'Can you remember the man who bought it?'
'Well, I don't know. I'd have to have a look at him before I could be sure. You see, I don't stand close to customers as a rule. They might not like it. But I did get a fairly good dekko at this chap out in the street, where the light's better. I helped him to put the clock case in his car.'
'Did he talk like a local man?'
'No. Like a Londoner. He was a smart-looking chap. That's why I noticed him.'
Ducklin controlled his rising excitement. 'Just a minute,' he said. He thought that he just might be lucky enough to need a witness, and he went to the door of the shop and beckoned to Detective Constable Evans, who was sitting in a car at the kerb.
When Evans arrived, Ducklin pulled Martineau's twenty-man poster from his pocket and unfolded it. 'Take a look at these fellows,' he said to the dealer. He spread the poster on a dusty table. 'Take your time. No hurry.'
'I could see better at the door,' the man said as he stooped over the poster.
Ducklin reflected that if ever Haworth was called upon to put the finger on anybody, the identification parade would have to be held out of doors in the police-station yard. He also thought of the quality of light in a courtroom. 'Try it here, first,' he said.
Haworth was trying it. 'That looks like him,' he said, with one finger on the poster. 'Yes, that's him.'
'You're sure?'
Haworth was still peering. 'Yes, I'm sure,' he said.
'Take this pencil and write your initials there, just beside his ear, then there's no doubt about which picture you mean.'
With Ducklin's ball-point pen the dealer initialled the photograph. 'Now,' the detective said. 'Take it to the door, and if you find you've made a mistake, don't be afraid to say so.'
At the door Haworth said: 'I haven't made a mistake. I'm absolutely certain.'
Ducklin took the poster and folded it carefully, and pocketed it. 'Now,' he said. 'What about his car? What make was it?'
'Eeh, I never noticed.'
'Did you notice the number?'
'No.'
'Any part of the number?'
'No.'
'What colour was it?'
'Black or dark blue. A dark colour.'
'About how big?'
'Medium size. Happen as big as a Ford Consul or a Vauxhall.'
'Was anybody with him?'
'No. He were on his own.'
'Thank you, Mr. Haworth. You have been very helpful. You might be called upon to identify this man, when we lay hands on him.'
'What's he done?'
'He used your clock case to carry an oxygen cylinder into Sable's.'
Haworth's mouth dropped open. 'Well, fancy that. A smart chap like him. I'd never a-thought he were a robber.'
* * * * *
In this manner Howard Cain was identified as a member, and possibly the leader, of the safe-breakers who had been such a nuisance to the police of London and Granchester. Moreover, there was some evidence to connect him with the Sable robbery. It was hardly enough evidence for a conviction but, when the time came, it would help.
And when the man's full record was put before him Martineau saw a possible answer to a question which had been in his mind for some time. Previous to his bad luck with the wallet, Cain had been convicted with others for stealing cigarettes by the vanload. The gang had been sufficiently well organized to have receivers in several big towns, and though nothing had been divulged there was evidence to show that one of the receivers had had premises in Granchester. And the first target of Cain's XXC mob in the city had been the firm of Hendry Brothers, wholesale tobacconists. The coincidence was too strong to be ignored. Hendry Brothers had been carrying a large 'float' of cash, about which they had given a lame explanation. Cain had known or suspected that they would be carrying the cash. He had assumed that Hendry's would still be buying stolen goods from somebody.
'It's amazing the way things come out,' Martineau reflected. 'The next time there are stolen cigarettes in town I'll know where to look for them.'
* * * * *
P.W. Dale dutifully kept the Arlington Street district under her keen young eye. With an older colleague she loitered near the bus stops, or sat in a café and watched the shoppers pass, or toured the streets in a car. Wales Road, the main thoroughfare of Mossbank, was invariably thronged with people and traffic for the most part of every working day. The days went by, and Policewoman Dale looked at so many faces that she was sometimes oppressed by a secret fear that she would fail to recognize her woman suspect when she saw her.
But in the forenoon of the Friday of the week following the Sable break-in, she was walking with her team mate in the hazy sunshine of Wales Road when she was rewarded with a glimpse of Dorrie Cain entering a shop.
'There she is!' she exclaimed. 'Just gone into that butcher's. I'm certain it's her.'
It had been a long, long, monotonous patrol. Dale's companion, P.W. Seymour, was inclined to be excited too. She controlled herself. She was the senior, here to guide this youngster.
'We'll wait here till she comes out, then I can get a look at her,' she said. 'I'll stand with my back to the shop, and you look over my shoulder. What's she wearing?'
'A light fawn coat, and she has a red-and-white shopping basket. I'll tell you when she comes out.'
So they stood as if in conversation, across the street from the butcher's shop, but not directly opposite. Seymour was several inches shorter than Dale, who had no difficulty in looking over her shoulder and could have looked over her head.
