Gideon's risk

by J. J Marric

  "I want to talk to Rachel, Ma."

  "Well, you're wasting your time; she's gone to the pictures."

  "Why don't you save your breath?" demanded Moss. "I saw her when you opened the door. Rachel!"

  Ma Gully drew a deep breath, backed a foot, glared, then belatedly swore at him. Rachel came uncertainly from the inner room. Moss, who had not seen her for nearly a year, was surprised at the change in her appearance. She hadn't filled out much but she was no longer drab and colorless. In fact she had on a bright red twin set which suited her. There was some color in her cheeks, too, and her unexpectedly large, clear eyes were very bright blue. She moistened her lips as she drew level with her mother, who said gustily:

  "No one's going to call me a liar."

  "Hallo, Rachel," Moss said.

  "Good evening, Mr. Moss."

  "Don't you Mister him or—"

  "Did you come home at the usual time tonight?"

  "I—I think so."

  "Did the shop close at the usual time?"

  "Yes."

  "Come straight home?"

  "It's an inshult, that's the only word for it."

  "Yes."

  "Then you got to the Cut about half-past six."

  "I—I suppose so."

  "Did you see Mr. Bray—Tiny Bray?"

  "She said she didn't, didn't she?"

  "No—no, I didn't," Rachel answered, but her face was very pale and her lips seemed to quiver. "I didn't see anybody."

  Moss felt almost certain that she was lying; even without her mother's interference, he would have guessed that. But if he forced the issue now, he would have to deal with angry Ma, who was quite liable to become violent if she were crossed, but who would probably fall asleep during the evening; Moss knew practically everything there was to know about the habits of the people on his beat, and especially of the Gullys, because he had always rather liked Rachel. Her father had been a big, kindly oaf of a man, rough and heavy-handed, and Ma had always been too easy on the bottle. Rachel had been fond of her father and frightened of her mother, and it had been truly a tragedy when Gully had fallen down the hold of a ship, and broken his neck.

  His insurance had kept his wife comfortably off, by Nixon Street standards, and since her fifteenth birthday Rachel had been earning money at a dress shop near Aldgate Station; for the first time, Moss noticed, she was spending some of the money on herself.

  "Sure you saw no one?" he insisted.

  "You calling my daughter a liar?"

  "Honestly, I didn't," lied Rachel.

  "Well, if you come across anyone who happened to see Tiny Bray, let us know at the police station," Moss requested, as if he had given up hope of learning anything here.

  Ten minutes later, he was reporting to the detective inspector at the station; and soon, talking to Superintendent Christy, a big, mellow-voiced, handsome man who was a little too flamboyant for Moss's liking.

  "Feel sure this girl saw something?"

  "Near as I can be, sir," said Moss. "And Limpy Miles was watching me all the time I was outside the house. He went out two minutes after I left. I can't be sure, but I think he was going to Red Carter's place. I asked one of our chaps to try to make sure, but Limpy dodged him."

  Nine superintendents out of ten would have said, "Which one of our chaps?" Christy simply wrinkled his nose, and said:

  "Ever heard that Carter goes after furs?"

  "Goes after anything," Moss answered.

  "Something in that. I suppose you think it would pay off if you called back at the house later this evening, when the old woman's sleeping off the booze? All right—better put in for a couple of hours' overtime." Christy nodded, and Moss went off with a more favorable impression of his chief than before.

  That was the moment when Gideon drew up in his car outside the North London Hospital; the moment when Tiny Bray took a long, shuddering breath and died; the moment when Red Carter, a big, rawboned man in the middle thirties, with his latest doll, a big-hipped, dark-haired girl named Sansetti, was dancing at the Whitechapel Palais, and saying:

  "So Limpy thinks the Gully girl saw me. Okay, he's got to find out. Tell him that—he's got to find out. Tell him not to waste any time, sweetheart."

  "He won't lose any time," Lucy Sansetti assured him. She acted as a go-between because she enjoyed the thrill of conspiracy, but she had first become a messenger for Red because she knew that Red had an eye for a figure, and was generous with his money when the time of parting came. Red, by her standards, was the perfect gentleman.

  Within half an hour Limpy had the message; and he knew the quickest way to find out the truth was to get Ma Gully drunk.

  Although she would have resented the suggestion, John Borgman's wife, Charlotte, was the same physical type of woman as Lucy Sansetti, having the same kind of voluptuous beauty. But there the resemblance ended. She was quiet and unimaginative, she no longer wanted the excitement of a gay life, perhaps because she had everything she could possibly need—including, she believed, the love of her husband.

  She did not dream that he was with another woman that evening.

  3. Pattern

  Borgman said, "My dear, you look ravishing," and kissed Clare Selby. It was a long, slow, lingering kiss, lips slightly parted, teeth touching, not really painful but giving a hint of the excitement of pain. He let her go. She was that rare thing, a true ash blonde, and quite startlingly attractive; had she not been, Borgman would never have been interested in her. He had seen her in the general office of his printing and publishing business, and had been quick to discover that she was a good shorthand typist. He had arranged for her to be promoted two or three times over a period of twelve months, and no one had been surprised when, his personal secretary having left to get married, Clare had been given the job.

