They Never Looked Inside

by Michael Gilbert

  “Surely you know me better than that,” said the Major.

  “Aye, too well. It’s good to see you, though. Will you take a cup of tea? Bide awhile, and I’ll put the kettle on.”

  She padded into the next room.

  The Major had no real desire for tea on top of all the beer he had drunk, but hesitated to hurt her feelings. A compromise occurred to him.

  “Leave the tea,” he said. “Get some knickers on and come down and have a drink in the private bar.”

  Over a generous whisky Glasgow sat and listened to McCann’s opinion of the inhabitants of London.

  “I’m not thin skinned,” he said, “but there’s no getting away from it, I have got a weakness for courtesy in the ordinary dealings of life. This morning, now, I jumped on to a bus which was waiting for the traffic lights. Apparently it was full up. Well, you could hardly describe that as my fault, could you? If it had happened before the war a firm but more or less polite conductor would have called my attention to the fact that I constituted one in excess of the lawful number appointed to be carried by the vehicle in question, and would have requested me to alight at the first stop. What happened today ? A henna-haired bitch (excuse me, Glasgow, she really was a bitch) started screaming at me from the top of the stairs. Since I was unable (fortunately) to understand what she was saying, and quite unable to dismount owing to the speed at which the bus was travelling, I took no action. Whereupon she descended the stairs and delivered a sharp and unexpected blow in the middle of my chest. It was only by clinging with the tenacity of a limpet that I managed to save my footing. I suppose my correct course of action would have been to have allowed myself to fall and break a leg and then to have sued the London Passenger Transport Board. Pah!”

  “All conductresses are bitches,” said Glasgow soothingly. “Pray heaven we’ll soon have the boys back.”

  “Then the tobacconists. Do you know, I’m already afraid to ask for a packet of cigarettes. You’d hardly think that such a simple matter could present any difficulties. I dare say you don’t even notice it? No. You’ve got used to it gradually. If it’s a man behind the counter you take your chance. You can be snappy and businesslike and adopt a sort of ‘no black market here’ tone of voice – or you can be man-to-man and confidential. In either case the result’s the same. You get no cigarettes – or ten of a brand you don’t want. If it’s a girl you feel compelled to act like a dago dancing partner making advances to a hat-check girl, in the faint hope that she’s got twenty Gold Flake under the counter.”

  “All girls in tobacconists’ shops are bitches,” said Glasgow. “Have this one on me.”

  At some period in the evening McCann had bought an evening paper and as Glasgow disappeared in quest of further whisky he pulled it out of his pocket and read on the front page:

  CRIME WAVE HITS OXFORD STREET

  Last night, and early this morning, two jewellers’ shops in Oxford Street were broken into. At the first, the thieves had a poor haul since they were unable to make any impression on the firm’s safe. At the other, the shop and premises of Cartwright & Gladstone, they removed articles to the value of £1,500, including watches, bracelets and loose stones. Mr. Finkelstein, the manager . . . [followed a long and unconvincing statement from Mr. Finkelstein, in which he tried, without conspicuous success, to explain away his folly in leaving the safe key in an unlocked drawer].

  After a brutal attack on the night watchman, a Mr. Parrot, the intruders committed the wanton outrage of killing a white terrier belonging to the watchman, which had evidently tried to interfere with their nefarious activities.

  A man has already been detained by the police in connection with the latter robbery.

  It is not known whether the two affairs were connected, but certain similarities in technique suggest, etc., etc.

  He retailed the story to Glasgow when she came back with the drinks. “Brutes like that deserve whipping,” he said.

  “Aye—they do that,” agreed Glasgow. “Poor little dog.”

  “Poor little watchman.”

  “He’s paid to take risks,” said Glasgow. “Dogs are different. Poor dumb creature. People aren’t going to like that.”

  She was right, of course.

  The great British public would watch unmoved the despoliation of a hundred merchant jewellers and the stunning, binding, gagging and maltreating of their servants. But to hurt a dog or a child – that was unspeakable. Chief Inspector Hazlerigg knew this, too, and it was at his insistence that the newspapers had plugged the story.

