Less than fifteen minutes later the man on the beat came round again. He was a conscientious P.C. who was a little hurt because he had not been chosen for plainclothes duty. He tried the door of Boulton's offices, and found that it was not locked.
He opened the door and examined the lock by flashlight. He could not see any marks. His light moved up and down the edge of the door, and the jamb. He saw the marks left on the hardwood by the wedges, but they were so faint that he attached no importance to them. Possibly that trait of attaching no importance to things was one of the reasons why he had not been selected for plainclothes duty.
'Somebody must have been in, and left the door open,' he decided and he was not thinking of thieves.
So he treated the unlocked door as an ordinary 'insecure'. He entered, and flashed his light around, and nothing seemed to be amiss. The door of the main office was open. It had a latch lock, and he did not notice that though the door was open, the tongue of the lock was protruding. On the other side of the main office there was an open door. It invited him, so he went that way. He stood in the doorway and flashed his light around, and saw the safe.
A policeman on night duty gets used to shocks. They disturb him only momentarily. This P.C. did not panic when his nerves jumped, though he immediately realized that there might be four, five, or six desperate men in the building with him, hiding and watching him possibly. He could have walked in there before they had had the chance to get away. That oxygen cylinder was still there, wasn't it?
His first idea was to return to the front door, not because he was afraid—being human, he was afraid—but because it was open, and a way out for fugitives. His second idea, even more essential, was to call for assistance in some way. He had reached the receptionist's desk before he remembered something about it. There was a telephone on it. Standing with his back to the open outer door, facing the danger which might come from the darkness inside the building, he dialled a number which was as familiar to him as his own name.
When he had made the call, he waited by the door. Behind him he could hear the sounds of the city, but inside Boulton's Warehouse there was utter silence. He began to realize that he was alone. The thieves had gone. Ah well, the bowler hat brigade would be here in a minute, asking sharp questions and ordering folk around. They'd find out as much as they'd found out on them other oxygen jobs, and that was damn all.
* * * * *
The following morning Mr. Barden of North Western Oxygen came into town to see Martineau. To reach the door of Martineau's small sanctum he had to walk through the main C.I.D. office. While doing so he paused and stooped to look at an oxygen cylinder which lay on the floor against the wall. He examined the cylinder near its base. His face was without expression, and he made no comment.
He rose and saw Martineau waiting in his own doorway. The two men met, and shook hands. 'Well?' Martineau asked as he indicated that his visitor should go through the doorway.
Before he answered, Barden waited until the door was closed. 'I think we're a bit nearer. Your man Birkett has been working very well with me. He's a good boy.'
Martineau nodded. It was no news to him that his boys were good boys.
Barden grinned. 'I'll give it you from the beginning, and then you'll see how clever we've been. We have a driver called Newby, Alec Newby. He's a smart lad; always clean, always on time. He comes to work in a nearly new Austin Healey, and I understand he's buying it on the never-never. The payments will be plenty, and he's not the sort to have money in the bank. He likes to run round the pubs with it, and I don't suppose he'll save a lot of money that way, either.'
'You're making your point,' Martineau said drily.
'Yes. I intend to. To continue. Newby comes from a poor family and he lives in a poor district, so it isn't likely he's being helped out by Mum and Dad. Well, I've had my eye on Newby for some time. Your man Rhodes is driving, and he can't do much, yet, except keep his eyes and ears open. But Birkett is checking. He's watching everybody, but I told him to pay special attention to Newby. He did, and eventually he saw the man slip something to a loader called Greaves. He says it was definitely surreptitious and a very slick move. He was lucky to spot it. Did Birkett report any of this to you?'
'Yes. But go on, then I'll have the whole story.'
'Well, Greaves doesn't always load Newby. Drivers don't have their own loaders: it's a case of first come, first served. But I suppose they can arrange it when they like. Newby can jockey for position, and Greaves can dawdle or make haste as the case may be, whenever it's the day for slipping him the odd cylinder. Anyway, we watched, and Greaves didn't load Newby for a week, so I thought something was about due.
