Two men in twenty

by Procter, Maurice

  MAURICE PROCTER

  Two Men in Twenty

  1964

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  1

  It must be admitted that City and County C.I.D. chiefs seldom become as agitated about 'foreign' crimes as they do about the crimes which occur in their own police districts. Like charity, the prevention and detection of crime begins at home. So, in the beginning, the Granchester City Police were not unduly worried by Scotland Yard's inquiries about certain oxygen cylinders.

  But one fine morning Chief Superintendent Clay of the Granchester C.I.D. received a letter which made him raise his eyebrows. The Scotland Yard correspondent wanted to know what had been done and what was being done about his previous inquiries. It seemed that he was justified in being sharp and insistent. Clay sent for Detective Chief Inspector Martineau, of A Division C.I.D., and Martineau went to him at once.

  'Those inquiries about oxygen cylinders from the Met,' Clay began, and his tone suggested that this was a prelude to censure. 'I passed them on to you for your information and action.'

  Martineau nodded, looking at the blank side of the sheet of paper which Clay held in a fist which was like a ham shank with whiskers. Clay was a man who could grow hair anywhere except on the top of his head.

  He continued: 'This time they've written direct to the Chief, and he's not too pleased about it. He wants to know what you've done. I want to know, too.'

  Martineau had been living with trouble for twenty years. His grey eyes were steady as he looked at the C.I.D. chief. His hard but not unattractive face was serious, but composed. With a hand as big as Clay's, but bonier, he took the letter as it was proffered, and read it. At last he said: 'I gave the matter a good deal of thought. As far as I can see, there's nothing much we can do.'

  'Nonsense,' said Clay as he took the letter back. 'There's always something. The matter is getting really serious. These London jobs aren't the biggest in the world, but this XXC mob has done eleven of them, and their total take now amounts to twenty-six thousand pounds. I'd go scatty if I had that lot on my books. Now then, in seven cases out of the eleven oxygen cylinders were left on the scene of the crime. And every one of those abandoned cylinders has been traced by its serial number to the North Western Oxygen Corporation's depot in Granchester.'

  'It's a big depot.'

  'What of it?' Clay wagged the letter at Martineau. 'We've got to answer this somehow. We can't just tell Scotland Yard that we've got enough troubles of our own. I can hang on to this letter for a couple of days. Put one or two good men on to the job, then it'll look as if we've done something.'

  'Very good, sir,' Martineau said, and then he returned to his own office. He shrugged as he thought about the problem. The XXC thieves had not used more than one cylinder a fortnight. That was one cylinder out of thousands. Granchester and its surrounding industrial and residential areas housed and found work for several millions of people. Many hundreds of oxygen users were within the range of the N.W.O.C. depot's lorries. And that meant that there were hundreds of places where thieves might be able to obtain oxygen, acetylene, and propane.

  In answer to a summons. Detective Sergeant Devery and Detective Constable Hearn appeared.

  'There were some inquiries from the Metro about oxygen cylinders,' Martineau told them, and both men inclined their heads in admission that they knew of the matter. 'It's turned out to be a big job.'

  They looked expectant, because they liked big jobs. He gave them all the details he had, and if their confidence ebbed they did not show it.

  'Start where you like,' Martineau concluded, 'but it might be a good idea to go along to the depot and see what they can tell you.'

  The suggestion was tantamount to a command. Devery and Hearn went to the N.W.O.C. depot, and there they were directed to the small office of Mr. Barden, the Cylinder Investigation Officer.

  Barden was a man of medium size, lean and spry. 'You're lucky to catch me in,' he said when they were seated. 'They're keeping me busy.'

  Only three minutes ago Devery had learned that there was such a thing as a Cylinder Investigation Officer. 'Ah, sorry,' he said. 'Perhaps I should have made an appointment.'

  Barden let that go with a nod. 'I hope you've come to tell me that you've found something of mine,' he said.

