They Never Looked Inside

by Michael Gilbert

  “Well, that’s how it went every time, smooth as clockwork – barring that last unfortunate bull-up which you gentlemen know of. I did four jobs all told. The second was like the first – an office job. I met the same kid – at Leicester Square Underground on this occasion. The only difference was that I got more warning this time. They were thoughtful enough to ring me up the night previous. Third time it was a jeweller’s shop in Kentish Town High Street—and last time—well, you know all about that.

  “For the Kentish Town job and the Oxford Street job I worked with another kid – even younger. I called him Rod – I don’t know if that was his real name. I could describe him a bit better—”

  “All right,” said Hazlerigg. “We’ve got him.”

  He ran through his own notes for a second, referred to the cards from the open files beside him, and then said: “The first two times you stole the complete safe and you tell us it was carried away in a taxi so that you don’t know what happened to it. The third time – in Kentish Town – you opened a steel show case and carried off a large collection of watches, rings and sovereigns – estimated by the Insurance Company to be worth about £900. That must have been quite a little pile. What did you do with them?”

  “We had canvas containers – same as the time you caught me. We carried the stuff in those, half each, under our coats. Next morning about half-past nine we went round to Notting Hill Gate Underground Station and met Curly. We walked out into Kensington Gardens and sat down on the grass – quite safe really; no one in the whole park at that time of the morning barring a nursemaid and a kid or two – and we took the stuff out and Curly put it in a suitcase – where he took it to, I couldn’t say.”

  “The South Kensington Headquarters,” suggested McCann. “They were still functioning at that time.”

  Hazlerigg nodded – he ticked off another question on his list.

  “How many people in the organisation did you actually meet, from first to last?”

  Andrews considered.

  “Apart from Curly,” he said, “there was the young chap I worked with the first two times – I never knew his name at all. Then there was Rod, who did the next job with me; and he was the one who was working with me when I was caught. Then there was two taxi drivers – one who picked me up the first time, and another, a funny old stick, who drove me on the two safe jobs. I think I should recognise him all right if I saw him again. No—I didn’t get the cab number—why should I? Who ever does take down taxi-cab numbers? And then, of course, there was that dago – I think he was a big shot.”

  “One last question,” said Hazlerigg. “Apart from the dago – and we’ll take you downstairs in a minute to see if you can put a name to him – apart from him did you meet anyone or see or hear of anyone who might have been running the show from the top?”

  “We all knew there was someone at the top – someone running the show. No one put a name to him. He was just the Boss or the Big Boy or the Old Man. Curly talked about him quite a lot but I don’t think he’d ever seen him. One thing, he must have been a—what d’you call it—chap who likes hurting—”

  “Sadist.”

  “That’s it – that’s what Curly said. A sadistic old b—, he called him. He was telling me about a police sergeant they caught and how he’d heard that the old man used his own cigarette lighter—”

  “That’ll do,” said Hazlerigg suddenly and harshly. After a moment he went on: “Anyhow, you’re sure you never met him. What about his associates?”

  “There was one chap—mind you, I’m only guessing; there was a billiard and snooker room in the City, Curly and I used to go there quite a bit and so did some of the other boys, I think. I don’t mean that I knew that they belonged to the mob but Curly was very friendly with a lot of them and it was the sort of place that the boys used to go to – it was in a courtyard off the Friars—”

  “Up two flights of stairs and so narrow you wondered how they ever got a full-sized billiard table up there,” said Pickup, speaking for the first time.

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s Ike Shaw’s place, sir – the one the Jewish brigade use.”

  “That’s right, too. The place was stiff with shonks. Well, as I’m telling you, I was there one afternoon with a lot of the boys when a big Sheeny came in – and don’t ask me to describe him, because I can’t. So far as I know there’s only two sorts of Jews, oily Jews and tough Jews, and this was a tough one – Benny seemed to be his name. Well, the boys were all round Benny like flies round the dog’s dinner – why, Ike himself bought him a drink, and if you knew Ike, you’d know what that meant.”

  “I see,” said Hazlerigg. “And you think that he might have been one of the bosses.” He pushed across a photograph of Mr. Goffstein, the fur expert, taken as that citizen was leaving his office in Flaxman Street. “Does this look anything like him?”

  Gunner shook his head. “Never met him.”

  “All right,” said Hazlerigg. “I’ve nothing more to ask you at present.” He paused for a moment in case the other two had some comment, and then went on: “The Inspector here will take you to look at some photographs. Thank you for what you’ve told us. I’ll see you don’t lose by it.”

  When the door had shut behind the Gunner he said: “What do you make of it – was he telling the truth?”

  “Oh, yes – I’d say that was the truth all right,” said Major McCann,” as far as he knew it.”

  “I agree. Anything strike you?”

  “Only the simple things which you probably know already.”

  “Let’s have them, anyway.”

  “There seem to be two, or even three, distinct sort of persons involved. First there’s the outsider, like Andrews and young Rod. Only I expect that most of the soldiers were deserters and very few of them went in for it simply for adventure and profit like Gunner.”

