Petrella went home.
Before he went into Court next morning, he found time for a word with the landlord of the Kentish Giant.
“Albert’s all right,” said the landlord. “Generally, he’s quite all right. I’ve known him for years. So have the boys. Don’t know what came over him last night.”
The landlord’s son said, “Before he started busting the place up he was on about that business of his, you know, the garage.”
“I heard he’d been led up the old garden path,” said the landlord. “Something he put his money into when he came out of the army. Maybe that’s what set him off. I expect that was it. Funny thing, I’ve known it happen before. Like Jock Andrews. Lost his wife, brooded over it. Came in about a month later, had a couple of pints – not more than a couple of pints – and started breaking up the happy home.”
Petrella steered the conversation back to Albert Porter.
“He was in the South Londons,” said the landlord’s son. “Company Sergeant Major. My Sergeant Major.”
His voice had the disillusion of youth misled. Petrella sympathised with him. A tragedy in the Greek fashion. The godlike figure of the parade ground and the barrack hut reduced to a red-faced, brawling nuisance.
“He had his troubles,” said the landlord, “like I said. Came out two years ago when they were thinning ‘em out and paying ‘em off. Officers and N.C.O.s. Albert took what was coming to him and put it in a garage. Diddun turn out well.”
“I see,” said Petrella. It seemed to him a remote reason for breaking up a friendly public house. “You’ll probably both have to give evidence.”
“Wooden want to do that,” said the landlord.
Fortunately there was no need for anyone to give evidence.
Albert Porter, revived by his night in the cells and spruced up in a way known only to ex-sergeant majors, stood four-square in the box and pleaded guilty.
Petrella told his story, leaning heavily on the side of mitigation, and the prisoner was bound over.
Petrella caught up with him as he was leaving the court and said, “Come and have a cup of tea. I want to hear about your garage.”
Mr. Porter looked at Petrella doubtfully, then grunted and said, “I’ve told so many people about it, another can’t hurt, I suppose.”
“I’ll pay for the tea,” said Petrella. “You talk.”
It was a sad story, but not a new one. Ex-Sergeant Major Porter, with two thousand pounds burning a hole in his pocket, had met Mr. Morris. Mr. Morris was a respectable citizen. At fifty yards on a foggy night he was still a respectable citizen. A pillar of an unspecified church, a member of the local Chamber of Commerce. The source of Mr. Morris’s wealth and respectability was the Rampart Garage.
“The Rampart?” said Petrella. “Yes, of course I know it. Corner of Buckingham Road. I’ve often stopped there for a couple of gallons myself.”
“It’s a lovely business,” said Porter. “No fooling, a lovely business. Big repair shed. Lot of concessions for branded goods. Steady oil and petrol sales. Ol’ Morris said he was aiming to get out gradually. Offered me a quarter share for two thousand pounds and a job. I’ve done a lot of work on engines. I started life in the R.E.M.E. It seemed to be just the job.”
“So you paid down your money,” said Petrella, “without getting a lawyer or an accountant to vet the proposition first, and you discovered the snag when it was too late to do anything about it. Right?”
Mr. Porter nodded.
“What was the snag, by the way?”
“It’s going to be pulled down. Road widening.”
“I see. All the same—” Petrella considered. “If the local authority acquire the site and pull down the garage, they’ll have to pay compensation. Good compensation. You’ll get a quarter of that.”
“Not me. The bank’s got a mortgage on the place. For more than the compensation.”
“What about all the gear?”
“The pumps and stuff belong to the oil company. They’ve got a mortgage on the place, too; there’s an awful lot of other stuff but I doubt if it’ll fetch a thousand pounds at knockdown prices.”
“I see,” said Petrella.
“The site’s the real value of the place. The site and the connection. Once they’ve gone, there’s nothing left. I paid two thousand pounds for nothing. That’s the short and the long of it. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
“Maybe,” said Petrella. “Maybe not.”