Ever since the Sedgeworth incident, Dorrie had been very wary when she was out of doors. Now, waiting to be served by the butcher, she looked first at the passers-by and then changed the focus of her gaze to look across the road. As far as the traffic would allow she looked at everybody, and especially at men and women of an age to be in the police force. She saw Dale and Seymour. Her glance passed on, and then quickly returned to them. There was something wrong about them. She did not realize until later what made her look twice at them, but it was because they were the only two women in sight who were not holding some sort of shopping basket. If they were not shopping, Wales Road was not the right place for them. It was not a street where women strolled and gazed at the shops in longing.
There was something suspiciously wrong about them, that was all Dorrie knew. She watched. She could see part of a face with two eyes which stared at the butcher's shop as if it were on fire. The owner of the face did not seem to be talking, and from the look of her she did not seem to be listening. She did not even look at the woman beside her.
Presently this other woman moved slightly to put her weight on the other foot, and Dorrie saw the full face of the one who stared. She recognized P.W. Dale as instantly and surely as she herself had been recognized.
Though she was pierced by fear, Dorrie remained cool. The guide to subsequent action, the first thing she had to decide, was whether or not that policewoman could see her. The walls of the shop were of shining white tiles, a revealing background. But the shop window was not high, and furthermore the butcher had put down the shade to keep the sun off the meat on display. The interior of the shop was shady really, and that girl across there was wrinkling her eyes in sunshine. Dorrie realized that in any case she would have to act on the assumption that she had been seen to enter the shop, but could not now be seen. She moved further back into the shop, on the pretence of looking at some platters of sausages on a side counter.
She tried to remember all that she had intended to buy. It would have to be something like her usual week-end order, because she could not allow the butcher to think that she was in haste. When it was her turn to be served she stated her wants calmly, and she looked at several big joints of beef before she chose one. This delay was agony. She wanted to be out of there, and away. But apparently her face showed none of her feelings. The butcher was respectful. Hers was a large order; the big joint, five pounds of pork sausages, five pounds of best steak, some lamb c
utlets.
When she had paid for her meat, while she was waiting for her change, Dorrie looked round the shop, as if she had not looked round before. There was a door leading to the rear of the premises.
With her change in her purse, and her purchases in her basket, she hesitated. She looked embarrassed because she was embarrassed. 'Excuse me,' she said. 'Do you mind if I go out by the back door? There's a woman out there I don't want to meet, and she saw me come in here. She'll keep me talking for hours, and I've no time to spare this morning.'
The butcher was sympathetic. He also was occasionally bothered by women who wanted to talk when he was busy. He came round the counter smiling. 'This way,' he said, himself going towards the door at the rear.
He let her out into a backyard, and she heard a bolt thud into place when he had closed the back door. This was the moment of danger. If that big blonde had been able to see her, she would now be haring round the end of this block of shops as fast as she could go, and her friend with her.
She hurried along a back street, and round the end of the block which was furthest away from the policewomen. She wanted to be running, but she also wanted to know where those women were. At the end of the block, right on the corner, she stopped and put down her basket and pretended to adjust one of her stockings. This action enabled her to peep round the corner without seeming to be peeping. She could see the two women still standing there, two hundred yards away. A lorry passed carrying a high load of baled cotton pieces. It would cover her from the view of those women for some time. She moved into the throng of people and hurried away towards Grange Gardens. She did not have far to go.
She arrived home breathless, giving way a little to hysteria now, but she had taken care to see that she was not followed. She burst into the house and demanded of Cain: 'Now will you go back to London? Two damned policewomen looking for me this time. Watching the shops in the main street.'
Cain was startled. 'Here in Mossbank?'
'Not a quarter of a mile from here. It was that blonde who spotted me before, with another one. They must know I live somewhere around here.'
'You didn't do as good a job of shaking off that zombie as you thought. Are you sure you weren't followed home just now?'
'Yes, I'm sure. I was in the butcher's and he let me out by the back door. They were watching the front.'
'They saw you go in?'
'They must have. That blonde article was staring at the butcher's window as if it was the only shop in the street.'
Cain sat in thought, about women. They were funny creatures, he knew. Dorrie was homesick for London. She wanted to get back into her own home. Women could be very underhand when they wanted something badly. He had never known Dorrie be like that, but then he had never taken Dorrie out of her own home before, never taken her out of London. So, was the second zombie scare just a gag to frighten him out of Granchester?
'You're sure you didn't dream it all?' he asked drily.
She looked at him. 'I didn't dream it.'
He nodded. She had him, anyway. He didn't dare take the risk of disbelieving her story. So, assuming that he believed her, what then? Now the police knew that she lived in Mossbank. They would really get busy. The place would be crawling with plainclotheswomen and plainclothesmen. They would be going from door to door again. Sooner or later some Pole or Jamaican would happen to mention the people at No. 11 Grange Gardens. The comings and goings of five men and two women would not have gone entirely unnoticed.
Dorrie had put her basket down beside the kitchen door. Cain went and picked it up, and put it on the kitchen table. It was heavy. He opened one of the parcels. 'Is this all meat?' he asked.
She nodded.
'All from that shop where you were spotted?'
Again she nodded.
He frowned. All that meat! The police would know by now that Dorrie had bought enough to feed a platoon of guardsmen. That would make them doubly certain of her connection with a mob. They would swing into action at once. They would be moving into the district already.
