The Man Who Hated Banks & Other Mysteries

by Michael Gilbert

  “I don’t think the typing pool had much say in the matter,” said Jane. “I was posted here direct by Uncle Wilfred.”

  “Uncle Wilfred?”

  “The Assistant Commissioner. He’s my mother’s brother.”

  “Good heavens,” said Petrella, thinking back quickly over some of Wilmot’s strictures on the top brass. “You might have told us sooner.”

  “You’re the only person I have told,” said Jane.

  Petrella, looking at his watch, was surprised to see that it was nearly half past seven. He was on the point of saying, “Let’s go out and get something to eat,” when it occurred to him that Jane might think he was asking her out because she was the Assistant Commissioner’s niece.

  He swallowed the words, and said an abrupt, “Good night.”

  After he had gone, Jane sat for a whole minute staring at the closed door.

  Then she said out loud. “Silly cuckoo. You oughtn’t to have told him. Now he’s clammed up again.”

  When Petrella arrived at Scotland Yard on Monday morning, he could almost feel the thunder in the air. He went straight to Chief Superintendent Baldwin’s office.

  “You got my note?” said Baldwin.

  “I didn’t get any note,” said Petrella, “but I heard the early morning news. It’s not too good, is it?”

  “It’s damned bad,” said Baldwin. “Two jobs on the same night. The Manchester one was the biggest haul yet. What was really unfortunate was that the bank knew they were vulnerable – it was one of the payoff days for the Town Centre Reconstruction – and they’d asked the police to keep a watch.”

  Petrella said, “Not so hot. How did they get in?”

  “It was clever. One thing the police were on the lookout for was empty premises near the bank. There weren’t any. Just a block of offices, all let. The people who pulled this job must have planned it six months ago. That was when they took this office, two away from the bank. They cut through the wall, crossed the intervening office after it closed on Saturday, cut through the second wall, broke into the bank itself, and opened the strongroom some time on Sunday night. No one heard them. It isn’t a residential area.”

  “What now?”

  “Now,” said Baldwin grimly, “the local force, prodded by the banks, are asking us to help and when they say help, they mean something more than research and coordination.”

  “What had they got in mind?”

  “Two or three mobile teams of special officers, working on the lines of the murder squad.” Petrella felt cold.

  “That’ll be quite an organisation,” he said. “I suppose we should be swallowed up in it.”

  Seeing his face, Baldwin laughed and said, “It may never happen. But it means we’ve got to get results, quick. How far have you got?”

  It was a question Petrella found embarrassing to answer. It seemed pompous to say, “We’re still analysing information. You can’t expect results until the analysis is complete.” So he said, “We’ve one definite line. It may lead somewhere.” He explained about Jerry Light.

  “Do you think he runs the whole show?”

  “I don’t think so, no. My guess is that he runs the heavy mob. This organisation has its own Flying Squad. When a job’s being done, one or two of them will be on hand to get back the equipment, and collect the organiser’s share of the loot.”

  “If that’s so,” said Baldwin, “there must be a link between Light and the head man.”

  “We’re working on that angle,” said Petrella. He thought it wiser not to say too much about the diary, or the circumstances in which it had come into their possession. “Another way would be to trace the equipment, from the factory. It’d mean going over to West Germany.”

  “That could be fixed,” said Baldwin. “We’d need a few days to make the arrangements. You’d go yourself. Do you talk any German?”

  “Enough to get on with, Genug um durchzukommen,” said Petrella.

  When he got back to his room, he was tackled by Sergeant Edwards, with a worried face.

  “You’d hardly think,” he said, “that a man with an uncommon name like Alwyn Corder could disappear off the face of the earth, would you?”

  So much had happened that it took Petrella a moment to think who Alwyn Corder was. Then he said, “You mean the other man who helped Light assault that bank manager at Exeter?”

  “Yes. Corder was one of the Joint Managing Directors in a demolition firm. Light worked for the same firm.”

