Inspector West Takes Charge

by John Creasey

  ‘Open it,’ Mark urged.

  Roger took out a penknife, and slit the top of the envelope.

  They were in the study. Widdison, now in Guildford, had acted like a man struck dumb, neither protesting nor resisting.

  Two or three policemen were in the house, and the nurse with Mrs Transom. Apart from that they were alone.

  It was fitting, Roger thought, that they should be together then. He felt sure that the contents of the envelope would give them the whole case; the case Mark had believed was murder from the start and which had led to this fury of violence. It might not be over yet. There was the tall thin man who had escaped.

  Was he Potter, forced to take a hand himself?

  A thick wad of papers was inside the envelope.

  ‘Give me one half, you go through the other,’ implored Mark.

  ‘We’ll read them together,’ said Roger. ‘Bring that lamp nearer.’

  They sat side by side at the desk, now cleaned of Wade’s blood and the fragments of glass about it. The heavy curtain hung across the windows.

  Roger said: ‘A letter on Potter’s business paper, for a start. And a report of some kind attached.’

  The letter was simply a covering note, saying that Gabriel Potter had pleasure in enclosing the confidential report on Harringtons Limited. It was dated eighteen months earlier.

  The report, an exhaustive one, said that the principal of Harrington’s was a man of wide experience in rubber planting, smoking, and curing generally. He was also a research chemist, with several degrees. That his business was small and lacking in capital, but that his applications for financial help from the Government had been rejected, while he would disclose no inducement attractive enough to interest the private investor. Potter implied, however, that Harrington was working on a process for producing synthetic rubber. He did not disclose the name of his informant, but on the next sheet was a letter in a back-sloping handwriting, signed ‘D. Anderson’, addressed to Potter, and ‘enclosing particulars, as arranged’.

  The particulars were on a single sheet of paper, containing a brief description of materials used in the process at Harrington’s factory, then a very small one.

  ‘He was selling out all right,’ Mark observed.

  Roger nodded, and turned to the next sheet. They were in chronological order, and he imagined that they had been taken from a box in Potter’s office. As he went on through other correspondence between Potter and Anderson which proved the continual exchange of information for money, the fullness of the treachery of Harrington’s assistant grew clearer. Anderson had been no fool, and had only given Potter the information by instalments.

  Potter’s letters were models of discretion, never referring to Harrington or the business, but Anderson occasionally lapsed.

  Mark said slowly: ‘Anderson was putting himself in Potter’s pocket, wasn’t he? You can almost see Potter tightening his grip.’

  ‘I can’t feel sorry for Anderson, said Roger. He flicked over several letters with no more than a casual glance, and then saw one from Hauteby to Potter, asking for an interview. Potter had pencilled some notes on this, including the names of Transom and the Prendergasts. On a plain slip of paper, heavily underlined, was the statement: ‘Harrington and Miss Transom meet frequently,’

  There followed further comments about Harrington and Garielle, records of visits from Transom without any evidence of what transpired at the meetings. Then a report, typewritten, from Potter to Transom. It gave a further opinion on Harringtons Limited and recommended that Transom put money into the company.

  There were notes from a man named Conroy, Duke Conroy. Roger stopped when he came to this and looked up sharply,

  ‘Transom said that was Harrington’s true name,’ he said. ‘I ah, here we are!’

  He had found a letter from Potter to Transom. There was no doubt, it said, that the man calling himself Harrington was actually Duke Conroy, a globe-trotter with a bad reputation, wanted for murder in Rhodesia. He, Potter, was trying to find the real Harrington, and advised Transom to treat the matter confidentially until the search was concluded. Nothing was written directly, but the inference all the time was that Transom would benefit considerably if he left the hunt for the real Harrington to Potter.

  ‘Transom shows up more badly as we go on,’ Mark said. ‘Potter knew there was no chance of him talking until he’d squeezed every penny of profit.’

  ‘I’m looking for a further mention of the Prendergasts,’ Roger said.

  He had to wait, for next came a series of reports from Potter’s clerks to the solicitor. They concerned Clay and a man named Smith. Photographs of Clay and Smith appeared, and then their police records, Clay’s much blacker than Smith’s.