'I devised a little scheme. I made out I'd received a complaint that one of our drivers had tupped somebody's nice new Ford Zephyr and driven on without stopping. I'm the nearest thing to a bobby we've got on our staff, so it was natural for me to get such an inquiry. I called in a few of the drivers and chatted 'em up and looked at their journey books and so forth, and said no it can't be you but it was definitely one of our lorries.'
'So that Newby wouldn't be suspicious when you chatted him?'
'That's right. That was last Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday morning the drivers were all talking about this so-called bump with the Zephyr, wondering who'd let the side down, and of course Newby got wind of it. He wouldn't worry, because he hadn't tupped anybody. Well, that morning Greaves loaded Newby. I was watching from the other side of the yard, and I definitely saw Newby let another driver go ahead of him so as he could get Greaves. I made myself scarce then, and phoned the checker's desk. Birkett was ready. We both knew what to do.
'Newby got loaded up, and as he drove out of the main gate there was I, on foot. I often take a walk right round the perimeter wall, to see if all is in order, so it was quite natural for me to be there. I stopped Newby, and said I'd like a word with him in my office. I wouldn't keep him more than a minute or two, I said. I told him his lorry would be quite safe outside the gate. The drive is firm's property. Nobody comes up there.
'He was quite willing. He came with me and brought his journey book, and I wasted his time quite convincingly for about twenty minutes. That was the agreed time. While I was chatting him Birkett picked up the check duplicate and sneaked out of the side gate and round to Newby's lorry. He checked the load and found Greaves had loaded one oxygen cylinder and two bottles of propane which weren't accounted for. So that was it. He'd provided himself with a diamond glasscutter, and he made a tiny mark of his own on every one of the cylinders.'
'And this cylinder we've got here?'
'It bears the mark.'
'That cylinder was left behind after the break-in at Boulton's Warehouse last night.'
'I supposed there would be something of the sort when you asked me to come into town.'
'Well, now we know the driver and no doubt there'll be a list of all his deliveries that day.'
'Here,' said Barden. He took a folded paper from his pocket and put it on Martineau's desk.
'But the actual place where the stolen gas was delivered might not be on this list?'
'It might be, it might not be. The chances are that it is. It'll be a regular customer. A driver has got to know a person fairly well before he'll start flogging him cylinders.'
'It's a pity we couldn't have followed Newby, then we'd have been sure.'
'Impossible. You can't follow one of those fellows for a day without being spotted. I know. I've tried it.'
'I expect you're right. We'll have to take a chance on this list. Then the next time Greaves loads Newby we'll have a scheme worked out whereby Newby can suddenly be called away, and a spare driver can take over his load. The spare man will be our man Rhodes, of course.'
'Today is Wednesday,' Barden said calmly. 'Greaves loaded Newby this morning. And Newby has more or less the same delivery list as he had last Wednesday. There was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't work the same gag twice. And Birkett didn't have time
to double-check the load.'
Martineau frowned. 'So we're going to have another job. Come to think of it, we've been getting roughly one a week. Will Newby have the same delivery list next Wednesday?'
'Yes.'
'Right. We'll be ready for him. By the way, keep on pretending to follow up the inquiries about your bogus hit-and-run job. Ask anybody but Newby. We may be able to do something with that, when the time comes.'
'I'll do that,' Barden said.
There was a knock on the door, and Martineau called: 'Come in.' A tall young man in plain clothes appeared, carrying over his arm a sheaf of fairly large bills.
'Ah, another lot of posters,' said Martineau. Then he said: 'Detective Officer Ainslie, Mr. Barden of North Western Oxygen. You may have to work with him some time, Ainslie.'
'Yes, sir,' said Ainslie stolidly. He carefully lifted off the top poster and passed it to Martineau. The chief inspector spread it on the desk and looked at the twenty groups of photographs which were there, in five rows of four.
