They Never Looked Inside

by Michael Gilbert

  McCann remembered something.

  “I was surprised,” he said, “that you risked a telephone call to me today on the public line.”

  There was a moment of shocked silence, and then Hazlerigg and Inspector Pickup both started to say something at the same time and both thought better of it. Hazlerigg looked more than usually like the Great Protector – in one of his Drogheda and Wexford moods – Pickup was scarlet.

  “Oh dear,” said McCann to himself. An intimate acquaintance with service life told him exactly what had happened. It was plain that Detective Inspector Pickup was going to be on the receiving end of a thundering departmental rocket, and equally clear (by the rigid etiquette governing these matters) that the rocket could not be delivered in the presence of a third party.

  “This puts rather a different complexion on Polly’s jaunt this afternoon,” he said. “I can’t imagine what they wanted of her – anyway, thanks to the power of her lungs, they don’t seem to have got very far. I think I’d better hurry home and be there when the old girl gets back.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Hazlerigg. “Keep in touch with us. In view of the latest development”—he shot a malevolent glance at Pickup, who seemed to be on the point of apoplexy—”we needn’t be so careful of approaching each other. If you want us, ring up my code number from a public box – or use a friend’s phone – your own line’s almost certainly tapped. I’ll get the post office on to tracing it back right away.”

  II

  When McCann reached the street in front of his flat he was still trying to puzzle out the reasons for such an extraordinary attack on his sister. Had They intended – a fantastic thought – to hold her as some sort of hostage? He was so deep in these meditations that he did not notice a shabbily dressed man busily doing nothing in the hall doorway of the next block to his own; a man who gave him a startled glance as he strode by, and then emitted a piercing and unmelodious whistle of the sort much favoured by errand boys with gaps in their front teeth but rarely employed by grown-up people.

  McCann ran on upstairs, seeing and hearing nothing.

  Two things jerked him suddenly back to reality. The front door of his flat was open – and beyond it, as he could see, at the end of the short front hall, the living room door was shut.

  Now Miss McCann, as her brother knew, was a careful householder, most unlikely to leave her front door unlocked. Further, out of regard for her sedate Persian cat, she made a practice, when going out, of leaving the living room door ajar so that the careful beast might have the run of the ash-bucket in the kitchen.

  McCann pondered these auguries for a moment and then stepped quietly into the little hall – and shut the front door behind him.

  Three or four steps took him to the living room door; and again he waited.

  From inside the room came one of those tiny, indefinable noises which suggest human presence – the creak of shoe leather, the click of an ankle joint, the brush of cloth against a table edge.

  McCann turned the handle, kicked the door open, and stepped inside.

  At the far end of the room, crouching against the bureau, was one of the nastiest, oiliest, curliest specimens of South European that McCann had ever seen. The opened drawers and spilt contents of the bureau told their own story. A cash box, its lid forced back, stood like a half-submerged rock among a sea of scattered papers.

  From outside in the street, three stories below, came another despairing whistle.

  “I expect that’s your friend whistling to you,” said McCann conversationally.

  The intruder seemed to make up his mind reluctantly. He straightened up from his crouching position, and it was now apparent that he held a knife in his right hand.

  The sight was a tonic to McCann.

  If it had been a gun, his tactics would have been subject to drastic revision. As it was, the prospect was simple, enlivening and colourful.

  The man was quite obviously armed with a weapon which he had not the faintest idea how to use. It was a Commando knife and he was holding it as a man might hold a date-stamp, with the business end downwards and his fingers curled round the handle.

  McCann picked up a solid dining room chair, canted up the legs, and launched himself enthusiastically forward. He weighed nearly fifteen stone, and, coming the full length of the room, by the time he arrived his momentum was considerable. The chair caught the intruder just off centre – its upper leg paralysing his right arm and one, at least, of its lower legs landing with a satisfactory sound in the more than ample stomach.

  For a second the man stood pinned against the desk.

