The constable cleared his throat and said a little gruffly, ‘Sorry, miss, you can’t park here.’
Shelagh switched on her most seductive smile. He was a very young policeman.
‘It’s all right, officer, I’m only waiting for a friend inside the shop,’ she pleaded, indicating a men’s outfitting establishment.
But P.C. Talbot was not shaken off as easily as that; he had strict instructions about parking cars in the main streets. Some of these weekend trippers thought nothing of drawing into the kerb for half an hour while the family went off for a bathe. Of course, this exquisite young blonde was obviously no weekend tripper, but the sergeant invariably saw these things in rather a different light.
‘There’s a parking place just across the square, miss,’ he said persuasively.
‘But my friend promised he wouldn’t be more than two minutes, and if I go off to a car park he won’t have the least idea where I am.’ Her eyes seemed large and luminous and eloquent in their appeal. P.C. Talbot hesitated.
‘It won’t have to be for more than a couple of minutes then, miss,’ he stipulated. ‘You wouldn’t believe the trouble we have with this lot on a Saturday.’ With an expressive nod he indicated the crowds of holiday-makers surging down towards the parade.
‘I’m sure I don’t know how you manage to cope with them,’ said Shelagh admiringly in her most melting tones. ‘I was only telling my friend this morning that the police of this country are dreadfully underpaid for the work they do and all the risks they have to take.’
She smiled at him a trifle wistfully, and P.C. Talbot for a moment felt that a policeman’s lot was not entirely an unhappy one.
‘Oh, it’s not as bad as all that, miss,’ he said with a deprecating grin. ‘Mind, I’m not saying we couldn’t do with another pound or two …’
He broke off suddenly and straightened himself as there were unmistakable sounds of confusion coming from the upper part of West Street. In the distance and growing rapidly louder, was the strident blast of a motor horn. People were scattering in all directions to the safety of doorways and shop entries. A young woman pushing a perambulator screamed and rushed off down North Street with a scurry of flying heels.
The constable moved towards the cross-roads, but before he had gone many yards the lorry came into sight, swaying drunkenly at a speed far beyond the regulation twenty miles an hour. It was an old-fashioned five-tonner, which still had some traces of green paint on its body. To a casual observer, it seemed obvious that the brakes had failed and the vehicle was completely out of the driver’s control.
Talbot caught his breath as the lorry seemed almost certain to rush full tilt into the clock tower, but the driver somehow contrived to send it skidding past and with yet another violent lurch it came jolting over the incline into the lower part of the street which was fairly free from traffic, though a small stream of cars had just that moment turned in from the promenade.
It seemed that the sight of these oncoming cars urged the lorry driver to a sudden decision, and he turned his front wheels into the kerb as if to check the vehicle. But the wheels mounted the pavement and with a deafening clatter the bonnet crashed straight through the plate glass window of the gown shop next door to Dollands, the jewellers. The driver was seen to shield his face with his elbow as splinters of wood and glass flew in all directions. Torn dresses and dainty underwear were draped grotesquely over the bonnet of the lorry, and two particularly elegant wax models were tilted tipsily against the driver’s cabin.
An elderly lady, who looked like the proprietress, and an assistant, cowered helplessly behind the partition which divided the shop from a small office. They clung to each other, speechless from shock.
Now the pedestrians began running from the openings and shop entrances where they had taken cover—luckily there had been no one near the dress shop—and they surged round the scene of the accident, ignoring P.C. Talbot’s well-meaning attempts to clear the pavement. Someone rushed off to telephone for an ambulance, and above the din of the motor horn another man was heard to shout something about the driver.
‘Out of the way there! Out of my way!’ called P.C. Talbot for the tenth time, as he elbowed his way through the crowd. But most of the spectators stood their ground with the morbid expectation of some grisly spectacle which seems to grip so many onlookers.