  ‘So it was a “Smith”, said Mark thoughtfully, recognizing the second man as Clay’s companion. ‘We’ve got Potter in the nutcracker at last.’

  Records of Clay’s various crimes were there, with one or two notes; then they found a sinister annotation in Potter’s own handwriting, concerning a hitherto mysterious attack on a bank messenger in Aldgate. Potter wrote: Undoubtedly Clay. A violent man repressing his real nature but subject to outbursts of almost schizophrenic frenzy.

  The picture grew clearer. Clay had committed other crimes and evaded the police but not Potter. Clay became an easy victim, as did Smith. Potter had obtained a merciless grip on them, could have given the police information enough to have sent them down for ten years or even longer.

  Then there were notes, some pencilled, about Duke Conroy. A newspaper clipping; a man named Harrington had been rescued off a ship torpedoed on the way to South America.

  ‘Conroy?’ Potter had pencilled.

  ‘Harrington was in England at that time,’ Mark said. ‘It’s only a year ago’

  ‘Yes,’ Roger agreed. ‘Here’s another note “why does Conroy call himself Harrington?” ‘

  That was answered a little farther on. Conroy had known Harrington in South Africa, and had taken his name after the murders in Rhodesia. There were photographs of the two men which showed some similarity, though there would never be any confusion when the two were side by side. According to some pencilled statistics, Conroy was an inch shorter than Harrington, but there was little other difference.

  Next came a newspaper account of the accidental death of Septimus Prendergast. A note alongside it, in pencil: Clay or who? Then there were notes about Mark Lessing, who had been at the inquest. Nothing of importance, but the words ‘Watch Lessing’ were indicative of Potter’s frame of mind.

  There followed accounts of Monty Prendergast’s fall on the Cornish cliffs, caused by Clay and Smith, the pencilled notes inferred. Without any prior reference, there was a note: ‘Claude Prendergast and Maisie Webb married.’

  Next Waverley Prendergast was knocked down by a car and Claude and Maisie figured more prominently. Anderson continued to call and do business, until suddenly Potter sent him a terse note: their association would be terminated. There was a record of an interview, and the comment: ‘Anderson will be difficult.’

  By then it grew obvious that Claude Prendergast was giving trouble. ‘Not as amenable as anticipated’, Potter wrote. ‘See Harrington’. There followed notes of the interview with Harrington, the result of which was not pleasing to Potter.

  It was then, some three months ago, that there was a change in the tenor of the notes and reports. Transom and Hauteby became more frequent callers. McFallen and Widdison ‘knew nothing’. Then another: ‘McFallen is curious, Widdison quite safe’.

  Then Petrie came into the story. At an interview, Potter had told Petrie that Clay and Smith had played a part in the murder of the Prendergasts, adding that Anderson had also played a similar part, together with a hint that Transom and McFallen were involved. Potter had advised Petrie not to consult the police, but to do what he could to find evidence; saying that as soon as there was a strong enough case he himself would do that. Several interviews with Petrie were recorded, and Mark
broke a long silence.

  ‘Potter’s a cold-blooded devil,’ he said with great vehemence. ‘He’s been working Petrie up to these murders. There’s a note “Petrie a first-class shot. Home Guard”. Look, there’s a note from Petrie.’

  The note read:

  ‘Dear Mr Potter,

  I must ask you to try again. I cannot rest until I know the murders of my employers are avenged. Is there no way of finding proof that will make the police act? It is destroying my nights, I am becoming a nervous wreck.

  Eric C. Petrie.’

  Pencilled on the note was: ‘Tell him no chance at all. Send Clay’

  Roger looked up from the letter, bleak-faced.

  ‘The picture’s forming, Mark, careful as Potter had been to dress his notes in proper legal guise, Potter got started on Petrie, then sent Clay to work him up to a fever pitch. I don’t doubt that he put Petrie on the trail of Anderson first, and then told him that Clay and Smith had taken part in the Prendergast murders so he killed them too. We’ll never get all the pieces to fit, but that’s about what happened. Potter seems to have been planning to kill off the Dreem directors one by one, to get Dreem under Claude’s control. From Claude to the fake Harrington, he hopes. He’s going to put the man Conroy in Harrington’s place.’ There were notes about passports, and birth certificates, and: ‘Clay has arranged transfer’.

