Echoed by other footsteps, too. He seemed to be surrounded by a web of footsteps. Passing him, overtaking him, meeting him.
Come on. Curly, pull yourself together.
He was passing Camden Town Underground Station now; two hundred yards more and he turned left and then right into Hatchet Street. No. 17 was the end house on the north side of the street. It was flanked on its open side by a narrow lane and a square of waste land. As Curly reached the gate there were two other people moving in the street. One of them, bareheaded and wearing an old raincoat, was just turning the corner. Had Curly been inclined to observation at that particular moment, he would have recognised one of his late opponents at darts in the “Lincoln”. The other was a uniformed policeman, who seemed to be moving with great deliberation up the other side of the street, shining his torch into the small front gardens.
Curly was halfway up the path when eleven o’clock started to strike out from Camden Church.
And at that exact moment, without any warning, his world disintegrated into a cloud of white, burning smoke and stabbing flames.
VI
In addition to the two men just mentioned (both of whom were detective constables of the Central Force) the explosion was also witnessed by Sergeant Crabbe, from his vantage point in No. 16, the house opposite. Since the Sergeant had the best view his account was the most valuable.
“White,” he said, “was a little more than halfway up the path leading to the front door of No. 17. The path is of flagstones, flanked on either side by a small privet hedge, not more than eighteen inches high, and a very narrow patch of grass and beaten earth. I am certain that no one can have been concealed in the garden. I had been watching the house myself for about three hours. The eastern side of the garden is open on to a lane and small waste area and it would have been just possible for an assailant to have approached the garden unseen from this direction and have concealed himself in the hedge or shrubbery at this side. I did not observe any object being thrown. The explosion occurred at exactly eleven o’clock . . .”
“That’s how he did it,” said Hazlerigg, “blast his infernal ingenuity. It’s hard to blame any of our men . . .”
“It was a phosphorus grenade, wasn’t it?” asked the Assistant Commissioner, “with a remote-control detonator. The sort of thing we issued to the French Resistance—”
“That’s it,” said Hazlerigg. “We’ve worked it out – we reckon it was placed in position some time previously – may even have been the night before. It had a drag wire round it, as well as the detonator. I imagine that the grenade was buried in the shrubbery on the far side of the path; the drag wire and the detonator line would lie between cracks in the flagstones, and the end would be buried in the laurel hedge. When the operator got there tonight all he had to do was to unearth the wire. As soon as he heard White coming he pulled firmly, and the grenade came out of the earth or leaves or whatever it was that was covering it, and lay in the middle of the path. As soon as White was nicely on top of it—well, he pressed the plunger on the detonator line – and then ran like hell.”
“How soon did they get out a general alert?” asked the Commissioner, who was present.
“It took about seven minutes,” said the Assistant Commissioner. “We had two men in the street – besides Sergeant Crabbe in the house – I don’t think they wasted much time.””There’s a report here, sir,” said Inspector Pickup. “It might be relevant. It’s from the man on night duty at the Highgate Village road-junction. Timed just after five past eleven. He says that a youth on a motorbike stopped with engine trouble at the top of Highgate West Hill. It was a choked jet, and the constable helped him clear it – the whole operation didn’t take more than a few minutes; but as a matter of routine he noted the number and licence particulars. Well, just as this chap drove away, sir, the patrol car came up with details of the Alert, it occurred to the constable that a fast motorcycle would just about have made the distance from Camden Town to his location in the time available—of course, it was an outside chance—”
“And the number?” said the Commissioner.
“We checked up on the owner, sir, of course. A Mr. Cocks of Somers Town. He says that he left the bike outside a pub in Mornington Crescent at about seven o’clock that evening – it was gone when he came out at ten o’clock and he reported the loss to the nearest police station at once. That bit’s true enough.”
“Any record?”
“Nothing, sir. I saw the man—I thought he was speaking the truth myself.”
“Have you got the constable’s description of this youth – the one on the motorbike, I mean?” asked the Assistant Commissioner.
