They Never Looked Inside

by Michael Gilbert

  Here the under-secretary made a sort of humming noise, presumably to indicate that the appreciation was official.

  “—Monsieur Bren has been in charge of this side of the investigation. By a process of elimination he was able to convince us that the route by which the goods left the country and the proceeds were brought back, was the leave and demobilisation route from Milan, in Italy, through Switzerland, to Ostend and Dieppe, and so across the Channel.

  “Our first notion was simply that the goods were disposed of abroad. After examination, however, we discarded the idea. I’m not suggesting that a ready market could not be found for valuables abroad, but the real difficulty was that payment for them would then have been made in foreign currency – Italian, German or French. This would have presented no obstacle if the gang had been operating from one of those countries, but we were convinced that this was not so. We knew, with practical certainty, that the overall direction was English, and the eventual pay-off was taking place in England, and therefore in English money.

  “I won’t bother you with a summary of the arguments bearing on this point, because they are now out of date. We have, I think, discovered the correct modus operandi of the group – thanks largely to the efforts of Monsieur Bren and an army liaison officer who was working with him.

  “The system is really very simple. The principal object of the burglaries was to obtain gold. Gold or gold alloy. These metals were used here, in England, for the making of English sovereigns. It was a unique form of coining since the article which the forgers were producing had probably more gold in it than the standard minted sovereign itself.

  “However, as you all know, it is not just the amount of gold in it which gives the sovereign its unique position on the Continent today. Its prime value comes, of course, from its negotiability and its—well, for want of a better term I will call it, reliability. It is hard to strike an exact figure but I see from the latest reports that a sovereign is worth approximately twenty-five pounds in Amsterdam, rather more in Brussels, and thirty pounds in Rome.

  “The agent at Dieppe who handled these sovereigns – he’s in the custody of the French police, by the way – tells us that approximately fifty packages, each containing two hundred sovereigns, have been dealt with by him alone. We believe that a similar number may have been carried on the Ostend route.

  “In total, gentlemen, this gives the group a purchasing power, on the continental market, of certainly not less than half a million pounds.”

  McCann, who had obtained a seat at the conference through the good graces of Colonel Hunt, was interested to observe that, for the first time, a flicker of real animation had passed across the well-schooled countenance of the permanent civil servant. His lips seemed to savour the words “a cool half-million”.

  “Our next efforts were directed to discovering what was being purchased with this money, and it is possible that we have not yet got the full answer. One of the lines, however, has now become tolerably clear. They are purchasing foreign jewellery.”

  Here the under-secretary was clearly on the point of breaking into coherent speech, but Hazlerigg forestalled him.

  “I know what you are going to say,” he said. “Why go to such absurdly roundabout lengths? Why steal jewellery in England, turn it into cash, smuggle the cash abroad, purchase more jewellery, and smuggle it back into England?”

  Since this was precisely what the under-secretary had been going to say, he contented himself with a dignified cough.

  “The point is this,” went on Hazlerigg. “Having all this money at their disposal the gang were able to purchase not only jewellery, but also the integrity of the jewellery-owner. There was one market above all others which lay wide open to them. The rich and noble of the pre-war period. Men and women whose nobleness was becoming a little part-worn and who were not nearly as rich as they had formerly been. French ‘ducs’ and ‘comtes’ whose conduct during the German occupation had been, to say the least of it, not entirely above suspicion – as Monsieur Bren will tell you, there were quite a number of those.”

  “Of a certainty,” said M. Bren. He added a couple of descriptive epithets which fortunately were outside the school-French vocabularies of those present.

  “Italian ‘marchesas’ and ‘contessas’, most of whose wealth lay now in family jewellery, carefully hidden, first from the German army and then, I am afraid, from the British and American armies as well. People who were anxious to sell, but deeply mistrustful of the currencies of their own country. People, in short, who would sell only for gold, and above all for gold in the supremely negotiable form of English sovereigns.

  “You will see how the system worked if I mention one case which came to our notice. The organisation, by an agent, approached the Contessa di Alto-Cavallo and made a round offer of two thousand sovereigns for the best of her jewellery, including the Prebendini family rubies. The offer was, in itself, an attractive one being equivalent, in Italian currency, to about sixty thousand pounds. But they offered her an additional five hundred sovereigns for a statement sworn before a notary that the jewels had been lodged in England before the war. This statement also established that the present beneficial owner of the jewels was an English subject. This removed the last obstacle to their open sale in the English market.”

  “Wait a minute,” said the Commissioner. He turned to the man on his left and said: “Can we take it, Sir Charles, that that represents the law on the subject?”

  Sir Charles Bladderwick was one of the legal advisers to the Home Office and not to be rushed.

  “That would depend,” he said, “on the weight given by our courts to a document sworn before a foreign notary. Without going too deeply into International Law—”

  “Quite so,” said the Commissioner, “but supposing the matter never came into court at all?”

  “If it appeared that the chattels in question were in England at the date of Italy’s entry into the war, and if it appeared that they were in the beneficial possession of an English national, and provided that there was no question of the bona fides of the transaction, then I do not think that the Administrator of Enemy Property would be able to move—”

  “In short,” said the Commissioner, who knew Sir Charles fairly well, “you agree. That’s splendid. On you go, Inspector.”

