Fear to Tread

by Michael Gilbert

  “That’s where Red Whittaker and his friends come into it?”

  “Yes. It seems to have been Whittaker for some months now. His lot’ll go on doing it until they blot their copy books by getting too obvious or too greedy – or by getting into trouble with the police on some other count. Speaking for ourselves we’d prefer to keep it at Whittaker for the moment – because then we do know where we are.”

  “Which was no doubt why you were so unenthusiastic about my charges against Whittaker the other day.”

  “Partly,” said Hazlerigg cautiously. “Partly. There were other considerations as well.”

  “All right,” said Mr. Wetherall. “Let it go. Where do they take the stuff next?”

  “That’s one of the things we would give a good deal to find out. And it’s not going to be easy, without giving our hand away. These boys are expert drivers who know London backwards. They’ve got fast, nippy little vans, and they don’t mind how much time or trouble they take to make sure they’re not being followed. One time, when they got the idea we were following a van, they abandoned it, with all its contents, in a cul-de-sac near King’s Cross. We didn’t touch it. We just put men into a nearby building to watch it.” Hazlerigg grinned. “After a month.” he said, “we gave them best on that one. However, I expect we shall spot the central dump sooner or later – unless they keep moving it round, which is a possibility. When we get there we shall find the answer to one or two further little problems. Among other things I expect to find some sort of printing press.”

  “Coupons?”

  “No. Too risky. It’s labels. A lot of the stuff they steal is well-known, proprietary stuff. They find it pays to relabel it. Partly to make it difficult for their customers to check back on them, but chiefly, I believe, because some of the restaurants they sell to are of the ‘near honest’ variety. Not jet black, just a shade of off-white. If you present them with what are patently stolen goods they’ll jib – but offer them a case of tinned ham with an unknown label marked ‘Produce of Panama’ and they’ll kid themselves that it’s all right and accept it.”

  “There’s a suggestion of psychology at the back of that,” said Mr. Wetherall.

  “I don’t know about psychology. But I’d say that there was someone in the background with a detailed knowledge of how the food industry works.”

  “All right. What next?”

  “The next step, I have no doubt, is Annie. When the boys have sold off the stuff to the hundred and one restaurants and cafes on their visiting list they pack up the cash into sizable bundles and pass it over the counter in the private bar of the Double Four in Lauderdale Street.”

  “And she passes it on to Holloman.”

  “I think that’s right.”

  Mr. Wetherall felt a quickening of excitement, tempered by the thought that he might have delivered Sammy over to the enemy. “Do you think, then, that Holloman is the man who runs the whole show?”

  “Could be,” said Hazlerigg. “Could be. And yet, I don’t know. It’s early to say. There’s one thing we’ve got to prove – and I mean prove in such a way that it’ll stand up in a court of law – and that’s the connection between Whittaker and Holloman.”

  “Or Annie and Holloman.”

  “Yes. That could work either way. Annie could be just a post office, and Whittaker could take his orders from Holloman. Or Holloman could send the orders to Annie, who passes them on to Whittaker. My only objection to that is that I can’t see a tough boy like Whittaker taking his orders from a woman.”

  “You’ve haven’t met Annie,” said Mr. Wetherall. “I’ve met her and I can believe that part easily. But I don’t see how you’ll ever prove it. If Whittaker hands the money to Annie and Annie posts it to Holloman and Holloman gets rid of it somehow to someone else—”

  “It’s not easy,” agreed Hazlerigg, “but it’s not as difficult as all that. We’re almost ready to pick this particular bunch of wildflowers. And when a big show like this begins to break up, it always breaks up from the bottom. You find a flaw, slip in a wedge and,” Hazlerigg held up one thick hand, “you wham it with a hammer and the thing falls apart – if you see what I mean.”

  “Roughly.”

  “You’ve got to find the flaw, of course, and pick the right wedge.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Wetherall cautiously.

