by John Creasey
There was a report on the autopsy, a note that the inquest was to be held next day, and several more statements from passers-by who had seen Blake, including one from a nightwatchman at a tea warehouse who claimed to have seen him get into the taxi. The watchman’s name was Dingle.
On the file dealing with the feared demonstration at Lord’s cricket ground, there was a copy of Charles Henry’s report, two shorter reports from Detective Constable Juanita Conception, and a few notes from Henry which were clearly intended to demonstrate the way he was sticking to the job. One note read:
It is now confirmed that a party of well-trained professional agitators is coming from the United States, travelling Tourist Class on the s.s. France. The name of the leader is Donelli – Mario Donelli; an American citizen of Italian extraction.
There was another file, giving a summary of the cases of shop-lifting, pocket-picking and bag-snatching over the past three months. Gideon glanced at two columns which provided the comparative figures for this year, and the same period in the previous year. A note in red, in Hobbs’ writing, said tersely, Average increase: 32%. So it hadn’t been imagination or over-sensitivity on his part; these crimes were very much on the increase.
“Have to do something about that,” he grimaced, thinking aloud. “I wonder if Hobbs is through? If he is—” There was a tap at the door and Hobbs came in. He looked very hard at Gideon, as if half-expecting some kind of reaction or reception. It was so much out of character that it at once reminded Gideon of his deputy’s apparent hesitancy on the Friday. He waited for an explanation, but Hobbs quickly became himself again. His greeting was formal enough to tell Gideon that someone else was in the other office; someone who might overhear what was being said.
“Good morning, Commander.”
“Good morning, Alec.”
“We’ve an emergency this morning,” Hobbs told him.
“What kind of emergency?”
“About two pounds of heroin, stolen from a pharmaceutical chemist.”
“Oh,” Gideon said heavily. “What was the chemist doing with it?”
“He’d bought it from an acquaintance in the trade and was distributing it among addicts, and selling it abroad,” Hobbs answered promptly, startling Gideon. “It’s a somewhat unusual case, sir. We wouldn’t have known about it, if the owner hadn’t come and told us.”
Gideon pushed his chair back, slowly.
“A confession?”
“Yes, sir. He came straight to the Yard and asked for you. He’s in my office, now.” Hobbs, in his way, was pleading with Gideon to see the chemist; pleading with him, also, to handle him gently. He knew Gideon’s particular hatred of drugs, especially the pushing of drugs among the young. He knew also that it was one of the forms of crime about which Gideon could really be harsh; blackmail, and any form of cruelty to children, were others. Now, he stood four-square – pleading; so unlike Hobbs: “He will give any help he can.”
“He could have started helping by not-” Gideon cut himself short. “Who is, he where’s he from, when did it happen and how long has he been here?”
Hobbs replied as if he had foreseen the questions and had carefully rehearsed the answer: “John Cecil Beckett, of 27g, Edgware Road. He is the owner of a small chemist shop and has two assistants; one of them his wife, one a young man who hasn’t turned up this morning. A small window at the side of the shop was forced, and the thief presumably got in through that. Nothing else was stolen, as far as Beckett knows. He’s been here about half an hour. He wasn’t really fit to be questioned until ten minutes or so ago – he was distraught.”
Gideon grunted. “How is he now?”
“Fair.”
“I’ll see him,” Gideon conceded, knowing there had never been any doubt that he would. “I’ll come into you in a couple of minutes.”
“Thank you,” Hobbs said simply, and half-turned.
“Before you go, Alec.”
“Yes, sir?”
“What about your nominees for the great month of sport?”
Hobbs smiled faintly as if appreciating the change of subject, and again answered with the utmost speed and precision: “Tandy and Bligh, Commander.”
“Then we both think Bligh would be all right, so let’s talk to him. Do you know where he is?”
“Over at Madderton’s Bank,” answered Hobbs. “They had a raid there, last night.”
