Petrella at 'Q'

by Michael Gilbert

“I expect he is,” said Barry. “Why are we supposed to be interested?”

  “I thought you might be, seeing I happened to be down East Bank Street early this morning and saw you two run past.”

  “That’s right,” said Rex. “We often take an early morning run. We’re in training for the Olympics.”

  “And I suppose you always run carrying a couple of bloody great satchels each.”

  “It’s part of the training schedule,” said Barry, but his eyes were wary.

  “The same as your early morning swim – like you told the fuzz when they picked you up.”

  “That’s right,” said Rex. “It’s a special pentathlon event. The other three events are putting the weight, tossing the caber and kicking people who butt in where they aren’t wanted.”

  As he said this, he shifted his chair slightly away from the table.

  Soapy said, “There’s no point in getting tough. I know what you done with that stuff. I want it. I’ll give you a fair price for it. But I’m going to have it.”

  “Just suppose,” said Rex, “for the sake of argument I mean, just suppose we had any idea what you were talking about, and just suppose we told you to get stuffed.”

  “I don’t think you mean that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if you took that attitude, I’d feel obliged to go and see the gent concerned myself. Of course, I’d have to say I got the tip from you. I don’t think he’d be best pleased.”

  The two boys looked at each other, and then rose simultaneously to their feet. Soapy shifted his chair back. He didn’t think they were going to attack him, but his right hand was on the taped hilt of a knife which lived in a leather sheath strapped to the outside of his right leg and which could be drawn quickly through his trouser pocket.

  The boys seemed more amused than angry. Rex said, “Why don’t you do that?” Barry said, “I’m sure you’ll forgive us if we push off now. Athletes like us have to get to bed in good time.”

  Soapy sat staring after them. His suggestion ought to have scared them. He was worried that they should simply have been amused.

  The Reverend Sabine answered the bell himself and stood gazing down enquiringly at his visitor.

  “My name’s Lidgett,” said Soapy. “You don’t know me.”

  “Are you the one the boys call Soapy?”

  “Some of them do. It’s a sort of nickname.”

  “I didn’t imagine that it was your baptismal name,” said the Rector. “What can I do for you, Mr. Lidgett?”

  “I wanted to have a word with you.”

  “I have fifteen minutes to spare before the monthly committee meeting of the Women’s Institute.”

  “That should be enough,” said Soapy.

  He followed the Rector into his study. The open spaces between the bookcases were crammed with photographs. One of them showed a much younger Sabine pulling an oar in a racing eight.

  “Oxford, many years ago,” said the Rector. “Won’t you sit down.”

  Soapy perched himself on the edge of one of the upright chairs and cleared his throat. He found some difficulty in beginning. However sure you may be of your facts, it is difficult to accuse an ordained clergyman of being the head and organiser of a ring which exports stolen goods.

  The Reverend Sabine gave him no help. He listened impassively to what Soapy had to say. When he had finished, he said, “You seem to have been telling yourself some extraordinary story, Mr. Lidgett. What do you propose to do next?”

  “I can tell you what I’m not going to do – unless I have to. I’m not running off to the police.”

  “I asked you what you were going to do,” said the Reverend Sabine gently. “Not what you weren’t.”

  “I’ve got a proposition. You cut me in for twenty per cent and I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  “I call that very generous,” said the Reverend Sabine. As he spoke, he was unlocking the drawer of his desk. Soapy wondered what he was looking for. It tinned out to be an indexed notebook.

  As he turned over the pages he said, “I’ve been a very long time in and around South London parishes. My first living was at the Elephant. Then I had a spell farther east at Catford. Then I ended up here. All rough areas. I enjoyed every one of them. And I made a lot of good friends.” His fingers seemed to have settled on the letter ‘P’. “Peddie. That was the one I was looking for.”

  “You know Jim Peddie?” said Soapy. There was a very slight catch in his voice.