  “In this case, you’ve suggested the answer yourself. Or rather, if what you tell me is right, Sergeant Donovan seems to have it all worked out for us. A minor character in Whittaker’s lot known as Guardsman is the flaw. The wedge is Sergeant Donovan himself. And we”—Hazlerigg heaved himself up to his feet—”are the hammer. Come in, Huth. How are you keeping? You know Mr. Wetherall.”

  Superintendent Huth grinned like a little white alley cat and shook Mr. Wetherall’s hand.

  “I’d just got as far as Sergeant Donovan,” said Hazlerigg.

  Superintendent Huth said: “Yes.”

  “We are in rather an unhappy position there. He’s not been one of our successes. I’m not saying that’s all his fault. There have been mistakes on both sides.” Mr. Wetherall intercepted the look which passed between Hazlerigg and Huth and, having met Inspector Clark, understood it perfectly. “However, we won’t go into that just now. It’s been a queer set-up from the start. You know Sergeant Donovan was used by us as an undercover worker. That’s perfectly true. He brought in a lot of information. The stopping of one nice little racket in petrol can be chalked up to his credit. Then, we know, he started taking money. He handed over money to us, too, though not, I can’t help feeling, absolutely all of it. Then, the information he produced started to get less valuable. Well, there were two ways of looking at that. There was the nasty way – which we didn’t want to think. Or the reason could have been that his game was becoming known, so he wasn’t able to find out much. So we took him off the job. If we’d been sensible we’d have moved him out of the district altogether—”

  “Would this have been before or after his wife got killed?”

  “A few weeks before—” Hazlerigg looked again at Huth, who said, softly: “It was never proved that the two things had any connection.”

  “It was pretty obvious, I should have thought,” said Mr. Wetherall sharply, and when both men looked up at him, felt uncomfortable.

  “Well, we’ll not argue about it,” said Hazlerigg. “But either way it doesn’t make things any easier now we want to use the sergeant.”

  “Use?”

  Again he caught Hazlerigg looking at Superintendent Huth and realised that a proposition was going to be put to him, and that it was one of which they were afraid he would not approve.

  “I won’t pretend this is a plan we’re keen on,” said Hazlerigg, “but we just can’t think of a better. Here’s Sergeant Donovan, more or less treed at home. I mean, we could get hold of him easily enough by sending a police car, but that’s not the point. He may be more useful where he is. Then there’s the Whittaker boys waiting for him to come out of baulk so that they can hit him. Sooner or later he’ll come out. We’d like him to do it in our time, not theirs. That’s all there is to it.”

  Light began to dawn.

  “You’d like me to fetch him out.”

  “This is what we had in mind. We thought you might slip in the back way as before. It would be natural enough for you to go and see him. Tell him about going to see Peter Crowdy, and that Peter has given you a lot of information. No harm in telling him about the parcel labelling racket – that should appeal to him. But drop in the extra item that you think you may have discovered the address of the central sorting house. Something Peter heard his father say before he was killed. You can wrap it up any way you like. The address we want you to give him”—Hazlerigg scribbled on a bit of paper—”is an old factory on a site off the North Circular Road. It’s a factory that’s got certain features about it that have made it useful to us before. All you’ve got to do is to get it into his head that this might be the place. Suggest that
you’d like to go with him and have a look at it. Then tip us off when he starts out. We’ll do the rest.”

  Mr. Wetherall picked up the piece of paper and sat for a few moments turning it over in his fingers. “Yes,” he said, at last. “Yes, and no. I’m agreeable to putting myself in your hands. You’re not asking me to do a great deal, and if you think this is the best way of bringing things to a head, then I’ll do it. But I’m not going to do it blind. I must know what the idea is.”

  “It might be easier for you to do your part if you didn’t know too much,” said Hazlerigg. He was still friendly.

  “You may be right, but I still want to know.”