Pickup thumbed the report over, and shook his head. “It’s here, sir,” he said, “but it’s not much use. Medium height—about twenty years old—white face—no distinguishing marks.”
“It was smart work all the same,” said the Assistant Commissioner. “We can’t blame him for not describing the undescribable. Sounds like a typical cockney face.”
Hazlerigg looked up sharply. As though this expression had rung some bell in his memory. He had been silent for some time.
“Let’s have a look at the medical photographs,” he said. The police photographer had approached his task with minute and professional zeal. Curly White, in death, had not been a pleasant subject. The face of a man who has been deeply burnt by white phosphorus is, indeed, one of the less photogenic sights. There was one close-up in particular—
“Where is Andrews being held?” asked Hazlerigg.
“At Canon Row, sir.”
Hazlerigg turned to the Assistant Commissioner. “I’d like to have him brought here,” he said. “He was a close friend of White’s, a great friend, I think. I’ll show him these photographs—”
9
The Gunner Tells a Story And Miss McCann Attends A Bridge Conference
When Gunner Andrews was brought from Canon Row and escorted into Inspector Hazlerigg’s room he had no idea what was in store for him. So there was nothing to soften the shock when the Inspector produced the photographs of the mortal remains of Curly White and said: “See what you think of this, Andrews.” There was a short silence.
When Andrews had got over his first revulsion he picked the photograph up again and said: “Is that—is it Curly?”
“It was,” said Hazlerigg, with calculated brutality. “A bit overdone, don’t you think? You know, the trouble with your friends is they’re too enthusiastic.”
“Why did they do it?” asked Andrews. “I fancy,” said Hazlerigg carefully – he never departed unnecessarily from the truth – “that they got the impression that White was betraying them to the police. As a matter of fact they were wrong; he wasn’t.”
“The filthy torturing bastard,” said Andrews in the same distant voice. He broke off. The beginnings of an idea registered. “You’re not trying to frame me, are you? This photograph—”
“Perhaps,” said Hazlerigg smoothly, “you would like to see the body. We have it downstairs. Parts of it are quite recognisable.”
“Gor—no thank you. I suppose it was the old man who did this. It’s right up his street.”
If Hazlerigg was excited he managed not to show it.
“How well do you know—the old man?” he asked.
“Look here,” said Gunner, “I know what you want. You didn’t ask me here to talk about sweet Fanny Adams or drink tea! You want me to talk; well, I’m game. I don’t know much, but what I do know’s yours. But I’m not talking to you. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but—there it is. I’ll talk to the Major, and no one else.”
For a moment Hazlerigg’s mind was blank – then things made sense.
“I’ll have Major McCann down here in half an hour.” He picked up the office telephone.
II
A great deal of trouble would have been saved and almost everything which happened subsequently would have happened differently if Inspector Pickup, when he answered the telephon
e, had not been busy with a piece of work to do with a greyhound-doping Syndicate (which has no connection at all with the present narrative).
Consequently, he himself got on to the inter-office telephone and spoke to Sergeant Wishart, who happened to be standing in for Sergeant Crabbe, who was at that moment sitting at his wife’s bedside and cheering her up with a confident prognostication that this time it must be a boy. On such small matters do great issues depend.
Sergeant Wishart understood from Pickup that Chief Inspector Hazlerigg required Major McCann’s presence at the Yard immediately. He had no knowledge of any special procedure or of any special precautions to be taken in dealing with this gentleman. His reactions were accordingly simple. He looked up McCann’s telephone number in the Record and put through a call.
McCann, who was in at the time, answered the telephone and said that he would certainly come down to the Yard right away. It struck him as a little odd that Hazlerigg, after his previous insistence on secrecy, should have risked an ordinary telephone conversation, but he assumed that the police knew best.
