The Man Who Hated Banks & Other Mysteries

by Michael Gilbert

  “I reckoned,” he said, “that if we let Alex go, they’d be in a cleft stick. Either they left him in the lurch, in which case he’d split. Or they helped him, and we caught them, redhanded. Now Alex is dead, and Light’s dead, and we’re further off than ever from proving any connection between the crooks who do the work, and the man at the top, who draws the profit.”

  “Douglas Marchant?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve no doubt in my own mind that he’s the man who founded the organisation. And who runs it.”

  “It’s not just what’s in your mind,” said Romer. “There’s a good deal of concrete evidence, too. That was a nice photograph our girl collector got of him, talking to Light, outside the pub.”

  “He could explain that, sir. He’s in windows. Light’s a builder. It could have been an ordinary business chat.”

  “Light’s a criminal,” said Romer, “and a man who committed cold-blooded murder a few hours after meeting Marchant secretly at an out-of-the-way public house. I don’t doubt that he could explain the coincidence. Most things can be explained, if you try hard enough. Here’s another one. Two days ago, Marchant went across to Germany. He visited your old friend, the Baron von der Hulde und Oberath. They had a long talk. The German police have got a man in the packing department. He saw Marchant coming and going, and is prepared to identify him. Last night there was a fire at the factory.”

  “A fire!”

  “Nothing serious. It broke out in the dispatch department, and destroyed all records of dispatches during the last five years.”

  “I see,” said Petrella.

  “It’s particularly intriguing because our man remembers, four or five days ago, helping to pack and dispatch a drill – to a place called Fyledean Court, near Lavenham, in Wiltshire.

  “Did you say a drill, sir?”

  “Curb your excitement. It wasn’t a drill for drilling holes in metal plates. It was a drill for planting seed potatoes. Curious, all the same, that the dispatch records should have been destroyed immediately afterwards.”

  “It’s going to be even more difficult to prove anything now.”

  “There’s one rule I always follow,” said Romer. “When you get a smack in the eye, don’t sit down. Get up and counterattack at once. I spoke to the Chief Constable of Wiltshire before you came in. He’s promised to co-operate with you in every way.”

  “Co-operate in what, sir?” said Petrella blankly.

  “You’re going down, with the search warrant which I’ve secured for you, and you’re going to turn Fyledean Court upside down.”

  “But—” said Petrella.

  “But what, Inspector?”

  “If I don’t find anything, isn’t there going to be the most awful row?”

  “I’m prepared to accept that risk,” said Romer. “He shouldn’t have tried to have my niece drowned. I’m rather fond of her.”

  Petrella drove, while Wilmot read the map.

  “We’ll go down to Christchurch first,” he said.

  “I thought we were going to Lavenham.”

  “We’re going to call on Mr. Wynne.”

  “Who’s Mr. Wynne, when he’s at home?”

  “Mr. Wynne,” said Petrella, “was, until he retired, the manager of the Exeter branch of the District Bank.”

  “The old boy Light and Corder assaulted.”

  “That’s right,” said Petrella. “That’s where this story began. I want to hear about it, before we tackle Douglas.”

  It was a lovely day. The early March sun was bright, but not yet very warm. Spring was round the corner, waiting for its cue.

  Wilmot abandoned the map and said, “To hell with it! You know what? You ought to do something about Jane.”

  “Which Jane?” said Petrella, but the car had swerved a full foot to the right before he corrected it.

  “Is there more than one?” said Wilmot innocently. “I mean Jane Orfrey, the girl detective, the pride of the Women Police. The one I pulled out of the river a week ago.”

  “What do you suggest I ought to do about her?”

  “You could always marry her, if the worst came to the worst, I mean.”

  Petrella drove in silence for nearly a quarter of a mile, and Wilmot, who knew him better than most people, began to kick himself for having presumed on it.

  At last Petrella said, “I’ve never proposed to a girl. I wouldn’t know how to start.”