He spent half an hour that afternoon with a dry but helpful little man in the office of the local planning authority, who unrolled the planning map and confirmed that the Rampart Garage was indeed due to disappear.
“The real trouble,” he said, “is Palace Crescent. It’s residential, and packed with private cars. That means there’s a constant flow of traffic where we least want it – here.” He put his thumb down, a modern Roman Emperor condemning a full arena. “Where it runs out into the main road. And the garage is right on the corner. It is the corner site.”
“That’s right,” said Petrella. “That’s what makes it such a marvellous place for a garage.”
“It’ll be a year or more before we get going on that bit. And when we do acquire it, your friend will get compensation.”
“Nothing like enough, I’m afraid,” said Petrella.
He said it absent-mindedly. For an idea had come to him. A wild, splendid, mad idea. An idea of curious ramifications and infinite possibilities; and he wanted time to look at it.
He made some excuses, got out of the council offices, and walked back in the direction of the Rampart Garage.
A café across the street offered a handy observation point. He took a cup of tea to a table by the window. Business at the garage was brisk. In the first half-hour he counted twenty cars in and out.
The petrol pumps, which Albert was serving, stood in a forecourt at the point of the angle made by the two roads. Behind them stood the garage block, with a main drive-in entrance for cars, and a glass door on the right leading to an office. Behind that again was an area of repair shops. The whole thing was one of those confused, casual, but workable jumbles calculated to infuriate any right-minded planner.
At the end of the half-hour his patience was rewarded. The office door opened and Mr. Morris came out. Petrella felt sure that it was Mr. Morris: a man of about sixty-five, stocky, bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, sporting a short but aggressive white beard. He stood for a moment, eyeing the hurrying traffic as his Norse ancestor might have stood at the prow of his longship surveying potential victims.
He said something to Albert. They still seemed to be on friendly terms. Petrella was surprised at this, but reflected that in Albert’s place he would probably have done the same. The closer he stuck to the garage, the closer he stayed by his own two thousand pounds.
It was at this point that the idea he had had earlier on was enlarged. It ceased to be nebulous, and became concrete. He paid his bill and went back to Gabriel Street.
“Go to a lawyer?” said Albert. “Throw good money after bad? I ought to have gone to one to start with, there I agree with you. But it can’t do any good now. He hasn’t broken any law that I know of.”
“Try it,” said Petrella.
“Don’t know any lawyers.”
“I know lots,” said Petrella. He considered the solicitors with whom he had had dealings, and selected Mr. Trapper as most appropriate to this problem. “And what’s more I’ll come with you.”
“You think it’ll do any good?”
“I’ve got an idea. Until we’ve talked it over with someone who knows the ropes, I can’t tell if it’s any good or not.”
“Might as well try it,” said Albert.
Mr. Trapper had an office near the Oval cricket ground. He was big, heavy, full-jowled and had hair so strong and so black that he never looked properly shaved. He called Petrella ‘Patrick’, greeted Albert kindly, listened to his story, and perused the contents of the envelope of papers tha
t he had brought along with him.
“He certainly did the thing in style,” said Mr. Trapper. “That’s old Morris who owns the Rampart, isn’t it? Chap with a beard. Looks like a regular old pirate.”
“All I can say is, it looked all right at the time,” said Albert.
“Nice little business, I should have said. What’s the catch? Oh, planning trouble.”
Petrella explained about the planning trouble. Mr. Trapper listened to him carefully, but continued reading the papers at the same time, a facility that busy lawyers seem to acquire.
“Hullo,” he said. “What’s this? You didn’t tell me he’d given you a debenture on the place.”
Albert took the proffered document cautiously and said, “That’s right. A debenture. A sort of mortgage, isn’t it?”
“Yes and no,” said Mr. Trapper. “It’s a mortgage in so far as it gives you a charge on the place. Well, that’s not much good because the bank and the petrol company have got charges in front of you, if you follow me?”