  “Managing Director? Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure. It’s all in the Company Office Records. The other director was a Douglas Marchant. Marchant & Corder started the firm just after the war. It went broke in 1952. I’ve searched every record we possess – not only the Directories, but Electors Registers, Motor Car Licence lists, Passport Office.”

  “Perhaps he’s dead.”

  “The Register of Deaths at Somerset House was the first place I searched.”

  “Well,” said Petrella. “Perhaps—” and got no further because Wilmot came in like an express train.

  “Guess what?” he said. And gave them no time to guess. “A third note’s turned up, and we’ve got a cross reference.”

  Three heads went up, like three nestlings offered food.

  “A jobbing printer in New Cross. Luckily he used the note for a sub scription to the local police charity. When they saw the mark, they took it back to him, and he said it was part of a payment he’d had that morning for a job he’d done printing the souvenir menus for a charity dinner”—Wilmot paused with considerable artistry—“at the Homburg-Carleton.”

  “Good work,” said Petrella softly. “Which charity?”

  “It’s a society which sends kids to the seaside.”

  Petrella turned up his list. “That’s right,” he said. “The S.S.H.U.C. They were having a show that night. Can’t be a coincidence.”

  “Who was the organiser?” said Jane. “Mrs. Constantia Velden, O.B.E.”

  “I’m sure I know the name. Doesn’t she do a lot of these things? She’s almost a professional organiser.”

  “Out of my line.”

  “It’s in mine,” said Jane. “I did a London season.” She departed.

  There was a lot of checking and cross-checking to be done, and it was after six before she came back. Sergeant Edwards and Wilmot had gone home. Petrella saw, from the pink patches in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eye, that something had happened.

  “I’ve located your woman organiser,” she said. “She lives in a very nice house in St. Johns Wood, with a cook, a chauffeur and three dalmatians. Oozing with money and good works.”

  “What else?”

  “How do you know there’s something else?”

  “Because you’re almost bursting to tell me.”

  “I’ve a good mind not to,” said Jane. “Well, all right. As a matter of fact, it didn’t take very long to find out about Mrs. Velden. And it was a nice day. So I went on up to Crouch End and saw the Reverend Mortleman.”

  “The devil you did. What in the world did you say?”

  “I said I was Mrs. Velden’s secretary, and she was a bit anxious, because he hadn’t acknowledged the last lot of money she’d sent him.”

  Petrella stared at her.

  “He was most upset. Said he was sure he had acknowledged it. He insisted on me coming in, so that he could find a carbon copy of his letter to Mrs. Velden. He did find it too. So I apologised. Then we had tea together.”

  When Petrella had recovered his breath, he said, “You were taking a bit of a chance, weren’t you? Suppose he’d known Mrs. Velden’s secretary by sight?”

  “He couldn’t have known her new one.”

  “Her new one?”

  “She’s been advertising in The Times. That’s what gave me the idea. Couldn’t I answer the advertisement?”

  Before Petrella could string together some of the many ways of saying no to this outrageous proposal, she hurried on.

&n
bsp; “I don’t suppose Mrs. Velden’s a master criminal. She certainly doesn’t sound like one. But all this money is coming through her. She must have some connection with one of the organisers. If I was working for her, and kept my eyes open, I could probably spot—”

  Petrella found his voice at last. “You’re not even a policewoman,” he said. “You’re a typist.”

  It wasn’t, perhaps, the best way of putting it. Jane turned dark red, and said, “Of all the stupid, stuffy, ungrateful things to say—”

  “I’m sorry …”

  “Don’t you want to solve this? Don’t you want to find out who’s running it?”

  “Now you’re being silly.”

  “At least I’m not being pompous.”

  Petrella said, “I’m sorry if I sound pompous, but what you don’t seem to realise is that I can’t possibly let you take an active part in this, without getting into frightful trouble with the Establishment.” He added, hastily, “It’s very late, and we’re both a bit tired, I expect. Come and have something to eat with me.”