  Then his knife wavered ineffectually forward. McCann, still leaning on the chair, kicked hard in an upwards direction. It was not a gentlemanly thing to do; he was not feeling gentlemanly.

  His uninvited guest gave a scream like the Flying Scotsman passing through Market Harborough and the knife dropped to the floor.

  Judging the time to be ripe, McCann released his pressure on the chair and his visitor sagged to the ground, where he lay moaning.

  Slipping from the room, McCann returned quickly with a leather strap from his valise and a cricket club tie (the colours of which he had never really liked), and in less time than it takes to tell, the stout gentleman – closer inspection suggested that he might be a Greek – was lying on the sofa, his hands and feet tied in a neat bundle behind his back.

  He was still bubbling gently.

  The Major moved over to the window. The shabbily dressed gentleman had disappeared. All was quiet.

  “Here,” thought McCann, “is where fact and fiction part company. If I am Bulldog Drummond or the Saint or even one of the Four Just Men, my next step is childishly simple. Here I have one of the other side delivered into my hand. He is clearly a yellow rat. The merest suggestion of the application of a lighted match to the sole of his foot and he will tell me all he knows. He will reveal the name of the Great White Chief and the headquarters of the gang – whereupon I shall proceed to the latter and demolish the former.”

  Fortunately – or perhaps unfortunately – there are two distinct types of people. Those who can torture a fellow being and those who can’t. The Major belonged, by operation of nature, to the second group, and his convictions on the subject had been fortified by certain glimpses of recently liberated France. He remembered in particular a quiet house in the back streets of Rouen, with its iron rings in the wall and criss-cross channels in the cement floor – a house which no Frenchman would ever inhabit again as long as memory lasted.

  He trudged downstairs to the call-box and rang up Scotland Yard.

  Inspector Pickup arrived in a squad car, and his face lighted up when he saw the figure on the sofa. “Why, Soapy,” he said cordially, “this is an unexpected pleasure; it really is, now. You’re entertaining quite a celebrity, Major. Soapy the Greek. So called from his habit of opening Yale locks with soft soap and paraffin wax.”

  Leaving a sergeant to remove the Major’s tie and belt and replace them with a more orthodox pair of handcuffs, Pickup led the way out into the hall.

  “That’s his trademark,” he said. Looking closely, McCann could see signs of waxy film across the face of the lock.

  “It’s really very simple,” said Pickup, “like all great inventions. You force-feed the mixture into the front of the lock. Then, next time the door is opened by the householder, all the little spring-loaded tumblers, which normally act as catches, get caught up and stuck in the wax – see? All you need then to open the door is a blank key. They may have done the actual waxing weeks ago – you wouldn’t notice it unless you were expecting it.”

  “They don’t tell nobody nothing these days,” said McCann. “What does the prudent householder do next?”

  “The prudent householder,” said Pickup, “fits a mortice lock as well – and uses it. Yes, what is it, Sergeant?”

  “I’ve searched him, sir. Usual private possessions, then there’s these three blank Yales on a ring, and I fou
nd this knife on the floor.”

  “Yes,” said McCann with a grin, “he dropped it.”

  “Also this notebook, sir.”

  The notebook revealed nothing of startling interest except that on the last page there was a memorandum – evidently made in haste, presumably by Soapy himself. It consisted of McCann’s name and address – followed by one word: “Urgent”. Pickup considered this for a moment solemnly. Then he said: “I suppose that this is what Soapy took down over the telephone – they read out your name and address – and then someone said: ‘This is an urgent job, Soapy, a very urgent job . . .!’”

  “That’s right,” said McCann. “What about it?”

  “Well—” said Pickup slowly, “if you’re urgent to them – then you’re urgent to us. I think you’d better come along down with me to the Yard.”

  “I’ve got to leave a message for my sister – she’ll be here at any moment.”

  “Leave it with the constable – he’ll be stopping here—”

  “All right,” said McCann, impressed in spite of himself by this evidence of his own importance, “so long as he doesn’t scare the old lady into fits.”