“In a way,” said Mr. Porter.
“But it gives you other remedies, as well. For instance, this entitles you to six per cent on your money, payable monthly. Have you had that?”
“What I get from Morris is my wages. Twelve pounds a week, and he takes the P.A.Y.E. off himself before he pays ’em.”
“In that case,” said Mr. Trapper, folding his massive black hairy hands on the desk, “your debenture interest is clearly in arrears. You should at once appoint a receiver.”
The word hung in the dusty office.
“A receiver?” said Petrella.
“Not the sort of receiver you’re thinking of, Patrick. A legal receiver. Any debenture holder or mortgagee has that remedy.”
“What does a receiver do?”
“He takes charge,” said Mr. Trapper briskly. “His authority will be supported, if necessary, by the Court. He receives all rents, controls the bank account, runs the business, makes an inventory of the stock, and he arranges for periodical checks and audits.”
“Can he exclude the proprietor?”
“If it was the proprietor who granted the debenture, certainly. It might be his duty to exclude him. Prevent him tampering with the assets.”
“Do you” —as Petrella spoke he was conscious of a fierce and unhallowed joy as his idea fulfilled itself— “do you know any receivers?”
“Oh, dozens of ‘em. Accountants mostly. I think Bowles would be the man for you here.”
“How do we appoint him?”
“Just sign a document I’ll draw up for you. What’s today? Friday. I’ll get Bowles on the telephone. Give him a day to get organised. I suggest he goes in on Monday.”
“Mr. Morris is rather an explosive personality,” said Petrella. “He might try to make things a bit hot for Mr. Bowles. You’d better warn him.”
“Bowles is quite capable of looking after himself,” said Mr. Trapper.
On Monday morning, as was his custom, Mr. Morris arrived at the Rampart Garage at nine o’clock sharp. Petrella had been at his observation post in the café for half an hour. He wanted to see the curtain go up.
The first big moment arrived when Mr. Morris found that the office door was not only locked, but apparently bolted, too. He walked round and put his nose up against the window, from which a light was showing. Then he rapped on the window and shouted something through it.
Petrella paid his bill, went out, crossed the street higher up, and drifted back towards the garage. As he reached the corner, the door was opened and a tall thin man, wearing steel spectacles, peered out.
“Are you Mr. Morris?” he enquired.
“That’s right. I am,” said Mr. Morris. “And who the flame something-or-other are you?”
“My name,” said the tall man severely, “is Bowles. I am a receiver, placed in possession of the premises by your debenture holder, Mr. Porter. This is a copy of the instrument appointing me. The original has been filed with the Registrar of Companies.”
Mr. Morris made a monosyllabic and, on the whole, improbable suggestion about the Registrar of Companies.
“If you have any proper communication to make,” said Mr. Bowles, “might I suggest you make it in writing?” He started to close the door again. Mr. Morris got his foot into it.
“You let me in at once,” he said, “or I’ll call a policeman. Keeping a man out of his own office.”
“There is a policeman on the corner,” said Mr. Bowles. “In fact, I fancy he is coming this way now.”
Petrella withdrew discreetly. He was inclined to agree with Mr. Trapper that Bowles could look after himself.
So began the siege of the Rampart.
It lasted, in all, for three days. Petrella saw some of it, and heard the rest from Albert who continued to serve oil and petrol to customers unconscious of the drama that was being played around them.
The policeman had apparently decided in favour of Mr. Bowles. Mr. Morris had withdrawn, no doubt to consult his own solicitor. Not finding much comfort in the law, he had decided on a dawn attack, and had arrived, on Tuesday morning, at eight o’clock. Anticipating this, Mr. Bowles had arrived at half past seven.
In the lunch interval Mr. Morris had sought out Albert.
“Really very nice to me, too,” said Albert. “Stood me my lunch, and all. Of course, I told him it wasn’t in my hands, really. He ought to approach me through my solicitors. Then he said some things about solicitors. Would have done you good to hear him.”