  “Thank you,” said Jane, “but as a typist, I know my place.” She made a dignified exit.

  Petrella swore, and took a running kick at the metal wastepaper basket. It rose in a neat parabola and broke a window.

  Next morning Petrella made a point of getting to the office early. He found Jane alone there, typing furiously. He selected the most propitiatory of half a dozen opening gambits which he had worked out during a sleepless night.

  Before he could start, Jane said, “I’m sorry I was stupid last night. Obviously you couldn’t do it.”

  This took the wind out of Petrella’s sails so effectively that he could only stare at her.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said at last, “I had a word with the A.C. – with your uncle, that is – and he said that, compared with some of the things you’d tried to talk him into letting you do, this sounded comparatively harmless.”

  “Bully for Uncle Wilfred.”

  “But he laid down certain conditions. First, you’re to report, by telephone, to this office every night between five and seven. Use a call box, not a private telephone. Second, if ever you’re going out anywhere, you’re to let us know where you’re going.”

  “It all seems a bit unnecessary to me,” said Jane. “But I’ll do it if you insist.”

  “All that remains now is for you to get the job.”

  “I rather think I’ve got it. I went round to see Mrs. Velden last night. It turned out that she knew a friend of a friend of my mother’s. We got on like a house on fire.” Seeing the look in Petrella’s eye, she added hastily, “Of course, if you’d said no, I wouldn’t have taken the job. I thought there was no harm in seeing if I could get it. And I’ll remember to telephone you.”

  “It won’t be me for the next few nights,” said Petrella. “I’m off to Germany.”

  The Baron von der Hulde und Oberath propelled a cedarwood cabinet of king-sized cigars across the top of his desk towards Petrella, helped himself to one, lit both of them with a long match, and picked up the photograph again.

  “Certainly this is one of our drills,” he said. “What can I tell you about it?”

  “How long has it been in production?”

  “Five years. A little more.”

  “And, in that time, how many would you have exported to England?”

  “I should have to consult my records. Perhaps a hundred.”

  Petrella’s heart sank.

  “It is a highly efficient drill,” said the Baron. “I sent half a dozen the other day to one of your safe deposits.”

  “Safe deposits?”

  “A good safe deposit only possesses one key for each of its safes. If the depositor loses it, the safe has to be broken open. The screws of the hinges have to be drilled out – but it takes an exceptionally good drill to do it. Any ordinary one would break, or melt. A number of cooling devices had been tried before. None successfully. Then we invented this method. It is so very simple. As the drill gets hotter, it sweats. Just like the human body. It exudes its own lubricant. We call it ‘film cooling.’”

  “I see,” said Petrella. “And no one else but you makes these drills?”

  “We have the world patent.”

  “Then you could compile, from your records, a list of people in England whom you have supplied.”

  “I could no doubt do so. It might take a couple of days.”

  “It’ll be worth waiting for.”

  “When the list is ready, I will telephone your hotel. The Goldenes Kreuz, isn’t it? Take another cigar with you, please. You can smoke it this evening.”

  Petrella spent the afternoon exploring Dortmund, mostly from the top of a train.

  It seemed to him an unattractive city. At seven o’clock he got back to his hotel, and had a bath. Then he set out to have a look at the night life.

  First, he stood himself a large, and rather heavy meal at the Barberina. Then he moved on to one of the many beer cellars in the Augusta Platz and ordered a stein of what described itself as the world famous Munchner Lowenbrau; and which tasted no better and no worse than any lager beer he had drunk in an English pub.

  On the wall opposite was an advertisement, depicting a man with a monocle smoking a cigar. It looked not unlike a stylised version of the Baron von der Hulde und Oberath. As this thought occurred to him, another one crossed his mind, and he put down his beer slowly.

  The Baron had said, “I will telephone your hotel – the Goldenes Kreuz.” How did he know which hotel to telephone? Petrella had certainly not told him.

