by John Creasey
“Good rule,” said Gideon. “Let’s have the story, will you?”
Hill told it in detail yet with no waste of words. The AB Divisional case ran more parallel to the Hurdle Street kidnapping than the kidnapping from the car. A four-month-old baby boy had been asleep in the kitchen of a small house, and his mother had been in the front of the house, talking with the minister of a local nonconformist church. Entry had been through the back door, which had been approached through a small back yard in turn approached from a service alley. It had been the first of the three kidnappings, and had first been discovered at half past six.
“So what is there in common?” asked Gideon quietly. “Give me yours again, Mr. Wragg, will you?”
Wragg did, succinctly.
Gideon nodded at Willy Smith, who gave the details, as known, of the kidnapping here in Hurdle Street.
“Have a go, Hill, and see what common factors you find,” Gideon said.
“I’d rather leave it to you, sir.”
His deferential manner, very near to obsequiousness, was beginning to irritate Gideon, but he didn’t show it. Nor did Willy Smith; but Wragg looked with obvious impatience at the sergeant from the neighbouring Division.
“All right,” said Gideon. “Each baby was male. Each was about four months old. Each was healthy. Each was in a room or a car, asleep. Each job was done between six o’clock and nine fifteen tonight. Each was in this part of London; the place of kidnapping was probably within the radius of a mile from the place where GH, AB and CD Divisions meet. Each was the child of parents in more or less the same social and financial position - each family has enough money to rub along with but, as far as we yet know, none of them is wealthy - not wealthy enough to pay a fat ransom, for instance.” Gideon paused, and it seemed as if that was for breath as much as anything else. “Each appears to have been a happy family, and the father as badly upset as the mother. Each kidnapping might have been done with some knowledge of where the baby was likely to be at a certain time - it’s not certain that these were all chance kidnappings, as they would have been if all the jobs had been by day, and the babies taken from outside shops or houses. No sign of violence in any case; all cots and bedclothes undisturbed. So far, no evidence in any case whether the kidnapper was a man or woman.”
Gideon stopped, as if he’d finished this time.
“Another thing,” Willy Smith put in dryly. “Only a madman would do a thing like this. Man or woman.”
Gideon didn’t comment. Hill was having difficulty in keeping his big hands still; obviously he was likely to be ill at ease all the time he was in Gideon’s presence. Wragg said abruptly: “Could be a looney, but …”
There was a flurry of movement outside, and after a brief pause someone tapped sharply at the door. Gideon, his back to the fire, was beginning to feel too hot, and was also feeling uneasy because so far there was nothing at all that could be construed as a lead to the kidnapper.
“Come’ in.”
It was a plain-clothes detective sergeant from the Yard.
“Hello, Rasen, what’s up?” asked Gideon.
“Thought you’d better know this at once, sir,” said the sergeant. “Young chap outside has been riding round the block on his motorbike a lot tonight. He had it new - new second hand, that is - yesterday, and meant to ride it, fog or no fog. He says he was pulled in at the curb with engine trouble just round the corner in Grettley Street - the end of this street, sir - when he saw a man coming round the corner carrying a baby. This was about twenty past eight.”
“Ah,” breathed Gideon. “Any description?”
“Smallish, and wearing a raincoat and a trilby hat, sir.”
“That’s all?”
“The best I could get,” Rasen said. “Sure it was a man?”
“The motorcyclist says so, sir.” Hill’s eyes were glistening and his hands stopped fidgeting. Willy Smith clapped his hands, and Wragg was eager.
“Now we’re looking for a smallish man seen with a baby near the other two places,” Gideon said. “Hill, use one of the radio cars outside to contact your Division and put out that description, will you?”
“Yes, sir!” Hill went hurrying.
“Gor, where do they get ‘em from these days?” Wragg almost exploded, but he was also on the way to the door.