  “Jim’s the younger brother. The one I was thinking of was Peter Peddie. The one they called Peter the Painter.”

  The Reverend Sabine had found the number he wanted and reached for the telephone.

  “Look,” said Soapy. “I think maybe you didn’t quite understand what I was getting at.”

  “I understood you perfectly,” said the Reverend Sabine. “You wanted to cut yourself in for a fifth share of some illegal profits you imagine I am making, and were threatening to report me to the police unless I co-operated. Am I right?”

  “I didn’t offer no threats,” said Soapy. His voice was agitated.

  “It sounded very like one. Oh—is that you Lisa. Father Sabine here. Is Peter with you? I see. And I could contact him there this evening? How is everything with you? I was sorry to hear about Ronnie. Yes, I saw it in the papers. Come over and have a cup of tea and we’ll talk about it.”

  He listened for a few moments to what the woman at the other end was saying and then replaced the receiver. Soapy was staring at him with a look of fascinated disbelief.

  “Was that Mother Peddie you were talking to?”

  “That’s right. I shall be having a word with Peter this evening.”

  Soapy passed a tongue over lips which seemed suddenly to have gone dry.

  “What are you going to tell him?”

  “I shall tell him,” said the Reverend Sabine, without any trace of humour in his voice, “that you have been annoying me. That sounds like Mrs. Partridge and the committee of the Women’s Institute. I’m afraid you’ll have to go now, Mr. Lidgett.”

  “I’ve had an idea,” said Detective Sergeant Roughead. “Suppose Captain Crabtree was a real person.”

  “The idea had occurred to me,” said Petrella. “And we got the checkers at Central on to it. It was complicated by the fact that ‘Captain’ could be a military or a naval title. To say nothing of the fact that lots of people call themselves ‘Captain’ without any real right to do so. They made a pretty fair job of it. There wasn’t anyone round here who fitted in remotely with the sort of person we’re looking for.”

  “Suppose he’s dead.”

  “If he’s dead, he can’t be running a smuggling racket.”

  “It was just an idea I had.”

  “If you have ideas like that,” said Petrella, “you work at them in your own time. Try the Free Library. It’s got a useful section on local history.

  When he left his house in the Cut that morning Soapy Lidgett had an uncomfortable experience. He spotted a business acquaintance on the other side of the street and hailed him. He was certain that the man heard him, but instead of coming across to talk, he dived down a side street and disappeared. Another man whom Soapy had met brushed straight past, apparently without seeing him.

  Matters came to a head in the East Indiaman, when he went in for his midday drink. There was a party of four men, with half-filled glasses, seated at a table at the far end of the room. Soapy walked across to join them. One of the men saw him coming and said something. All four gulped down their drinks, rose to their feet and departed without a word.

  Soapy was so upset that he left without ordering a drink for himself. He had an uncomfortable feeling that if he had done so the landlord might have refused to serve him.

  He knew, now, what had happened.

  The word had gone out against him.

  Milo said, “I think I’ve found him, sir.”

  “Found who?”

  “Captain Crabtree.”


  “All right. Let’s have it.”

  “I’ve copied it out. It was in Palgrave’s South Bank Worthies. Charles Hannaford Crabtree. Came of humble parentage. His father was reported to have been a pork butcher, who amassed a considerable fortune at the time of the Great Plague. I thought that sounded rather gruesome, sir.”

  “Cut out the commentary, Sergeant. Just let us have the facts.”

  “Yes, sir. Charles was educated at the school in the Charterhouse and joined the Navy as a gentleman volunteer in 1680. He attained the rank of Post Captain in 1703 and left the Navy on the death of his father. Being the only surviving son, he inherited the family business, which he expanded greatly into the importing and exporting side. He became a generous benefactor of all local charities and died in 1742, greatly respected by all who knew him.”

  “Importing and exporting,” said Petrella thoughtfully. “It might be worth following up. I’d like to know more about him.”

  “I’m afraid that’s all there is.”