  Pickup turned to the Sergeant. “Put Soapy in the car – we’ll have to drop him at the station and see to charging him. Detail one of your men to stay here. I’ll have him relieved by a local as soon as I can. Ready, sir? Come along then.”

  “So he was Urgent now, was he?” thought McCann, as he finished scribbling out a note for his sister. “Urgent – Handle with Care – Fragile.”

  III

  Down at the Yard there was a sort of family reunion in progress. Besides Hazlerigg, Monsieur Bren was there. He looked a little tired – as in fact he was, since he had been travelling for the last forty-eight hours, most of the time on his feet. In the visitor’s chair there was seated a full colonel of the British Army, wearing staff tabs and the ribbon of the Distinguished Service Order. Hazlerigg effected the introductions.

  “Major McCann – this is Colonel Hunt, from the War Office. He’s got a job for you.”

  “Good God,” said McCann, “has war broken out again?”

  The Colonel displayed his white teeth in two inches of regulation military smile and said: “Not quite.”

  He was, in fact, one of those excellent staff officers produced by this war: brave, capable of working indefinitely for eighteen hours a day, and fortunate in being completely devoid of any sense of humour.

  “I have at last been able to regularise your position,” said Hazlerigg, and the relief in his voice was apparent. The Colonel looked up and nodded his approval of the sentiment. As an army man he sympathised with Hazlerigg. He himself had spent some of his worst moments of the war trying to regularise the position of numbers of unpredictable territorial officers.

  “Monsieur Bren,” went on Hazlerigg, “has succeeded in establishing, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the proceeds of these robberies have left England by military routes – unknown of course to the military authorities.”

  The Colonel nodded again.

  “We are not yet quite certain in what form the stuff leaves the country – but it reaches France and Italy in the possession of soldiers returning from leave in this country. Foreign valuables from those two countries are probably coming in on the same route.”

  “That I have not established,” said M. Bren.

  “It’s a fair presumption,” said Hazlerigg, “but we’ll let it go for the moment. The point is this. In the near future we shall have to investigate the whole Medloc Leave Line from Milan until it touches England – in particular the Medloc Camps at Dieppe and Ostend. To do this properly we shall need army co-operation.”

  The Colonel nodded once more.

  “In short,” said Hazlerigg, “we’ve asked for a liaison officer – and you’re it.”

  “But,” said McCann, “I mean—I’d love to do it, but I’m not in the army any longer—even my demob, leave’s over. It ended last month—I’m right out now.”

  Colonel Hunt smiled the tolerant smile of the expert.

  “You’re forgetting,” he said, “that you hold a Territorial Commission, not an Emergency one.”

  “Good God,” said McCann. “So I do—but I imagined it had ceased to function.”

  “His Majesty’s Commission,” said the Colonel, a thought severely, “never ceases to function. You will naturally have to revert to your substantive rank of lieutenant. You will receive pay and allowances directly from us – you have permission to wear civilian clothes – you will act entirely under Chief Inspector Hazlerigg’s orders. If any technical questions arise, you can refer them direct to me. I think that’s all – goodbye, Inspector. I can find my own way out, thank you. Goodbye, McCann.”

  “Goodbye,” said Lieutenant McCann dazedly.

  There was a period of silence whilst the vacuum, caused by the Colonel’s departure, filled in slowly.

  “Well, Chief,” said McCann at last, “what’s the next move?”

  “My first tentative suggestion is that you find yourself a new lodging. Your present one is a little too popular for our purposes. But, of course, there’s your sister to think of. If you go, I suppose she’ll hardly like to live in the flat alone. Hasn’t she some relations she could stay with?”

  “That shows how little you know about my sister,” said McCann. “Hitler, Hell and High-water have failed to move her – she won’t be likely to shift for a mere gangster. Seriously, though, if I go, I take it there’s no reason to suppose that they’ll worry her. The point of this afternoon’s business is now pretty clear. They just wanted her out of the way whilst they searched the flat.”

