Fear to Tread

by Michael Gilbert

  “Yes,” said Mr. Wetherall. He indicated the two men.

  “You have seen these men before?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Well – last night—in—I can’t remember the name of the street. In Soho. They are the two men who attacked me.”

  “You’re quite sure?”

  “Yes, quite sure. I saw them twice, once in the full light, and then in the street. I particularly noticed this one”—he pointed to the red-haired man—”had a tiny yellow spot in the iris of his left eye.”

  Superintendent Huth moved across and looked into the red-headed man’s eye with the gravity of a West End occulist. A police sergeant with a notebook wrote down “The man identified had a yellow spot in his left eye” and looked gratified.

  “And what about this one?”

  Mr. Wetherall stared at the white faced man, who stared back.

  “Yes,” he said. “There’s nothing in particular about this one, but it’s him all right.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Oh, quite sure.”

  “All right,” said Superintendent Huth. “The rest of you can go, and thank you very much. Would you come this way, Mr. Wetherall?”

  He found himself in the superintendent’s office. The superintendent had a shock of white hair and a hard but mobile face. Mr. Wetherall liked the look of him. At the moment he was sitting at his desk with the tip of his tongue showing out of one corner of his mouth, writing. He wasn’t being rude. It was just that he had a lot to do and the moment for Mr. Wetherall’s further assistance had not yet come.

  After a few minutes, Mr. Wetherall’s curiosity got the better of him.

  “Who are those men?” he asked.

  Superintendent Huth withdrew his tongue, placed one broad forefinger on the paper as if to pin down the thought he had been interrupted in penning, and said: “Hired bullies. The big one’s name is Whittaker. His friends call him Red. The thin one, I think, is Jackson. No one seems to know anything for certain about him except that he was in the Navy during the war and was dismissed the service for trying to kick a Maltese stoker to death.”

  “A sailor?”

  “That’s right. Sailor Jackson.”

  “And they work together.”

  “They and one or two others.”

  “Would a man called Guardsman be one of the others?”

  “Could be,” said the superintendent.

  “And Prince?”

  “Which Prince?”

  “An ex-boxer, with one eye.”

  “Again, could be. He’s in the same trade.” The superintendent looked, for a moment, as if he was going to go on writing. Then, instead, he laid his pen carefully in the pen-tray, tilted back his chair, and gave Mr. Wetherall a long stare.

  “You seem to know a lot of these people,” he said.

  “Well, you see,” said Mr. Wetherall, “I’m a schoolmaster. As a matter of fact I used to teach Prince. He was a horrible little boy.”

  “He hasn’t gone uphill since. Did you teach the Guardsman too?”

  “No. I met him in a cafe. Jock’s Pull-In near the Elephant.”

  “Jock’s Pull-In?” said the superintendent. He looked as if he was going to say something about it, but changed his mind. “I suppose you meet a lot of types in your job. That’s really the only difference between us. You get ‘em young. We get ‘em afterwards.”

  “Not all of them, I hope. By the way, what will happen about those two?”

  Again the superintendent paused before answering. He was, thought Mr. Wetherall, being perfectly friendly but never, for one instant coming off his guard. Possibly all policemen were like that.

  “It depends what the others make of them,” he said.

  “The others?”

  “We haven’t been able to find the girl, but there’s a busker called Higgins, and we’ve got the doorman and the waiter from the Minstrel Boy.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Wetherall. “That’s quick work. They all saw the men in a good light. And they’re not the sort of faces it’s easy to forget.”

  “It’s quite surprising,” said the superintendent, “what some people can forget if they give their mind to it.”

  At this moment the door opened and Inspector Clark came in. He walked straight over to the desk.

  “No go, sir, I’m afraid.”

  “None of them?”

  “None of them.”

  Both men turned and looked at Mr. Wetherall who went first hot then cold.

  “Do you mean,” he said, “that Higgins and those two men from the club – that they none of them recognise those two men?”

  “That’s right,” said Clark shortly.

  “No,” said the superintendent. “Not quite.” He got up from his chair and sat on the edge of his desk. “Mr. Wetherall said, ‘they none of them recognise the men.’ That’s not quite right.”

  The inspector looked blank.

  “They none of them admit that they recognise them. That’s more correct, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, quite, sir. But it’s all the same so far as we’re concerned.”

  “It’s impossible,” said Mr. Wetherall. “There couldn’t be the slightest question about it. That big one. Apart from anything else you can’t suppose there are two men of just that size and complexion with a tiny yellow spot in his left eye.”

  “No doubt,” said Clark. “The pity is we shall have to say if we are asked that you didn’t mention the yellow spot until you’d inspected the men at close quarters this afternoon.”

  “Do you believe me,” said Mr. Wetherall, “or don’t you?”

  “It’s not a question of believing. It’s what we can prove to the court.”

  “Then you prefer their story to mine?”

  Inspector Clark sighed.

  “It’s not just your story,” he said. “They’ve got alibis. The usual sort. Playing cards with friends. But you can’t laugh them away altogether. All right. Perhaps a court’s going to prefer your word to theirs. But there’s something more they’re going to say. They’re going to say you were so far under the influence of drink that you couldn’t possibly have recognised anyone.”