'Excellent,' he said. 'Better than the others, I think. Now you know where I want them all to go?'
'Yes, sir.' Ainslie nodded and departed.
'Do you know any of these fellows?' Martineau asked.
Barden looked. He looked carefully. 'No, never a one.'
'Twenty of the cleverest rogues in England,' said Martineau. 'I'm putting this up on the wall. I'll be seeing these faces in my sleep. I'm absolutely certain one or more of these fellows are walking about Granchester right now. Somebody should spot one of 'em. You never know your luck. I might clear these XXC jobs before I'm due to retire on pension.'
11
Sable of Granchester was the city's best furniture shop. It was also the most expensive, quality at a high price being the watchword of the firm. Sable's did practically no hire-purchase business. Wealthy and important customers paid for their goods by cheque, after a dignified interval. Other customers—prosperous retailers and the like, who did cash trade in their own business—often paid in full, on the spot.
Antiques were a valuable sideline to Sable's, and a part of their premises was set aside for this trade. People brought things there to be valued, and quite often sold them after valuation. For these purchases Sable's kept a large 'float' of ready money.
As anyone knows, antiques are not sold in large consignments. They come in single units or pairs or small sets, from all kinds of sources. Because of this, no passer-by was surprised to see some men delivering a grandfather clock to Sable's antiques department on a Saturday afternoon. Sable's was one of those shops which was closed on Saturday afternoons, and though the firm employed a watchman he did not arrive for duty until six o'clock at night. But nobody thought it odd that the clock should be delivered when the shop was closed. As the policeman on the beat pointed out later, in answer to criticism, the afternoon of early closing day was the time when most of the furniture stores took delivery of new goods.
When the watchman turned up for work, he found that the safe in the manager's office had been opened. There was an oxygen cylinder lying on the floor in the same room. When the police arrived they found that the premises had been entered through a small window at the back. There was no evidence to show that the front door of the antiques department had been opened to allow the passage of a grandfather clock. The door had two latch locks, two of those being considered safe from anything but a direct attack with a jemmy.
'They could have got the cylinder in the back way by sliding it through the window,' Martineau commented. 'Or their door-and-window man could have come through to the front and opened that door with two latch locks. But this was the middle of Saturday afternoon, with people about everywhere. Back or front, how the devil did they manage to get that cylinder in without being noticed?'
That question was not answered until the following Tuesday. In spite of intensive inquiries round about, nobody recalled the incident of the grandfather clock. The clock had been left standing in the antiques department, close to the wall near the foot of a wide flight of stairs. It was a place suitable for such an article, and its presence was accepted until Tuesday because the departmental manager had been taking a busman's holiday—Saturday afternoon, Sunday and Monday—nosing round after antiques in the less frequented parts of the Yorkshire dales.
A customer happened to look at the clock, and he thought that it was not quite up to Sable standards. He opened it, and saw that there was neither clock nor pendulum inside. In some amusement he pointed this out to a passing assistant, a man who had worked for Sable's twenty years without promotion.
The assistant also was amused, but secretly. To his experienced eye the clock was valueless as an antique, with or without works. Someone had blundered, and it was not he. He went to the antiques manager, his immediate senior, the man who sat in the place where he thought he ought to be sitting.
'That grandfather clock at the bottom of the stairs,' he said. 'It has no works.'
The manager was at his desk. He looked up sharply. 'What grandfather clock?' he demanded. 'As far as I know, we don't have a grandfather clock at the moment.' Then he attacked, instantly, being that sort of man. 'Did you buy it yesterday while I was up the dales?'
'I did not,' said the assistant, affronted. 'I thought you must have bought it Saturday morning while I was seeing to the packing of those chairs for London. The only thing I ever bought in your absence was that refectory table, and it was the best bargain we've had in years.'