This time, however, they were to be disappointed. Indeed, the least perturbed person present was the driver who slowly forced open the door of his cab, and clambered down quite unhurt. The constable yelled something at him, but he did not seem to hear. Standing amongst the shambles of torn dresses he reached into his cabin for a screwdriver, then with the policeman’s help managed to lift the bonnet, and after a minute or two the din from the horn abruptly ceased. It was replaced by the clang of a burglar alarm.
‘It was the brakes, constable—I only got the lorry yesterday, and they told me they were all in order—the swine!’ Slim was complaining. He broke off for a second, knowing only too well what was the cause of the bell. He tried to divert the constable’s attention.
‘I must have bashed through the wires of the burglar alarm,’ he said quickly, and the officer nodded. He went over to the women in the office and called out above the din:
‘You all right?’
The older woman nodded a trifle dubiously, and Talbot cupped his hands and shouted:
‘Can’t you switch off that bell?’
The woman shook her head tearfully, disclaiming all knowledge of the source of the commotion. In another second, the constable would have realized that the noise came from next door, but at that moment the ambulance came rushing up with yet another bell reverberating heavily, and bringing an extra fifty or sixty spectators rushing behind it. By this time, the crowd had swelled right into the roadway and was seriously threatening to hold up the traffic. Two more policemen arrived on the scene and began to push back the people, while Talbot assured the ambulance men that their services were not required after all.
Slim Copley leaned against the lorry, looking somewhat dazed, while Talbot started to take down some details in his notebook. He purposely hesitated in answering the questions, hedged now and then, and then talked much more than was necessary.
By now, the other two policemen had realized that it was the jeweller’s alarm bell that was ringing, but they did not attach any serious importance to it. They readily accepted the theory that the terrific jolt to the adjacent premises was entirely responsible. One of them went to telephone the private house of one of the partners while the other climbed up and muffled the clapper of the bell with a large handkerchief.
The clock in the tower pointed to three forty-five as Cosh emerged from a side alley in North Street and handed Shelagh a small cheap brown attaché case.
‘Everything O.K?’ she asked.
‘It was a hell of a crash,’ he whispered, looking round furtively. ‘I hope Slim was all right.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ she advised, stowing the case away under the front seat. ‘You get off back there as quickly as you can.’ He nodded and slammed the car door. There was hardly anyone in sight as Shelagh slammed the gears and the car roared off.
Cosh watched the car until it was out of sight, then turned and made for the crowd which was still surging round the dress shop. He displayed such enthusiasm for his new role of curious onlooker that P.C. Talbot singled him out almost at once, and thrust a retaining elbow across his chest.
‘Here you, take it easy! It’s folk like you who make all the trouble!’ declared P.C. Talbot with unconscious irony.
CHAPTER IX
TALK OFF THE RECORD
THE fact that they each possessed a car was introducing a chain of complications into the lives of Verity Glyn and Johnny Washington, in that they desired nothing so much as to travel in the same car together.
On the evening of the Brighton robbery, they were anxious to return to London in such intimate fashion, but it was only after a consi
derable amount of discussion that they finally evolved a plan. Johnny was to take them to Sevenoaks in his car, which he would park at the hotel. From there, they would travel to Town in Verity’s, and he would spend the night at the St Regis, as it looked like being a late session at the Yard.
She invited him to lunch at her flat the following day, conscious that it was high time she returned some of his elaborate hospitality, and she had already telephoned her housekeeper, Mrs Todd, to warn her that there would be company to lunch. They hadn’t quite decided how Johnny would get back to Sevenoaks, but he assured her that there was an excellent train service, and hundreds of hire cars available in the event of emergency.
They started almost at once, and as they slowed down to emerge from the gates of the manor into the main road, a shining Harman-Grade sports car swept past, and the girl at the wheel raised an indolent hand in greeting.
‘Friend of yours?’ inquired Verity, hoping her voice sounded more indifferent than she felt.
‘Sort of,’ grinned Johnny. ‘More of a neighbour really. She’s the niece of the doctor who lives along the way. I fish in their pond once in a while.’
‘She’s a very attractive girl,’ persisted Verity.
