They Never Looked Inside

by Michael Gilbert

  The outstanding characteristic of the Blew household, the dominant factor, as it were, in all its activities, was lack of money. It wasn’t just a question of a shortage of money so much as total absence of that commodity. Troop Sergeant-Major Blew, Rod’s father, had died in the service of his country some dozen years before this story opens. (The two tiny sisters were, as you have surmised, nothing to do with him. They were presented to Mrs. Blew as a sort of payment on account by one of her lodgers who had fallen into arrears with his bill).

  In those far-off 1930s pensions were not dished out with quite the same freedom as they are today, so Mrs. Blew had been forced to find some work. This she had done unwillingly, intermittently, and only as an alternative to actual starvation.

  Considering these circumstances, and the fact that his diet in the home had consisted almost exclusively of bread and margarine, Rod had not turned out badly. He had inherited his father’s tough, well-strung body and not a little of his mother’s Borough shrewdness.

  Curiously enough his first decisive steps towards crime had been taken for the most respectable reasons. When he left school on his thirteenth birthday (as the result of some shrewd perjury on the part of Mrs. Blew) the headmaster, who had noted his prowess at running, had presented him with a year’s subscription to one of London’s many excellent South-side Polytechnics. Here, on most weekday evenings, Rod had been absolutely happy for the first time in his life. The fly in the ointment was that everything seemed to cost rather more money than he possessed – the fares to “away” matches, entry fees and subscriptions – even the innumerable cups of coffee in which he and his new friends indulged at the conclusion of a strenuous evening.

  Being a direct child Rod had remedied this in a direct way.

  His first effort consisted in the removal of the entire slot mechanism from an isolated public lavatory in Battersea Park. This coup had secured him the sum of two shillings and five pence, and from that point he might be said never to have looked back. After serving an apprenticeship on telephone boxes he had just moved up into the more aristocratic shoplifting circles when he came to the notice of “Beany” Cole in the matter of some opportunist “leg-work” in connection with one of Beany’s periodic visits to Hatton Garden.

  However, all that was old history. Rod was now a big shot. He “went out” about once a month. He differed only from a great many other enterprising juvenile delinquents in that he kept himself to himself and avoided any undue show of wealth. To his family, who could hardly help observing it, he attributed his periods of affluence to luck “on the dogs”. A curious boy, older than his years, he neither drank nor smoked. Girls, if he thought about them at all, he considered as talkative, and therefore dangerous creatures, people moreover who for some reason expected you to pay for them when they went with you to the cinema.

  He had never been in the hands of the police.

  One memorable evening in early February Rod was sharing a table with Curly White in a coffee-stall annexe off the Euston Road. Both were silent and preoccupied. They had been sitting there for more than an hour, when a taxi drew up to the kerb. The ancient driver got out, bought himself a cup of coffee and a wedge of cake, and joined the pair at the table. Curly said: “Hallo, Busty,” and Rod nodded quietly and moved along the bench to make room for him. No other conversation passed.

  The taxi driver finished his meal and creaked to his feet, said “Coming my way?” for the benefit of the stall-keeper (who was more than half asleep and totally disinterested) and opened the cab door. Rod and Curly tumbled in, and the taxi jolted eastwards with its engaged flag up.

  Half a mile further on it turned south, up the Grays Inn Road.

  The time was about a quarter to one in the morning.

  III

  During the intervening weeks Chief Inspector Hazlerigg and his team had been doing a great deal of work without obtaining anything startling in the way of results. Since this state of affairs was not uncommon at Scotland Yard no one had been unduly worried by it.

  M. Bren departed to France, and worked his way steadily southwards down the busy demobilisation route; he had last been heard of at Lausanne. A cable received the week before had announced that he would probably have to extend his journey into Italy. He gave no reasons.

  Inspector Pickup had taken charge of “Operation Flaxman” and had haunted the area of Berkeley Square and Curzon Street. Incidentally he and his fellow-workers had secured a great deal of information on the subject of the activities of Saxifrage Lamps, and the London office of that solid Birmingham firm had received a visit from the Inspectors of the Board of Trade. Hazlerigg had advised this raid, since news of it was sure to come to the long ears of Mr. Leopold Goffstein, and if that astute gentleman had noticed any sign of police activity he might reasonably put it down to the misdeeds of his neighbours rather than himself.

  Pickup was not quite sure whether Goffstein knew that he was being watched or not. During the past weeks he had received a steady trickle of visitors. These had been picked up by the all-seeing eye of the quiet tele-camera in the shuttered house opposite. “Stills” were taken from the film and enlargements were passed down to the genius who presided over Records – and all with no result at all.

  “You couldn’t expect anything else,” said Hazlerigg when he was told. “Leopold is Postmaster-General. His office is the clearing house. The people who go there are only messengers. They get letters and are told where to take them. It’s too easy. You could watch them all day and they could still pass their letters, right under your nose. You could think of half a dozen foolproof ways yourself – meeting in the middle of the rush hour at a tube station, sitting next to one another in a cinema, sharing a table in a restaurant.”

  “I’ve no doubt you’re right, sir,” said Pickup, “but I still can’t quite see why they should bother.”

