Putting back the receiver McCann found himself so tired he could hardly lift himself out of the chair. Gratefully he accepted the offer of a bed and, fortified by a large cup of Ovaltine prepared by Miss Carter, and two out-sized aspirins produced by the experienced Glasgow, he tumbled between the sheets and dived headlong into the depths of sleep.
6
The Pay-off
Next morning the machinery moved with speed and efficiency.
A hard-boiled young lady in the Out-patients Reception said: “Oh, you’re the gentleman to see Dr. Mann, aren’t you? Just step in here, please,” and whisked him through a door marked “Private”. She led the way through two further doors and McCann found himself in an enclosed glass-covered courtyard. One of the small white ambulances belonging to the hospital was standing there. At her invitation he climbed in, and the doors were shut. The most comfortable way to ride in an ambulance is to lie down. McCann lay gratefully on the lower of the two stretcher beds and closed his eyes. In a few minutes he heard the driver jump up, and they were under way.
With its low pressure tyres and independent springing, the ambulance moved with a comfortable floating motion, particularly soothing and agreeable to its jaded occupant.
McCann, in fact, was not feeling so hot.
His body was complaining all over in an irritating indefinable sort of way; his head was not actually aching, but something had happened to his vision and he was seeing light and shade with the peculiar super-clarity which belongs to the first day of malaria.
There was also the question of whether the very light breakfast which Miss Carter had insisted upon his eating was going to stay put.
The ambulance was obviously heading for Scotland Yard. It seemed to be going a long way round – presumably from those motives of caution which characterised the whole proceedings. So far as McCann was concerned, the further it went, and the longer it took, the better. In addition to aching limbs and stereoscopic eyesight he was suffering from a pretty acute attack of Scotch conscience.
Nor had Hazlerigg’s tone, as heard on the telephone the night before, done anything to comfort him.
Suddenly Big Ben struck out overhead. The ambulance turned right, then right again, manoeuvred slowly into some gateway, and stopped. A police sergeant opened the door, gave him a cheerful grin and said: “Come along, sir, you can die inside.”
II
“Well now,” said Hazlerigg. “If you’ll just run over what you told me last night, we’ll get a note made of it.” He indicated a young constable with a shorthand notebook. “You can go as fast as you like, this boy’s good.” The constable blushed, thus contriving to look even younger. “Don’t leave out anything this time,” he added blandly.
“The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” thought McCann. He’d made his mind up on that as he came along.
He talked for almost an hour. The constable covered the pages with a nice easy unfatigued motion. Hazlerigg did nothing in particular; at very long intervals he jotted a note on the pad in front of him.
At the end of it all he said to the constable: “Do you want any of that over again? All right. Thank you very much. Let me have it typed as soon as you can. Oh—and you might ask Monsieur Bren if he’d mind stepping along here. He should be in his room by now.”
The constable departed and a short but uncomfortable silence ensued.
Then Hazlerigg said: “Did you ever have officers in your mob who were so brave or so stupid that they couldn’t recognise real danger when it came along?”
“A few,” said the Major.
“The sort who would bivouac for the night in the middle of an unmarked minefield, and get away with it, or stand about lighting a pipe when shells were bracketing the position just to show how little they cared?”
“I’ve met them.”
“And did you,” asked Hazlerigg, “ever have the job of telling them what bloody fools you thought they were?”
“Yes,” said McCann, “but I doubt whether I did it as nicely as you are.”
The Inspector smiled and the atmosphere grew a few degrees less frigid.
“All right. So long as you realise you ought to be under arrest for constructive obstruction of the police.”
“I realise that I should have told you about Curly, Inspector. It was very wrong of me, and I’m prepared to be very penitent. But don’t you think it would increase my punishment,” the Major added cunningly, “if you were to tell me exactly what I have to be penitent about – the full strength of it, I mean.”
Hazlerigg’s light grey eyes viewed the speaker dispassionately.