  Mr. Wetherall swallowed hard.

  Inspector Clark waited for comment, and then went on with a sort of patient reasonableness that Mr. Wetherall found more infuriating than bluster.

  “Higgins agrees he had six or eight whiskies, and as you were meant to be standing level turns he’s not likely to suggest you had less. And those night-club people say you were behaving queerly – banging ashtrays on tables—”

  “That was Higgins.”

  “And there’s a story about breaking a bedroom window in the house next door.”

  Mr. Wetherall sat still. He was angry. He felt angrier than he had ever felt in his life before, and he was trying to bring himself under control. If he lost his temper all was lost.

  At last, when he was sure of his voice, he said: “I asked you a question, Inspector, which you haven’t yet answered. Do you believe me or not?”

  “Since you put it to me like that, I think you may have been mistaken.”

  “All right.” He had himself in hand. “That’s blunt anyway. Now I’m going to ask a favour.”

  “Yes?”

  “I want a word with Higgins. If he denies these two men to my face, then I’ll give it up. But I don’t think he will. I don’t think he can.”

  “I’m afraid—” began the inspector heavily.

  “Let him see Higgins,” said Superintendent Huth. He had been sitting so quietly that both of them had forgotten him.

  “I think he’s gone, sir.”

  “Then send someone after him. You can use this room, Mr. Wetherall. “I expect you’d like to see him alone.”

  But Higgins had not gone.

  Seen in broad daylight, and some hours away from the whisky bottle, he was rather a pathetic figure. He seemed to have shrunk inside his clothes. Daylight and sobr
iety had reduced him to half of himself. It was like meeting one’s favourite actor for the first time in front of the footlights.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Higgins.”

  “Good afternoon, sir. I don’t think I ever caught your name.”

  “I was your cousin Hector last time we met.”

  “So you were, then. It was quite an evening, wasn’t it?”

  He seemed fascinated by the enormous bandage on Mr. Wetherall’s right hand. His eyes kept swivelling round to it, and jerking away again, as if he realised that he might be drawn to a forbidden topic.

  “Look here,” said Mr. Wetherall abruptly. “Why did you tell the inspector you couldn’t recognise those men?”

  “I—hmp—” said Higgins. “Well—”

  “You saw them perfectly clearly. You must have done. They broke down the door of that room at the club. They not only went through it, they came back again. You must have seen them twice.”

  “I was lying down. I wasn’t feeling very well.”

  “You were on your feet when I came through.”

  “Then I must have laid down again.”

  “Nonsense,” said Mr. Wetherall, in exactly the tone he had so often adopted with an obstinate boy. “You’re not telling the truth.”

  “It’s very confusing.”

  “It wouldn’t be confusing if you stuck to the truth. What’s wrong with you? Are you frightened?”

  “Yes,” said Higgins, sitting down suddenly on one of the hard chairs beside the desk. “I’m frightened.”

  Mr. Wetherall felt at a disadvantage.

  It was no good saying: “Well, don’t be frightened.” The fact was there. It was evident in every line of Mr. Higgins, dropped face and huddled body. It was in his twitching mouth and in his eyes, where the whites showed startlingly as in a horse that has been mishandled.

  “It’s easy for you,” said Higgins suddenly. “You don’t have to put up with it, like what I do. You’ve got a house of your own, with a front door, and if there’s any trouble you get on the blower and send for the police. I’m not like that. I’ve got a bed in a room in a house in Lauderdale Street. You could walk into it right now. There isn’t even a lock on the door. And I work, nights, in Leicester Square and if they wanted me they’d pick me off as easy as—as easy as knocking back a glass of beer, and think no more about it. You don’t know them.”

  “Oh, don’t I,” said Mr. Wetherall.

  “It isn’t just knocking down and kicking. Have you seen that Jamaican that runs round with them? ‘Pretty’ they call him. ‘Pretty!’ The other night he got in an argument, just over nothing, with another brown boy. And do you know what he did? I’m not telling you the tale – I was there – I saw it. He got out a knife—” Mr. Higgins gestured toward his own inner pocket. “Just like that – casual like – like you or me might take out a fountain-pen and sign our names – and he cut an inch off the end of this boy’s nose.”

  Mr. Wetherall scratched the end of his own nose thoughtfully, tried to laugh, and found himself clearing his throat instead.

  “Did you tell the inspector all this,” he said at last.

  “Certainly not.”

  “And those night-club people. Are they the same? Is that why they won’t talk?”

  “It’s worse for them. If they made any trouble their place’d get bust up.”

  There is something both disarming and flattering about a person who admits that he is afraid. It suggests, without precisely stating it, the corollary that you are not afraid yourself.

  “Now you look here, sir,” said Higgins, observing that Mr. Wetherall was weakening. “You leave those boys alone. They’re not worth worrying about. Sooner or later the police’ll catch ‘em at it and run them all in.”

  “Well—” said Mr. Wetherall.