  Devery shook his head. 'On the contrary, we're seeking information.'

  'Regarding what?'

  'Some oxygen cylinders left behind after a number of safe robberies in the London district.'

  Barden treated his visitors to a smile. He opened a drawer of his desk and took out a thin file. He opened the file.

  'I'm already in touch with Scotland Yard about something of the sort,' he said. 'Cylinders left behind at seven out of eleven jobs, to be precise.'

  'That sounds like the same inquiry. They wrote to you?'

  'They wrote to the firm. It's my pigeon, of course.'

  'Have you been able to do anything about it?'

  Barden took a deep breath. 'Let me put you in the picture. Do you know how many lost, stolen or strayed cylinders I recovered last year?'

  'No.'

  'One hundred and twenty six. Two thousand pounds' worth.'

  The policemen looked properly impressed, as indeed they were. Devery said: 'It looks as if you're on top of your job.'

  'No. The job is on top of me. I quoted those figures to give you some idea of the problem. At this depot we have nearly two hundred drivers. They deliver fifty thousand charged cylinders every week to our customers, and they bring back as many empties. We don't sell cylinders, you know. We only rent the cylinders to registered customers, and of course they pay for the contents.'

  'So you should be able to keep track of all cylinders, if they're numbered.'

  'You'd think so, wouldn't you? Even at fifty thousand a week. We have security measures, and a good system of checking. But we lose cylinders every week. They don't get checked out. They disappear.'

  'The drivers steal them?'

  'In two hundred men there will always be a few rogues. And there may be rogues among the checkers. But they're not easy to find.'

  'Could a cylinder be used for any other purpose, when it's empty?'

  'No. Our thieves are mean fellows. Some of them will steal a pair of cylinders worth thirty-eight pounds for the sake of thirty bobs' worth of gas. The cylinders get lost. But that isn't always the procedure. Two years ago I caught a driver and a checker working in collusion. They were supplying unregistered customers with gas, and the driver was bringing the empty cylinders back to the depot. All they were stealing was the gas.'

  'How do you find the cylinders?'

  'I hunt for them, in garages, repair shops, small engineers' shops, and even on rubbish dumps.'

  'I suppose you prosecute when you turn something up?'

  'When I have proof of stealing or receiving. Receiving is hard to prove, especially with a registered customer. If he's caught with a cylinder he shouldn't have, he swears blind he got it in the normal way. If there's any mistake, he says, it must be a mistake of the depot staff. It's the same with the drivers. Unless you catch a driver absolutely red-handed, he
simply says it wasn't his fault if his load wasn't checked out properly. Fifty thousand a week, remember. And if you try to sack a man without absolute proof of guilt, you've got a strike on your hands.'

  'Well, this London mob just leave cylinders lying around. They know where they can get more. They must be in contact with one of your drivers.'

  'Or one of our customers who is encouraging a driver to steal. Or one of the unregistered users who does the same.'

  'Mmmm.' Devery was thoughtful. 'As you say, it's a problem.'

  'How do you propose to tackle it?' Barden asked.

  The sergeant looked at him. 'At the moment, I don't even know how to start,' he admitted.

  'Well,' said Barden. 'Let me know if you make any progress. I'll do the same. We might have a bit of luck.'

  * * * * *

  Devery and Hearn looked up local records, and they required their colleagues to search their memories for suspect garage proprietors, suspect scrap-metal merchants, and the like. They nosed around. They found nothing, but the chief of their department was able to present Scotland Yard with an account of inquiries made and inquiries in progress.

  The depredations of the London safe-cutting gang continued, and the total of their gains became even more impressive. It was not difficult to imagine the ferment and frustration in the ranks of the Metropolitan Police.

  But Detective Sergeant Devery was too valuable a man to be detached for ever on a foreign inquiry. He returned to his normal duties, leaving Hearn to follow up the thing alone. Hearn made little progress, but his reports showed that at least he was trying.