  Next came notes of a conference at Potter’s office between Transom and Hauteby, and Potter. Behind this there was a letter from Hauteby to Transom.

  ‘Dear Transom,

  I don’t trust Potter entirely, but I think we can push the thing through. Once we have financial control of Harringtons, and Harrington has gone, we’re sitting pretty. I mean Conroy has gone, of course!

  McFallen and Widdison are getting curious again. They know we’ve put money in Harringtons. Do we want them in with us? If not, I suggest a meeting, with Potter, at our place, where he turns us down, for Widdison’s and McFallen’s benefit. McF. is the biggest nuisance. I think he has an idea that we’re trying to get rid of Harrington, and he might even suggest one day that our Harrington is really Conroy. It just won’t do!!!

  Transom had written back to say that he had told Potter of this new difficulty, and Potter had promised to look after it.

  Mark said slowly: ‘He did just that. Transom and Hauteby knew damned well that Conroy was a fake. They were nervous enough of McFallen and Widdison to want Potter to do something quickly. Potter probably put Petrie up to fixing McFallen’s car while it was near Yew House, of course. I wonder if we’ll ever get the minor factors?’

  ‘I’m more concerned with getting a hard-and-fast case for a jury against Potter,’ said Roger grimly. ‘I shouldn’t think it will be so difficult. I hope to God Petrie doesn’t die, we need his evidence. Maisie certainly won’t, anyhow, and she’ll crack under pressure. Hauteby will probably fill in a lot of details, too.’ He paused, glancing through the rest of the papers. There were comments about himself and Mark, suggesting, between the lines, that they were getting too near and too persistent, but nothing else until on a final sheet:

  ‘Tell Transom that Lessing has taken these papers’.

  ‘Well I’m damned!’ exclaimed Mark. ‘So that’s why they searched my flat. Potter was playing us off against Transom and Hauteby. Transom had Potter hoodwinked very nicely, getting the papers and thus having Potter where he wanted him. The dark horse, Transom. I suppose’, he paused, ‘Transom couldn’t have been putting the pressure on Potter?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Roger said. ‘There’s no indication here that anyone is pushing him. He started off with the Prendergast interest, got on to Harrington’s synthetic rubber process and saw a way of getting control of both Dreem and Harringtons. He had plenty of scapegoats. Transom and Hauteby for a start, Maisie at a pinch, Clay and Smith, Petrie but all the time he was playing with fire. He must have known it when he lost these papers, discreet as they are on the surface. He grew desperate. With some reading between the lines we’ve got everything, except Potter in person. He’s the thin man you saw, of course, and still somewhere nearby.’

  ‘Don’t forget Conroy,’ said Mark. ‘The man we haven’t seen. We can’t miss them this time, can we?”

  ‘What the Guildford police miss the Home Guard should get,’ Roger said.

  The telephone, now repaired, rang just after they had finished. Roger lifted the receiver. The excited voice of a sergeant at Guildford said: ‘Mr Lampard asked me to ring you, sir. The woman Prendergast has talked. It was Potter who telephoned her. Potter was at the house tonight.’

  ‘That’s exactly what we wanted to know,’ said Roger. ‘How is Mr Lampard?’

  ‘He’s going to Delaware in the morning,’ said the sergeant. ‘To the house, sir, and he wonders if you could meet him there at eight o’clock.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ promised Roger. He rang off, and explained.

  ‘So we’ve got Potter,’ Mark said with deep satisfaction. ‘We’ve got him too tight to escape. It’s the one thing I wanted above everything else.’

  The glow of satisfaction in his eyes made Roger feel just how important this had been to him.

  ‘There’s more good news,’ Roger said. ‘Lampard’s not badly hurt. Well, it’s half-past one now. If we’re to get a nap we’d better bed down. Oh damn the thing!’ The telephone rang again. Mark lifted the receiver.

