by John Creasey
‘I’ll take my bag to the cloakroom first,’ Mark said. ‘Lend me a hand, will you?’
He did not take the cases across to Victoria Station wholly because it was most convenient; he was dubious about his companion’s honesty of purpose and considered it wise not to make it obvious that he was travelling from Waterloo. If Parker were working for the other side, and this was a put-up job to disarm him, it was best to make the tramp believe that his destination was reached on one of the lines running from Victoria.
Ten minutes passed before the suitcases were in a cloakroom, and the two men stood together outside it. Parker looked up with a slow grin. ‘Yer ain’t gettin’ the wind-up, mister, are yer?’
‘Why should I be?’ demanded Mark.
‘Oh, I dunno, I dunno,’ said Parker. ‘I was kind’ve wonderin’ if you was thinkin’ve the way them two coves took hold of the Inspector. They wasn’t very tender wiv ‘im, was they?’
‘Crummy,’ confided Mark slowly, ‘I wasn’t thinking of Inspector West, or the man with the limp. I was wondering how far you can be trusted.’
‘What, me?’ Parker was affronted. ‘You ain’t ever ‘eard a word against Crummy Parker, I’ll betcher.’
For all the man’s dirt and obvious avarice there was something likeable about him. At a smile in Mark’s eyes, Parker’s expression relaxed, and he said: ‘Let’s get goin’, or the bird will ‘ave flown. I couldn’t sleep a wink tonight if I lorst me extra eleven quid. Battersea, that’s where we’re goin’. Can yer sport a cab?’
Mark held his hand up towards a taxi.
The taxi driver made no comment, audible or by expression, but leaned out and opened the door. Mark stood aside, and Crummy Parker climbed unsteadily into the cab and sank back in a corner with an expression of serene satisfaction. Through the open glass partition he ordered with lordly air: ‘Queen’s Street, Battersea. And ‘urry, please.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said the cabby.
‘Respect, that’s wot I like from a driver,’ declared Parker with satisfaction. ‘They knows a gentleman when they sees one, which is more’n yer could say for the narks, an’ some uvver people.’ He was silent for a moment, and then added, ‘I’ll tell yer something. I’m beginning to like you. I’ll tell yer something else, too, case I get a n’eart attack before we get to Limpy’s ‘ouse. Thirty-one Queen’s Street, Battersea, that’s where he lives.’
‘I see,’ said Mark slowly, and did not show his satisfaction. ‘How did you find him?’
Parker stared at him, then leaned forward and spoke swiftly and earnestly.
‘Listen, Guv’ner, you’re a sport, I can see it. I’ll tell yer all of it, every perishing word of it, for another three quid. No secrets, see. That’s an offer – what about it?’
‘All right, Crummy,’ Mark said. ‘What’s the story?’
His story was certainly plausible, and Mark found it convincing with slight mental reservations.
Parker knew Handsome West by sight; so did most people on London’s seamy side, and there was nothing surprising in that. Something had woken him up, and he had been awake when Roger had walked along the Embankment. He had even been considering touching Roger for a cup of tea, but suddenly the attack had developed. Naturally, Parker had done nothing, but he had seen Mark’s rescue attempt and much which had followed. After the brief interview, he had ‘made inquiries’ amongst friends, and learned where Mark had lived. That, he said, was easy: a lot of people knew that ‘Handsome’ had a friend, and Mr Lessing, begging his pardon, wasn’t a man hard to describe.
That was one side of the story, explaining how Parker had come to be near Bell Street. The other was even simpler. Parker had been about amongst his ‘friends’, mostly unpopular with the police, and described the man with the limp. Identification had been comparatively easy. He had been told of Queen’s Street, visited the place that morning, and seen the man enter the house. He was quite sure it was one of Roger’s two attackers.
When he finished, Parker leaned back in his corner and demanded: ‘How’d yer like the sound of it, mister?’
‘It’ll do,’ said Mark.