The call was also received by Patsy Williams, a native of Cardiff, and lately an ornament of the Royal Corps of Signals. Patsy was seated at a table in a small attic apartment, not many hundred yards distant from McCann’s flat; there was nothing remarkable about the room except, perhaps, for the extreme austerity of its furnishing. It contained a table, a chair, and a gas fire. On the table was a D.5 telephone, a writing-pad, a box file, and six ash-trays full of cigarette ends. Patsy finished writing down the message he had just intercepted. He then tilted back his chair. From the look of pain on his face it would have been apparent to an observer that he was thinking. His instructions were that routine messages should be taken down and filed, important ones passed on immediately. The filing box in front of him was full of routine messages – chiefly communications from various religious and philanthropic bodies to Miss McCann, but a fair assortment also directed to the Major, looking rather odd as they had been taken down verbatim and mostly started “Hello, Angus, old cock, nice to hear your voice again . . .” and finished with a suggestion of a meeting in the near future on licensed premises and within permitted hours.
However, this was the first time, in Patsy’s experience, that the police had come into the picture.
He got to his feet and made his way down to a telephone kiosk. He dialled a number and said, “Patsy speaking.”
“One minute—I’ll put you through.”
There was a click, a short pause, another click, and a very courteous voice said: “Well?”
“It’s me, sir—Williams. I thought you ought to have this message. The Yard have just rung up the Major.”
“Yes.”
“They wanted him to come down right away, sir.”
“I see. Yes. That’s quite important. You did quite right to pass it on. How long ago was this?”
“Less than five minutes, sir.”
“Yes—good. Now listen carefully, please—” The voice was that of a competent executive, used to making quick decisions and giving out simple, foolproof directions to subordinates. “I want you to ring Cantropos at his ‘safe’ number—you know it, don’t you?”
“Soapy—Yessir.”
“Arrange a rendezvous for about half an hour from now – somewhere near where you are at the moment. I shall want you to show him to McCann’s place. He’ll get instructions direct from me. He’ll need at least an hour to search the place properly. You are to stay outside and watch.”
“Right, sir. What about the old battle-axe?”
“Miss McCann,” said the voice, “will be out when you call.”
III
At Scotland Yard Gunner Andrews faced Inspector Hazlerigg, Detective Inspector Pickup, and Major McCann. It was to the latter that he addressed most of his remarks.
“When I come out of the army,” he said, “in good old class nineteen – that would be last October –I was at a bit of a loose end. As I told you, sir, last time we had a talk together I hadn’t got no pre-war job to come back to. I had a bit of money – back pay and gratuity and bits and pieces from one or two shady pulls on the good old Western Front – nothing to write home about – you should have seen what some of the Sergeant-Majors were making—”
“I think,” said McCann without a smile, “that the Inspector is only interested in crimes committed on this side of the Channel.”
“All right, all right, I was just putting you in the picture, see?” Gunner’s spirits seemed to have come back to him. “Well, one day I happened to meet my old china, Curly. He came out a group ahead of me. Most of my money was gone by that time, but I couldn’t help noticing that Curly seemed pretty flush – each time he paid for a round of drinks he pulled out a roll of notes – blimey, as big as a Brigadier’s pay – and of course I asked him where it all came from – not that I was in much doubt about it, because I knew Curly pretty well. Curly didn’t tell me much, not then, just enough to make me keen, and a few nights later he introduced me to a man.”
His audience stirred in unison. The faintest ripple of movement, instantly suppressed.
“This man was a dago of some sort – a nasty, hefty lump like one-and-tuppence worth of someone’s meat ration, with a sump-full of oil on his hair—”
“Just a minute,” said Hazlerigg. “When you say dago, do you mean a Spaniard or an Italian?”
“Spanish or Portuguese. Not an Iti, I don’t think.”
“Thank you, please go on. Where did you meet him?”
“It was a little café – I forget the name now – behind Leicester Square. We had a cup of coffee together, Curly and this dago and me. And he asked me if I was game for a job. I got to hand it to him – he didn’t pull any punches. Housebreaking and shopbreaking, he said. The organisation and staff work to be done by them – the donkey work to be done by us. Just like the army all over again.”