  “Not to worry,” said Wilmot, relieved. “It’s all a matter of technique. You get in front of her, and work your feet up till you’re pretty close. Then you distract her attention – and grab her with both hands. Under the arms, high up, is favourite—”

  “You make it sound like unarmed combat.”

  “It is a bit like that. Mind you, you’ll find Jane’s got a pretty high standard, now she’s been kissed by a real expert.”

  “What expert?”

  “Me,” said Wilmot. “When I pulled her out of the water, I had to use the kiss of life technique. Smashing. It’ll probably go better still when she’s conscious.”

  “Certainly I remember Light and Corder,” said Mr. Wynne. “It’s such a beautiful morning. Let’s step out into the garden. I have good cause to remember,” he went on. “One of my ribs never really mended. I get a sharp twinge there if I stoop suddenly. Particularly when the weather is cold.”

  He was one of those men who look old when they are young, and young when they are old. The lines on his face were the deep lines of age, but his eyes had the brightness, his skin the pinkness, of youth. He had looked exactly like that, Petrella decided, for half a century; like a tough old tree.

  “I read all about the assault those two men made on you,” he said, “but what interested me most was the suggestion that your refusal to grant this company credit was based on some sort of personal feeling.”

  “Personal feeling?” Mr. Wynne drew his lips in sharply, then puffed them out again like a goldfish after an ant’s egg. “They must have imagined that. Bank managers aren’t allowed much personal discretion. All overdrafts are referred to Area.”

  “But in this case, it was suggested that you refused to recommend an overdraft, on personal grounds. Some sort of quarrel.”

  “If there was a quarrel,” said Mr. Wynne, “it was very one-sided.” He stared up at an aeroplane, from Hurn on the cross-channel run, which was gaining height in a leisurely circle against the pale blue-grey sky. “I can remember the managing director – his name was Marchant, and he’d been in the Air Force – coming to see me in my office one morning. I hadn’t quite made up my mind what I was going to recommend. He wanted a very large overdraft, but he had reasonable security, and the company had quite a good financial record. When I said that I should need time to think about it, he got very angry.” A slight smile played across the corners of Mr. Wynne’s mouth. “Very angry indeed. He said that I’d promised him the money and that I must let him have it.”

  “And had you?”

  “Of course not,” said Mr. Wynne. “Are you fond of tomatoes?”

  They had drifted to the bottom of the garden. Along the fence which separated the garden from the recreation ground was quite a pretentious greenhouse. The far side was covered with stout wire netting.

  “I have trouble with the children, throwing things,” explained Mr. Wynne. “Children seem to be brought up without discipline today. I have forced some early Cardinal Joys – they’re pentagrams, of course. Would you like to try one?”

  “I won’t rob you,” said Petrella. “You were telling me about Marchant making a scene in your office.”

  “Yes. He lost his temper, and threatened me. I wasn’t impressed.”

  “When you say he threatened you – do you mean physically?”

  “I thought at one moment that he was going to strike me. He went very red, jumped to his feet, and came round to my side of the desk.” Mr. Wynne blinked.

  “And what did you do?”

  “I told him to control himself. After a whi
le he did so, and went away.”

  “And after that you decided not to recommend him as a suitable subject for an overdraft.”

  “If you mean that I nursed a grudge against him, you’re quite mistaken. I shouldn’t allow my personal feelings to enter into a matter like that. It did, of course, occur to me that a man who had so little control over himself might not be the best person to conduct a business. That big fellow there is an Ecballium Elaterium, or Squirting Cucumber—”

  “Pickled gherkins,” said Wilmot to Petrella, as they drove north to keep a midday rendezvous with the Chief Constable. “Are all bank managers like that?”

  “They tend to clothe themselves in the armour of their own rectitude,” said Petrella. “But I should think Mr. Wynne is an extreme specimen.”

  “No wonder Marchant blew his top. Old Wynne would have saved the banks a few shocks in the last seven years, if he’d been a bit more tactful with him, wouldn’t he?”