'Oh, was it?' the manager retorted unpleasantly. 'All right, don't just stand there. Go and look after the shop. There might be a flock of customers in need of your valuable services.'
The assistant departed in a huff. The manager consulted his books. He had no record of any tall case clock which had not been marked off as sold and delivered. He left his desk and went to look at the clock which had no works, and as soon as he saw it he realized that no Sable employee, sober and in his right senses, would consider displaying such inferior cabinet work for sale. He wondered if some members of some other department were having fun at his expense.
Turning the matter over in his mind, he returned to his desk. Whatever happened, or whatever had happened, he could not see how he could be blamed, since the clock had not been in his department when he left on Saturday. But it was there now, and he was the manager. If there was going to be trouble, it would reflect on him. Who could have put the clock there? The only unauthorized people who had been in the shop were those men who—Ah! Everybody had been trying to guess how they got an oxygen cylinder into the place on Saturday afternoon. Ha ha! How simple! And how clever. And how clever of himself to realize why the clock was there. That ass Jenkins wouldn't have figured it out in a thousand years. No wonder he had never got on.
The antiques manager sat down at his desk and shot his cuffs. He picked up the telephone and told the girl on the switchboard that he wished to speak to Mr. Sable in person. He took a deep breath. Mr. Sable in person. This was quite a moment.
* * * * *
Half an hour later Martineau was inspecting the grandfather clock. With him was Sergeant Bird, his photo-and-fingerprint specialist. Also present was Mr. Sable, while the antiques manager hovered respectfully.
'Pictures first, before you dust it for prints,' Martineau said to Bird. 'I want lots of copies. We'll have pictures of it in all the papers. There's a chance that we might find the man who sold it to these crooks.'
He turned to Mr. Sable. 'Thank you for letting me know so promptly,' he said. 'This could turn out to be the best lead we've had so far.'
'Don't thank me, thank Mr. Lewis here,' Sable said. 'But for him, the thing might easily have been thrown out and broken up.' He smiled at the antiques manager, and that person actually blushed with pleasure.
'Thank you, Mr. Lewis,' Martineau said, and then he went back to Headquarters. He had much to think about. If the clock had been acquired by one of the XXC mob some time ago complete with pendulum and works, it might not be ea
sy to find the person who had sold it. But if the works had been missing when the thing changed hands, the vendor would be almost sure to remember. Would the crook realize that when he bought it? In any case, would he think that he was taking a risk? Probably not. He would assume that at the most the police would only get a vague description of him. They might make the vendor look at a lot of photographs but—assuming that he had a police record—he would not expect his own face to be picked out of thousands.
But suppose the vendor was shown only one single sheet of photographs? If the crook's face was there, he would pick it out. That was a reasonable certainty. 'If this ingenious fellow is one of my top twenty, I've got him spotted,' the chief inspector decided.
Twenty-four hours later his faith in his own methods was justified. Detective Constable Ducklin walked into the premises of a second-hand dealer called Haworth, and was met by a sturdy man whose serious brown eyes were enormous behind thick spectacles.
'Police,' said Ducklin, and the man came close to him to look up at his face.
Ducklin was amused, but he did not risk causing offence by showing it. 'Want to see my warrant card?' he asked.
'No. I'll take your word for it.'
'Have you read the paper this morning?'
'No. I haven't had time yet.'
'Have you sold any grandfather clocks lately?'
'No. Not for ages. Years, I should think.'
'You're sure?'
'I'm sure.'
'Ah.' Ducklin was turning away.
Haworth said: 'I did have a clock case a month or two back. I got it in a job lot. A fellow bought it for firewood.'
'Ah,' said Ducklin again, in a different tone. A photograph appeared in his hand. 'Was it anything like this?' He let the man peer as close as he liked.
'That's it,' was the verdict. 'Or one just like it. I can tell by the carving round the face, and the style of that beading on the top. You see, I had it in here a week or two, wondering when I'd find time to break it up.'
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