‘I guess so,’ replied Johnny indifferently.
‘Don’t you agree?’
‘I operated too long in night-club circles maybe … anyhow I seem to be kind of allergic to blondes nowadays. They don’t remind me of zephyrs in the cornfield any more.’
She laughed, then looked thoughtful.
‘I’m sure I’ve seen that girl before somewhere,’ she murmured, as they came into the outskirts of Sevenoaks. ‘I wish I could think where.’
‘Probably at some dress show—or maybe a party,’ he suggested. ‘I dare say you get around quite a bit in that job of yours. You must tell me more about it some time. I’m such a lazy so-and-so, I enjoy hearing how people work for a living.’
She looked at him for a moment, then said with a slow smile: ‘You don’t fool me, Mr Washington.’
‘Honey, I’d be scared even to try,’ he solemnly assured her, as he manœuvred the car towards the hotel garage.
With Verity driving her own car they were heading for Town five minutes later, and as there was comparatively little traffic until they approached the more thickly populated South London area, they did the journey in remarkably good time.
‘Where would you like me to drop you?’ she asked, as they crossed Lambeth Bridge.
‘But you’re not shaking me off just like that,’ he protested. ‘I guess I’ll be needing you as an alibi; you’re about the only person who can testify that I haven’t been into any mischief all afternoon.’
She hesitated a moment, then said: ‘Oh, very well—if you really think it’s as serious as all that.’
‘But it is,’ he insisted. ‘Didn’t I tell you they’d found another of those cards with my name on it?’
‘You didn’t tell me very much else about this Brighton affair,’ she reminded him.
‘Because the Yard weren’t doing much talking over the phone. You know as much as I do about it.’ He paused a moment, then said in a dubious tone: ‘Of course, if you had a date for this evening … well, I guess they won’t gaol me for a day or two.’
Verity smiled. ‘I’d hate to see anything like that happen to you,’ she said. ‘Are you going straight to the Yard?’
He nodded, and she swung the car in an easterly direction along the Westminster Embankment.
‘Grey Moose seems to be quite determined to blow my small reputation to shreds,’ ruminated Johnny, as he watched her steer her way deftly between two buses.
‘Have you upset him in any way in the past d’you think?’
‘I don’t even know the guy. But there’s always a chance I might have pulled a fast one across one of his buddies. That’s the worst of keeping bad company; it’s liable to catch up on you when you least expect it,’ he told her seriously. ‘You might care to remember that and put it in your column some time when you’re writing a piece about juvenile delinquents.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ she promised, as she manœuvred into position in a line of cars parked in a side road near the Yard. Johnny was laboriously extricating his large feet when he noticed a familiar figure emerging from the next car but one ahead.
‘Hi, there, Dovey!’ he called.
The sturdy young man in his middle-thirties turned and recognized Johnny at once.
Inspector Charles Montague Dovey would not have been readily recognized as a plain-clothes detective, a factor which had proved of considerable assistance to him in his career. He was well dressed in a dark suit which set off his trim masculine figure to its best advantage.
Johnny introduced him to Verity and at once Dovey was on the alert.
‘You’re the woman who writes for the Daily Messenger?’ he queried, for Dovey always believed in keeping in with the press, holding the theory that carefully controlled publicity could go a long way to smashing any crime racket. He was even ready to make friends with the editor of a boys’ comic paper just in case he might come in useful one day.
Verity acknowledged her Fleet Street connections and Dovey immediately suggested that they should adjourn to the tavern nearby for a drink.
‘They’re expecting me at the Yard,’ Johnny told him.
‘You mean about the Brighton job?’ said Dovey. ‘Yes, I’m due for that little pow-wow as well. They can do without us for ten minutes while we give each other the low-down.’
‘Have you come from Brighton then?’ asked Johnny, as the inspector led them to the pub in question.
‘No, I’ve come from near your place at Sevenoaks. I’ve been keeping a pretty close watch on the Kingfisher. So close, in fact, that I haven’t had a chance to call in on you.’