“I’ll bring you up to date,” he said at last, “on one condition.”
“I can guess the condition, and I agree to it.”
“All right—if I have your promise that you won’t move in this matter in any way without my permission, I’ll—well, I’ll endeavour to bring home to you the enormity of your offence. As you’ve probably guessed, Curly wasn’t the worst of your suppressions. It was that house in Flaxman Street that made us sit up all last night. Ever since you telephoned I’ve had a dozen men working on the records of those firms. It hasn’t been easy, because we’ve had to work solely by the book, but I think the results are beginning to add up to something now. By eight o’clock this morning the pointer was hovering between Saxifrage Lamps and Mr. Leopold Goffstein, the fur expert. The lines have been buzzing to Birmingham this morning, and I must confess we were beginning to get ideas about Saxifrage. There are several odd points about them and I still think that there’s some dirty linen in their cupboard. Only it’s not our sort of dirty linen, if you see what I mean. I fancy they’re rigging a price-control ramp. However, ten minutes before you arrived, we clicked.”
He paused, and turned over some papers on his desk. “This report came in. One of our City men has unearthed the fact that Leopold Goffstein controls, amongst other things, a number of all-night restaurants. One in particular, behind Leicester Square, called ‘The Band Box ‘. He does it by a complicated system of proxy share holding, working through his milk bar outfit. Well – the Band Box is hot. That was where we caught your chap Andrews with the stuff on him—”
“Do you think Goffstein could be the Big Boy himself?” said the Major. “If so, I might be able to recognise him.”
“It’s possible, of course. But not very likely. I rather think that Leopold is their post office – a crowd that’s run on the sort of system that these boys use has got to have a safe and easy set of contacts. And Leopold’s well placed to do it. His business interests are so wide that he could put a finger on almost anyone from the Archbishop of Canterbury to Goering’s niece, without moving outside his own manor. I’ve got great hopes of Leopold—if we can manage to watch without shaking the web. I’m taking a leaf out of the book of our friends across the Atlantic and we’re rigging a tele-camera in a window across the way from his office. From now on we’ll have a film record of every man and woman who goes into those buildings.”
The slight implied rebuke in this did not escape McCann, and he wondered ruefully what secrets a film of the previous week might not have shown.
“So much for that end,” went on the Inspector. “The Kensington show is not so promising. We found the building all right, and the set-up is rather a curious one. About two years ago, when the Blitz was starting up again and London house property wasn’t exactly booming, a certain Mr. Robinson – a close friend, no doubt, of your young Mr. Smith – bought the expiring lease of the entire block. At that time four of the five shops were let, and Mr. Robinson accepted the shopkeepers as his sub-tenants – but he put his own man into the fifth one, the chemist’s shop. The upper stories were mostly empty and he pretty soon got rid of the remaining tenants. He then had communicating doors cut, at the second floor level, and the doors between the four genuine shops and their own second and third stories were screwed up. What the shopkeepers thought of all this, I don’t know. They probably concluded tha
t it was ‘something’ to do with the Government. And anyway, he was their landlord.”
“I see,” said McCann, “a nice set-up. The chemist’s shop acted as a front door to the whole upper block. No wonder there was a certain stir when I walked into it and started talking about taking rooms on the top floor.”
“Stir! I should think they almost stood on their heads. You realise that they were actually in the process of moving out. Had, in fact, almost completed the move. According to the neighbours, vans had been coming and going for days; one of them, who caught a glimpse of the load, said it looked like heavy machinery. There are certainly marks on the floor which suggest that machinery had been bolted down. And I think they had a small blacksmith’s furnace – there’s a mark where the cowl was fixed over one of the fireplaces. There’s no doubt in my mind that this was the place the stuff was brought to for melting and resetting. I guess it may have been the instructional wing, too; and quarters for a small permanent staff. I don’t suppose that the Big Boy’s actually lived in.”
“Why were they moving?”