“Hold it,” said Gideon sharply. “We’re looking for something else. Three baby kidnappings in one evening, out of the blue, add up to someone who isn’t normal. Why should anyone take three in a row? We’re looking for a motive, or else we’re looking for a maniac.”
“Where does that get us?” Wragg asked reasonably.
“Dunno,” said Gideon, “but it’s something to think about, and we might pick up a lead.”
“Right,” said Wragg. “Motive or mania!”
“Right,” said Willy Smith.
They went out together.
Gideon felt a sense of frustration, even of anger withhimself, because he could do so little, and nothing really quickly. He asked himself the questions again: why had the babies been kidnapped - three children of parents who were unknown to one another? It seemed certain that the three kidnappings had been by the same individual, and he didn’t like to take refuge behind the “mania” theory.
The need for a motive nagged at him.
It would nag at Wragg and Smith, too, and one of them might get an idea. In any case, just by being here he had gingered them up, and they would be on their mettle - Division working against Division, too. A little competition wouldn’t do any harm. He hadn’t really wasted a journey, and had seen again the thing that he had seen hundreds, even thousands of times before, and which never failed to make him hopeful.
The police, at work.
Within half an hour policemen by the hundreds would be questioning people in the neighbourhood of the three places from which the babies had been kidnapped. The motorcyclist’s lead might be decisive. He’d talked to young Matthew about the uses of general knowledge, but hadn’t mentioned the advantages of thoroughness for detail and Lady Luck.
He went out into the passage, then into the street, seeing the crowd, the cars, the wreathing mist’, the pale yellow lights - and then hearing a voice quite clear above the rumble of conversation.
“Hear what he-said? They found the kid, dead.”
When he first heard that, Gideon was just outside the Frasers’ house. By the time he had walked ten paces he had heard it a dozen times, sometimes whispered, often spoken in a loud, clear voice. It travelled from speaker to speaker and was taken up on the instant, as a cheer is taken up among crowds lining a street to see some great celebrity. Gideon’s first reaction was to reject it, but he was in no position to reject or accept; so far it was simply rumour.
He came upon the Flying Squad man, Detective Inspector Rasen, and asked gruffly:
“Is it true? The child’s been found?”
“Don’t know anything about it myself, sir.” Rasen looked about the crowd distastefully. “Lot of ghouls, that’s what they are.”
“Get the story checked, will you?”
“Yes, right away.” The Flying Squad man called his car crew, and in turn they called the police who were questioning the crowd. In a few minutes Gideon felt better; it had been a rumour, and was soon tracked down to its source, a man who had said, “Wouldn’t it be awful if they found the baby dead?” But the rumour and the speed with which it had travelled had robbed Gideon of any hope of peace of mind. He went back to 27 Hurdle Street, feeling bleak and depressed. All the photographs, of the fingerprints and the baby’s cot had been taken; there seemed little hope of getting a line from anything found there.
The woman was no longer talking.
Gideon knew that he need not stay. He had come to see how the job was being handled, and couldn’t really handle it himself, could only set the pace. He’d set it, and would be much more use back at his desk; yet he was hesitant about going, and stood in the little passage, big and massive and powerful
looking, aware that several Yard and Divisional officers were looking at him and wondering what he was going to do.
Two men, Harris and his neighbour Fraser, were in the kitchen. The door was ajar. A man, probably Harris, was talking in a despairing kind of voice, protestingly. Gideon took a step nearer.
“I don’t care what you say,” a woman said. “If they don’t find my baby, I’ll do away with myself. Life just wouldn’t be worth living.”
Gideon turned to a man just behind him.
“Anyone sent for a doctor?”
“Not to my knowledge, sir.”
“See it’s done, will you - find out the name of the Harrises’ family doctor first.”
“Yes, sir.”