They found a fairly remote table in a corner of the lounge and a barman came and took their order for drinks.
‘I’ve telephoned you twice, Johnny, to find out just how far you were involved in this business,’ said Dovey, having made quite sure they could not be overheard.
‘Looks to me like I’m in it just up to the ears,’ said Johnny. ‘So is Miss Glyn, here.’ He went on to give the inspector a brief outline of everything that concerned them, and Dovey eyed Verity with new respect.
‘So you’re Locksley’s sister, eh? Your brother was a great scout, Miss Glyn. He did me a couple of good turns in my early days, and I haven’t forgotten. I’d hoped to pay him back some time; now it seems the only thing I can do is to get the swine who shot him.’
‘Then you think it was murder?’ she queried eagerly.
‘It was murder all right,’ declared Dovey confidently. ‘We’re pretty sure of that over at the Yard, though we can’t prove anything—yet. But I don’t like the look of that Kingfisher place. I don’t like the landlord, nor some of the characters I’ve seen hanging around there.’
‘Such as?’ put in Johnny casually.
‘Well, one of my men bumped into a cove named Slim Copley there yesterday. Just caught a glimpse of him going out of the back door; then he seems to have vanished.’
‘Slim Copley?’ repeated Johnny. ‘I remember him—he used to be a film stunt man—then something to do with a travelling fair—since then he’s been mixed up with one or two smash-and-grab set-ups. Used to have the nerve of the devil himself.’
‘You’ve got a pretty good memory yourself, Johnny,’ said Dovey, eyeing him shrewdly.
‘Absolute card-index,’ Johnny assured him cheerfully. ‘It’s the best thing a feller can have when he’s in my racket.’
‘And what’s your racket now?’
‘I’m not operating at the moment,’ grinned Johnny, refusing to be drawn. ‘But it looks as if I’ll soon be pulled into something pretty big, and on the side of law and order for once in a way.’ He lifted his glass. ‘Well, here’s to the spice of life!’ he pronounced.
‘What would Slim Copley be doing in the heart of Kent?’ he
went on presently. ‘I guess that’s a pretty serious question you should ask yourself, Inspector—and here’s hoping you get the right answer. Your man should have tailed him.’
‘He didn’t get a chance,’ said the inspector. ‘There wasn’t a sign of him after he went out of the back door—and, of course, the landlord had never heard of him.’
‘I don’t trust that landlord,’ said Johnny, and went on to relate the incident concerning the changing of Locksley’s pound note. Dovey frowned thoughtfully when he had finished, then said:
‘It’s beginning to dawn on me why they’ve picked on you for a sort of scapegoat, old man.’
‘You mean this gang are probably using the Kingfisher as headquarters, and they think if it should be traced, then Johnny living just by will—’
‘Immediately arouse the suspicions of the police,’ Dovey finished for her. ‘You’re pretty smart, Miss Glyn. That’s exactly what I was thinking. Nobody could be blamed for putting such an obvious two and two together.’
Johnny broke open a package of Chesterfields and passed them round. ‘It certainly looks like I’ve got to play in with you boys for once in a while,’ he said presently. ‘I’ve been trying hard this last week to think of some other way out, but this Grey Moose seems to have ’em all nicely sealed off.’
Dovey thumped his fist on the table. ‘Certainly, you’ve got to help us, Johnny—and there’s Miss Glyn here; we’ve got to keep an eye on her. If Grey Moose finds out about her …’
‘Did you check on that little guy named Quince?’ put in Johnny hastily, anxious that Verity should not be in any way alarmed.
‘Oh, yes,’ replied Dovey. ‘He seems all above board as far as I can make out. He’s a retired prep school master—lives alone in a Bayswater flatlet. Spends a lot of time at the British Museum, so he told me. Calls himself an antiquarian.’
‘That might cover a multitude of sins,’ murmured Johnny. ‘F’r instance, he might be mugging up ancient Egyptian poisons that could come in handy—’
Beware of Johnny Washington Page 9