded slowly.

  ‘I see what you’re driving at, sir,’ he said. ‘You think these two were in on those jobs, and the gang wiped ’em out so as to take no chances of their giving the game away. They sound a pretty callous lot of devils.’

  ‘I should say that it’s the head of this organization who is behind these—er—liquidations,’ mused Sir Robert. ‘They are quite obviously part and parcel of his plans.’

  ‘Then you agree with Locksley that there is an organization,’ queried Kennard abruptly.

  Sir Robert rubbed his forehead rather wearily with his left hand while he continued to turn over reports with his right. At last, he closed the folder.

  ‘That seems to be the only conclusion, Inspector,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘If they were just the usual small-time safe-busters, like Peter Scales, or “Mo” Turner or Larry the Canner, the odds are we’d have got one or more of them by now. They’d try to get rid of the stuff through one of the fences we’ve got tabs on, and we’d be on to them. But the head of this crowd has obviously his own special means of disposal.’

  ‘That’s true,’ agreed Locksley. ‘We haven’t traced a single item in all those jobs yet.’

  ‘He could be holding on to the stuff till it cools down,’ suggested Kennard.

  ‘I shouldn’t imagine that’s very likely,’ said the deputy commissioner, thoughtfully tracing a design on his blotting pad with his paper-knife. ‘I can’t help agreeing with Locksley that we’re up against something really big, and we’ve got to pull every shot out of the locker. Now, are you absolutely sure there was nothing about the Gloucester job that might give us something to go on?’

  He looked from one to the other and there was silence for a few seconds. Then Locksley slowly took a bulging wallet from his inside pocket and extracted a small piece of paste-board about half the size of a postcard.

  ‘There was this card,’ he said, in a doubtful tone.

  Sir Robert took the card and examined it carefully.

  ‘Where did you find it?’ he asked.

  ‘In the waste-paper basket just by the safe at the Gloucester jewellers. As you see, it was torn into five pieces, but it wasn’t difficult to put it together.’

  Sir Robert picked up a magnifying glass and placed the card under it. On the card was printed in imitation copperplate handwriting:

  With the compliments of Johnny Washington.

  ‘So that joker from America has popped up again,’ murmured Sir Robert. ‘Where’s the catch this time?’

  During the past year or so, Scotland Yard had come to know this strange young man from America, with the mobile features, rimless glasses and ingenuous smile rather too well. For the presence of Johnny Washington usually meant trouble for somebody. As often as not, it was for some unscrupulous operator either inside or on the verge of the underworld, but the police were usually none too pleased about it, for the matter invariably entailed a long and complicated prosecution, even when Mr Washington had presented them with indisputable evidence. And what particularly annoyed the police was the fact that Johnny Washington always emerged as debonair and unruffled as ever, and often several thousand dollars to the good. The Yard chiefs had experienced a pronounced sensation of relief when Johnny had informed them that he had bought a small manor house not far from Sevenoaks, and proposed to devote his energies to collecting pewter and playing the country squire.

  ‘Where’s the catch?’ repeated Sir Robert, turning the card over and peering at it again.

  ‘In the first place,’ replied Locksley, ‘Johnny says he has never set foot in Gloucester in his life.’

  ‘Well, you know what a confounded liar the fellow is,’ retorted Hargreaves. ‘Have you checked on him at all?’

  ‘The jewellers say they have never set eyes on him,’ said Locksley.

  ‘I don’t suppose they’ve set eyes on any of the gang that did the job,’ grunted the commissioner. ‘Did you find out if he had an alibi?’

  ‘Yes, he had an alibi all right. He was up in Town for the night to see a girl named Candy Dimmott in a new musical—seems he knew her in New York. He stayed at the St Regis—got in soon after midnight. According to the doctor, the night watchman had been chloroformed about that time—and the constable found him soon after 2 a.m. So Washington simply couldn’t have been in Gloucester then.’

  ‘You never can tell with that customer,’ said Kennard dubiously.

  ‘I questioned the night porter at the St Regis—he knows Washington well, and swears he never left the place while he was on duty,’ said Locksley. He turned to his chief again. ‘There’s another thing about that card, sir.’

  ‘Eh? What’s that?’

  ‘There are no fingerprints on it. I used rubber gloves when I put it together, and whoever tore it up and put it in that waste-paper basket must have done the same. Now, if Mr Washington left that card deliberately, why should he go to the trouble of using gloves?’

  ‘He might have been wearing them anyhow,’ pointed out Kennard.

  Locksley shrugged.

  ‘Yet again, if he wanted to leave a card, why tear it up?’ he demanded earnestly.

  Sir Robert rested his chin on his hand and gazed thoughtfully at the fire.

  ‘I begin to see what you’re driving at,’ he murmured. ‘You think this card business is a plant—presumably to distract attention from the real master mind.’