  “Palgrave was only a collator. He usually gives references. See where he got his stuff from. Then have a look at the original works.”

  “Suppose they aren’t in the library.”

  “The Library of the British Museum,” said Petrella patiently, “has a copy of every published book. Don’t they teach you anything at Eton?”

  When Soapy left the East Indiaman he walked slowly in the direction of his house. He needed time to think. It was a few minutes before he got the impression that he was being followed. There were plenty of people about in the High Street. It was impossible to be sure.

  He dived down a side turning, covered twenty yards almost at a run and then stopped. Nobody seemed to be following him. Fifty yards farther on, the road he was in turned to the right. Then it turned to the right again and he found himself back in the High Street.

  As he emerged, a young man bumped into him. Soapy leaped back. The young man looked surprised, said, “Sorry I’m sure,” and crossed the road to the opposite pavement. Here he was joined by a second young man, who said something which made them both laugh.

  Soapy kept an eye on them as he moved off. They made no attempt to cross the road, but seemed to be keeping level with him on the opposite pavement. They were not in sight when he reached his front door. He let himself in, bolted the door behind him and stood for a moment, sweating.

  He could hear his housekeeper, Mrs. Catterick, grumbling to herself in the kitchen. She seemed upset.

  “Turning the place upside down,” she said.

  “Who did?”

  “Those two men. I ought to report them. They got no right.”

  “What men?”

  “Inspectors they called themselves. From the Gas Board. Had half the floor up.”

  Soapy held on to the door jamb to support himself. He said, “Just what did they do?”

  “I dunno what they did. That’s up to them, isn’t it? They know their job, I suppose. Tracing a leak they said.”

  “And you let them do it?”

  “What did you expect me to do?” said Mrs. Catterick with a show of spirit. “Throw them out. Where are you off to now? Your dinner’s in the oven.”

  “I’m going out,” said Soapy.

  Milo presented his card and was shown into the great circular reading room at the British Museum. He said to the attendant, “Have you really got every book here that’s ever been written?”

  “Not on the shelves,” said the attendant indulgently. “That’s just a selection. Might be a hundredth of what we’ve got in store. You’ll need one of those forms.” He explained the procedure for obtaining books.

  Milo handed in his completed form at the central counter and sat down at one of the desks. He had never imagined such a room. Maybe a hundred students, some with a dozen or more books in front of them. What obscure and esoteric subjects could they be reading up? The grey-haired matronly woman? The attractive girl with horn-rimmed glasses balanced on the end of her pert nose? The old man with a face like a goat?

  Petrella had been hoping to get away early to take his wife out shopping. Three times he thought he’d made it, three times the telephone had thwarted him. This time it was Station Sergeant Cove.

  “It’s who?” said Petrella irritably.

  “Lidgett, sir. Soapy Lidgett.”

  “What does he want?”

  “What he says he wants,” said Sergeant Cove impassively, “is police protection.”

  “He must be joking.”

  “You wouldn’t say so. Not if you’d seen him. And he wants the Gas Board to inspect his house, to see if someone’s left a bomb under the floor boards.”

  “I suppose I’d better find out what it’s all about.”

  “Please yourself,” said Sergeant Cove. “Speaking personally, I wouldn’t worry if someone did Soapy up in a sack and dropped him in the river.”

  Soapy started talking as soon as he came into the room. Sergeant Cove had been right. The man was scared silly. Out of a jumble of words he gathered that he had been followed and threatened and that his house had been visited.

  “Who by?”

  “It’s them Peddies.”

  At this Petrella did sit up. Peter and Jim Peddie and their families were a by-word in South London for genial brutality. They operated from Catford and were not Petrella’s personal headache, but he knew their reputation.

  “Why would the Peddies be bothering you?”

  “I don’t know. Honest to God, I don’t, Inspector. I never done nothing to them.”

  “They wouldn’t be bothering you unless you’d bothered them somehow.”