“May, dear,” another woman was saying anxiously, “it’s no use talking like that, honestly, and in any case …”
“If they don’t find my baby, I’ll do away with myself,” the mother said. “I shouldn’t have gone out and left him, that’s the truth. It was my fault. It wasn’t anyone else’s fault, it was my fault. Fred didn’t want to come. It’s no use saying anything, Fred. You were sitting in that chair with that book in your hands, and you didn’t want to come out, so it was my fault. And all because of a rotten television program, too. I risked my baby’s life all because of that; it’s my fault.”
Gideon pushed open the door.
He almost filled the doorway, and his very bulk made the others stare at him. The dumpy, frizzy-haired woman was startled; the dark-haired taller woman with a mask-like face and desperately glittering eyes looked as if it didn’t matter if the devil walked in. She was sitting on an upright chair, with her husband just behind her. The neighbour’s husband was standing by the window.
“Mrs. Harris?’ asked Gideon quietly.
She stared.
“You haven’t …” began Harris unexpectedly, and the tone of his voice seemed to transform his wife. She sprang to her feet and flung herself at Gideon, and in that shattering moment Gideon realized that he had done the one unforgivable thing; he had given the parents unjustified hope. The woman clutched his hands, and she was trembling; and he cursed himself for having pushed open the door.
“I just came to tell you that hundreds of policemen will be searching for your child within the next hour, Mrs. Harris, and that we shall do everything it’s humanly possible to do.”
He had meant to try and take her mind off despair; instead, he had cast her more deeply into it. She dropped her hands. She seemed to stop trembling. She turned back to her husband, who put his arms round her shoulders and stared at Gideon as if pleading with him to go before he did more harm.
All a man could do was try.
And within a mile of this house, two other families knew this same grief:
But now, facts were building up. Wax polish on the floor beneath the partly open windows had a shiny surface which hadn’t been smeared that night, so the kidnapper had used a key - probably the one hanging in the letter box. There was a chance that the kidnapper knew that a key was kept there - and obviously many neighbours knew that. So all the neighbours would have to be questioned quickly and closely. The right way to deal with the Harrises was to give them plenty to think about, too, and to let them help with the investigation.
Willy Smith came up.
“Wouldn’t be someone who’d lost a child, and was looking for him, would it?” he asked almost apologetically. “I’ve just been thinking about the Postlewaite case, when a woman lost her own child - natural causes, if you remember - and wouldn’t believe it was dead. She went round taking other babies out of their prams, and when stopped with one, swore it was her own.” When Gideon didn’t answer, Smith went on: “Don’t you remember? About seven years ago, and …”
“Oh, I remember,” said Gideon. “I’m just wondering if you’ve got something there. Try it, Willy. Check with the Registrars of Births and Deaths, find out if anyone living near the Harrises has lost a baby recently. The weakness is that a man wouldn’t be likely to be affected, but the mother …”
“We’ve been told it was a man.”
“I know, but try it. That motorcyclist might have made a mistake in the dark.”
“I’ll send a man round to the Registrar of Births at once; that won’t take long. If we have a bit of luck we might get a break soon. Any special way you want us to handle the job?’
“Your way,” said Gideon.
“Thanks.” Smith looked up at him with a half-smile. “I’ll see you get all the news as it comes in. There’s a chap from the Evening Globe outside, by the way. Any special angle?”
“Don’t think so,” said Gideon. “The more publicity we get on this job, the better.”
“Taking the very words out of my mouth,” said Smith.
Gideon went to his car, and wasn’t surprised to see another one just behind it, marked Press. No one stood near and he hadn’t yet been recognized. He got into the car and drove off. Two policemen had to clear a way for him, there were so many people about. The fog seemed to have lifted a little just here, too; he could seethe curious faces more clearly. Ghouls? If they started another rumour and it reached Mrs. Harris, they would be more than ghouls.
He flicked on his radio.
“Gideon here - any messages?”
“No special messages for you, sir, but we’ve just had a flash from Hatton Gardens.”
“Go on.”