  Nobody worried much. London was two hundred miles away from Granchester. To the average Englishman, born and bred on his small island, that was still a great distance.

  2

  In the criminal argot of London, oxy-acetylene is known as XXC. The gang of thieves which was giving Scotland Yard so much trouble was called 'the XXC mob' because the police had been unable to learn the name of any one of its members.

  But the peculiar circumstances which led to the formation of the mob had really begun to arrange themselves some time before, when Howard Cain was sentenced to two years' imprisonment after the most agonizing piece of bad luck ever suffered by a self-respecting organizer of important crimes. And not only did it mean imprisonment, it meant dishonour.

  Cain's misfortune occurred in a mews behind Park Lane, London, in the middle of the day. Happening to pass that way, he saw a wallet and picked it up. He found that it contained no money. He immediately realized that it had been rifled and discarded by a pickpocket. He threw it down as if it were hot, and he was seen to do so by two prowling detective officers, who are as thick as flies in that area. Both of them had a recollection of seeing his face in pictures. They picked up Cain, and then picked up the wallet. It had a monogram, and it contained visiting cards which were not in the name of Cain. Explanations were required, and for once in his life Cain told the truth. In the past he had often lied to the police, and occasionally his lies had been accepted because there was no evidence to the contrary. Now, with evidence wrongly interpreted, his true story was not believed. This was irony of the grimmest kind, and Cain's soul was in torment. Already he saw the newspaper comments, and the disgusted faces of his friends. He actually pleaded with the officers.

  'I'm Howie Cain,' he said. 'I always stood up to what I done. Please don't take me for a lousy dip.'

  The officers were not merciful. He was taken to West End Central police station and searched, and found to have a considerable sum of money in his pockets, and most of the money was in five-pound notes. He was detained. The owner of the wallet was sought and found. This person alleged that the wallet had contained seven five-pound notes, and that he had been relieved of it somewhere between the Dorchester Hotel and Hyde Park Corner. His times were right, Cain could have been the pickpocket. It was assumed that he had stolen the wallet and thrown it away after taking out the fivers and adding them to his own money-in-pocket.

  At Cain's trial by Summary Jurisdiction the Magistrate believed this, and Cain was remanded in custody until the Quarter Sessions. At the sessions trial the jury also believed in his guilt, in spite of his counsel's efforts and his own vehement reiterations of the truth. After the verdict his long, bad record was read out, and the jury looked smug, more than ever convinced that their decision had been right. Fortunately the Recorder perceived that in all his criminal history Cain had never been detected in the act of Larceny from the Person. A faint doubt came into his mind, and he did not inflict the ten years' Preventive Detention which he had been considering. He gave Cain two years. After the verdict, and Cain's record, he could scarcely have given less.

  Cain was still bitter when he came out of Wandsworth. He had heard of innocent men being sent down. He had also met men who claimed to be innocent, though he had not believed them. And now there he was, completely innocent, and nobody believed him.

  'You shouldn't've tried it, Howie,' his sister's husband told him. 'It's not your line.'

  Cain was furious, and if his brother-in-law had not been a noted tearaway he would have struck out, not blindly but with great force and accuracy. 'My own relations,' he cried in pain. 'My own relations putting me down for a bloody lousy whizz boy. I never lifted a wallet in my life. Not from nobody's pocket, anyway. God forbid I should ever do such a thing.'

  His only comfort was his wife Dorrie. Whether or not she believed him, she pretended that she did. Probably the only chattel he had ever acquired honestly was Dorrie, and though he was not what is known as a good husband he freely admitted that his marriage was the best bargain he had ever made.

  Dorrie's younger sister, Flo, was all right too. She said nothing at all. But then she never did say much about anything. She was a strange kid. She just seemed to drift along, neither interested nor bored, and really you couldn't understand what made her tick. Her only real characteristic was that she liked to imitate Dorrie and have the things Dorrie had. She was an attractive bit of stuff all the same, and nearly as good looking as Dorrie.