The thought of that was enough to upset any criminal with a normal instinct of self-preservation. All the same, Cain made up his mind that he was not going to be frightened away from Granchester. He would go when he was ready, and that was not yet. He was thankful now for France's suggestion that the house in Naylor Street would make an alternative base. Now, one of them was furnished after a fashion.
'Go pack your bags,' he said to Dorrie. 'We're getting out of this dump right now.'
'Back to London?' she asked.
'I don't know. Not today, at any rate. Today we're moving to Naylor Street.'
He went into the front room, where Jolly, Husker, Coggan, and Flo were rolling poker dice. Flo seemed to be winning. Her face was flushed and her eyes bright. She looked very pretty.
'All right, pack it up,' he said, and at once the girl looked sullen. He moved part of the way round the table and stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. 'Don't argue, kid,' he said. 'There's no time. Your sister's been spotted again. We'd better be out of here within the hour. Every man go pack his bags. Where's the Gent?'
'Upstairs, I think,' Husker said.
'Thank God for that. He could easy have been gone to the pictures. Our luck's holding.'
Cain went and called France, and told him what had happened.
'Yes, we'd better move right away,' France agreed. 'And I'm going to get a pillow case or something and do out my room, and everywhere else where I might have left my dabs.'
'We'd all better do that,' Cain said. 'When all the cases have been packed I'll load 'em in the car and take 'em to Naylor Street. I'll take Dorrie, too. Everyone else will go on the bus, and no two together.'
* * * * *
Five minutes after Dorrie had departed by the butcher's back door, P.W. Seymour said for the third time: 'Don't stare so. Act natural and reckon to be talking. You can't miss seeing her when she comes out.'
'I wish she'd come,' P.W. Dale replied.
'So do I,' was the dry retort. 'I'm beginning to wonder if you dreamed it all.'
'I tell you I saw her.'
'Then we've played it wrong. One of us should have gone to the back of those shops. I think I'll go across and have a look. You stay here, and turn your back on her if she comes out.'
Seymour crossed the street and entered the shop. There were no customers. She asked: 'Have you had a woman in here with a fawn coat and a red-and-white shopping basket?'
The butcher came to a wrong conclusion about Seymour. 'Eeh, I couldn't say,' he replied. 'I never notice things like that.'
Seymour showed her warrant card. 'Happen you did notice,' she said.
The butcher's eyebrows rose. 'Is she a wrong 'un?'
'She may be. Where is she?'
'She said she wanted to dodge a woman who'd keep her talking. I let her out of the back door.'
'How long ago?'
'Five or six minutes.'
'Is she a regular customer?'
'She's been regular for the last month or two. Before that, I didn't know her at all.'
Seymour sighed, and turned away. Then she checked. 'What did she buy?'
The butcher told her, accurately.
'Did she always buy her meat by the shipload?'
'She always bought plenty,' the butcher answered. 'She always paid on the nail, an' all.'
'She must have a big family,' Seymour said, and went to look at the back door. She left the shop then, and carried the bad news to Dale. 'We muffed it,' she said tersely.
'What do we do? Ring it in?'
'If we do, it won't do us any good, will it?'
'No,' said Dale.
Seymour looked at her, and decided that she could not trust her to be silent. Sooner or later she would blurt it out to somebody.
Seymour said: 'Anyway, it goes to show that the woman does live around here. I suppose we ought to ring it in.'
So they went to the nearest telephone.
12
The message from the two policewomen made Martineau quite certain now that the XXC mob were living in Mossbank, in the part around Grange Gardens and Arlington Street. He poured men into that area. And as soon as he could get away from Headquarters he went to see the inspector in charge of sub-divisional police station in Mossbank. He interviewed the man in the presence of the detective sergeant of the sub-division.
'It might be a good idea if I knew everything that's been going on around here,' he said. 'I'll have a look at your call book for a start.'
He looked at the call book, the occurrence book, and the complaint book. He examined charge sheets. Then he began to examine the station personnel, as the men were called in and presented to him.
'Just think,' he began with each man. 'A young woman, a very bonny young woman by all accounts. She's living somewhere around here among all the foreigners. She has a grown up family of men who aren't all relations of hers.'
After two hours of this he found a motor patrol officer called Hartley who thought so hard that he remembered something, a very bonny young woman.
'Number nine or number eleven Grange Gardens,' he said. 'When I was going from house to house in plain clothes I met such a woman. English, southern accent but not awfully high class. She said she didn't take lodgers.'
'Grange Gardens,' said Martineau. 'They're not little houses, are they? Four or five bedrooms, I should think.'
Hartley's mate spoke up. 'At odd times when I've been going on there to check on the O'Smiths, I've seen a few different blokes going in and out of number eleven. I'd just started to wonder if somebody was running a brothel.'
Martineau never neglected detail. 'Who are the O'Smiths?' he demanded.
'The Irish gypsies in Grange Gardens, sir. The name is Smith, but everybody calls them O'Smith. They're, er, troublesome sir.'
'I see. We can forget about the O'Smiths, then. But it looks as if number eleven might be worth considering. Thank you, men. You might have been very helpful.'
Two men in twenty Page 11