As he spoke the cab turned a corner, and slowed down. A quick glance at a street nameplate told Mark they were in Queen’s Street, and then the taxi slowed down outside number 35. Mark climbed out, Parker followed him, and Mark was taking some change from his pocket to pay the driver when a dark shadow loomed over him. He looked up, to see a man with a familiar face near him, and another man approaching Parker. The second man he recognised as from Scotland Yard, a sober, red-faced officer who put his hand on Parker’s shoulder and said: ‘I want you, Parker.’
Mark waited, expecting a hand to descend upon his shoulder.
Sir Guy is Fatherly
Had mark been less obsessed with the likelihood of his own arrest, he would have paid more attention to Crummy Parker, who stared into the face of the man who held him, his lips twisted and his eyes buried so that they looked like little slits. Parker gave the impression that he was trying to find words, but the physical and mental effort was too much for him. His breathing grew laboured, and he began to shiver.
‘Wotjer mean?’ he demanded. ‘Wotjer mean? I ain’t done nuffink, mister, nuffink at all.’
‘Haven’t you?’ said the police officer.
‘I was just ‘aving a ride wiv my friend Mr Lessing, that’s all.’ He drew a deep breath and then appealed to Mark. ‘’Ave I done anyfink that the bees can take me for?’
‘Not—not to my knowledge,’ said Mark.
‘There you are,’ declared Parker, in high-pitched triumph. ‘Wotjer want me for, that’s wot I wanter know?’
‘You’ve been warned a dozen times,’ the CID man said. ‘You’ll be charged with begging, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t other charges.’
‘Beggin’!’ exclaimed Parker. ‘Beggin’! Strewth, if that ain’t the bloomin’ limit. Beggin’! Me!’
‘Yes, you,’ said the officer. ‘There are limits to what we’ll take from you, Parker. Come on.’
He turned, and with a hand about the tramp’s wrist, led him towards the end of the street.
Mark’s heart had steadied in the past few minutes, although he remained uneasy. The fact that nothing had been said to him meant little; if he moved away, he might be detained. To fill an awkward gap he took out his cigarette case and proffered it. Although he recognised the man as a Yard officer, he did not know his name.
‘No thanks,’ said the man stiffly. ‘I’d like—’
He did not finish what he was going to say, for Mark, who was glancing over his shoulder towards the end of the street, saw a tall, well-built man crossing the road. There was something familiar about the fellow, who went down heavily on his left foot. For a split second Mark stared, his expression strained enough to make the Yard man stop speaking. Then he said sharply: ‘There’s your man! Get him!’
He made a dive past the policeman, going towards the man with the limp who had come from one of the houses at the end of the street, and was moving towards the corner. He did not look round, but moved swiftly, half-running, half-walking, and making his limp more pronounced. There was scant hope of catching him up unless he ran at full speed, and he was about to lengthen his stride when a hand descended upon his shoulder, and he lost his balance. He staggered, tried to shake the hand off, but failed. It was the Yard man, who said sharply: ‘That’s enough, sir!’
‘Don’t be an ass!’ exclaimed Mark urgently. ‘That’s the fellow who put West into the river this morning. You must get him. It’s vital!’
‘Who do you say it is?’ The fresh-faced officer looked startled, but did not move.
‘West’s assailant,’ cried Mark. ‘Are you going to let him go? He’s round the corner already.’
The Yard man released him then, as if convinced
of the seriousness of the need for giving chase, and outpaced him towards the end of the street, disappearing in the same direction as the man with the limp. When Mark reached the corner, however, he saw the officer standing at a junction of four roads, obviously unable to decide which one his quarry had taken. Mark drew up with him, and said with withering sarcasm: ‘That’s one step up the ladder you don’t get.’
‘We’ve lost him,’ the other said, impervious to sarcasm. ‘I didn’t realise what you meant at first, sir. Had you said “Inspector” West I would have understood you. Still, it can’t be helped.’