  Soapy shook his head. “Someone’s been telling lies. That’s all I can think.”

  “What have they actually done?”

  It didn’t seem to amount to much. People wouldn’t talk to him. Men on the other side of the street. Gas Board looking for a leak.

  “I don’t see that we can do anything on that sort of evidence. If they start something, we’ll crack down on them quick enough.”

  The telephone on his desk buzzed at him. He picked up the receiver, listened for a moment and then covered it with one hand.

  “You’ll have to run along. Have a word with Sergeant Cove. He’ll get the man on the beat to keep an eye on your house.” As soon as the door had shut behind him, he said, “Go on, Sergeant.”

  “I thought you ought to have this right away, sir. Captain Crabtree was buried in St. Barnabas Church. He’d contributed pretty handsomely in his lifetime and they gave him a private tomb. The book says, ‘Students of mid-eighteenth century memorial sculpture will be interested in this tomb which stands against the south wall of the Lady Chapel. It shows the deceased recumbent, with his head on a pillow adorned with his personal armorial devices and his feet on a representation of a ship of war.’ Hullo?”

  But Petrella had gone.

  He parked his car twenty yards short of the gate as the clock of St. Barnabas Church struck six.

  At that hour, the streets were empty and quiet. The latch clacked loudly as he raised it. There was no one in the churchyard, or in the church. It occurred to Petrella, as he walked down the aisle, that if his suspicions were well-founded, it would have been sensible to have brought a couple of men with him. Too late now.

  Captain Crabtree’s tomb filled a lot of the floor space in the tiny Lady Chapel. Prostrate on his bed of stone, the face of the sailor-merchant looked up at him. Some forgotten craftsman had chiselled those life-like features, the masterful nose, the pursed lips, the triple chins, folding into a heavy neck.

  There’ll be some catch that holds the lid shut, thought Petrella. But it was only the weight of the lid and the recumbent figure which kept it down. Using all his strength, he raised it six inches.

  It was enough for him to see that the interior was completely empty.

  As he lowered it, the Reverend Sabine said from behind him, “You must be stronger than you look, Inspector. I know very few men who could lift
that lid single-handed. If you want to look inside I could give you a hand, and we’d get it up all right.”

  “Thank you,” said Petrella. He was still getting his breath back. “I could see that it was empty.”

  “Quite empty, alas.”

  “What happened to the Captain?”

  “His coffin was stolen many years ago. The thieves would have been after the lead lining. No doubt the bones were dropped into the river. It’s very handy for the disposal of unwanted objects. An undignified ending for one of our great benefactors. But I don’t imagine that the Captain minded.”

  “I don’t suppose he did,” said Petrella. “What I was wondering about was whether this very convenient receptacle had been used for quite different purposes since.”

  “I can see that you have some theory about it. I suggest we move into the vestry and discuss it there. We shall be more comfortable.”

  The vestry, being on the north side of the church, and possessing only a single narrow window, was already in half darkness. The Rector switched on an overhead light and closed the heavy door behind him. He said, “Please sit down and tell me what is in your mind.”

  “I was interested,” said Petrella, “in a comment which was reported to me some months ago. It was about a collection of stolen coins. One of the young men who was thought to have stolen them, said that the coins were quite safe, ‘because Captain Crabtree was looking after them’. We were puzzled as we knew no one of that name in the district.”

  “But now you have solved the puzzle.”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “You have concluded that the thieves were using his empty tomb as a cache.”

  “A temporary cache, before they continued on their way out of the country. It is the second stage of their journey which would need careful organisation.”

  The Reverend Sabine smiled. It was a broad, relaxed smile, with no artifice about it. He said, “Break it to me gently. You concluded that I was the organiser.”

  “It seemed a possible explanation.”

  “Might I guess that Mr. Lidgett – Mr. Soapy Lidgett – has been talking to you?”

  “He saw me this afternoon. And made certain allegations. I thought the least I could do was to put them to you.”