  “All right,” said Hazlerigg. “You’ve got the right to know. As soon as Sergeant Donovan moves out, one of our contacts will tip off Whittaker and tell them where he’s going. Whittaker’s boys will either follow him, or get there first. When they catch him they’ll beat him up. Then we shall intervene – but not too soon – and hold them all for assault. Donovan’s still technically a member of this force – he’s only under suspension. The charge will be assaulting a police officer with intent to kill. That’s a damned heavy charge. Then we shall work on Guardsman and promise him consideration if he’ll give us all we want on Whittaker.”

  “Which he will,” said Huth, beaming quietly. “In about five minutes.”

  “When we’ve got Whittaker fixed, we’ll offer him consideration if he leads up to Holloman.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Wetherall.

  “You insisted on knowing, or I wouldn’t have told you. If you think it’s rough on Sergeant Donovan—”

  “I’m not worried about Sergeant Donovan at all,” said Mr. Wetherall. “In fact, it’s practically the plan he suggested himself.”

  He fell silent again. He was thinking of a lot of things rather confusedly. He thought of Luigi and old Mr. Crowdy, and Peter Crowdy and of quite a lot of other boys he had taught. But chiefly he thought of Peggy.

  “All right,” he said. “When would you like me to do it. The sooner the better, I take it. What’s today? Thursday. I’ll get in to see Sergeant Donovan after tea tomorrow. You can expect to hear from me some time in the evening.”

  14

  NORTH OF THE RIVER – TROUBLE

  Friday was a short day at Hollomans. The girls knocked off at four o’clock and by half-past four Sammy was sitting in the dining-room with a cup of tea, thinking about things.

  On the one hand he had just discovered that he had lost the boxing medal which he always carried as a lucky charm in his waistcoat pocket. On the other hand his wages, two rather used- looking pound notes, were safe in his wallet; and by twelve o’clock next day he would be free for the week-end. On balance, it seemed all right.

  He finished his tea and turned over the pages of a magazine. It was one that the blonde girl had left behind and it was, so far as Sammy could see, devoted entirely to love. There was a picture on the front of a man with a dark moustache pushing a lady into a cupboard (Beasts of Belgravia). No murder and no football. Sammy abandoned the paper and concentrated on kicking the chair leg and whistling.

  Presently Mr. Holloman put his head round the door.

  “I’m going out,” he said. He seemed preoccupied. “I’ll be back by six. Don’t go away. There may be a telephone call. You can take a message.”

  “Right char,” said Sammy.

  The front door slammed. He turned to the evening paper. Elephants at home against Manchester United. That was going to be a game. Two unbeaten sides. Oh, boy!

  It was ten minutes before the significance of Mr. Holloman’s parting remarks dawned on him.

  There was only one telephone in the house and it was in the study.

  Feeling curiously weak about the knees, he got to his feet and went out into the hall. The study door was not only unlocked, it was open.

  He stopped to think. He could sneak in now and search round quickly. Or, better, he could go in openly, turn all the lights on, and pretend to be waiting for that telephone call. If he left the study door open he would hear Mr. Holloman’s return in plenty of time to clear up any mess he might make whilst searching. The study windows looked out on the side garden. It was not directly visible from the front path.

  “Can’t lose,” said Sammy to himself. “What a turn-up for the books.”

  He marched in briskly, switched the lights on, and looked round him.

  There was plenty of scope for a search. There was a filing cabinet. There were two cupboards, both, as it turned out, ion- locked and both full of papers. And there was the desk itself, which had half a dozen drawers down each side and a lot more small ones inside the top.

  “Take a fortnight to look through this lot.” He picked out a sheaf of papers from the filing cabinet. They all seemed to be connected with Mr. Holloman’s patent medicines. Instinct told him that he was on the wrong track.