  “Just one more then, dearie,” agreed Glasgow.

  The evening was attaining an alcoholic momentum of its own, and since good things never come singly the Major did not feel surprised when the door opened and Sergeant Dalgetty walked in.

  When Glasgow saw the green beret she proffered her farewells and departed upstairs like the good, kind, tactful creature she was. She had lived by her wits for nearly half a century and knew when to leave a party. A priceless knowledge, which was lacking in many of her betters. Sergeant Dalgetty had not only been in McCann’s Company, but he was a very old and very tried friend. In the early days of the war the Major, then a Subaltern, had steered the Sergeant through the exceedingly tricky consequences of a weekend’s absence without leave (taken to settle a matrimonial difference); and in Norway the Sergeant had saved McCann’s life. Even this had failed to terminate their friendship.

  As the air grew thick with smoke and the long hand crept towards closing time, so was the past relived. Every sentence seemed to begin with “Do you remember—?” and the old magical names floated to the surface and burst into a froth of reminiscence. Stavanger and Vasterival, Bone and Sedgenane, Le Port and Wesel. “Do you remember Nobby and Blanco trying to load a Jerry Eighty-eight with a twenty-five-pounder shell?” said Sergeant Dalgetty. “’Won’t go in,’ Nobby said, ‘hit the — with a mallet. Anything’ll go in if you hit it hard enough.’ No, come to think of it, that was when you were in hospital.”

  “Time, gentlemen, please,” said the barmaid.

  “And that time we tried what would happen if we fired a nine-inch mortar straight up in the air . . .”

  “Time, gentlemen, please.”

  As they stood on the pavement for a moment, the Sergeant said: “Talking of Blanco, I saw him last week – at the corner of Berkeley Square and Davies Street, about seven o’clock. I gave him a shout, but he can’t have heard me. Funny thing, just dived into the doorway. A block of offices.”

  “I can’t quite see Blanco as a black-coated worker,” said the Major. “One of our rougher diamonds. Good night, sergeant. I’ve got your address, good. We’ll be seeing some more of each other before long. Good night.”

  It was a lovely night. There was a half-moon up, and a light wind packing the clouds across. The Major thought he would walk. He plunged into the well-ordered patchwork of by-ways which lies between Piccadilly and Oxford Street. He was scarcely troubling to steer a course since he was well aware that Park Lane on the left or Regent Street on the right would prevent him from tacking too far. In consequence he found it difficult, when thinking it over afterwards, to fix his exact whereabouts at the moment when he became conscious of footsteps running behind him.

  There is always a temptation to observe without being observed. He drew back into the shadow of a convenient doorway. The steps came nearer.

  Without being able to define his reasons precisely, the Major felt interested. The runner was so clearly afraid of being followed and anxious to evade whoever might be following him. Every fifty yards he would stop for an instant to collect his breath and listen, then on again. He was wearing rubber soled shoes, too.

  As the play of the moonlight fitfully lit up the empty road the man drew nearer.

  Now it must be emphasised that the Major was not at the time absolutely and strictly sober. Far, far from drunk (even in the military sense of that difficult word). But it was undeniable that he had placed a number of whiskies
and brandies on top of a pint or so of beer. And, as many a drinker has found to his cost, had committed the additional indiscretion of placing further pints on top of the whisky.

  The fact remains, excuse it how you will, that as the runner drew level with Major McCann, the latter became a victim of an uncontrollable impulse.

  He thrust his leg out.

  The results exceeded expectations, and the runner, his momentum being checked at the base, whilst his upper parts persisted in their forward progress, described a graceful half-circle.

  The Major jumped forward.

  Even in the stress of the moment he noticed the skill and precision with which the unknown regained his footing. It was a skill born of the gymnasium and the boxing ring – a precision of the cheap palais de danse.

  The Major, wondering for the moment whether he was arresting a malefactor or assisting the victim of an accident, laid hold of the man’s coat.

  A white weasel face looked up at him.