  “Yes; deserters would be easier to discipline – probably they had no identity cards or ration books, and had to live on what the mob gave them.”

  “And the youngsters would be kept quiet by a suitable mixture of vanity and fear – plenty of ready money and pats on the back and an occasional crack of the whip. Well then; inside them, but not at the centre, are a second group of people, who were trusted further or were in deeper – like Curly and the young terror who looked after me in Kensington. I should doubt if even they knew who the Big Boy was – he seems to have been quite remarkably coy – but they could get to him if necessary through his associates and his contacts.”

  “Right again,” said Hazlerigg. “And I suggest that we know three of this inner ring – Leo Goffstein, who looks after the information side, and the dago and the big Jew called Benny – it’s possible that they do the strong-arm stuff. Did it strike you that it may have been those two – or one or other of them – who knocked you out in Kensington?”

  McCann considered.

  “There wasn’t enough time for me to see them clearly, and the shop was pretty dark. All I can say for certain is that they were big men – one of them as big or bigger than me. And one of them, I think, had dark hair – that might fit the dago.”

  “They’re a careful crowd, aren’t they? You noticed the precautions they took with Andrews over his first job. They gave him no warning – just a phone message to come straight away. Suppose for a moment that he had been a nark – had wanted to tip us off. It wouldn’t have been easy. He wasn’t even allowed to go back to his own house – and the cab driver could have seen if he had used a call-box. After the first job I suppose they reckoned that he was well-hooked and relaxed their precautions accordingly.”

  Inspector Pickup reappeared and said: “I’ve left him at it – no luck so far.”

  Hazlerigg went on: “The greatest single safety factor operating in favour of these people is what you might call a certain calculated exclusiveness. Like the British Constitution. Between the executive and the legislature there is a great gulf fixed. We know a good deal now about the executio
n but precious little about the direction. Some lines are beginning to intersect – that’s all.”

  “And there’s always Sergeant Catlin,” said Pickup seriously.

  “Yes—of course, Sergeant Catlin and a great deal of theory. I believe that what we want now is a little more action—”

  With incredible aptness the inter-office telephone on Hazlerigg’s desk started to ring.

  Hazlerigg picked it up, listened for a moment, and then said, with some surprise: “It’s for you, Major—all right—put her through – here you are.”

  He handed over the telephone and McCann heard a voice so excited that he had difficulty in recognising it for that of his placid sister.

  “Angus,” the telephone cackled. “It’s me—I’ve been kidnapped. But it’s quite all right—”

  IV

  Miss McCann had been at home when the Yard so incautiously telephoned to her brother and had been much intrigued thereby. However, she belonged to a generation which placed self-control at the pinnacle of the virtues and had therefore refrained from asking questions.

  Twenty minutes later the phone bell had rung again.

  A courteous voice said: “Is that Miss McCann? This is the Secretary of the Ladies’ Bridge World speaking.”

  Miss McCann was flattered but not surprised. During the last few weeks she had been conducting an acrimonious correspondence, by letter, card and telephone, with the organisation in question on the subject of the ethics of the Blackwood four-no-trump, five-no-trump convention. The voice, however, was new to her.

  “You have shown such an intelligent interest in this matter, Miss McCann, that the Committee has decided to ask if you would care to attend their next meeting—”

  Miss McCann certainly would – when was it?

  “I’m afraid the notice is very short,” went on the voice sympathetically. “The meeting starts in half an hour’s time; if you are free this afternoon – possibly you could take a taxi – the Committee would, of course, defray all expenses. We are meeting at the Treasurer’s house – 14A Royal Albermarle Street in Gospel Oak – it’s really no great distance from Hampstead.”

  Miss McCann would, in fact, have said ‘Yes’ whatever the distance – she was a born committee woman. In the cause of contract bridge, she would even have paid her own taxi fare.

  In less than five minutes she was on her way. Royal Albermarle Street, despite its name, could never really have been described as a pretentious thoroughfare, and whatever royalty it might have possessed had long since departed. Deeply engaged though she was in formulating her arguments in favour of more ethical bidding at bridge. Miss McCann hesitated for a moment after dismissing her taxi in front of No. 14A. This was a particularly blind and dingy tenement, adorned, moreover, with a notice announcing that it was To Let.

  As she stood hesitating, her doubts were set at rest. A well-dressed, Hebraic gentleman walked past her on the pavement and turned into the front path of No. 14A. She hurried after him and caught up with him as he stood on the doorstep.

  “Are you a member of the Committee?”

  “That’s right,” said the Jew with a benevolent smile. “Are you Miss McCann?”

  “Yes, I am. I was doubtful for a minute whether I’d come to the right place – it seemed such an unexpected sort of house.”

  “Ah,” said the Jew, “but our treasurer is rather an unexpected sort of gentleman.” He ushered Miss McCann through the door, which had by this time been quietly opened; following through after her he gave her a most ungentlemanly push in the small of the back which sent her staggering up the hall, and whilst she was striving to recover her balance turned calmly round and bolted the door.