  “It has this big advantage,” said Hazlerigg. “It works in both directions. The way that they’re managing it, none of the lesser characters needs to know where the Big Boys live. The chaps who actually do the jobs – they are the ones who are liable to get caught, you know – couldn’t tell us where headquarters is even if they wanted to. They just don’t know. If Mr. A. wants to get in touch with young B over a little jewel job in Pimlico he sends a note to Leopold. The messenger who takes it may be quite innocent. Leopold reads the message and gives it to C who knows how to hand it to our young friend B – as I said, he probably meets him in a cinema. And when it comes to the time for B to hand the stuff over—well, vice versa.”

  Pickup thought this out for some minutes without comment. At last he said: “If it works that way, how do you explain Curly?”

  “Yes,” said Hazlerigg, “I see what you mean. Curly was an operative – what you might call an outer-fringe man. He did an occasional job, and he was used as a messenger—”

  “Exactly,” said Pickup. “And yet he knew where headquarters was. He went straight there after visiting Leopold.”

  Hazlerigg looked speculatively at his aide and between them, without speaking, the very first faint glimmer of an idea was born.

  “It might be,” said Pickup at last, “that Curly was needed to help in the move – to help in some minor way. I mean as a, look-out or stooge. They may have thought that as they were clearing out anyway, it wouldn’t matter him knowing where the old hideout was.”

  “All the same, I should think that he’d have pretty strong instructions not to go straight there from Leopold’s—”

  “You remember what the Major said about Curly, sir – lazy and insubordinate.”

  “That’s it. He just took a chance. I don’t suppose,” went on Hazlerigg, “that the Big Boy would be very pleased if he knew about it. I mean, if he guessed that Curly had allowed himself to be followed all the way from Flaxman Street to Kensington, incidentally giving away Goffstein as well—”

  “No, sir,” said Pickup with a grin, “I don’t suppose he would.”

  IV


  The shop and dwelling house of Mr. McDowall, Licensed Pawnbroker, lies in a quiet street south of the Pentonville Road. When Mr. McDowall had purchased the house in 1937 it had been described as a “desirable semi-detached business and residential premises”. As the result of a wild night’s work in late 1940 it was now quite definitely “detached”, the remaining three out of the block of four houses having been shorn away by a land mine.

  This misfortune accounted for some of the structural oddities of the building and had not made the task of rendering it burglar-proof any easier. However, after suffering the amount of pilfering from his practically defenceless premises usual in a district where no very strong distinction is made between meum and tuum, Mr. McDowall had effected sufficient repair to enable him to rest tolerably secure o’nights. His immunity, in fact, had lasted for nearly two years and was therefore inclined to be sceptical when he received as a supplement to the Pawn Brokers’ List the printed warning which Hazlerigg had been responsible for drafting:

  SPECIAL NOTICE TO JEWELLERS AND PAWNBROKERS

  There have occurred lately a growing number of instances of burglaries and housebreaking in the above types of premises. In every case in which the proprietor or his night watchman have interrupted the criminals at work they have been assaulted and in most cases rendered unconscious. This is obviously part of a pre-conceived policy.

  You are therefore most strongly advised to telephone the police before investigating any suspected activity.

  Mr. McDowall, who was a hefty, if corpulent, Scotsman, had been rather scornful of this well-meant advice when he received it over his solitary breakfast table. Now, however, at two o’clock in the morning, he inclined to give it more consideration. He was a light sleeper, and he was absolutely certain that the noise which had just woken him was not due to any innocent cause. He was alone in the house and the house itself, as explained, was isolated. Slipping quietly from his bed he pulled on the sweater and trousers and plimsolls which old blitz habits had caused him to leave handy by his bed. Then, after a moment’s consideration, he pulled the telephone towards him and started to dial.

  V

  It was Curly who had made the noise which awakened Mr. McDowall. Careless as ever, he had forgotten to locate the loose furniture in the crowded back room of the pawnbroker’s shop, and had kicked over a chair.

  Rod cursed silently.

  The entry had been easy enough. In fact, it had been effected for them by Busty, who was a kingpin on outside locks. He was one of the curious specialists who flourish on the fringe of the kingdom of crime; he was infinitely patient at “casing” a job and infinitely crafty at finding or making a way in, whether it was an office, a warehouse, or a private dwelling. Yet he never set foot in one of these premises himself. He sold his knowledge and his special skill to the best buyer. Wisely, too, he insisted on cash payment in advance.

  Rod and Curly knew from Busty that the only person in the house was “that old — McDowall”; that he was a crusty customer, but could probably be relied on to sleep soundly if they didn’t start throwing furniture about; that he had no dog.

  Rod, since his experience in Stumpi’s Café, had always felt nervous until he had a line of retreat mapped out. This time it wasn’t difficult. The back room in which they were working led into a kitchen. This in turn had two doors. The old one leading out into the court, and a second, a makeshift affair, which the owner had put into the blitzed wall. Rod twisted off the staple of the padlock with the poker and found himself in a sort of no-man’s-land of rubble and timber. The low wall, on the far side, looked climbable. He moved up two heavy pieces of masonry to form a step, and pulled off the single strand of barbed wire which adorned the top. Then he made his way back. Curly was working on the lock of the big press, and as he paused to straighten his back Rod told him briefly what he had done.

