‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Abram, obviously impressed by the speed of the police reaction. ‘Now could you answer one question?’
‘If we can,’ said Joscelyne.
‘Why don’t we arm our own men?’
‘We’d like to. But authority has to come from the Home Secretary.’
‘Mr Winston Churchill?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well. Then I’ve got a message for Mr Churchill. You might care to pass it on. I happen to be Chairman of the East London Liberal Association. We represent five constituencies which return seven members to Parliament. And I can assure Mr Churchill that unless some definite and positive action – such as arming our own men – is undertaken without delay, then on the next debate on security matters he will find seven of his supporters either abstaining or voting with the Opposition. And since the Liberal majority is so ephemeral that it has to rely on Irish members to make it work, he may not welcome the thought of diminishing it by seven further votes.’
Joscelyne said, ‘I shall see – indeed, I shall be delighted to see – that your message reaches him.’
When Abram had departed, mollified by these promises, Joscelyne spread out a street map of the ‘H’ Division area. He said, ‘It will have to be organised as a drive. Taking blocks of houses, sealing them off and going through them from cellar to garret.’
Wensley said, ‘I know of a short cut which might get us there more quickly and more easily.’
‘Which is—?’
‘Mobilise every nark and informer in the area. The thought of £500 will have got their ears pricked up already. Stir that pot and something will come out of it.’
‘A joint CID and uniformed operation,’ agreed Joscelyne.
It was helpful that the normal hostility between the two branches hardly existed in that division.
‘And to be really effective,’ said Wensley, ‘it’s going to need co-ordination – from the top.’
‘Any ideas?’
‘I’d suggest Chief Superintendent Hawkins is the man to approach. Bert Hawkins is a personal friend of mine. As youngsters we explored the gutters of Bermondsey together. And I happen to know that he’s got nothing of particular importance on his plate at the moment. So he should be able to devote his undivided attention to the matter.’
‘It’ll need all the attention he can spare. You realise it’ll be a double job. Rousting these men out of whatever hole they’re hiding in, and sealing the ports in case they try to get out of the country. And that will mean co-operation with the London Docks Police and the Customs Authorities.’
‘Not only in London. You’re assuming that their escape route would be aimed at the Baltic. But remember, it wasn’t so with those two men who got away from Sidney Street. In both cases they got across the Channel to France. We’ll have to block the south coast ports as well.’
‘And there’s one other little matter,’ said Joscelyne. The enthusiasm that had infected his earlier utterances had disappeared. ‘Those sailors saw what happened. Their story will be all over east London. We shall have to put Martin on a charge. Dereliction of duty.’
‘I suppose that’s right,’ said Wensley gloomily.
11
Five days of intense activity ensued, spanning the weekend and continuing into the Tuesday of the following week. Powered by the human dynamo that was Albert Hawkins, it covered all five of the east London divisions, turning them upside down and inside out, as a sharp spade driven into the earth beside an ants’ nest will lift it up and send its indignant occupants scurrying in all directions.
The main objective was to locate the two men, Katakin and Heilmann, thought to have been involved in the jewel robbery. The fact that they had vanished from their previous lodgings increased the suspicion that they were, in fact, the wanted men. A second objective, added at Wensley’s request, was to find a poet called Janis Silistreau or Ivan Morrowitz and a chemist called Casimir Treschau or Otto Trautman. Both, too, seemed to have vanished.
The search was conducted with method and rigour.
It was entirely unsuccessful. The reason for this was simple.
The blocks of houses in the heart of the search area had often been compared by exasperated policemen to a rabbit warren. The description was apt, since most of the houses were connected at underground level with other houses. Usually the runway was from cellar to cellar, but occasionally it passed under a street to a house opposite. This weighed the odds heavily against the searchers. On one occasion Treschau and Silistreau, observing the approach of the hunters, waited quietly until the search had finished with the house next door and then transferred themselves, unhurriedly, to it. By nightfall they were back in their original house.
Even the thought of the reward had failed to produce the results Wensley had hoped for. One of his most trusted informants had indeed promised to produce the current address of the jewel robbers, but had failed to keep a carefully arranged appointment. Since when it was found that he, too, had disappeared. One idea was that, warned of impending danger, he had taken himself off to distant parts. Another was that he had been encased in a sack of dry cement and dropped into the Thames.
Whilst all this activity was going forward, Joe – if the expression can conceivably be used about such an open and cheerful person – was sulking.
There were several reasons for this.
Wensley had refused to involve him in the search operations and had kept him chained to observation on the factory and the cottages, reciting, for the ninth or tenth time, his belief in the value of continuous observation. ‘It may sound dull,’ he had conceded, ‘but you’ll find it will pay off in the end.’
Then there was the way Luke had been behaving.
First, and worst, he seemed to think that he had some sort of seniority which entitled him to give Joe orders. That they were phrased as advice did not lessen their objectionableness. However – and this produced a grin – he had every intention of disregarding the most earnest of all Luke’s prohibitions.