  “There’s not much to add,” said Hazlerigg. “The result of the manoeuvre was just this. The gang had obtained the benefit of being able to sell their stuff on the open market instead of having to peddle it through crooked dealers.

  “The difference in the prices which they could now command was beyond estimation. For example, a diamond ring of a pre-war value of a thousand pounds would fetch a hundred to a hundred and fifty pounds from a fence – a receiver of stolen goods – perhaps a little more. Sold openly, in the present market – which is a ‘buyer’s market’ for all forms of precious stones – well, it might make two thousand pounds. I know that they got twenty thousand pounds for the Prebendini rubies alone. There’s no secret about the matter – I was present when they were auctioned at Duke’s last month.”

  “Thank you,” said the Commissioner. “I wanted you to hear all that,” he went on, turning to the Home Office representative, “so that you could appreciate our difficulties.”

  “That last point,” said the permanent under-secretary, “the importation of well-known foreign jewels – I suppose you’re ab-so-lutely sure of your facts?”

  “Yesterday,” said Hazlerigg, “we intercepted a package of jewellery—no, we didn’t catch the carrier, we bluffed him into dumping the stuff and then we picked it up. A pair of diamond bracelets made identification easy; you see, they were more than famous—they were historic. They once belonged to Marie Antoinette.”

  “Good God,” said Sir Charles, “then they must be the property of the Duc de—”

  “Exactly.”

  “It amounts to this,” said the Commissioner. “Once the stuff’s safely in this country, our hands are tied.�
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  “Can’t you have the men who carry it watched?” suggested the permanent under-secretary.

  Hazlerigg said patiently: “We’ve no idea who does carry it, sir. Different men almost every time.”

  Colonel Hunt spoke apologetically.

  “Please don’t imagine,” he said, “that they have corrupted the entire British Army. We think that fifty or sixty men are involved. Many of them would no doubt draw the line at smuggling drugs or even currency. But the matter is put to them in a most sympathetic light. They are shown the jewels which they have to carry and are told that they are helping out some noble but impoverished family – which of course is more or less true.”

  “Add to that,” said Hazlerigg, “that the risk is negligible and the pay is high.”

  “I can quite see how it was worked,” said the under-secretary. “Frankly, it’s your suggestion for dealing with it that alarms me. The country’s in a very unsettled state about government interference. Couldn’t you achieve your objects by increased strictness at the Customs?”

  “Impossible,” said the Commissioner. “These people aren’t amateurs. Those bracelets which the Chief Inspector has mentioned – they were hidden in a specially contrived cache in the bottom of an army issue water-bottle. I’ve got the thing here. A most ingenious piece of work. What chance do you think a Customs officer would have with stuff hidden like that, and leave men passing through his hands at the rate of five hundred a day? No. I’m afraid this is the only way.”

  “I’ll talk about it to the Minister,” said the under-secretary unhappily.

  “Passed to you,” murmured McCann.

  II

  That was Wednesday.

  On Friday the storm broke. The early editions of the midday papers had it in the stop press; the later editions gave it the full front page.

  GREAT MEDLOC HOLD-UP FRENCH AND ENGLISH POLICE, C.M.P.s, IN SMUGGLING DRIVE

  At nine o’clock this morning every train on the Medloc route from Milan to Dieppe and Ostend was halted and boarded by the police. The raid was carried out by the French police assisted by the regular C.M.P. force, strengthened by C.I.D. operatives and a special team of English, French and Italian Customs officials.

  Early reports speak of the extraordinary thoroughness and severity of the search. All the trains were taken off the main line and driven into sidings and at the time of writing they have not yet been allowed to proceed.

  It is now confirmed that only the home-coming traffic is affected. Nine trains are involved, and an official estimate places the number of men in them at nearly three thousand.

  No official reason has been given for this drastic step . . . Liberties of the Individual . . . Gestapo Tactics . . . Slaves or Freemen? (See Editorial Comment.)

  McCann read out the paragraph to Miss Carter.

  “Even if they find nothing at all,” he said, “it ought to frighten the soldiers who carry the stuff. I don’t suppose they’ll get many volunteers after a showdown on this scale.” As he spoke the telephone bell rang.

  “Scotland Yard here,” said an impersonal voice. “Is that Major McCann ? An urgent conference. At once, sir, if you please.”

  III

  At nine o’clock on that same Friday morning disturbing things happened at the premises of Mr. Leopold Goffstein, Furrier, of Flaxman Street and Berkeley Square. The office was a modest one, consisting of two rooms; an outer one in which Miss Purvis, the secretary, pounded her typewriter, and an inner sanctum, in which, presumably, Mr. Goffstein pondered on the mysteries of the fur trade. Miss Purvis was already seated at her desk, powdering her nose in preparation for the day’s toil, when the doorbell rang. “See who it is, Sam,” she commanded languidly.

  The infant Samuel scuttled across the room and opened the door. A small thickset man stood outside.

  “Leopold at home?” he inquired cheerfully.