  “All right,” said the Inspector. “I expect you’re right. Any idea where you are going to stay yourself?”

  “Yes,” said McCann, “I think I have.”

  11

  Casting Wide

  When McCann reported for duty at the Yard the next day, he was experiencing a feeling of well-being and tightness with the world not entirely attributable to the fine spring morning.

  Possibly it arose from the comforting fact that he was once more on His Majesty’s payroll.

  The evening before he had “fixed” his sister, who, as he had predicted, had entirely refused to budge. “I’ve got a special job with the police,” he explained, “and I’m afraid it will mean moving into lodgings down somewhere nearer to the centre of London.”

  “You’ll be a special constable, then?”

  “Something like that,” said McCann.

  “It’s cold weather for walking a beat,” said the old lady. The patriotic and romantic impulses of her youngest brother had long since ceased to amaze her. “I expect I’ll be hearing from you from time to time. I doubt you’ll be lucky to find lodgings, though.”

  McCann packed a suitcase, selected a handful of his old favourites from the bookcase, and got out his car. After a short drive round the Heath to throw off any possibility of pursuit, he turned his nose towards town. He reached the Leopard at closing time and sought out Miss Carter.

  “Why, certainly,” she said. “We’d love to have you here. You can take the back room on the second floor. The gentleman who had it left this morning to get married. One thing, I’m afraid we don’t get up very early here. Breakfast’s never before nine.”

  “That’s the time I like my breakfast,” said the Major. One of the minor irritations of living with his sister had arisen from the fact that she was an eight o’clock breakfaster.

  His bed, he discovered, was an involute affair of iron and brass with a basis formed of rigid steel diamonds. It appeared to have been made cast in one piece, at about the time of the Great Exhibition.

  He slept dreamlessly.

  II

  At ten-thirty the next morning, as we have seen, he was in Hazlerigg’s room once again.

  He found the Chief Inspector sitting at an otherwise empty desk working on something that looked like an operation order.

  “I’m tr
ying,” he said, “to figure out the timetable of what happened yesterday. This is the result so far.”

  McCann read:

  (1) 2.10 Scotland Yard telephone Major McCann. The call is intercepted by “A”.

  (2) ? “A” communicates with his Chief.

  (3) ? The Chief communicates with Soapy and tells him to raid McCann’s flat in search of information.

  (4) 2.40 An unknown person telephones Miss McCann and induces her to leave the house.

  (5) 3.20 Major McCann is telephoned by his sister from Highgate Police Station.

  (6) 3.35 (or thereabouts) Major McCann disturbs Soapy at work in his flat. N.B. Pickup says that judging from the papers on the floor and allowing for a short time taken to open the lock, Soapy must have been there at least half an hour.

  “Well,” said Hazlerigg, “what do you make of it?”

  “Really efficient work, no doubt of it. If Polly hadn’t broken away so smartly and phoned me here, I shouldn’t have left for another half-hour, and even then I shouldn’t have taken a taxi or hurried home. No wonder Soapy was so annoyed when I turned up.”

  “It was smart work all right,” said Hazlerigg, “but that wasn’t quite what I meant. Look at the time factor. In particular, what time do you suggest for items (2) and (3) in the schedule?”

  “Well, wouldn’t that rather depend on whether it was Soapy himself who intercepted the telephone call or a third party?”

  “I don’t think for a moment that it was Soapy. That Greek was their high-class lock expert. I don’t quite see him sitting on a telephone line all day.”

  “In that case—well, let’s assume that item (2) took place pretty quickly—say two-fifteen.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then the Big Boy – though he does seem to be a hustler – would need a little time to think things out and lay on the reception committee for Polly in Gospel Oak. Let’s say he got hold of Soapy at two-thirty. Soapy would start out at two-forty-five—and arrive at my flat at about three o’clock. That fits in all right.”