  So Cain had two women in the house, and though they had survived in his absence, he found that there was no money in the kitty when he reached home. Flo was a good hoister. She had been known to walk out of a store wearing a lifted fur coat, as cool as she had been before she slipped the coat on. But Dorrie would not let Flo go on the hoist, except when there was absolutely nothing to put on the table. On these occasions nowadays she went with her, and they stole only groceries. 'Groceries!' Cain fumed. 'I ask you!'

  Well, he was the breadwinner, and he went out full of big if vague ideas of making money, and showing 'em. That was very much in his mind. He was going to get his own back, and make the coppers sweat as he had sweated in Wandsworth. In this mood he ran into Edward James France, alias Jimmy the Gent, in a public house near Huston Station. Ned France listened as Cain talked, about big jobs, something like that £280,000 mail-van robbery, or like that industrial diamond tickle in Hatton Garden.

  He had been with France in Wandsworth for a short time, and before that—some years before—in Pentonville. He thought that he was a curious character, a taciturn but by no means surly man who walked alone. He walked alone and yet he was not disliked. In prison he had given no allegiance to the various 'barons' and 'kings' among his fellows, and neither had he sought allegiance. He had not been afraid to defy those bullies when necessary, and yet he had been neither cut nor beaten.

  Personality, Cain called it, and he meant that France carried an aura of able self-reliance, giving the impression that he would be a dangerous man if compelled to be. He had gained the respect of Cain, who in prison had soon made himself the leader of a ring, and a big man in the tobacco trade.

  Cain was a big man; strong, tough, not yet forty, and very intelligent in his way. But now he watched with something like envy as France lit a cigarette and inhaled with deep satisfaction. He knew the signs. France, it appeared, had touched something recently. Temporarily at
least, he was in comfortable circumstances. His manner and his double whisky proclaimed it.

  Said Cain: 'I never saw you using snout when you were in the nick.'

  France exhaled. 'I couldn't get enough, so I cut it out for the duration. There were things I needed more.'

  Cain sighed. 'You're telling me. It's amazing, the tobacco trade inside. Hungry men will give you their dinner for a drag.'

  'If I can't get enough, I find it's best to forget it.'

  'Ah. The same with women?'

  'Sure. You can do without sex if you don't spend so much damn time thinkin' about it.'

  'You're not married. Give me a bit of home comfort myself. I miss it when I'm inside. Jesus, I feel choked with it sometimes.'

  Then there was a brief silence, until Cain said: 'What did you think about them bits of ideas of mine?'

  France shook his head. 'You're just out, but I've been out eighteen months. Things have changed. There's a thing called Securicor, and they use armoured cars to cart money and diamonds about. Nowadays you can't pick up a few thousand with a handful of pepper and a length of lead pipin'. The payroll snatch is dangerous. Me, I like to go in and get what there is, and come out all nice and quiet. With nobody lookin' at me.'

  'Is that what you're doing just now?'

  France was cool. 'At the moment I'm restin', as they say in Drury Lane. I'm fairly well fixed.'

  'If you're well fixed, you won't mind lending me a fiver.'

  France looked steadily at Cain. He said: 'I don't remember you ever doin' me any good.'

  'I never did you any harm, did I?'

  'You really need a fiver?'

  'Just now I really need it.'

  France said: 'Excuse me a minute.' He left the bar and went to a door marked 'Gentlemen'. Watching him go, Cain reflected that he was a proper elegant bastard. He looked a bit like Ronald Colman used to look on the pictures, when Cain was a youth. He knew where to buy his clothes, and when he opened his mouth he sounded like a toff. He was good enough to be a corner man, speaking golden words to provincial business types who thought they recognized money for nothing when they heard of it. Also, as it happened, he was one of the best door-and-window men in the country. So what did he do with his great talent? He sneaked in and out of flats, knocking down latches with his bit of celluloid, picking up a few pounds here and there. Well, it was one way to make a living.