  He came back to the desk and sat down. The roll top was open. It looked somehow more personal than the cupboard. He opened one of the small drawers at random. It was full of bank statements and cheque stubs. He noted the name and branch of the bank, and tried another drawer. This one contained a hip flask of brandy and three packets of white tablets. The next drawer was a very small one. It was set in the foot of the pillar, and he would not have spotted it if it had not happened to be standing open a fraction.

  It was not exactly a secret drawer. Rather, one that had been constructed so as not to catch the eye.

  In it lay a bright ring of keys. Two were small keys which might have fitted a drawer or cabinet, and the third was, quite obviously, a safe key.

  Sammy took the ring out, and twirled it thoughtfully round his finger whilst his eyes roved. He was looking for the safe. By now he had stopped straining nervously for approaching footsteps. The fever of the chase was in him.

  Unless, he concluded, it was hidden behind some panel or picture on the wall – and it didn’t seem quite that sort of house – the only possible place was the brown wood cupboard built into the corner of the room beside the desk. The door was locked, but he knelt down to it and found that one of the small keys fitted. And there was a safe inside the cupboard.

  He didn’t know a lot about safes, and was confused at first by the fact that there were two keyholes, at an angle to each other, but he soon got the hang of it, snapped back the lock, twisted the handle and pulled open the door.

  There were more papers in the safe; but what caught his eye was the big drawer at the back. The second small key fitted.

  Inside the drawer was more money than he had seen before in his life. A few fivers, but mostly ten-shilling notes and pound notes, in bundles, secured by rubber bands and stacked on top of each other. He noticed that most of the notes had a well-used look, as if they had been through several pockets and tills since they had left the bank.

  At that moment, and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something else.

  It was on the carpet, to the left of him and behind him.

  It was a well-polished shoe.

  He looked up and found Mr. Holloman standing over him.

  “When I invited you,” said Mr. Holloman softly, “to take an interest in the business, you will appreciate that I did not mean quite such a personal interest.”

  “No – I mean, yes,” said Sammy.

  He had been in one or two bits of trouble in his short life, but nothing quite so dangerous as this. Instinct told him to get out into the open part of the room, but he was caught between the end of the desk and the side wall.

  He got up off his knees and turned round, but there was no room for manoeuvre.

  “What exactly are you doing?”

  “I was waiting for a telephone call, like you said.”

  “And you thought, perhaps, that I kept the telephone in the safe?”

  “No—well—as a matter of fact I saw the keys.”

  “You must have good eyes,” said Mr. Holloman blandly, “considering the drawer was shut.”


  “Well – I opened the drawer to look for a pencil, and I saw the keys.”

  “There is a certain fascination in hearing you improve your story as you go along. Is this yours?”

  He shot out his hand and Sammy saw his boxing medal.

  “Yes,” he said, “I lost it.”

  He reached out to take it back but Mr. Holloman tipped it neatly into his own waistcoat pocket. All his movements were strong and precise, like those of a conjurer.

  “I thought it might be yours. You left it outside this door some nights ago. Also some grubby little fingerprints on the edge of the fanlight. What were you doing? Trying to see what there was to steal?”

  “I never—”

  “What were you doing?”

  Sammy remained silent.

  “I see,” said Mr. Holloman. “Well, I hope you do better at the police court.”

  “I never took nothing.”

  “No?” The hand snaked forward, went inside Sammy’s jacket, and came out holding a wad of notes.

  Sammy stared.

  “I never put those there,” he said at last. “You’re trying to frame me.”

  “A thief.”

  “I never—”

  Mr. Holloman took another step forward and grasped Sammy by the lapels of his jacket. His hands gripped the coat and the shirt and the vest underneath. He shook the boy gently.

  “A little thief.”

  “Let me alone. Take your hands off me.”

  “A dirty, common little sneak-thief.”

  The shaking increased in violence. Sammy put his hands up and tried to push Mr. Holloman’s arms away. He might as well have tried to shift a pair of steel connecting rods. He suddenly realised how strong Mr. Holloman was.

  A little wave of panic rose and subsided.

  “Let me go.”