  ‘That’s about it, sir,’ agreed Locksley. ‘Washington’s name has been in the papers several times—and there was that silly article about Johnny being the modern Robin Hood. It’s given somebody an idea.’

  Sir Robert picked up a wire paper fastener and very deliberately clipped the card to the report of the Gloucester robbery.

  ‘You haven’t seen Washington?’ he asked.

  ‘No, sir. I spoke to him twice on the telephone. He seemed a bit surprised, then amused. But he helped me all he could about the alibi when he saw how serious it was.’

  ‘Alibi or not, I think we should keep an eye on that gentleman,’ suggested Kennard.

  ‘That sounds like a good idea,’ replied Hargreaves. ‘You know him fairly well, don’t you, Locksley?’

  ‘I certainly saw something of him in the Blandford case.’

  ‘All right, then you can pop down to his place and have a talk to him as
soon as you can get away from here today. And if you get the slightest hint that he is the brains behind this gang, don’t take any chances. Just tell him you are rechecking his alibi.’

  ‘It isn’t easy to fool Johnny Washington,’ said Locksley, slipping his little black notebook back into his inside pocket.

  ‘I must say, sir, I’m not convinced that it is a real organization we’re up against,’ insisted Kennard. ‘What makes you so sure about that?’

  Sir Robert began to pace up and down between his desk and the fireplace.

  ‘It’s more a hunch than anything,’ he confessed. ‘For one thing, they’ve tackled such a variety of jobs—the average safe-buster sticks to one line as a rule and goes after the sort of stuff he can get rid of without much trouble. This gelignite gang have already robbed a cinema, a bank, two jewellers and a factory office. It takes a very unusual brain to plan such a variety of jobs in a comparatively short time.’

  ‘A brain like Johnny Washington’s?’ queried Kennard.

  Sir Robert Hargreaves did not reply.

  CHAPTER II

  ENTER JOHNNY WASHINGTON

  CALDICOTT MANOR is a sturdy four-square white house standing about half a mile outside the village of Caldicott Green, near the junction of the main road to Sevenoaks, which is some four miles away.

  From the moment he set eyes on it in an agent’s catalogue, the manor had intrigued Johnny Washington, who had been suddenly overcome with the idea of retiring into the heart of the English countryside and getting back to nature for a spell after his exciting but profitable incursions into the London underworld.

  He also liked the look of Caldicott Green, with its small stream running parallel with the main street and draining into a large pool near the manor which offered possibilities for fishing, one of his favourite forms of relaxation. Mr Washington was burdened with over-large and slightly troublesome feet which debarred him from most forms of sport. Angling, however, was ideal, for it allowed him to relax at full length for long periods on sunny afternoons, taking the weight off his pedal extremities. Johnny claimed that many of his best ideas had come to him while sitting beside a placid stream, hopefully awaiting a bite that never materialized.

  His enemies were wont to declare that Johnny suffered with his feet because he was too big for his boots, and there was possibly something in this accusation, for this young man from America could have bluffed his way into the secret councils of the Atomic Control Commission as nonchalantly as if he were the man who originally split the atom.

  But the secret of his success lay in the fact that he never over-estimated himself; his bluffs were always a part of a coolly calculated scheme and designed for a specific purpose.

  Naturally, having enriched himself to some considerable extent at the expense of a wide variety of social parasites, he had made a number of bitter enemies, so he was not in the least surprised to hear of the attempt to implicate him in the jewel robbery at Gloucester. It was by no means the first time such a thing had happened; in fact, he was often surprised that it did not occur more often.

  Johnny Washington lay on the enormous settee in his drawing-room (that was what the previous tenant had called it) awaiting the arrival of his nearest neighbours, Doctor Randall and his niece, Shelagh Hamilton, with whom he had scraped acquaintance at a nearby point-to-point meeting. They had promptly invited him to lunch, and he was now about to return their hospitality. Johnny had not planned to intermingle with the local country folk, but he had to admit that the doctor and his niece rather intrigued him. The niece in particular. Shelagh, who bore not the slightest resemblance in features to her uncle, seemed right out of place in the heart of the Kent countryside. Johnny had met plenty of her type in the night spots of New York; in fact she awakened vague murmurings of nostalgia inside him.

  Blonde, brittle, perfectly made-up, exquisitely manicured, Shelagh looked as if she had been born with a lipstick in one hand and a drink in the other. She had a lively turn of conversation which amused Johnny; she was a cynic to the tips of her blood-red fingernails and he liked meeting people who had no respect for those who sat in the seats of the mighty. But he found it hard to believe that she was Doctor Randall’s niece, and found it idly intriguing to speculate upon their exact relationship.