“Keep it up,” said Petrella. He thought for a moment and added, “I’ll tell you what. Suggest to Bowles that he ought to start making an inventory. All the old stuff in that repair shop and the store shed.”
“It’d take him a month of Sundays.”
“I don’t think he’ll actually have to do it. But let Mr. Morris hear about it. Tell him that Bowles has been asking you for the keys of the different lockers and boxes. Tell him that if he doesn’t get them, he’s going to start breaking them open. I think that ought to do the trick.”
On Wednesday, in the early afternoon, Albert telephoned Petrella.
“Worked a treat,” he said. “He’s going to pay up.”
“I thought he might,” said Petrella.
“Interest, and everything. As long as I get Bowles out by tea time.”
“Fine,” said Petrella. “Of course, it won’t do him a lot of good. Because if you withdraw your receiver and take your money, the bank or the petrol company could probably put him in again.”
“I think he knows that,” said Albert. “He’s been to his lawyer, too. He doesn’t seem to care. What he said was, as long as Bowles is out by tea time, I can have my money.”
“And what does Bowles say?”
“As soon as Morris has paid me, he’s got to go. Of course, as you say, he might be put back again by one of the others, but it’d take a bit of time.”
“All right,” said Petrella. “That’s fine.” And he meant it.
He went round to Division and had a word with Superintendent Benjamin. “It’s still a long shot,” he said. “But the odds are shortening.”
“Four cars,” said Benjamin. “No – five. We don’t want any slip-up now. One crew to block each of the roads, and one in reserve.”
“We could observe from the café,” said Petrella. “The proprietor’s got an upstairs room he’d let us use. And a telephone—”
Much electricity was consumed that night at the Rampart Garage. From their vantage point over the way, Benjamin and Petrella could follow Mr. Morris’s progress by the switching on and off of lights, from front office to back office, from back office to storeroom, from storeroom to repair shop and garage.
“Having a regular spring clean,” said Benjamin. “How long’s he going to be?”
“He’ll be out before daylight,” said Petrella.
The superintendent acknowledged this with a grin which had very little humour in it.
At five different points in the stre
ets outside the garage, police cars stood, parked inconspicuously – one man dozing at the wheel, one man in the back, one man alert for the signal.
It was close on two o’clock in the morning when Petrella said, “I think he’s coming now, sir.”
The big garage doors creaked open. The lights inside were all out now. The length of Buckingham Road lay empty under its glaring orange lamps.
For a moment Mr. Morris stood there as Petrella had seen him stand once before, head forward, white beard jutting. Then he disappeared. Sidelights came on. A big old-fashioned saloon car nosed out into the forecourt.
As Mr. Morris climbed down and went to shut the garage doors behind him, Superintendent Benjamin was talking on the telephone.
“Blue fabric four-door saloon,” he said. “Coming now.”
Then things started to happen; the saloon car turned right, out of the garage.
Mr. Morris saw the police car draw out at the same time to block the road, slammed his own car into reverse, turned in a savage half circle, and started up one of the side streets. He spotted the second car too late.
As Petrella ran out of the café he heard the scream of brakes and the noise of the impact.
Mr. Morris was still fighting, screaming, a high thin scream, and fighting like a lunatic with two of the patrol-car men. The sergeant stood, a dripping crimson handkerchief to his face.
“Steady,” said Petrella. “Steady. He’s an old man.”
“He’s an old bastard,” said the sergeant. “Went for my eyes.”
“We want him in one piece,” said Petrella.
The screaming had stopped now. Mr. Morris was lying on his back on the pavement, bubbling gently and dribbling into his beard. Petrella thought that the bubbling was worse than the screaming.
Three evenings later, in the detective room at Gabriel Street, Superintendent Benjamin straightened his back and said, “That’s the lot. All identified. Do you know, he had the bits and pieces of twenty different jewel robberies in that car?”
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