  “Good,” said Curly, “and now watch the staircase door. We don’t want the old — creeping down on us.” It was whilst he was turning back to get on with the job that he had kicked the chair over.

  The noise seemed to hang in the heavy silence.

  “Christ,” breathed Rod, “that’s torn it.”

  “Torn nothing,” said Curly – unnecessarily loud, Rod thought. “It’ll take more than that to wake him. And if it does, you know what to do, don’t you?”

  “Okay,” said Rod. He felt for the handle of his cosh.

  VI

  The mistake which McDowall made, as he realised afterwards, was in not waiting quite long enough. As soon as he heard the police car turn the corner he started downstairs. In his hand he held a serviceable pick-helve.

  Rod heard him coming at exactly the same instant as he heard the police car stop, and without hesitating for an instant he dived towards the door. As his fingers touched the handle he heard the first thunderous tattoo on the shop door and out of the corner of his eye he saw the staircase door open to admit the figure of the outraged householder. At that moment the unspeakable thing happened.

  A hand grasped his collar and pulled him backwards, off-balance. As he fell he saw Curly deliberately slam the kitchen door.

  He lay where he had fallen, quite still and quiet. Mr. McDowall, standing over him with his pick-helve at the ready, thought from a glimpse at the white face that he had fainted. He was wrong. Rod was motionless and speechless, bereft of power and reason, by cold fury. The whole thing had been deliberate beyond possibility of mistake. Curly – to whom he, Rod, had shown the way of escape – Curly had first pulled him back in a callous effort to get away first, and had then slammed the door in his face – offering Rod as a morsel of sacrifice to delay the pursuit.

  He almost blacked-out in sheer, overmastering rage. Without interest he noticed that there were now three squad men in the room looking down at him.

  “There’s one away,” said Mr. McDowall, “I heard him go.” He pointed to the kitchen door.

  Without a word two of the policemen disappeared. The other, an enormous red-haired sergeant, bent down, twisted one hand in Rod’s collar and lifted him easily to his feet.

  “He’s just a bairn,” said McDowall, who was a kindly man at heart.

  “He’s a (shocking) juvenile delinquent,” said the Sergeant, running an expert hand over Rod’s unresisting person. “Brought his toys with him, too,” he added, fishing out the leather cosh.

  At this juncture the other two members of his party returned to report failure.

  “He got straight out at the back. Sergeant,” said the spokesman, “must have nipped over the wall. He’s well away by now. Left some of his trousies on the wire, though.”

  “All right,” said the Sergeant. “Look after this young desperado.” He transferred Rod and strode out. A minute later his voice came faintly. He was apparently speaking on the wireless and exhorting an unknown number of people to “watch out for a man in the neighbourhood of Pentonville Road and Kings Cross, medium height, trousers torn—”

  Having passed the buck in this satisfactory way the Sergeant re-entered the shop and accepted a “strong tot” for himself and his assistants. In the general end-of-term atmosphere now prevailing Mr. McDowall even went so far as to offer Rod a quick nip. Rod merely shook his head. He had not uttered a word since his capture – had, indeed, scarcely moved.

  He maintained this inflexible, white-faced silence during the drive back to Scotland Yard and the process of his handing over to the Duty Inspector. The Sergeant, who was a man of considerable experience and by no means lacking in intelligence, was puzzled. He had seen plenty of prisoners voluble and not a few prisoners both talkative and unrepentant, he had watched prisoners bluster, and he had heard them swear; he had even seen them cry.

  Whilst Rod was being re-searched he watched him thoughtfully; now, as he knew, during the period of reaction was the time when prisoners were apt to open their mouths too wide, the time when they committed howling indiscretions which were so often the cause of so much pain and grief to their friends still at lib
erty.

  Their friends still at liberty!

  For the first time that evening the Sergeant really started to use his brain. He remembered Rod lying on the floor. He hadn’t paid much attention at the time, but it came back to him now that McDowall had denied knocking him down. He said he’d found him like that. And the kitchen door had been shut.

  The Sergeant looked again at Rod, out of the corner of his eye, and noted the tell-tale tightness of the skin round the jaw. As he watched he saw him shaken with a convulsive shudder.

  The Sergeant got to his feet and went quietly out.

  VII

  Woken at the uncomfortable hour of four-thirty a.m., Chief Inspector Hazlerigg showed neither discomfort nor displeasure. Sitting on the edge of his camp bed he listened to Sergeant Instone and finally said: “Well done. I think you may have got something there.” And he thought for a moment, swinging his legs.

  “When the Inspector’s finished with him, take him along to one of the interview rooms. Give him a large, strong cup of tea – station brew – and it wouldn’t do any harm to put a drop of something in it.”

  “I think I can get some nice S.R.D. (N), sir.”[1]

  “Just the thing,” said Hazlerigg. “Treat him kindly – lush him up a bit – but he’s got to drink it. Two cups of it, if he’ll take it. Drink some yourself, too.”