  She had soon been installed on the third floor of the Borgman Building, where Borgman himself had a suite of luxurious offices; the rest of the floor was given over to the accountancy and financial activities of his various enterprises. His offices were magnificently furnished, and the desk at which he worked had been acquired at the sale of the fabulous Alston estate; so had a Gainsborough and a Constable in that same room.

  Borgman did not think that anyone in the business knew anything about his affaire with Clare. She had a little money of her own and a small flat in the West End; and nothing could have been more convenient. The affaire was in its early days, and he believed that Clare was dazzled by his money as well as by his looks and his suavity. He did not know how long it would be before she began to ask for more than she was getting now—snatched hours here, an occasional run into the country in his Rolls-Bentley continental, one week end in a tiny French village on the coast, another in the Lucretia, his motor yacht.

  She had very light blue eyes and a fair skin without the slightest blemish. She did not make up too heavily, and was young without being silly or kittenish; in fact she was mature. In some ways she was even more mature than Charlotte, and as he stood back and studied Clare, Borgman found himself contrasting the two women, and being amazed at the great differences between them. Clare, tall, slender, gently curved, fair as the wind; Charlotte getting a little heavy, dark, olive-skinned, eyes the color of thick honey. Charlotte was better educated than this girl, but had nothing like her common sense and intelligence; Charlotte was more animal.

  The thought made Borgman smile.

  "If you're laughing at me, darling, don't," Clare said, chiding.

  "That's the last thing in the world I'd ever do," Borgman assured her. "Shall we stay in? Or shall we go out?"

  "Can't we do both?"

  Borgman found himself laughing.

  "We shall do both."

  "And can you spare five minutes for business?" asked Clare mildly.

  "Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

  "I suppose it could but I'm not sure that it should," said Clare. "It depends on whether you mind being robbed or not."

  "What?"

  Cla
re laughed. "Yes, it can wait until—"

  She broke off, not in any way alarmed, but impressed by the change in his expression. She had seen it often before, and had wondered what would happen if she had to clash with him—or whether his business interests or his wife forced a choice upon him. She had no illusions. Borgman the lover and Borgman the businessman were two different creatures, and she suspected that Borgman the husband was different again. The change when she had said "whether you mind being robbed" showed mostly in his eyes, for the glow faded, and in the lines of his full mouth and square chin. He was not really handsome, but his face was hard and his expression arrogant when in repose.

  "What do you mean, Clare?"

  "I don't think you're going to like it, darling."

  "I'll be the judge of that." He was almost sharp.

  "It's old Samuel," Clare announced.

  "Ben Samuel?" He often echoed a word or so like that to give himself time to think.

  "Your favorite cashier and accountant, darling."

  "Are you serious, Clare?"

  "I suspected old Samuel soon after I came to work for you," Clare told him. "He was always a little nervous about certain books and accounts being handled by anyone else, and that's a bad sign in a cashier, isn't it? Since I was promoted"—she said that without a smile—"I've been able to tell him that you want to see all the books and accounts, and I've worked late in the evenings on some of them. He's robbed you of nearly two thousand pounds in the past two years, and probably a lot more before that."

  "Are you sure?" Borgman asked harshly.

  "I wouldn't risk misleading you, darling."

  "No, you wouldn't," Borgman agreed grimly. "Have you any of the account files here?"

  "Yes."

  "Let me see them," Borgman ordered.

  They would not go out this evening, Clare knew; they would almost certainly sit over the table, studying the figures, until Borgman was quite satisfied that some accounts had been falsified and a number of checks altered, and that there were consistent "errors" in the petty cash. She knew exactly how this had been done to deceive the accountants; she knew that by discovering this she had strengthened her hold on Borgman. He was brisk and incisive as they studied the accounts, and when they had finished he stood up, poured himself a whisky and soda, and sipped it; he seldom drank while he was here.

  "The old devil," he said.

  "What are you going to do, darling?"

  "I'm going to prosecute, of course. My God! To think that he's been doing this under my very eyes!"

  "You can't have eyes all round your head," said Clare practically. "The other accountants and the sales manager might be blameworthy, but not you. And as I've asked for these files in your name, they'll think you have the all-seeing eye."

  That startled Borgman into a laugh.

  "Samuel will find out about that," he said.

  "How will you deal with him, darling?"

  "I shall face him with this in the morning, and send for the police at once."

  "He is nearly seventy, and he has been working with the firm for forty years."

  "And for all we know he's been swindling the firm for forty years," Borgman said harshly. "Don't start getting sentimental; there's no room for sentiment in business, I thought you knew that." He finished his drink. "Do you really want to go out?"

  She was smiling at him. . . .

  At the moment when Borgman and his mistress went into the bedroom, an elderly man was standing at the open front door of his small house near Croydon, ten miles away. When he had bought this house, thirty-five years ago, it had been new and beautifully kept, standing almost alone in a country lane, surrounded by nearly a quarter of an acre of garden. Now it looked old-fashioned and ill-cared for. The once trim lawns were over-long, daisies, dandelions, and plantains spoiled the grass with their thick leaves, the gravel paths were overgrown. The privet hedge, which he had planted with his own hands, had just been cut; it was the only really tidy part of the front garden.