“Big one?”
“Biggish, by the sound of things.”
“H’mm . . .” Gideon frowned, then ordered: “Well, just the same – send someone to replace Bligh. Have him here by eleven o’clock.”
“He’ll be here,” Hobbs promised, and went out.
Gideon moved to the window, very deliberately. He had already recovered from his reaction to the news of the drug theft, but had not recovered from his surprise at Hobbs’ manner, nor from awareness of his own extra-sensitivity over Hobbs, Kate, this pedlar in drugs – even Charles Henry and Police Constable Juanita Conception. And he had a feeling that he was not concentrating enough on any one case.
After a few minutes, however, he felt much less moody and self-analytical. The boats, gay and graceful, were already on the move with their summer crowds, and two gaily bedecked launches went slowly by with huge banners proclaiming: TO WIMBLEDON RETURN. He had never seen that before. The morning air off the river was fresh enough and there was so little humidity that he suspected a sudden change of wind direction in the past half-hour.
He went to Hobbs’ door, tapped, paused for a fraction of a second, and went in.
A man in his middle-twenties at most, straw-coloured hair sticking up as if neither combed nor brushed that morning, was sitting back in the armchair watching smoke curl upwards from the cigarette in his knuckly hand. His face was very pale and his eyes enormous – and he was quivering: almost as if he were an addict himself and was badly in need of a shot.
He sprang up.
“Mr. Gideon!”
“’Morning,” Gideon said gruffly.
“Mr. Gideon, I—I can only say I’m desperately sorry! I wouldn’t have touched it, but my wife isn’t well and – and I’m doing so badly at the shop.” He deplored his own excuse at once. “God knows I know I shouldn’t have touched it! But I did feel I could control the—the people who bought from me. And I had a—deal in hand to get rid of the filthy stuff. I—oh, God, get it back, sir! Get it back! If the thief starts on a new round, God knows how many will suffer.”
It would have been easy to say: “You should have thought of this before.” Instead, Gideon said: “We’ll get it back, but we’ll need your help.”
“I’ll do anything - anything I can!”
Gideon looked at Hobbs, and asked: “Is Mr. Charlesworth in, do you know?”
“Yes.”
“Take Mr. Beckett along to him, and make sure Mr. Charlesworth has all the assistance he needs.”
“I will,” said Hobbs.
“I’m sorry – bothering you, sir,” Beckett muttered. “But I knew you would do all you could – I knew you would! I’ve—I’ve a cousin on the Force, sir, and he—he absolutely swears by you. You will get the stuff back, won’t you?”
“I’ll be greatly surprised if we don’t, and very soon,” Gideon assured him. He glanced at Hobbs and motioned slightly towards the communicating door, and Hobbs nodded almost imperceptibly in return: he would be straight back as soon as he had finished with Beckett.
As he strode back into his own office, Gideon wondered how it was possible that a man who knew so much about heroin could contemplate making money by selling it illegally, and wondered why Beckett’s attitude had changed so much? He was suddenly and much more vividly aware of just what a danger the stolen stuff represented.
Two pounds of it! And a tenth of a grain could make an addict – half a grai
n a week keep him happy, by rotting his body and his mind. Gideon was suddenly possessed of the same sense of urgency as Beckett had shown.
Who had the stuff now?
“How much have you got?” a man demanded.
“Enough,” said the sharp-featured chemist’s assistant who had stolen the heroin from Beckett.
“Can you keep up a supply?”
“I can keep it up. Can you keep paying?”
“I can pay.”
“Who are your customers?” demanded the assistant.
“You’d certainly like to know!”
“I want to be sure I get my money. Who are they, Jenks? I don’t want to know their names – I just want to know how well they’ll pay.”
The man named Jenks – thin, middle-aged, with a strangely pale complexion and a slight cast in one of his almost colourless grey eyes – put a hand to his pocket and brought out a bulging wallet. He took out a wad of notes and thrust them into the young chemist’s hands.