“The smash-and-grab was a decoy raid, drew two of our chaps off a burglary a hundred yards away, but we caught the lot.” There was a deep satisfaction in the speaker’s voice. “Two were involved in the smash-and grab, two others found on enclosed premises.”
“Fine! Where was it?’
“Marks and Sanders,” the man said.
The firm of Marks and Sanders was one of the largest diamond merchants in Hatton Gardens. The premises had an elaborate burglar proof system and a fortune in precious stones was usually kept in its strong room. Well, that was a score to him. Four men on a charge, a burglary stopped, and a success to give the men at the Yard an added incentive. It might all have happened in exactly the same way if he hadn’t sent that message through to Appleby; but it might not… .
He turned a corner, and a few yards along found that the fog was even thicker than it had been early on; so it was patchy, and was moving from place to place. What he wanted was a good steady fifteen-mile-an-hour wind that would shift the damned stuff.
He crawled along at twenty miles an hour. Two people passed, and he could hear what they said quite clearly. The radio kept crackling, but he didn’t turn it off. It was after ten, but the night had hardly started. God knew what was going on behind this blanket of fog - how many people were frightened, how many people were in a kind of terror, how many were planning some crime, how many -
“What you want is a whisky and soda,” Gideon said aloud and he promised himself he would have one as soon as he reached the Yard. But he didn’t go straight up to the canteen; he went to the office, and opened it to find Appleby and the brown-clad sergeant together. He didn’t like Appleby’s expression.
“What’s up?” asked Gideon sharply.
“They found the body of the first baby in a Fulham garden, not far from where it was taken,” Appleby said. “Suffocated.”
This time it was true.
5 The Prowler
Gideon sat alone at his desk half an hour afterward. Appleby had gone down to the canteen for a cup of tea. The office was blessedly quiet, and the telephone hadn’t rung for fifteen minutes, but it would soon. Downstairs there was little doubt that the Information Bureau was getting really busy. Every mean little crook in London would see his chance tonight, and it wasn’t cold enough to keep them indoors.
The important, in fact the essential thing was to keep a sense of balance. One had to. Most of the time it was easy enough, but when something happened like tonight, the sense of balance could be too easily disturbed; one could see life as one sordid tragedy after another, instead of getting a true p
erspective.
The telephone rang.
“Here it goes,” Gideon thought, and lifted the receiver. “Yes.”
“Mrs. Gideon’s on the line, sir.”
“Put her through,” said Gideon.
If this had been by day, the call would have surprised him; Kate seldom called. Was there some kind of family emergency? His thoughts ran quickly, but evenly enough, over the possibility. Matthew hadn’t been fool enough to stay out, had he? He was uneasy about Matthew, not sure that he had helped him.
“Hello, George.”
“Hello, Kate.” His anxiety didn’t sound in his voice.
“I wondered if you’d be in.”
No emergency, then. What was it?
“I know where I’m best off,” said Gideon. “The office is as warm as toast, and …”
“What have you been doing to Matthew?”
“Eh?”
“You heard me,” Kate said.
He could picture her sitting by the telephone in the kitchen, where there was an extension. She was probably on the arm of his chair, wearing a black skirt and white blouse, a full bosomed, handsome woman with a gleam in her eyes, a good complexion and an air of great competence.
“All I did was to let him have a look round at the Information Room.”
“If you’d given him a hundred pounds, you couldn’t have pleased him more. He’s been going round with his head in the clouds ever since he got back - it’s the first night I’ve ever known when he didn’t want any supper!”
Gideon chuckled.
“What I really told him was that I wanted him to go all out for that university scholarship.”
“That I don’t believe,” said Kate. “I - just a minute.”
She put the telephone down on the table by the chair, for a few minutes he heard nothing. He smiled at the thought that Kate had called up just for a chat; for it amounted to that. It went deeper, of course, and Matthew had made the reason clear. She was edgy when her George was out at night, and needed a kind of reassurance, and -
Something seemed to hit Gideon a savage blow.