  It was nearly four o’clock when they first caught sight of Fyledean Court. They had taken the Tilshead road, across the wastelands which form the central hump of Salisbury Plain. Then they had dropped down off the escarpment, leaving behind them the barren acres of the Firing Range, back to the civilisation of the Lavenham Valley. It was like coming out of war into peace.

  Fyledean Court lay at the head of a long, curving, shallow valley. A private approach road ran north from the Lavenham-Devizes road through unfenced fields of stubble, sloping up to a windbreak of black and leafless trees.

  At the turn of the road Petrella stopped the car.

  “You walk from here,” he said to Wilmot. “Keep out of sight over the crest, and work your way in from behind. Pick up anything you can, whilst I keep ’em busy in front.”

  He gave Wilmot five minutes’ start, then drove slowly down the road to the court, and rang the bell. A grey-haired woman answered the door, inquired his name in a broad Wiltshire accent, and showed him into a room which might have been a gunroom or a library according to its owner’s tastes. There were a lot of bookshelves, but very few books; a clutter of catalogues, boxes of cartridges, bottles of linseed oil, and tins of saddle soap.

  He sat there for nearly ten minutes, listening to the life of the house and farm going on around him. A heavy lorry drove up, discharged some load, and drove off again. Then Douglas Marchant came in.

  “My housekeeper tells me that you’re a policeman,” he said.

  “Well—” began Petrella cautiously.

  “Does that mean I can’t offer you a drink?”

  “There’s no rule about it, but actually I won’t have one just now.”

  “You don’t mind if I do,” said Marchant, and opened the cupboard beside the fireplace. There were box files on the lower shelves and a decanter and some bottles and glasses higher up.

  Marchant helped himself to whisky, put in a long splash of soda, and said, “Well, now.”

  Both men were standing.

  Petrella said, “I’m a Detective Inspector attached to New Scotland Yard. We’ve been investigating a number of bank robberies, which seemed to us to be connected – possibly organised by the same people.”

  “They’re smart operators,” said Marchant. “I’ve read about them in the papers.”

  “And I have a warrant to search your house.”

  Exactly the correct reactions, Petrella observed. Incredulity, followed by anger, followed by an affection of ridicule. But then, he had had ten minutes to think it all out. That was the difference between searching a slum tenement and a gentleman’s residence.

  “If it isn’t a joke,” said Marchant, “and you really do suspect me of being connected with these – these bank robberies, would you spare a few minutes telling me why? If this house is full of—er—stolen goods, they’ll still be here in ten minutes’ time. Incidentally, I suppose that’s one of your men I spotted, leaning over the gate at the back.”

  Petrella said, “Did you know a man called Light?”

  “Jerry Light? Certainly. He was my Squadron Sergeant Major during the war, and came in with me when I started a demolition and scrap metal business after the war.”

  “Have you seen him since?”

  “I see him whenever we happen to work on the same contracts. He supplies labour. I supply windows.”

  “When did you see him last?”

  “Two days ago – in London.”

  “Why did you meet him in an out-of-the-way public house, and not at his office?”

  “I do much more of my work in public houses than in offices.”

  “I don’t suppose you met Baron von der Hulde in a public house?”

  Marchant looked surprised.

  “You keep dodging about,” he complained. “I thought we were talking about poor old Jerry.”

  “Poor old Jerry,” said Petrella softly.

  “You must know – he was killed – a motor smash. The night before last.”

  “I knew,” said Petrella. “I was wondering how you did. It hasn’t been in the newspapers.”

  “One of his employees told a business friend of mine. These things get round very quickly in the trade.”

  “I’m sure they do,” said Petrella. “Does everybody in the building trade also know that if Light hadn’t been killed, he would have been charged with murder?”

  Marchant stood up, his face went red. “If that’s a joke, it’s in poor taste. I’ve told you, Light was a friend of mine—”

  “So was the man he shot. Alex Shaw.”

  “Alex.”

  “Or am I wrong? Wasn’t it you who found Alex the job as chauffeur to your sister, Constantia.”

  “Certainly. But—”

  “Into whose hands, incidentally, quite a few stolen bank notes seem to have found their way.”