  He went back, very carefully, over the events of the morning. He had driven straight from the airport to the headquarters of the City Police, to make his mark with Inspector Laufer, a contact arranged for him by Baldy.

  The Inspector had given him the names of the possible manufacturers of drills, of which the Baron had been the largest and the most likely.

  Might the Inspector have telephoned the Baron, to tell him Petrella was coming, and might he have mentioned the name of his hotel?

  No. That was impossible. For the simple reason that Petrella had not, at that time, chosen a hotel. He had gone to the Goldenes Kreuz after leaving the police station.

  It was at this point that his thoughts became linked with a suspicion which had never been quite out of his mind since he had left the hotel.

  He was being followed.

  It was impossible to say how he knew, but now that he gave his mind to it, he was quite certain. In London, the discovery would not have worried him. Here, in a foreign country, in a strange city, it was less agreeable.

  His first idea was to telephone Inspector Laufer, but he dismissed it as soon as he thought of it. There was no explanation he could make which would not sound ludicrous. Dortmund might not be beautiful, but it was a well-organised modern city, with an efficient police force, and well-lit streets. All he had to do was to walk back to his hotel, go up to his room, bolt the door on the inside, and go to bed.

  He paid his bill, recovered his coat and hat, and climbed the steps which led up to the street.

  A storm of rain had cleared the air, and emptied the streets. He stepped out, briskly. No one seemed to be taking the least interest in him.

  Halfway down the Augusta Platz he had to turn right, into the smaller street which would, in turn, bring him to the Station Square. It was at this moment that he heard the car start off behind him. Something in the note of the engine sounded a warning. He jerked his head round, and saw it coming straight at him.

  Without stopping to think, he jerked himself to one side, spotted a narrow sidestreet ahead, and ran down it. It was when he heard the car going into reverse that he realised his mistake. He should have stuck to the main street …

  The sidestreet stretched ahead of him, badly-lit, absolutely empty, sloping steeply downhill. Behind him, the headlamps of the car flicked on, pinning him.

  He reckoned he had a good twenty yards start. On his le
ft stretched the unbroken wall of a large building; no entrance, not even a recess. The right-hand side was blocked by a high iron railing.

  He put on speed.

  There was a T junction at the bottom, and what looked like a rather better lighted road. He swung round the corner. The car, which had been catching up, cornered behind him.

  Petrella sidestepped. His plan was to turn in his tracks, and run in the opposite direction before the car could turn. He had reckoned without the driver. As he sidestepped, the car swerved too. The wing caught him in the small of the back, scooped him up, and tossed him against the fence which bordered the road.

  The car screamed to a halt, and went into reverse.

  Petrella was lying at the inner edge of the pavement, close to the fence. There was a stabbing pain in his chest, and he seemed to have lost the use of his legs.

  He could see the driver now, with his head out of the side window. It was a heavy, white, bad-tempered face.

  As he watched, the driver manoeuvred the near-side wheels of his car carefully up on to the pavement, judged the distance to where Petrella lay, and started to reverse.

  When he’s been over me once, thought Petrella, he’ll come back again just to make sure. Petrella’s legs were like sacks of sand but he still had the use of his arms. Pressing on the pavement, he rolled himself over, and then over again until he was pressed hard against the bottom of the wooden fence.

  It was no use. The car was on him now. The near-side wheels were going over him … Petrella heaved wildly, felt the skirting board at the foot of the fence bend, and heaved again. There was a dull crack. A complete length of board gave way, and Petrella went rolling, over and over, down a grassy bank to come to rest with a thud at the bottom.

  He was on gravel. His groping hand found a wire, and he hurled himself up on to his knees. The fall seemed to have done something for his legs, which were now hurting as much as his chest but seemed to be answering signals again. He crawled forward, pulling himself by the wire.

  The fence rocked and splintered as his pursuers, too bulky to squeeze through the space underneath, proceeded to batter it down.

  Petrella crawled a little faster