A further black mark against Luke was that he seemed to be associating less and less with Joe and more and more with Hubert Daines. Joe had no objection to Daines as a person – a sound man and a useful friend – but when all was said and done he was a newcomer. Now he seemed to be allocating to himself the position of Luke’s oldest friend.
All these uncomfortable thoughts were in Joe’s mind as he sat in the hide which he had constructed for himself on the eastern end of the ridge between the factory and the cottages. It was a snug retreat which had taken him several nights to dig, irrigate and furnish with a plank seat and discreet spy-holes, front and rear. The irrigation was necessary since the approach of the vernal equinox had brought a succession of storms with it.
That particular day was better. Banks of cloud promised more rain, but the sky between them was blue. It was after one o’clock and Joe was finishing the lunch he had brought with him, when he spotted the Red Dragon, alias the Black Stinker, coming down the creek.
Of course, Tuesday. This would be its regular visit to the factory. There was no secrecy about its arrival, which was heralded by a belching cloud of the blackest smoke.
As Joe watched, the boat slackened speed and started to edge in towards the bank. This was unexpected. He had imagined that it would go straight to the factory, a quarter of a mile downstream, round the bend. Nor did it seem to be making for the cottage landing-stage – wisely, Joe considered, since it was derelict and probably so silted up that anything larger than a rowing boat approaching it would be aground before it got there.
So what was it trying to do?
By the time its manoeuvres had brought it to within a few yards from the bank of the river, it was practically stationary. Two men now appeared on the forward deck and, as Joe watched with fascinated attention, jumped down into the water, which at that point did not come much above their waists, and started wading ashore. They stirred up a lot of mud as they did so. Meanwhile the boat, with a roaring of its
ancient engines and a triumphant puff of smoke, had reversed into midstream and was proceeding on its way.
The two men were now clawing their way up the bank. Joe, who had his binoculars on them, thought he had never seen such a pair of scarecrows. The oily patches on their overalls and the blackness of their faces and hands suggested that they had been working in the stoke-hold. The addition of a coat of river mud and weeds completed their ragamuffin appearance.
Once up the bank they made for the better of the two cottages and were lost to sight behind it. That’s the one with the bathroom, thought Joe. And could they just do with it!
This suggested such an intriguing train of thought that he almost missed the arrival of the dinghy. He recognised it as the one they had seen bobbing up and down below the factory. The man in it looked familiar too. He had shipped his oars and was parting the undergrowth carefully with his hands as he forced his way up to the apology for a landing-stage. When he got there he moored the boat, got out his pipe and started to smoke.
The best part of an hour passed.
Then the two men emerged from behind the cottage, each carrying a bulging sack over his shoulder, and picked their way carefully down towards the dinghy. The path ran at an angle to Joe’s line of vision and with the sun making one of its fitful appearances he had a very clear view of the men.
Both of them were sprucely dressed.
The shorter one looked like a soldier, on leave perhaps from service in the east. His lightly bronzed face was clean shaven, except for a short military moustache clipped to his upper lip. He was wearing a monocle, attached to the lapel of his coat. Every time it fell out of his eye, he paused to replace it.
The taller one might have been a professor. His neat grey hair was slightly curled at the edges and showed the first signs of a bald patch in the centre at the back. The paleness of his cleanshaven face was emphasised by the heavy horn-rimmed spectacles on his prominent nose.
Joe, who had observed them in both their manifestations, knew without any doubt who they were. The taller one was David Heilmann. The two things he could not change were his beak of a nose and his protruding ears. The smaller one, almost as certainly, was Don Katakin. If he had opened his mouth, the appearance of his black and broken teeth would have made the identification complete.
One thing was clear. There was not a moment to lose.
His sailor friends had kept him up to date, both with their own sailings and those of the foreign boats which used the Royal Docks. He knew that the SS Viborg, a small Danish steamer which carried passengers and goods to Helsingfors and Copenhagen was due out some time that afternoon. The dinghy was already out of sight round the bend. As he extracted himself from his hide, Joe realised that if he was going to get back in time to do any good, he would have to move fast.
A minute later he realised something else.
In their usual careful way the opposition had established a screen of watchers to oversee the departure of their two comrades. As he started out he saw three of them and one of them saw him.
Joe swore, loudly and violently. He was not afraid of being caught, confident that he could evade these heavy-footed townsmen and lie up until they got tired of looking for him or if necessary wait until nightfall. But the time element forbade such tactics. He had to get back and get back quick.
As a first step, appearing not to notice the watchers, he set out openly on the way home. After a short distance, this brought him below the brow of the intervening slope. As soon as he was out of sight he turned about and crawled, as fast as he could go, towards the river.
Unhappily, like many country boys, he had never learned to swim. His plan was to keep beside the river, under cover of its bank, until he reached the first bridge, which he knew led into a block of buildings south of the recreation ground. Unfortunately it was more than a mile upstream.
Nor was there an easy path beside the river. At some points he had to scramble through rocks and even descend into the river bed itself. Progress was slow. Pausing to listen, he could hear the men shouting. There were only two voices and he guessed that they had left one man to block the direct way back and that the other two were closing on the river. One of them was still some distance away, the other was much nearer.