  “Take her upstairs, Jock.”

  Any lingering doubts which Miss McCann may have entertained, faded when she turned and caught sight of Jock. Jock, whatever other parts he may have played on Life’s stage, had quite clearly never attended a bridge conference. Born in a Glasgow close and nurtured in a boxing booth, he looked like the War Office ideal of a fighting infantry soldier, gone slightly to seed. He gestured up the stairs with one enormous blackened thumb and obediently Miss McCann followed him. They climbed two flights and then turned into a room with one small window overlooking the street and no furniture at all.

  The Jew paused at the doorway.

  “I’m sure you will be very sensible, Miss McCann,” he said. “Jock here will keep an eye on you.”

  Jock exposed his remaining teeth in a wintry smile.

  “We shan’t detain you for longer than we can help – you know what to do, Jock?”

  The two men conferred in whispers for a moment, and then the Jew went out. Miss McCann heard his feet going down the stairs and the slam of a door somewhere at the back of the house.

  The events of the next five minutes would probably never have taken place at all had not both sides been labouring under a delusion.

  Miss McCann, unlike her brother, had no knowledge of violence in its extreme manifestations; any ideas on the subject which she possessed were culled from the politer school of detective fiction in which it was an invariable rule that, happen what might, no real harm ever came to the innocent.

  Her gaoler, it was true, was a large and unpleasant-looking man but no larger than various porters who had carried her luggage for her at London railway stations, and less unpleasant looking than a drunken drayman whom she had once put in his place on New Year’s Eve in Glasgow.

  Jock, on his part, imagined that he was dealing with a frail and spiritless old lady. He little guessed that opposite to him stood a lineal descendant, getting on in years but in full possession of her faculties, of Flora Macdonald, the heroine of Scotland – and a woman in whose veins also ran the blood of a remarkable lady known as “Nut-cracker Janet” who, some eight hundred years before, had disposed of an unwanted husband by melting down a leaden ingot and pouring a spoonful of the mixture piping hot down that gentleman’s throat as he lay in bed one night with his mouth open.

  As the minutes passed, Miss McCann felt a dangerous contempt for her gaoler arising. That he should dare to coerce a member of one of the oldest families in Scotland – he – one of the lower classes (she was old-fashioned enough not to find the term incongruous).

  At this point inspiration visited her. Though the room, as has been said, was devoid of furniture, an ancient mirror still hung on the wall. Without moving her position more than a few inches, Miss McCann found that she could see the reflection of the street in front of the house. She noticed also that the front window, though closed, was unlatched.

  At that very moment the conjunction of events for which this shrewd old lady was hoping came about. Jock turned for a moment to extract another cigarette from the depths of his coat pocket – and, as she observed in the mirror, two working men who had been talking farther up the street, turned and started to approach the house.

  She uttered a brief prayer to her illustrious ancestress, and sprang nimbly across to the window.

  By the mercy of providence the old sash-cords were still sound.

  She flung open the bottom of the window, thrust her head and shoulders out, and started to scream.

  She felt two enormous hands round her waist, clung on desperately, gave a wild kick backwards, and redoubled her vocal efforts.

  It was a splendid, high-pitched, sustained scream. The two workmen stopped in their tracks. Windows started to open and distant pedestrians turned at the sound.

  Miss McCann felt that the pressure behind her was slackening – Jock was clearly losing grip. Having by now secured the attention of a large and growing audience she sealed it by ceasing to scream for a moment and ejaculating the single thrilling word: “Murder.”

  Even from two stories up she could hear the murmur of satisfaction which arose from her public.

  A thud of feet in the room behind her announced that Jock had abandoned the position and was making good his escape.

  The arrival of a policeman and the subse
quent explanations covered a period of about ten minutes. The policeman, though puzzled, acted with promptitude. A rapid search revealed the fact that 14A was quite empty.

  Miss McCann accompanied him back to the police station, with a section of the crowd still hopefully in pursuit.

  From there she rang up her brother – first at the flat, without success, and then, remembering the events of earlier in the afternoon, at Scotland Yard.

  10

  Rough Stuff

  When Miss McCann had concluded her epic account the Major said with unwonted warmth: “Bravo, Polly, old girl – go and get yourself a cup of tea somewhere.”

  He could sense, even over the telephone, that she was rattled, and it struck him that it would be a good thing if he hurried back and got home ahead of her.

  “There’s been some attempt to rob my sister,” he said to Hazlerigg. “As far as I can make out some blackguard rang up pretending to be a member of a bridge committee and lured Polly out to Gospel Oak. I haven’t got the full strength of it yet. You don’t think,” he added in sudden alarm, “that it was anything to do with this other business?”

  “Until we know a little more about the circumstances, it’s difficult to say. She was speaking from Highgate Police Station, wasn’t she? I’ll ask them for a full report. But I don’t really see how the two things could be connected – particularly as we’ve been so very careful so far never to associate you with the police—”