‘What remarkable brilliance there is in the police force,’ growled Mark. ‘Why, you—’
‘I don’t think it’s necessary to talk about it,’ said the officer crisply. ‘I was going to tell you—’
‘Just what’s in your mind, officer?’
‘I have instructions to take you to Cannon Row, sir,’ said the detective blandly.
Cannon Row was the police station where suspects and others detained for interrogation at the Yard were held. They stepped together into the darkened hall of the police station, went through three doors, and then along a narrow passage: there were other doors leading from the passage, but all of them were barred. They were the cells.
‘What is this nonsense?’ snapped Lessing.
‘I’m only carrying out instructions,’ said the officer amiably. ‘This way, please.’
Further protest then was useless, Mark knew, and he stepped into a cell some eight feet square. It was not pleasant, and the bleakness of the three walls and the bars which separated it from the passage did nothing to help.
The door closed on him, and the constable turned a key in the lock.
‘Well—I’m—damned!’ he exploded.
It was only in the next half-hour that he fully realised what had happened, and where this might lead. He thought of his cases at Victoria Station, and the 3.35 from Waterloo. What a damned fool he had been! If he had not seen Crummy Parker he would have been well on the way to Bournemouth, and with the prospect of a week-end at picturesque Hinton Magna ahead of him.
He judged that it was seven o’clock when a man appeared in the cell corridor and walked along it sharply. A plain-clothes man passed his cell and spoke in undertones to the policeman, who entered after a few moments, unlocking the door.
Mark said nothing.
‘Will you come this way, please?’ asked the plain-clothes man, shorter and more thickset than Mark’s first acquaintance.
‘I certainly will,’ said Mark heavily.
He was led out of Cannon Row into the precincts of Scotland Yard, and along the stone passages and up the lift to the third floor, where Chatsworth had his office. He began to wonder whether Chatsworth had deliberately allowed him to cool his heels, in the belief that he would not take the risk of further detention. It would be like the AC, who might even pretend that his words had been taken too literally by his men. Withholding judgement, but in no amiable frame of mind, Mark waited while his guard tapped on Chatsworth’s door and opened it on a mellow ‘come in’.
The man stood aside for Mark to enter, and said: ‘Mr Lessing, sir. Is there anything else?’
‘Not now,’ said Chatsworth shortly.
Mark wondered what the opening gambit would be, and was taken by surprise when Chatsworth looked up abruptly. ‘Well, Lessing. Have you had enough?’
‘More than enough of some things,’ he said. ‘Police incompetence amongst them. One of your officers stood within twenty yards of a man who helped to throw West into the river. The best he could do was to give the fellow plenty of time for getting away. If he had not been instructed to keep so careful an eye on me, you would have had that man under lock and key by now.’
Chatsworth said: ‘Competence or incompetence by my men will be judged by me.’
‘Don’t forget the Home Secretary,’ said Mark sharply. ‘Or the Press, or the general public.’
Very slowly Chatsworth leaned back in his chair, took off his glasses, put them on the desk in front of him, and said softly: ‘That’s to be your attitude, is it?’
Then, without warning, Chatsworth smiled. It was a benign smile, warming, friendly, conciliatory. ‘I wish you were in a more amenable frame of mind,’ said Chatsworth, ‘but I can’t hope to alter you.’ He chuckled again, but then without warning his expression changed, and he leaned forward over his desk, looking very earnest. ‘Lessing, I will tell you this. You will be in considerable danger if you ignore my advice, danger from other sources than the police. In fact I can envisage circumstances in which you would be happy to think that you were in the comparative comfort of a cell at Cannon Row. Be warned by me. Don’t try to pursue your inquiries.’
‘That’s easy to say,’ said Mark shortly.
Chatsworth shrugged. ‘Of course, I can’t make you take the sensible course, but I strongly advise it. I must leave it to you.’
‘That’s a concession, anyhow,’ Mark said.
He did not think that Chatsworth looked particularly pleased when he reached the door. Whatever lay behind this, he was worried. Probably, too, in order to try to impress him, he had gone too far with Mark. Instead of being chastened, Mark felt much more cheerful. His freedom was a thing of great importance: it was as well not to tell Chatsworth that he would be more careful in the future.