Joe realised that the slowness of his advance was giving them an advantage. If he went on at his present rate both of them would be blocking the bridge before he got there. There was only one thing to do. He had to run for it.
He climbed up from the river bed and took a quick look. Sure enough one of his pursuers was not more than a hundred yards away. He recognised him at once from his height. It was Krustov. Young, tall and thin, the description had said. It had not revealed whether he was a sprinter.
The bridge was in sight, perhaps a hundred yards away. The finish was too close to be comfortable. He had reached and was almost across the plank bridge when Krustov arrived at the far end. Instead of charging across it, he steadied himself. Joe went down on hands and knees as the shot came. Then he pulled himself up and doubled down the street ahead.
This was disappointingly empty, with market gardens on one side and shuttered warehouses on the other. Joe had made fifty yards along it before the next shot came. Krustov must have been out of breath, because it went wide. At that moment a greengrocer’s cart, drawn by a pony and driven by a boy, came clattering round the corner at the far end of the street.
Joe stopped it by standing in the middle of the road. The driver, who had narrowly avoided running him down, looked upset. Joe said, ‘I’m a policeman. I’ll have to use your cart.’ The boy was clearly in two minds as to whether to allow Joe up, or to whip up his pony and drive away fast. Certainly Joe, after suffering in clothing and general appearance in the river bed, looked more like a tramp than a police officer.
It was Krustov who made up his mind for him. Having got his breath back, he fired again. At fifty yards it was good practice. The bullet hit the railing beside which they were standing and ricocheted off past the boy’s head.
This settled all doubts.
‘Ruskies eh?’ and ‘Chasing you, eh?’ and ‘Hop in quick.’
Joe was already up beside him. With a stamping of hooves, the pony turned the cart round and they made for the corner. No more shots came.
‘That was good, eh!’ said the boy. He had a cheerful freckled face and Joe judged that he was not more than fourteen years old.
‘That’s just the start,’ said Joe. ‘Now you drive me to the police station. As quick as you can and devil take anything that gets in our way.’
‘Which cop-shop?’ said the boy, who clearly regarded the whole matter as an unexpected but welcome break in an otherwise humdrum existence.
Joe had had time to think and had decided that his best course was to make directly for Poplar. It was past four o’clock. Even if Wensley had not yet got out of court, they would at least be close to the Customs House and the departure point of the Viborg. The boy needed no encouragement. It was a miracle that the only corpses they left behind them were one cat and one hen.
When they drew up in front of the police station, Joe jumped out and waved his thanks. The boy made no move to drive off. He felt there might be more to come.
Wensley had arrived five minutes before Joe. He listened to what he had to say and started to move before he had finished. As they reached the street he said, ‘The Customs Office and the departure pier are up the road. Quickest to run for it.’
‘Quicker still to drive,’ said Joe and indicated his chariot.
Wensley, who had no false notions of dignity, climbed up on to the driver’s bench. There was hardly room for the three of them. Joe, on the outside, clung to Wensley and hoped that providence, which had looked after him so far, would continue to do so.
When they reached the Customs House, the policeman on duty recognised Wensley and waved him in. He ran up the stairs, along the corridor and into the room labelled ‘Head of Port and Customs’. Mr Warburton, who held th
is double office, looked up in astonishment. He had never seen Wensley excited before. He tried to say something, but was ruthlessly cut short.
Had the Viborg sailed? Yes. Should be heading for Tilbury by now. Could he stop it? Mr Warburton might have said ‘How?’ but put a question which seemed to him to be even more cogent. He said, ‘Why?’
‘Because she’s got two badly wanted men on board.’
‘You can’t mean those two men we’ve been warned about?’
‘That’s just what I do mean,’ said Wensley. ‘Can you hold the ship?’
‘If I had a very good reason, I might ask the authorities at Tilbury to hold her. They could raise a question about quarantine. Something like that. But it’d have to be a convincing reason.’
He went to the door and shouted, ‘Mr Sleight.’
The man who came out of the office next door was immediately classified by Wensley as a red-tape merchant and an obstructionist. This was unfair. Sleight was, in fact, a hard-working subordinate who did his job without fuss.
He answered Wensley’s questions calmly.
Certainly the two passengers had been examined. Their tickets had been booked the day before and their luggage was already on board when they arrived only a few minutes before the ship left. It had been held for them. One of them was a Major Eberhardt, of the Royal Danish Army. He was on a six-month attachment to Woolwich to study recent advances in artillery technique. In particular, according to a letter he showed them, the use of shrapnel and the development of the recoil system. The other was Professor Kildebond of Arhus University, on temporary attachment to London University.
Papers? They both held Danish passports, stamped with entry visas six months earlier and temporary residence permits, issued when they entered the country. Yes, one of them was taller than the other, but this had not seemed a valid reason for questioning their credentials.
Wensley abandoned him and transferred his attention to Mr Warburton, who had succeeded by this time in contacting Tilbury on the telephone. It seemed that they were making difficulties about holding the Viborg. Particularly as she was a foreign ship.
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