  “You do that,” said Higgins, “and I’ll do something for you. It’s something”—he held up a dirty hand and spread the fingers—”not that number of people in London know about. Keep your eye on that girl Annie. She’s hot—”

  IV

  “I didn’t want you to go away thinking I’m happy about this,” said Superintendent Huth, as he said good-bye to Mr. Wetherall. “Some time back you asked Inspector Clark if he personally believed your story. You must never ask a policeman that. It isn’t a fair question. What he thinks personally doesn’t signify. All he’s taught to look at is what sort of case he can put up in court next morning.”

  “All right,” said Mr. Wetherall. He was tired of the whole thing. His head was aching again and he wanted to get home. “You may be right. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had much to do with police before.”

  “That wasn’t all I wanted to say.” The superintendent was still patient. “I wanted to tell you that if there was any more trouble, I’d like you to get in touch with me straight away. Either me or Scotland Yard. One of our people there has been handling these food cases for a long time. A lot of them start through me, because Soho’s in my manor, but he gets them all in the end. Co-ordinating, you might say. The name’s Hazlerigg. Chief Superintendent Hazlerigg. You might care to make a note of it.”

  8

  TO THE EDITOR, DEAR SIR

  When Mr. Wetherall got home that Tuesday night he felt very tired; tireder than the night in 1939 when he had evacuated four hundred children on a special train to Leamington Spa (which was his previous standard of tiredness).

  Since he could not conceal the state of his hands and face, he gave his wife a modified version of his adventures and fell asleep in the middle of her lecture on the folly of people who behaved like schoolboys the moment other people’s backs were turned.

  The next things of which he was clearly conscious was that the sun was shining, that, judging from the angle of the sun, it was very late, and that he felt a lot better.

  “I thought I’d let you have your sleep out,” said his wife. “I telephoned that girl of yours and told her you’d be late.”

  “Splendid,” said Mr. Wetherall. A real night’s rest had put its blessed curtain down between him and what had gone before. “In that case, perhaps I might have a second slice of toast.”

  At the school he found Peggy in charge and everything running smoothly. If he had helped himself to a month’s holiday and left the school in her hands he sometimes wondered if anyone would have known the difference.

  “That horrible Clayton child,” she said, “has come to school again with nits, and it’s nurse’s inspection day tomorrow. I’ve locked him in the lavatory till he can be seen to. Here are the draft agenda for your School Board Committee on Friday – and – have you heard anything lately about Patsy?”

  Mr. Wetherall was reading the agenda, which contained a new, and therefore suspicious, item and he hardly heard the last question. Then, looking up, he saw the trouble in her eyes and said: “What’s that, Peggy? What’s wrong with Sergeant Donovan?”

  “I just wondered if you’d heard anything.”

  “Not that I can remember. Why?”

  “You’ve been seeing a lot of the police lately.”

  “I can’t remember anything – no, wait a minute. There was something. When I was talking to Inspector Clark I happened to mention his name and the inspector looked as if he was going to blow up. What’s Patsy been doing?”

  “I wish I knew. He won’t tell us anything, Mr. Wetherall. He just sits at home. He hardly goes out at all.”

  “He must go on duty.”

  “That’s just it. He doesn’t. I think he’s been chucked out.”

  “Chucked out?”

  “Suspended. Something like that. There’s an enquiry on.”

  “Oh, dear.” Forebodings came rushing back. “When did it happen?”

  “Whatever it was it was this week-end. He ought to have gone to the station Monday afternoon and he didn’t. Inspector Clark was round to see him that morning, and then he didn’t go. He’s been sitting there ever since, like a bear with a sore head. If only he’d tell someone about it”—
Peggy’s sigh comprehended woman’s entire view on the stupidity of man—”we might do something to help.”

  “It may be nothing to do with—all this other stuff,” said Mr. Wetherall. “There’s no reason it should be connected. It may be something quite different.”

  But he did not say it very hopefully.

  It was whilst he was eating his lunch that he spotted the letter.

  It was in a weekly paper which styled itself Liberal but which was, in fact, devoted to a pinkish, peevish brand of intellectual socialism. Although he had long fallen out of love with its politics Mr. Wetherall still read it for its literary competitions.

  To the Editor.

  Dear Sir,

  Used we not to pride ourselves, in this country, on the freedom of the citizen? In these days, even if we are bound in by a multitude of administrative restrictions (some of them necessary, many of them stupid), do we not comfort ourselves with the assurance that, at least, we are not a police state?

  Now if I were asked to define what is meant by a police state I should say that it was a country where the police were not subordinated to publicly elected representative bodies. Where, in fact, they were answerable, in the last analysis, not to Parliament but to the administration.

  Is England becoming a police state?

  Let me give you a small example which may be typical of others.

  Last week a police sergeant, in the alleged course of his duty, but without either a search warrant or a warrant for arrest, forced his way into a restaurant to question the proprietor on the subject of an alleged food offence.

  When the proprietor proved (apparently) “unco-operative” he was subjected to brutal physical violence. So far as I am aware the police sergeant concerned is still a serving member of the Force.

  I am prepared to give to the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis the name of the restaurant and of the proprietor (who may himself be too intimidated to take any further step in the matter) and the name, number and division of the sergeant concerned.