“I don’t know. Probably they never stayed too long in one place. Anyhow, you can picture their feelings when Curly dashed in by the back way and announced that he was being followed! I don’t know when he spotted you. Probably not long before. Really and truthfully, I still don’t know why you’re alive at this moment.”
“Since you put it like that,” said McCann, “nor do I. I guess that what saved my life was Curly recognising me. He would know that I wasn’t anything to do with the police, and the Problem Child told me that they searched me pretty thoroughly and came to the conclusion that I was genuine—I mean, I hadn’t got a warrant card or a set of handcuffs on me, and my papers looked OKAY”
“I think that’s about the strength of it. They may have said to themselves that Curly was mistaken about being followed – it’s easy enough to imagine that sort of thing. Or you might just have been house-hunting after all. People do go round looking for houses. So they decided to keep you on ice till the move was complete and then turn you loose. They were careful not to let you see any faces that mattered. I’m pretty certain we haven’t had that boy through our hands. I’ll take you down to Records before you go.”
“It’s a hopeless sort of face to remember,” said McCann. “Just a normal, whitish, cockney youngster. The sort that changes every year. If he dyed his hair or grew a moustache or put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, I couldn’t swear that I’d recognise him even now. The other chap – the one who came through the door just after I’d been coshed – he’s different. I told you I thought I’d met him before—”
“Yes—that was very interesting. No—I mean that. I’m not being sarcastic. It’s possible that you had met him before. But after all, Major, living in London, and having just come out of the army—well; you must have met and talked to hundreds and thousands of men recently – army types, men in other services, club friends, business friends – even more casual acquaintances – bus conductors, shop assistants—” He broke off as McCann didn’t seem to be listening.
Abruptly the Major came back to earth. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but as you were talking it came quite tantalisingly into my mind where I had seen that chap before. But it’s no good. It’s gone. Look here, I mustn’t take up any more of your time, but there is one last question I’d like to put.”
“Fire ahead.”
“Well, it seems a silly thing to say, but in view of all this secrecy this morning, and in view of one or two things you’ve said – and still more, one or two things you’ve rather carefully refrained from saying; do you think that I’m still in any danger?”
When Hazlerigg didn’t answer at once McCann flushed slightly and went on hurriedly: “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. After all, I asked for it. What I want to know really is this. Do I have to go about with my head on my shoulder and always take the third cab that offers (though God knows it’s difficult enough to get even one) and never answer telephone calls after dark, and that sort of thing – or don’t I?”
Hazlerigg elected to take these last suggestions at their face value. “I don’t think you need worry about any of that sort of stuff,” he said. “I mean, I don’t see why they should take the offensive against you, not as things stand. That’s another puzzling angle to the business. We haven’t been able to connect them yet with any of the professional strong-arm boys at all. London’s got its fair share of ‘em, you know, and we like to keep pretty close tabs on them. The dog-race protection crowds, the Camden Town Wheelbarrow mob, and the real big shots, the snow-boys. If a high-class outfit like the one we’re up against bought any muscle, it stands to reason they’d buy it at the best shop. And they haven’t. They don’t want to make trouble. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean they’re playing Queensberry Rules. They’re just professionals. They like things quiet and easy. We’ve never found a gun or a knife on any of the boys we have caught. But that’s as far as it goes. If you start really treading on the toes of the Big Boys, the inner ring, then you’ll see the difference. Don’t forget that they’ve put themselves outside the pale already. They’ve killed a policeman, and they know what that entails. It doesn’t affect the issue, but they happen to know, too, that the man they killed was a close personal friend of mine. They can’t be under any illusions as to the lengths I shall go to catch them, or what will happen to them when they are caught.”
McCann, looking at the bleak North-Sea grey of Hazlerigg’s eyes, felt no illusions on this last subject, either.