“There’s plenty more,” he said flatly. “Plenty more! I’ve got a market in a school – a private school. Don’t worry about your money. What they can’t find themselves, their wealthy families will pay. No one wants scandal, do they?”
Very slowly and deliberately, the young chemist counted the money – in all, nineteen ten pound notes – nodded, and turned away.
CHAPTER NINE
Chance in a Life Time
Chief Inspector William Bligh was in the strong-room at Madderton’s Bank when he had the recall message: “Report to the Deputy Commander at once.”
The moment he read it, Bligh’s heart dropped like a stone. He had been called out early and assigned to this investigation, and his first thought had been that the great men were giving him another chance: Madderton’s, one of the few remaining private banks with its headquarters in the West End, was an influential one. The raid was bound to get a lot of publicity and if he could pull off a quick result, that could only benefit him.
Bligh was moody, these days; not far from being depressed – partly because he did not like being alone so much. He missed his wife much more than he would have imagined: had he known exactly how he would feel, he would probably not have agreed to a divorce so quickly. He now believed that his marriage had not been on the rocks, but merely going through the doldrums, and he would have given a lot to know how she was getting on with her new husband. The second reason was the frequency with which, these days, cases he was investigating went sour on him. Every man at the Yard had bad patches; but this had lasted for nearly two years, and of late he had been given few assignments of any consequence.
Madderton’s had seemed his great chance. Moreover, within ten minutes of reaching the bank, which was near Piccadilly, off St. James’s Palace, he had been fairly sure who had committed the raid. Dynamite, the way furniture was piled up as a protection against flying debris, entrance forced by use of a key probably supplied by a watchman – it was a classic Chipper Lee job. Bligh had been so elated that he had nearly telephoned a report right away. Then, caution had stepped in. Supposing there were only similarities, and he was wrong? It would be much wiser to check, so there could be no possibility of mistake.
His eyes had glowed with sudden excitement. Supposing he could pick Chipper Lee up and charge him, before reporting? A quick, slick job on a prestige case was exactly what he needed. But before he could put this in hand, a director of the bank had arrived. Next had come a representative from the Bank of England, since much of the stolen currency was in United States dollars and German and Swiss francs.
He had delayed action until he had the total amount fairly fully assessed; it would be in the region of half a million pounds. Then, just when he was about to put out a call for Lee, he had been asked to go and see the Chairman of Madderton’s at his Hampstead Heath home. That had been too good a chance to miss.
Coming back, he had passed Lord’s cricket ground and wondered fleetingly whether he would have a chance to see the coming match against the South Africans. Then, as he was about to re-enter the bank’s strong-room, he had been called to the telephone.
“Report to the Deputy Commander at once.”
He could not imagine why, unless he was to be taken off this particular assignment. If that were so, it would be given to one of the Superintendents who specialised in currency thefts and smuggling, so it wouldn’t matter what he put in his reports: the new man would make the arrest. And it was Chipper Lee. What a damned fool he had been, not to go straight ahead!
There had been several newspapermen at the bank when he had left.
“Anything for us, Chief Inspector?” they chorused.
“No – sorry.” No, there would be an official hand-out, soon...
At the Yard, he pulled up too sharply and nearly scraped another car, the door of which was opening. A Superintendent, long-legged Gordon, looked at him sourly.
“In a hurry, Bligh?”
“Sorry,” muttered Bligh. And thought, despairingly: “Nothing goes right. Nothing ever goes right, these days!”
He went up in the lift and along to Hobbs’ office, reminding himself that if he showed any resentment at all it would only do harm. Hobbs always put him a little on edge, anyway. He would have to be bright, brisk and formal. He tapped, and went in – to see Hobbs at a telephone. Oh, God. Should he have waited? But Hobbs waved him to a chair. He sat deliberately well back in it, determined not to show the slightest sign of nervousness, a big, ruddy-faced, dark-haired man who, in spite of his inner feelings, had a look of aggressiveness about him – a go-getter of a man.