  Randall was a man in his early fifties, a very energetic type, somewhat wizened by many tropical suns, for he had told Johnny that he had worked on the Gold Coast for some years before his retirement, and he certainly talked knowledgeably about certain parts of the world, so that he made a very agreeable dining companion. But there was again an air of mystery about him; he ran a couple of large cars and horses for himself and Shelagh, and to all outward appearance seemed to live at the rate of about ten thousand pounds a year.

  Johnny was pondering upon these and other minor matters while he smoked one of his favourite Chesterfields, when the telephone rang in the hall, and his butler, Winwood, came in to tell him he was wanted.

  Johnny had always had a yearning for the genuine type of old English butler he had seen in so many indifferent British films. He had interviewed over thirty men for the job, and Winwood came nearest to the genuine article. This was possibly because Winwood had played such a part in no fewer than sixty-eight films, and was now driven to play it in real earnest as a result of the parlous condition of the British film industry!

  Winwood had carefully omitted to mention to his employer that his experience had been largely upon the sound stages of Denham and Pinewood, rather than the stately homes of England, but Johnny was not over-fussy about details of domestic routine, as long as his butler looked the part. And he delighted to watch him throw open a door and announce in nicely modulated tones as he was doing at this moment:

  ‘There is a Superintendent Locksley who would like to speak to you on the telephone, sir.’

  Johnny gave Winwood an appreciative grin, then slowly placed his slippered feet on the floor.

  ‘O.K. Winwood, I’ll be right out,’ he nodded.

  Superintendent Locksley, wanted to know if he might drop in a little later that evening, and Johnny assured the detective that he would be delighted to see him. He was just replacing the receiver when the front door bell rang and Winwood opened it to usher in his guests. Apologizing for his slippers, he led them into a tiny conservatory he had converted into a cocktail bar.

  Johnny commented on the fact that Shelagh was looking particularly attractive.

  ‘I adore you Americans,’ she laughed. ‘You always say exactly the right thing at the right moment. Now I feel that the three hours I spent at the hairdresser’s wasn’t entirely wasted.’

  Johnny grinned.

  ‘If only I’d known, I’d have invited some more people,’ he assured her. ‘You’re worth a much bigger audience!’

  She accepted a cocktail and sipped it appreciatively, but Doctor Randall preferred whisky, and drank three before dinner, explaining somewhat apologetically that it was the sundowner habit he had developed in the tropics. This was the doctor’s cue for a series of stories about his adventures which lasted half-way through dinner, despite cynical comments from Shelagh.

  Winwood served the meal impeccably and poured coffee from the silver coffee-pot with such dignity that, as Johnny whispered to Shelagh, you expected to see a curtain go up at any minute and find yourself starting on Act Two.

  The doctor went on drinking whisky which appeared to evoke longer and more lurid reminiscences, until at last Johnny turned to Shelagh and pleasantly inquired:

  ‘What about your past, Miss Hamilton? Haven’t you ever had any hair-raising adventures?’

  ‘I dare say,’ she replied non-committally, ‘but I guess I know when to keep my mouth shut.’ She looked across at her uncle meaningly, and he seemed to take the hint, for soon afterwards he announced that they must be going. It was after nine-thirty and there was still no sign of Superintendent Locksley, for which Johnny was secretly thankful, for he was not particularly anxious for his country ne
ighbours to suspect that he had any dealings with the police—he was well aware how rumour distorts and magnifies in the rural areas.

  Still discoursing upon the origins of sleeping sickness, the doctor vanished into the night, holding his niece’s arm rather more tightly than would have appeared necessary. Ten minutes later, Winwood announced Superintendent Locksley with the quiet aplomb of the trusted retainer who is acquainted with every skeleton in the family cupboard.

  Johnny had seen Locksley quite frequently when they were concerned with the mysterious dope smuggling that had been centred upon the police station of the little Thames-side town of Blandford, which Johnny had eventually traced, by what he modestly termed a stroke of luck, to the police sergeant of the station, who had been using his lost property department as a distribution centre.

  Starting by disliking each other to some extent, Johnny and the superintendent had been mildly surprised to discover they had mutual interests, such as fishing and American cigarettes, and a weakness for unorthodox methods. Locksley had risen to his present rank by reason of his alert mind that showed a genius for bypassing routine procedure and getting quick results.

  Johnny favoured the same methods, but was the first to admit that it was much easier for him to apply them, for he did not have to contend with a massive list of rules and regulations. Since their first meeting, they had occasionally enjoyed a drink together at the hostelry just round the corner from New Scotland Yard, comparing notes about their mutual acquaintances in the underworld and elsewhere. They were slightly startled to discover how many times they had reached exactly the same conclusions.

  Johnny waved Locksley to the most comfortable arm-chair and asked if he had had any food.

  ‘Thanks, Johnny, I snatched a quick supper on the way down—that’s why I’m a bit late,’ said the Superintendent.