“Well—that’s all there is to it, really,” went on the Chief Inspector. “I can’t offer you police protection. I don’t think you’d accept it—and I don’t honestly think it’s necessary. If they suspect that you’ve been working in with us—that might be different. Then we’ll think again. Come in.”
The door opened and at the sight of the visitor McCann sprang to his feet.
“I see you know each other,” said the Inspector. “Major McCann—Monsieur Bren of the Paris Sûreté, who is assisting us. Monsieur Bren will look after you until it’s time for you to leave. I thought you’d like to talk to Monsieur Bren, Major. I understand you met in France. When you’ve finished, Sergeant Crabbe will take you down to Records. I’ve ordered your ambulance for two o’clock.”
After his visitors had gone the Inspector sat thinking for a long time. He seemed rather pleased. As he thought, he scribbled busily. Sergeant Crabbe, whose job it was to clear the Inspector’s desk every day at lunch time, observed the results of his superior officer’s morning’s work. It was a large sheet of white paper, and it contained no less than a hundred and fifty representations of a gallows.
7
Shuffle And Cut
The year ran on, turned the winter’s solstice, and climbed slowly into spring.
McCann, like a half-million other men, spent his gratuity, wore out his demobilisation suit, and began to get on the nerves of his nearest and dearest. Miss McCann showed no signs of irritation with his growing moodiness. Only once, in fact, during those weeks, did she display any animation at all, and that was when two cast-iron finesses failed and she went three down doubled and vulnerable.
She did, however, at about this time, abandon British Israel (on account of the unwarrantable fuss which the Jews were making over immigration into Palestine), and became instead a keen worker for the Young Conservatives.
Nothing very exciting or unexpected happened – if we except the defeat of Scotland by England at Twickenham – and McCann began to forget the little melodrama in whose opening acts he had been involved. Once, as he passed Scotland Yard in his wanderings, he stopped to wonder how Chief Inspector Hazlerigg and his colleagues were progressing.
He read, and for some time cut out and collected, the numerous accounts of larcenies in shops and burglaries in private houses which were filling the papers, and possibly it was this preoccupation which caused him, one night, to dream rather a disturbing dream. I
t was one of those curiously realistic dreams in which three-quarters of the sub-conscious does the work while the other quarter remains critical. For instance, he knew perfectly well that he was in his own room, in bed – but at the same time was prepared to accept the fact that a flight of stairs had somehow sprung into existence, ending in a landing outside his window. Footsteps were climbing the stairs, and he realised, with terror, that he would soon be forced to see, through the glass, the face of the man who was climbing up. This, he most definitely did not want to do. “Shut your eyes, then,” said the common sense part of him. Immediately a succession of huge, misty faces began to swim across in front of him. First came his late Regimental Sergeant-Major, followed closely by a boy whom he had once defeated in the finals of the boxing at school – and had not thought about since – and quite suddenly the features dislimned and faded and formed again, becoming the face of a dead German with whom he had shared a slit-trench in Sicily for a memorable forty minutes whilst being shelled by the British Navy.
One of the shells burst very close. McCann heard the crump and actually felt the crash and sat up to find that his reading lamp had fallen on top of him. He cursed, disentangled the flex, and took two aspirins, thereafter sleeping so heavily that his sister had to recook his breakfast.
The manner in which she said nothing about the trouble which this caused her was exemplary.
II
Rodney Blew lived with his mother, and one elder brother and three younger ones (and two sisters so young that they hardly signified) in a small house in the patchwork of small houses which lies behind the Kennington Oval. The proximity of the famous ground did not cause Rod’s heart to beat any faster. As recorded in the opening chapter of this history, he was of a phlegmatic temperament. Nor did he care for cricket. Like Major McCann, whom he did not otherwise much resemble, his favourite sports were running and swimming. He also fought, when necessary. A solemn, white-faced child, about sixteen years old, he managed to live his own life on that sound principle exemplified by the actions of the destroyer in modern naval warfare. What he couldn’t out-fight he could out-run.
They Never Looked Inside Page 8