  “You’re confusing me,” said Marchant. “And you’re going much too fast. You talk about Jerry Light, and the Baron von der Hulde, and my sister Constantia, and her chauffeur Alex, and stolen bank notes. Are you telling me that Alex was a bank robber?”

  “Alex was a very rare bird,” said Petrella. One half of his mind was occupied with what he was saying. The other half was noticing that Marchant was still standing up, and had put down his empty whisky glass on the table. “He was a professional killer. Not just a muscleman, like the Franks and Stoker and the other simple hooligans Light employed to run your dirty business for you.”

  “My business?”

  “Yes. Your business. And that’s really the oddest twist in the whole affair. Because, as far as I can see, you made bank robbery your business from motives of personal spite. You had a good, legitimate business, and a bank killed it, so you decided to get your own back on all banks.”

  Marchant walked over to the cupboard, which still stood half open, took out the decanter, poured himself a second whisky, and then said politely, “Please go on.”

  “There’s not a lot more to it. You were well placed, of course. As a demolition expert you knew all there was to be known about cutting through brickwork and steel. Light, I imagine, was your contact with the professional criminal element. You supplied the equipment, mostly from Germany, organised the whole show, and took”—Petrella’s eye wandered round the room for a moment—“I would guess, a very handsome share of the profits.”

  Marchant said, “Is that your curtain line? I’m sorry. Really I am. I haven’t met anything more fascinating since I stopped reading comics. Now – get on with your search, apologise, and be off with you.”

  The door opened, and Wilmot looked in.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “But I thought you ought to have this at once,” and he thrust a piece of paper into Petrella’s hand.

  Petrella read it and said, “Thank you, Sergeant. Don’t go away.” And to Marchant, “That potato drill that’s just been delivered. When you declared it at the Customs, did you tell them about the other piece of machinery?”

  “What other piece?”

  “Sergeant Wilmot hasn’t had t
ime to make a close examination, but he says that there appears to be a second piece of machinery screwed to the framework, inside the larger piece, and painted to resemble it. It looks like a high-speed metal drill. Curious requirement for a farmer.”

  “If there is, I know nothing about it.”

  “It would be an excellent way of bringing stuff into the country. You’d need some co-operation from the German manufacturer, of course.”

  “On a level,” said Marchant, “with your other fairy stories.” But he was sweating.

  He’s getting ready to jump, thought Petrella. But which way? There are two of us here, now. I’m nearer the window. Wilmot’s between him and the door.

  “If you’d care to look at the declaration that I made to the Customs—” He opened the cupboard door, and took out a box file. The whole of the back of the cupboard hinged inwards. Marchant went through it, and slammed the door behind him.

  Petrella jumped at the same moment, but he was a fraction of a second too late. The cupboard door was shut, and immovable.

  “Out into the passage,” he said.

  Wilmot grabbed the handle, and pulled, but that door was fast. The mechanism at the back of the cupboard must have bolted the passage door as well.

  “Damn it,” said Petrella. “He had that lined up, didn’t he?” As he spoke, he was looking round for a weapon. There was a poker in the grate, but it was too small to be much use. He opened a long cupboard and found a twelve-bore gun in it. He made sure that it was unloaded, then grabbed it by the barrel and swung the butt at the window. It was a narrow, leaded casement, and it took five minutes to beat an opening through it. Wilmot went first, and dragged Petrella after him. As they reached the farmyard, they heard the aeroplane, and saw it taxiing out of the Dutch barn two hundred yards away.

  “It’s a Piper Aztec,” said Wilmot. “Lovely little job. I spotted her as I came in. Take off and land on a tennis court.”

  “We ought to have thought of that,” said Petrella. “With his record – an aeroplane was the obvious thing.”

  They could only stand and watch. The silver toy swung round, nose into the wind; a sudden burst of power, and it was away.

  “We’ll try the telephone, but I don’t mind betting it’s disconnected. The whole thing was laid out like a military operation. He went twice to that cupboard. Twice, in front of my eyes, to put me off my guard.”