  There was a barely perceptible movement, the slurring sound of the parting of rotten cloth, and the Major was standing once more alone in the moonlit road.

  In his hand he held the remains of a jacket pocket.

  A black saloon car slid up. A gleam of silver along the roof showed the tell-tale wireless mast.

  “Excuse me,” said an offensively polite voice, “but perhaps you can assist us. We are looking for a youth in connection with a burglary . . .”

  “Aye,” said the Major. “A young keelie.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “A young hooligan. I heard him running and tried to stop him. Here’s some of his jacket.”

  “Thank you,” said the voice gravely. “Straight ahead?”

  “Aye, straight ahead.”

  The car shot on.

  The excitements of the night were not yet quite over. When McCann got back to his Hampstead flat he found a note from his sister propped against the clock.

  “Inspector Hazlerigg rang up this evening. He will ring you again tomorrow.”

  3

  The Strings Of A Racket

  “I expect,” said Inspector Hazlerigg, “that you find London a bit noisy after the peacefulness of occupied Germany.”

  “Quite so,” agreed Major McCann shortly. He was not feeling at his happiest, nor was he a man who disguised his feelings easily. “I’ve been in Austria, not Germany,” he added.

  “A charming country. The Tyrol especially, and Carinthia. It always seemed to me to combine the best of Germany and the best of Switzerland.”

  “No doubt,” said the Major. “I was in Vienna.”

  In addition to a very healthy hang-over – not so much the result of excess as of a too cordial mingling of the grain and the grape – he was suffering from that slight feeling of wariness which comes over even the most law-abiding the first time they make contact with the police machine.

  Absurd, of course.

  Hazlerigg seemed anxious to put his visitor’s mind at rest. “I am sorry to drag you down here so soon after your return,” he went on, “but what I have to ask you is highly confidential and even slightly irregular – it is emphatically not the sort of thing which could have been said over the telephone. Have a cigarette? They are part of the office props. I don’t have to pay for them.”

  McCann accepted a cigarette and relaxed provisionally.

  “I got your name,” went on the Inspector, “from your Regimental Association. They told me you were due back this weekend, so I took a chance and rang you up—spoke to your sister.” Hazlerigg hitched himself closer and leaned forward across the desk. “I expect you’re wondering what it’s all about.”

  McCann agreed.

  “Well, it’s like this. You may have read in the papers that we’ve been suffering recently from what is popularly known as a crimewave.”

  “We didn’t get many papers in Vienna,” said McCann. “I seem to remember something about it. Has it abated yet?” he added politely.

  “Not so’s you’d notice it. Rather the contrary. The tide is coming in. A few days ago, on Sunday evening, or, to be precise, very early on Monday morning, two jewellers’ shops in New Oxford Street were broken into. In one of them the thieves got nothing much for their pains, and made a safe, but comparatively inexpensive get-away.”

  “Too bad.”

  “In the other, however, a considerable haul of watches and jewellery was made.”

  “I read about it,” said McCann. “Wasn’t that where the swine killed the watchman’s terrier?”

  “That’s correct – and got away with over a thousand pounds’ worth of stuff.”

  “I hope you catch them,” said McCann, “and have them flogged. You can still flog for robbery with violence, can’t you?”

  “We have caught them,” said Hazlerigg, “or rather, we’ve caught one of them. We got him red-handed, a few hours after the burglary, with half the stuff on him. I think you know him. His name is Andrews – John Patrick Andrews, known to his friends as ‘Gunner’. He was in your Company, I understand.”

  To say that McCann was surprised would be an understatement.

  “Andrews! We certainly had an Andrews. He came to us from one of the Artillery Regiments, and now that you mention it, I believe he was called ‘Gunner’ by his friends. But he was a decent lad—it’s difficult to think of him as a criminal.”

  “I thought that he seemed a reasonable type of man,” agreed Hazlerigg. “For instance, he carried no weapon of any sort. Not even a stick. And he was certainly a fighter. When we took him in an all-night cafe he broke two chairs and a table on my men before they could get him down. We don’t mind that sort of thing, you know. It makes the men feel they’re earning their pay.”

  “But Andrews, a crook,” said McCann. “I’d have gone bail that he was straight. Look here, Inspector, I suppose you’re absolutely certain . . .”

  “Red-handed – he hasn’t even bothered to deny it.”

  “One thing, if he is a criminal, and I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it, he hasn’t lost any time, has he?”

  Hazlerigg made an indeterminate noise which McCann interpreted as agreement.

  “I mean to say—he’s only been demobbed about three months. Possibly less. And I shouldn’t have said that he was naturally that way inclined. He didn’t come from the gutter.”

  The Inspector said: “I’ve asked you down here to help us, and if you’re going to help us it’s only fair that you should know something of what this is all about. I can’t fill in the details myself, but I can give you an outline. I need hardly tell you that this is confidential. Top secret, I believe that’s the correct term. Very well then—”

  Hazlerigg talked easily and well. And as he talked Major McCann had the impression that a light was going up in a quarter of which he had hitherto known very little. He had the ordinary newspaper reader’s knowledge of the great daily battle between organised wrong and organised right. And it began to dawn on him that he had known as little about it, really, as the man in the street had known about the realities of this war.

  Less.

  For in war there is a certain morale-building value in the work of a good war correspondent which has led to the toleration of accurate front-line reporting. Whilst in the war against crime, the veil is only rarely and briefly lifted.

  The results are shown all right with all the intermediate steps left out.

  “The police are seeking a Mr. Albert Brown of Putney for questioning in connection with the recent demise of Mr. Sidney White: Mr. White, it will be remembered, was found early yesterday morning with serious head wounds . . .”

  “Before the war,” Hazlerigg said, “it wasn’t so bad. In modern jargon, we had ‘parity of forces’. But just at this moment I can’t disguise from you things aren’t so good. Some of the reasons are temporary ones – we had them after the last war – like the shortage of trained men, illegal firearms, the presence of foreign deserters, and so on. Time will cure them q
uickly enough, I’ve no doubt. But there’s something else, too.”

  His heavy, Cromwellian face looked so serious that McCann was genuinely startled.

  “We’re up against something altogether new in crime – new, that is, so far as this country is concerned. It is something like what the Americans call a ‘racket’ – but a racket with some odd strings in it. Here’s what’s happened so far. Early this spring we started getting a large number of house breakings and shop burglaries, all carrying the same trademark. I don’t mean that the guilty party signed his name in chalk on the safe door, or any boy-scoutery of that sort. But there were signs, enough in the end to add up to a certainty that the jobs were being planned by the same group of people. Planned, you see, not executed. You had technical courses in the army, didn’t you?”

  “We certainly did,” said McCann.

  “Well then, if you were watching a bunch of recruits doing their musketry, or mine-lifting, or signalling, I expect you’d soon pick out the man who had been on a course. A lot of little details would show that he had been professionally coached – particularly if the coaching was recent.”

  “Good God,” said McCann. “What an extraordinary idea. Are you telling me that someone has been running a nursery for criminals ?”

  “It looks like it,” said Hazlerigg, with no answering smile. “In fact, once you accept the inherent improbability, it sticks out a mile. The way the back windows are always opened, the technique for dealing with bolted doors, the fact that a night watchman who interferes is always coshed – and in the same way – while a householder who comes on the scene is terrorised and tied up. The proper use of sticking plaster as a gag – even the knots in the silk stockings with which the lady of the house is tied to her own bed.”

  “But what makes you think that this is the result of a crime-school? All the jobs you are talking about might have been done by the same man.”

  “I can give you two good reasons,” said Hazlerigg grimly. “The first is that we’re getting from ten to twenty of these jobs every month. The second is that we’ve already caught several of the actual executives. Apart from Andrews, whom we pulled in last night, we’ve got our hands on seven of the people who were actually responsible for the burglaries. Now see what you make of this. In every case it was their first or second job. None of them had a shred of criminal record. Four of them were boys between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. The other three were young men just out of the army – in two cases deserters. In the other case, a man who had been recently demobbed.”