Hobbs was saying: “Yes, pick him up . . . What’s his name? . . . Corby? . . . Yes, pick him up as soon as you can.” He replaced one receiver, lifted another, said to Bligh: “I won’t be a moment,” then spoke into the telephone: “Fingerprints found at the chemist’s shop are those of a man named Corby, whom we’ve had in twice for drug distribution . . . Yes, I’ve given instructions . . . Yes . . . Yes, in five or ten minutes – will that be all right? Thank you, sir.” He rang off, looked at Bligh blankly for a moment as if wondering why he was there: his mind obviously still on something else.
Bligh was thinking: “He’s just talked to Gideon, and something’s going to blow in five or ten minutes. Not me, I hope.”
When he did speak, Hobbs’ voice was pleasant and his manner direct. “How are things at Madderton’s?”
“About half a million was stolen,” Bligh reported formally. “And if it wasn’t Chipper Lee, I’ll eat my hat!” The moment he said that, he wished he hadn’t; supposing there was a remote chance that he was wrong?
“Picked him up?” asked Hobbs.
“No.” Bligh drew a deep breath, then took the bull by the horns. “I’ve goofed on so many cases lately, I thought I’d double-check.”
“But you feel sure?”
“Yes – and I can’t believe I’m wrong.”
“Then pick him up as soon as you can,” said Hobbs, calmly, and Bligh had a feeling that the other man knew it had come as a kind of reprieve to him, even though he showed no sign of it as he went on: “The Commander wants to talk to you about a special assignment, but we’ve both got to attend an emergency conference and won’t be able to see you for half an hour. You can go down to Information and put out the call for Lee.”
Bligh’s eyes were very bright as he stood up.
“Thank you, sir.” He took an enormous stride towards the door, then stopped to look back: “Er—couldn’t give me a clue about the special assignment, could you?”
“Sport,” said Hobbs, and smiled faintly. “We need a man who is really familiar with all forms, especially those taking place in London this month.” His smile faded as he added: “This could be a chance in a lifetime, Bligh.” He left no time for comment: “Be at the Commander’s office in three-quarters of an hour, will
you? That is, twelve noon.”
The meeting was of all Commanders and Deputy-Commanders, with Sir Reginald Scott-Marie in the chair. Gideon thought he looked more severe than usual, and was half-prepared for bad news. But this wasn’t bad, in the Yard sense.
“I’ve just had official but confidential information that the General Election will be held in the first week of July – that is, in a little over three weeks,” the Commissioner stated flatly. “It’s an unusual time, and I have no information about the reasons behind the summer date. We shall have to be at full strength – Uniform, particularly. I cannot send a memorandum at this stage but I wanted you all to know and begin to make plans.”
The Commander of the uniformed branch looked appalled.
“But this is impossible, sir! We’ll have to cancel leave, and—”
“I do realise that,” Scott-Marie interrupted crisply. “I know that it creates problems. That is why I have given you as much notice as possible. My greatest concern is to find a way of explaining such postponements without giving the true reason.”
Gideon, sitting at the big, oval conference table opposite the Commissioner, now believed he understood Scott-Marie’s manner; he was less troubled than angry that this should have been thrust upon them.
No one spoke.
“I suppose—” began Gideon.
“There’s no reason in it,” remarked Uniform, bitterly.
There was silence.
“Yes, Gideon?” prompted Scott-Marie.
“As there isn’t likely to be any change of date,” Gideon suggested, “should we say that we are expecting a State Visit? This would justify the cancellation of leave, and if the State concerned wasn’t named we should cause only speculation.”
“They’d plump for Russians,” the Yard’s legal chief objected.
Scott-Marie was pulling slightly at his upper lip. No one else spoke, until one of the deputies said with quiet emphasis: