by John Creasey
When Gideon got back to his office, late that afternoon, he found Lemaitre and others in a positively festive mood, largely from relief at Nina Pallon’s rescue, partly because there had been a crop of arrests on cases which had been outstanding for a long time. Gideon, still feeling the glow from what he had seen at the arches, forced himself to make notes of what had been agreed at the F.B.I. offices, and then sat back as Lemaitre finished talking to Hobbs on the telephone.
“Hope it’s not too bad,’’ said Lemaitre.”Eh? . . . Yes, trust Gee-Gee when he gets going.” He rang off. “Hobbs burned his hands a bit, and he’s going to have them dressed, then go home. He’ll be there if you want him.”
“I won’t want him. Are the burns bad?”
“He said not, but he’d say that if he’d lost all the skin off his fingers.”
So Lemaitre felt that way about Hobbs.
“There’s one thing you chaps seem to have forgotten,” Gideon said dryly. “We haven’t got Schumacher, and he’s got thirty-five thousand pounds. I’ve a nasty feeling that he got out of the country before we put the watch on the airports and seaports.”
“Almost deserves to get away with it,” Lemaitre said glibly. “He sold us a dummy all right. But you needn’t be so pessimistic, George. We’ll find him through the Green girl when we pick her up at Piccadilly.”
His internal telephone rang, and soon he was talking again.
Gideon had a strange, almost shivery sensation inside him. Lemaitre was his second-in-command. Lemaitre was a good detective and the only man here with an all-round knowledge of all aspects of C.I.D. work. He was the best available man to take over the Commander’s position, for by a series of accidents other men who might have succeeded to the job were not available. And Lemaitre, the perfect second-in-command with his perennial optimism off setting his habit of jumping to conclusions, his absolute reliability and unstinting loyalty, his attention to detail, his phenomenal memory and detailed knowledge of the Force, was the most valuable of all men - to Gideon.
What would happen if he were to take Gideon’s job? Would the facile optimism which characterized him let him handle it well? As well as Hobbs, for instance?
Never mind Hobbs!
What the hell am I thinking? That I’m irreplaceable? Gideon’s reaction was almost vicious in its intensity, but his innate integrity made him admit that if he did take the A.C.’s job he would have to spend a lot of time guiding the new Commander, and that Lemaitre could never be the right man even if he were the best available.
Wouldn’t he, Gideon, do better to stay where he was and help the new Assistant Commissioner to find his feet?
A messenger came in with the evening newspapers. There were front-page photographs of Frank Mayhew, alias Mason, and good photographs of Florence Foster, his second English victim.
WILL THERE BE A THIRD? cried one headline.
Lemaitre, his newspaper rustling, looked up.
“We’ve got a second leader, George. Says in effect, what the hell’s the Yard doing to let this Yankee killer stay free? Bound to happen, I suppose, but we don’t get a hap’orth of public credit for Nina P.” When Gideon didn’t answer, he went on: “Tell you what - Mayhew will probably start a wave of sex killings; after two or three crop up there’s usually a rash of ‘em.”
“Cheerful, aren’t you?” Gideon grumbled, but at heart he knew that theoretically Lemaitre was right. Though he felt out of patience with the other man, he managed to conceal it.
Parsons was feeling out of patience with Colonel Nocci, but knew that he must not show it. In a way he did not blame the other man for his attitude, and he had half-expected it. They were in Nocci’s office; it was very warm but the P.S. man did not seem to notice the heat. His facial likeness to Mussolini seemed very marked, and his heavy jowl was shadowed with dark beard. Yet his manner was one of sheer reason.
“. . .it is, I repeat, a fact that you at Scotland Yard appear to blame Italians for all your vice, my friend, but some Englishmen have been guilty of procuring young girls for the delight of other men, and also of living off these girls. The habit is not exclusive to Italians.”
“I never said it was,” Parsons said equably.
“But in this matter, although you have no definite evidence against Mancelli, you prefer to believe he is guilty - as I find it easier to believe that Percival White is guilty. On this question of murder - is murder yet established?”
“No,” Parsons admitted.
“It is not one of Scotland Yard’s triumphs,” remarked Nocci slyly.
“Unless we can get a confession no one’s likely to score a triumph.” Parsons eased his damp collar. “If those two managers perjured themselves–”
“And being Italians in London, they almost certainly did.”
Parsons felt a flare of anger, and knew that Nocci saw it. He bit back a sharp comment, and as he stared at Nocci and saw the hint of a smile in the Italian’s eyes he had a mental image of Gideon, deliberately needling a man so as to find out what he was really made of. How would Gideon behave in these circumstances?
He thought he knew; and his mood changed.
“Do you know what you ought to do, Colonel?” he said, half-smiling. “You ought to come over to London and tell Commander Gideon and the Commissioner what you think about the attitude of the London police to Italians in Soho. You ought to see our records on West End vice too. You’d think we had imported every pervert from Italy. In fact, you would find half the people with Italian names were third and fourth-generation Englishmen. You’d learn a few other things - just as I’m learning them over here.”
Parsons paused, completely composed again.
“And what more would I learn?” inquired Nocci.
“That, like you, we want to find the criminal, whether he’s English, Italian, American, or from Timbuktu. In this case, we thought–”
“Who thought?” demanded Nocci,
“I thought and Gideon listened,” answered Parsons. “I told him I thought Lucci could have had a raw deal. So Gideon said, spare no expense, go to Italy and prove it.”
Nocci was smiling.
“He did not say: ‘Prove that the villain is Percival White’?”
“He just wants a villain.”
Nocci laughed.
“We shall do our best to find one for him. But not tonight. My wife is anxious to meet a man from the famous Scotland Yard. If you will be good enough to join us at dinner, we can at least show you one thing that London cannot.”
The one thing was Milan Cathedral, its countless little spires and figures shimmering in the moonlight. It was seen from a patio which seemed to merge with the stars.
That was an hour or two later than the time when Lucy Green waited nervously at Piccadilly Station, badly scared, but unaware that Schumacher was in fact nearer Milan than London. It had not occurred to Lucy, in her simplicity, that he had simply used her for the kidnapping and now cared nothing for her.
Two big men came up to her, one on either side. She thought they were wolves, working in a pair.
Then one of them said, “Lucy Green?”
“Supposing I am?” She was truculent out of even greater fear.
“We have just charged a man named Facey with abduction,” the man said. “We want you to come along with us to tell us what you know of the kidnapping of Nina Pallon.”
Lucy stood there unbelieving, too numbed at that moment to realize how great was her need for fear.
Usually, Gideon would have been on his way home by a quarter, to seven, but with Kate away there was no hurry, and he made inroads into the inevitable accumulation of paperwork. He had made a note:
“Commendation for the D.O. who passed on Quincy’s story about Facey. Thank Quincy. Check how Hobbs is.”
He was still writing when his exchange telephone rang. It wouldn’t be about Lucy Green; she was over at Cannon Row, weeping, he had been told, but talking more and more freely. She had already said that she had first met S
chumacher three months ago and agreed to help him and Facey, but denied that she had known that kidnapping was involved. If she and Facey would name Schumacher, there would be a good case for asking Interpol to help and for applying for extradition wherever the man was found. Gideon lifted the telephone without thinking although it flashed through his mind that if anyone tried to get him as late as this it was either a forlorn hope or an emergency.
“Gideon.”
‘There is a call coming through for you from Milan, Mr. Gideon,” the operator said. “It might be a little while yet.”
Gideon said, “I’ll wait for it.” Parsons wouldn’t telephone unless he had news or, more likely, unless he had uncovered an angle which needed urgent attention in London.
It was ten minutes before the call came through.
“George, I think we’re on the way,” Parsons said. “Nocci planted a man in Lucci’s offices, and the chap found a girl whom Mancelli put in the family way. Remember Giovanni Mancelli?” That was rhetorical, and Parsons hurried on as if he had to get every possible word into every moment of telephone time. “Every time the managers visited Milan, they spent an evening at Mancelli’s apartment. It’s a very plush apartment. Between you and me, Nocci feels we’ve ridden him rather hard. If you could face those managers with the fact that they went to see Mancelli, they might crack.”
“Who would you put onto them?” asked Gideon.
“George Gideon, who else?” asked Parsons.
The fact was, Gideon admitted when Parsons had rung off, he wanted to see the men. He had too little opportunity of working outside the Yard, and Soho was his manor, his square mile. One could say what one liked about a policeman’s lot, but it was right for him.
As assistant commissioner, would he really be a policeman? Had Rogerson ever been directly involved with any investigation since he, Gideon, had been at the Yard? One reported to the A.C., took his advice on administrative matters, or used him to help put pressure on the Secretary’s office, the other departments, or even the Home Secretary. But the A.C. had never been involved.
Still, two thousand a year was a lot of money.
Police both in uniform and plain clothes saw him, and the word soon spread that Gideon was on the warpath. It reached the prostitutes, some of whom had known him in his days as superintendent of the division, and it was carried fast and far.
It reached the ears of the two witnesses, Segura and Biagnini, who had given evidence against Lucci, and who knew they might be charged with any variety of vice crimes soon. Gideon went to Segura’s flat first. It was close to the Grandi Hotel, in the very heart of Soho.
Segura was rather like the popular concept of Julius Caesar, and Gideon had a fleeting thought that the eunuchs of the Eastern world’s harems must have had this kind of look. Behind his austerity, however, there lurked fear, which showed in pale-brown eyes.
He had never met Gideon, but obviously he knew of him.
“Mr. Segura,” Gideon said briskly, “I’ve just had a telephone call from Superintendent Parsons, who is in Milan. He’s already seen Mr. Giovanni Mancelli.”
He broke off.
He saw the dread in Segura’s eyes, and went on with cold, calculated precision: “I want to know what happened in Mancelli’s apartment each time you visited him in Milan.”
It was easy. It was, so often. Once a crack was made, resistance often broke down completely. First Segura and then plump and ingratiating Biagnini, the other manager, blamed Mancelli. Each blamed each other too, and swore the other had poisoned the brandy.
There was some cement-dirt on a pair of Segura’s shoes which was exactly the same as the scrapings from the air shaft at the Hotel Grandi.
The ash from the Italian-made cigarettes which Biagnini smoked was identical, under chemical analysis, with the ash found by the one-way mirror set in the ceiling of the room where Lucci had died.
Parsons had not known what to expect when he visited Nocci’s home. He had never met Nocci’s wife. She was a short, rather plump, merry-eyed woman, and she spoke broken English fluently and attractively. Parsons was laughing with her, replete with pizza and spaghetti and meat balls - “What else I give Inglisi, si?” - when the telephone bell rang.
Nocci answered the call, and was back almost at once.
“Gideon,” he announced.
“Hey, George, what’s on?” asked Parsons eagerly. “Did you get a confession?” He was aware of Nocci watching. “Both on a charge . . . ? Couldn’t be more pleased! . . . Thanks for calling, George. If I know Colonel Nocci, he’ll pick Mancelli up tonight. And I’ll go and see Madam Lucci.”
He did, and when he told her the news, the expression in Maria Lucci’s eyes was very like the expression in Felisa Henderson’s when she had learned that Nina was safe.
Soon after making the call to Milan, Gideon was driven in a divisional car to Fulham. When he turned into Harrington Street he saw lights in so many windows in his neighbours’ houses that he felt gloomy at the thought that he was returning to an empty house. Then the driver said something about a good day, and distracted him. It wasn’t until he was actually out of the car, answering the driver’s “Good night, sir” that he realized there was a window open at his house, and that the passage light was on, although the night was not yet dark. He strode along the path, thinking, Kate’s home! and his spirits rose. There was nothing he wanted to do so much as talk to her about the A.C. offer, no other way in which he could really clarify his own thoughts. It was often like this: as if Kate divined the times when he so needed her.
He opened the front door.
“Daddy, is that you?” It was Priscilla, his second daughter, hurrying from the kitchen, hands white with flour. In that moment be saw how like Kate she was. He had not seen her for months, because since her marriage she had lived in the Midlands. It was good to see her eyes light up, to feel her warmth as she gave him a long, hard kiss. When she backed away, she asked, “Surprise?”
“Lovely surprise!”
“Mum telephoned me about Pru and I haven’t been to see you for ages, so I told Dick I’d come and look after you for a few days, and do some shopping, and go and see Pru - She isn’t going to lose her baby, is she?” From high spirits to gloom or alarm, that was Priscilla, unchanged by marriage and the years. Were her changes of mood so surprising? Hadn’t he been on top of the world about talking to Kate, and wasn’t he acutely disappointed now despite the warming presence of his daughter?
“Don’t see why she should when so much can be done these days,” he made himself say. “She’ll be all right.” Priscilla linked arms with him and they went to the kitchen. “What’s cooking?”
“Roast beef. Mum said if I got a good joint of topside you’d like it hot and there would be plenty to cut at cold. Hungry?”
He had eaten at the Yard.
“Famished!” he told her. “Let’s see if you can make a Yorkshire pudding as good as your mother’s”.
24: Capture
Saturday was always an unpredictable day at the Yard. Some Saturdays comparatively little crime would be committed, on others some smart man, or even a gang, would like to catch the Yard napping. That Saturday was one of the quiet ones. Gideon brought his paperwork almost up to date, and then paused to consider the Assistant Commissioner’s job. He was still contemplating it with mixed feelings when the door opened and the messenger who had bounced in earlier in the week came in, poker-faced.
“A cable for you, sir - just come in.’
“Thanks.” Gideon took and unfolded it, thinking, Nielsen? as he did so. There were three words: Congratulations Thanks Nielsen.
“I wonder what he’ll say if we catch Schumacher,” Gideon mused.
“What’s that, sir?”
“Nothing,” Gideon said. “That’s all for now.”
The messenger went out, and almost at once the exchange telephone rang again. Gideon, still thinking about Schumacher and Nielsen, heard a man say: “George, it’s Mike Paterson here.�
�� Paterson was the superintendent of KL Division in north London. “I think one of my men’s cornered your Yankee sex killer.”
Paterson’s man was Detective Officer Gorlay, in his early thirties, ambitious, sometimes overeager, but with natural powers of observation which would help him to go a long way on the Force. He was at the corner of a street in Tottenham, not far from White Hart Lane, which was quiet in the early summer, all footballers gone. There were two bed-and-breakfast hotels in the street, and when Gorlay had called in to inspect the registers he had carried with him a photograph of Frank S. Mayhew.
The middle-aged man who ran the hotel with his wife said in a whisper, “Yes, that’s him. I’m sure it’s him.”
Gorlay felt a surge of excitement, but did not interrupt.
“He came here yesterday morning and paid a week’s rent in advance. He hadn’t any baggage with him, you see—he said he’d had to leave home in a hurry, said he’d had a quarrel with his wife. But it didn’t fool me. I can tell a liar, I always could, there aren’t many better judges of character than I am. I knew I’d seen him before, I said as much to my wife, but it was his picture in the paper I’d seen . . . .”
In time, Gorlay had managed to ask, “Is he in his room?”
“Oh, yes. He hasn’t stirred since he came back after lunch - only went to the cafe round the corner, he didn’t have time to go anywhere else. He’s kind of furtive ...”
Gorlay had telephoned his superintendent.
He was at the corner when two police cars arrived, one from each direction, three plainclothes men in each. Gorlay had not been on the Force long enough to be used to the quiet yet almost brisk efficiency whenever there was a job like this to do. Two men went to the back of the house, one to each corner, two stayed with Gorlay. It was like a military operation. The senior officer was Detective Inspector Chaff, whom Gorlay knew only as a man of few words, most of them biting.
“Want to make the charge?” Chaff asked.