  It was nearly dark.

  A girl in her early teens came cycling past, and waved and called:

  "Good evening, Mr. Samuel."

  "Good evening, Bella," Ben Samuel called, but he did not seem to know what he was saying, and he did not look after the girl.

  He looked ill, his eyes were glassy, and his upper lip would not keep steady. He was thinking of the fact that Borgman had sent for the accounts which he had falsified, and trying to accept the fact that there could only be one reason: Borgman suspected the truth. Even if he did not, a man with his sharp intelligence would probably discover what had been happening, and Samuel knew that he could expect no mercy.

  "And why should he be merciful?" he asked himself. "How can he know—"

  Samuel broke off, went inside, and closed the door. A light was on in the living room, at the end of a flight of narrow stairs. He walked in slowly. His wife lay on a sofa by the window, her eyes closed, her face the face almost of a skeleton, the bones painted with skin. She had been ill, like this, for nearly fifteen years. It was all very well to say that the State paid for sickness; that was only part of the problem. The State did not pay for the housekeeping help necessary to bring up three ailing children, two of whom had died, and one of whom was in a clinic in the south of England. The State had not paid for the expensive treatment he had tried so often for his wife.

  She opened her tired eyes, smiled at him, and said in a voice it was difficult to hear:

  "You look as if you've got a headache, dear. Why don't you have an early night?"

  "Yes, I will," Ben Samuel said. "I'll get your drink, and then we'll go to bed. I've had rather a tiring day at the office."

  Gideon, with the Big Brother Borgman shadow at his shoulder all the time, even when he was thinking of other cases, had not even heard of old Ben Samuel, and did not know that the old cashier was likely to give him a remarkable chance to probe the affairs of John Borgman. Had he had foreknowledge, however, he would not really have been surprised. He had been amazed, in his early days, by some aspects of the gradual unfolding of the pattern of crime and the fight against it, but nothing really astonished him any more. The pattern was continually changing, but was always there. Often two cases overlapped and even dovetailed. The ill-considered or the unconsidered trifles sometimes developed into key factors. The seasoned pickpocket, caught red-handed, might lead back to the fence, and, behind the fence, to a school of pickpockets working most of London. The shoplifter, caught for the first time and tearfully protesting her innocence, might lead to a corrupt store detective, or to members of the sales staff working together with the shoplifters. The child caught throwing stones at windows or glass doors might be doing it for the thief who was planning to break in.

  The shadow of Borgman was less evident this evening. Much darker was that of Tiny Bray. Gideon had been greeted with the news of Tiny's death when he had entered the hospital, asked if Mrs. Bray were there, and was told yes. She had few close friends, because Tiny had lived in that half-world between the law-abiding and the lawbreaking, not trusted by either. Soon after their marriage Tiny had been charged with complicity in a robbery with violence case, and had been sent to prison for seven years. His wife had waited, wholly faithful, wholly trusting. Two years after he had left prison, his innocence had been established. The bitterness had gone deep in Tiny Bray, and, because he had been framed and made to pay for a crime he had not committed, he had set out deliberately to revenge himself on all who committed the kind of crime for which he had been imprisoned; he had been an informer for twelve years, and had always informed about the same kind of crime, shopbreaking. He had taken police money for the information he gave, but Gideon as well as everyone else who had known Bray believed that he would gladly have supplied the news for nothing.

  He had been a reliable informer, too.

  But no one had trusted him and no one had trusted his wife.

  "I'd like to go and see her," Gideon told the matron at the hos
pital, and was led to the private ward which the police had arranged for Tiny. There was Tiny, pale and thin in death, and not truly peaceful. There was his small, plump, mouselike wife, not knowing what to do, and a nurse and one of the Divisional detectives, who had been there with his notebook. This man, gray and elderly, shook his head at a silent inquiry from Gideon.

  "We'll help in every way we can, Mrs. Bray," Gideon promised, and touched the woman's arm. "I don't think you should stay here any longer. Is your daughter at home?"

  Tiny's wife turned round and looked up with her eyes filled with tears, her plain, plump face whiter than her husband's.

  "If you would send for her I'd be ever so grateful, Mr. Gideon, I would really. She's gone out to Royston to live, you know. Mr. Gideon, you will find out who did this to my Bert, won't you? You will find the beasts."

  "We shall find them and punish them," Gideon promised.

  When he had arranged for Mrs. Bray's married daughter to come, and when he had left the widowed woman at the tiny house in Nixon Street, he saw a man whom he recognized vaguely turning into the street from Walker Cut. This had been opened again to pedestrians, for the photographs had been taken and the place searched for clues. So far nothing useful had been found. Gideon didn't start the engine, but watched the man walking briskly along, wondering where he had seen him before. He wound down his window, and called out as the man approached:

  "Detective Officer Moss?"

  The man, who was extraordinarily thin but not particularly tall, missed a step and peered into the car.

  "Yes, who—oh!" He straightened up. "Mr. Gideon, sir."

  "You on the Bray job?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Got any line?"