“Only better pay,” suggested Hazlerigg.
“That’s right, sir – thirty to fifty pounds a job, according to the overall takings, and two hundred to the wife and family if we went down. Well, after that nothing happened at all for about two months. I think Curly did a job or two during that time, anyway he had plenty of cash. Then one evening – at the back end of January, that would be – I got a call on the blower. Oh, I forgot to tell you, everyone who works for this mob has got a ‘safe’ telephone number – I don’t mean the telephone in their own house, in fact, usually not. In my case it was a phone belonging to the bloke who kept a shop two along from where I lived. The mob fixed matters up with him somehow and when they wanted me they used to ring up and he would come across and get hold of me. It was a strictly one-way arrangement. I couldn’t call them up – in fact, I didn’t know any number to call.
“Anyway—that evening someone calls me up and says: ‘Hello, Andrews – are you free tonight?’ They didn’t give any name, but of course I knew who it was: why ? cos no one else was wise to this phoning arrangement.
“’Okay,’ I said. ‘When and where?’
“’Now,’ they said. ‘Right away. Be at Green Park Underground Station in twenty minutes.’
“’Twenty minutes,’ I said. ‘That’s cutting it a bit fine, isn’t it? I shan’t even have time to get back to my place and pick up a hat and coat, and anyway, it takes more than twenty minutes on the bus at this time in the evening—be reasonable.’
“’Do what you’re told,’ said the voice – he sounded a bit narked. ‘You won’t need a hat or a coat. And take a taxi. You’ll pick one up at the end of the road. We’ll be expecting you. Goodbye; Clunk!’ Just like that. Well, I thought, it’s a queer way of doing business, but in for a penny in for a pound. I stepped right out of the shop and there – ten yards up, just turning the corner, was an empty taxi. Here’s a bit of luck, I thought, and hopped in – of course it wasn’t luck really. I’m just telling you what I thought.”
“Quite so,” said Hazlerigg patiently. “I suppose the taxi be
longed to the crowd you were working for.”
“That’s right – I got to know the old bird who was driving it later, he was one of their regulars. Well, twenty minutes later to the dot, I turned up at the Underground Station and the taxi driver – that’s the first time I tumbled to it he must be in on the game – wouldn’t take any fare – he just pointed to a kid who was standing beside the station entrance and said: ‘That’s the person who wants you,’ and drove away.
“Well, then, this kid—”
“Can you describe him, please?” said Hazlerigg.
Andrews looked a bit blank at this simple request.
“There isn’t much to describe,” he said at last. “Don’t think I’m trying to hold anything up – he had a plain sort of face, young, but tough looking – rather white. I thought he must be about twenty – perhaps a bit less. He certainly talked tough—”
Here McCann interrupted.
“Did he use a lot of American expressions—I don’t mean that he was a Yank, but the sort of stuff he might have picked up by going to the films?”
“That’s quite right,” said Gunner, “he did. That’s what I meant when I said he talked tough. Well, to cut a long story short, we did a job together that night – I expect you’ve got the details here,” he added with a grin. “It was a little office near the Angel, we took the safe away on a porter’s hand trolley. I never saw what was inside the safe, but judging from the newspapers next morning the old boy must have been in the money-lending line. We just dumped it in the taxi – not the one that took me to Green Park, another one. Softest job I ever had any part of. It didn’t take above ten minutes from the time we broke open the passage window at the back to the time we opened the front door from the inside and wheeled the safe out into the street. Ten seconds to hoist it into the taxi, and bob’s your uncle! The kid faded out and I walked quietly home to kip. Got fifty pounds for that job; came by post the next morning, in one pound notes. I burnt the envelope as soon as I got the money – according to instructions; and paid half the cash into my Savings account – the one I had opened for my gratuity – and most of the rest I used to pay a few bills; I told people I’d had a bit of luck on the dogs.
They Never Looked Inside Page 11