  ‘That you, Lessing? Good . . . I’ve got your thin bloke for you, I think.’ It was the Home Guard officer.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes, I’m always serious.’ Satisfaction deepened the man’s voice. ‘He tried to get out of a house behind you place called The Gables. We spotted him, and he ran back for cover. I’ve put my company round the place, he won’t get out again. You’d better bring your police pals over in a hurry.’

  20: Potter in the Net

  Aburly figure materialized out of the darkness, forage cap showing at an angle against the moon-lit sky. The moon was waning; it would be gone in two or three days, and rose only in the early hours.

  ‘You’ve got here at last,’ the Home Guard officer said.

  Roger could see beyond the man’s head to the outlines of The Gables; crooked outlines, with square chimney stacks rising and three pointed gables showing at the front of the house.

  ‘Anything new?’

  ‘Nothing. He’s in there all right. I suppose,’ the man went on hopefully, ‘you just want us to stay around in case he makes another run for it? You’ve got plenty of police with you?’

  ‘Three or four,’ said Roger. ‘Nothing like enough. We’re going up to the house, and would like you and a couple of men in support. The men in that house will be desperate.’

  ‘Jolly good!’ exclaimed the HG. ‘Ward here’s a job for you and Simpson.’ Two figures loomed out of the gloom of the surrounding trees. ‘Might be some stuff flying, I’m told.’

  ‘All right with me, sir,’ one man said.

  ‘Ok,’ said the other.

  ‘That’s what I like to hear,’ said Mark.

  There was a slight delay while Roger arranged the disposition of the four Guildford policemen whom he had collected on the way to The Gables. The quiet of the night was uncanny. The whispers of the men as orders and acceptances went to and fro added to it. There was awareness of the finality of the moment in Roger’s mind. Potter was in this house, and the grounds were filled with Home Guards, so there was no chance for him to escape. Maisie had damned him. That was all that was needed on top of the evidence of the documents.

  From The Gables, a clock struck clearly.

  ‘Half-past two,’ said Mark. ‘How much longer?’

  ‘We’re about ready,’ Roger said.

  ‘Three men by the back door, three by the front, three by the side,’ put in the lieutenant. ‘They’re standing by in case of an attempted sortie. I’m going to the back door with one of my men and one of yours. That right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Roger! ‘Your other
man and two of mine in at the side door, and we’ll take the front. If no one answers my ringing, I’ll get in with Lessing and open up for you. You’d better not knock the doors about too much,’ he added, and the lieutenant chuckled. ‘Unless,’ Roger went on, ‘I send word for you to get in somehow.’

  They went their several ways, making little sound. Above one of the square chimney stacks a small segment of the moon showed, casting a pale light about the house and the tops of the trees. It was easy to advance in the shadows, and there was no likelihood of them being seen.

  Near the front door, Mark said: ‘You’re not seriously going to ring the bell?’

  Roger chuckled. ‘Why are we here alone? You’re going to try to open the front door. If it’s bolted as it probably will be, we’ll try a window. Once we’ve got a start the others can move in, but we don’t want them to begin the fighting.’

  ‘Thoughtful of you.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Roger.

  His fingers were about the automatic which Hauteby had used. It was loaded again. Mark had a gun, also loaded.

  They reached the front door.

  Mark used a torch for the first time, examining the lock. It promised to be easy. He worked on it, while Roger turned his back and wondered what Chatworth would say if he could see this.

  Mark called softly: ‘It’s open.’

  The door was open only a fraction of an inch; a chain kept it in position. Mark tried to get his fingers on the chain but failed. He put his weight to the door, but there was no give. He shone the torch through the narrow gap.

  ‘It’s barricaded with furniture.’

  ‘I suppose we ought to have expected it,’ Roger said, ‘but I fancied Potter would try to make a defence for himself and not put up a Sydney Street. I suppose he can’t get away?’

  ‘You know he can’t,’ said Mark. ‘I’m more interested in how many he’s got with him. The man Conroy, perhaps, and the old boy Lampard mentioned what’s-his-name? Delaroy. There might be others. Come on. They can’t barricade all the windows.’