‘As far as I can be,’ he mused as he entered Parliament Square after receiving respectful salutes from policemen in the hall and at the gates, ‘I owe a lot to Crummy Parker. I wonder why they did collar him. And why he talked after all?’
He dismissed thought of Crummy with a half-hearted decision to do what he could to help the tramp later, and then deliberated on the wisdom of returning to Bell Street, or putting up at a hotel for the night. He decided to go to Bell Street.
It was nearly ten o’clock, and dusk was falling, when he reached Bell Street.
He inserted his key in the lock of the front door, pushed the door open, and stepped inside. As he did so Janet’s cat came bounding from the next-door garden, and rubbed himself on Mark’s legs. Mark leaned down and ruffled the cat’s fur, and the cat purred contentedly.
It was when Mark was straightening up that he saw the man on the stairs; a tall, heavily-built man – the man with the limp.
The Vanity of Count Riordon
Mark stood on the threshold for what seemed a long time. The other, taken completely by surprise, stood quite still and stared at him. There was no light on in the hall, but the daylight was good enough for Mark to see every feature of the other man clearly.
The man with the limp had broad, rugged features, and a peculiar, square-shaped mouth. His eyes were large, and very cold: even in the half-light, they appeared to glitter. Sinister was the word. And the cat presumably agreed, for it turned and bounded off.
The moment of appraisal passed swiftly. Then he and the man on the stairs moved at the same time. Mark leapt forward to tackle, the other put his right hand to his pocket. Mark saw fleetingly that he would have no chance at all if the other had a gun and fired from his pocket. Then he saw the man draw out a weapon, and raise it: a truncheon of sorts, thought Mark, and moved his head to one side as he quickened his rush.
The other guessed what he would do, and judged his blow accordingly. The weapon caught Mark on the side of the head, making his ears ring, sending him off his balance. Consequently he ran into a powerful straight left, which took him in the neck. He gulped, seemed to stop breathing, swayed to one side and then fetched up against the wall, gasping for breath, and feeling the pain sear through his head and his neck.
The man with the limp rushed along the hall, and closed the door from the inside. Mark was vaguely aware of that as he tried to keep his balance. He was supporting himself weakly when the man with the limp returned and gripped his forearm.
&nbs
p; ‘Keep your mouth shut,’ he said abruptly.
‘Er,’ muttered Mark.
He was beginning to think, and what he thought was not pleasant. Roger, in an oblique fashion, and Chatsworth much more directly, had warned him what to expect of the ‘other side’ and he was completely in this man’s hands. If he were as dangerous as reports made out, the prospect was bleak. Mark felt less frightened than confused as the other led him into the dining room.
The curtains were drawn, and the room was in darkness until the other switched on the light. Mark blinked; there were tears of pain in his eyes, and his neck felt swollen, although he was becoming more normal and able to appraise the other more detachedly. There was no indication that the man proposed to do more violence then.
‘Sit down,’ he said, and pushed Mark into an easy chair.
Mark sat.
‘You’re Mark Lessing?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Mark, relieved that the partly imaginary swelling in his throat did not make talking too difficult.
‘A friend of West,’ the man continued.
‘More or less.’
‘Don’t waste words!’ the other said. ‘I haven’t time for it. Listen to me, Lessing. West’s got something that I want, and I am going to get it.’
‘Oh,’ said Mark.
‘I’m going to get it,’ repeated the other, and something in his expression as well as the tone of his voice made it clear that he would allow nothing to prevent him from getting what he wanted: there was an air of utter ruthlessness about him.
The man said abruptly: ‘Where is West?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t lie to me. Where is he?’
‘There was some talk of him going to a nursing home,’ said Mark, giving the impression that he was a little apprehensive because he could not answer the other’s question. ‘It’s no use looking at me like that. I don’t know where he is, I tell you.’