  “Mr. Goffstein’s not here now . . .” began Samuel.

  “Who is it?” said Miss Purvis plaintively. “What does he want, Sam?”

  “It’s the police, miss,” said Inspector Pickup pleasantly. “And I expect we shall probably want you—” Samuel goggled, first at the detective and then at the two uniformed policemen who seemed to fill the small office; Miss Purvis was too flabbergasted to do more than sit and stare.

  “Now—what’s that you say about Goffstein?”

  “Oh, that’s quite right,” cried Miss Purvis. “If it’s Mr. Goffstein you want, sir, I’m afraid we can’t help you. I mean, I would help you if I could, but I can’t. He left last week.”

  “What d’you mean, ‘left’?” said Pickup severely. “This is his office, isn’t it? That’s his name on the door.”

  “Oh yes. Inspector. It’s his name—but it’s not his office. You see, he sold the business at the beginning of last week—that was to a Mr. Jacoby—Mr. Constantine Jacoby. Then he stayed behind for a few days (Mr. Goffstein, I mean) to show Mr. Jacoby how to run things, and last Saturday he went away.”

  “Where’s Jacoby?”

  “Oh, he isn’t here either. I believe he has a number of fur businesses like this. He comes down here sometimes to collect letters, but mostly we hear from him by telephone. He’ll probably ring up some time this morning.”

  “I see,” said Inspector Pickup. As, indeed, he did. “I suppose Mr. Goffstein left no forwarding address? No. And Mr. Jacoby, he comes here, but you haven’t got an address for letters—he just comes here and picks them up? Quite so. And he telephones you, but you don’t telephone him. In fact, you’ve looked through the telephone book but you couldn’t find anyone of that name and initials. Strange. Have you the key of the inner door? Thank you, don’t bother. We’ll manage for ourselves. And Miss Purvis—I must ask you not to leave the office without my permission. You or the boy. That’s right. You sit down and have a good cry.”

  “Speaking from Goffstein’s office, sir,” said Inspector Pickup. “The bird’s flown. He pulled out last Saturday, lock, stock and barrel. Transferred the business to a stooge. Yes, I shouldn’t think there’s a paper left in the place—except genuine business stuff. I’ll have it sorted, of course. And I’m holding the two people here—a woman and a boy. I don’t suppose they know anything, though.”

  Hazlerigg’s voice came thinly over the line: “. . . any sign of a wire?”

  “I was coming to that, sir. This desk is pretty dusty—I shouldn’t think it’s been touched for a week. I can see marks on the right of the blotting pad—might easily have been made by a second telephone. Then there’s a long, light mark in the paintwork on the top of the wainscoting, and a hole in the floor-boards beside the window. I think that’s what we want.”

  “I see. That’s very good.”

  Hazlerigg’s voice sounded cheerful, though a situation was, in fact, developing which might have tried any man’s nerve. In front of him, at the Yard, the teletype reports from France were piling up. And they all spelt one word.

  Failure.

  Plenty of cameras, bottles of spirits, a few illegal firearms, Lugers, Walthers and Birettas, probably battle souvenirs. Considerable surprise and resentment amongst the troops concerned. One contingent had staged a sit-down strike and were refusing to re-entrain.

  Five minutes before, he had listened to M. Bren on the cross-Channel line. The Frenchman had been most definite.

  “There’s nothing there,” he said. “I myself assure you.”

  “All right,” said Hazlerigg. “Play the hand out. No apologies and no retractions. I recommend disciplinary action where firearms have been discovered. That’s up to the military. Smuggling offences will have to be paid for.”

  The significance of the failure, however, was startling. If the conveyor belt was empty, then it was a fair assumption that the factory was closing down.

  Temporarily – or finally? That was the urgent question.

  Pickup’s news was another straw in the wind. It was possible, of course, that Goffstein had simply moved his headquart
ers. That would be consistent with the known habits of the gang.

  But there was a second, less comfortable, explanation. In front of him on the desk lay McCann’s last report. This now assumed an added significance.

  Yes – he would have to be quick.

  He was aware that Pickup was waiting for instructions.

  “Leave one man to search the office,” he said. “I want you to raid the Atomic Club—get Divisional help. Take enough men to do the job thoroughly. Pay particular attention to the rooms on the second floor—and hold anyone up there who doesn’t seem to have any obvious connection with the Club itself. I’ll send a Post Office man to meet you. I think you’ll find there’s a line connection between the Atomic and Goffstein’s office. Bring away any black-market booze or other stuff. From what I hear there’s enough to send them all down. The proprietress is a Mrs. Purcell. Now listen. I don’t want her held. Frighten her; let her go, and have her followed. I shall be standing by here until this thing breaks.”

  To McCann, when he arrived, Hazlerigg said without preamble: “I’ve been re-reading this report on your activities at the Atomic Club. You mention a man who met you on the second floor landing and warned you off the premises. You don’t give him a name. Did you know his name, by any chance?”

  “No, I only met him on those two occasions – as you were – three occasions. At the Club, at that hat shop, and I remember him getting chucked out of the Leopard one night. I gather he was quite a well-known local character – youngish, fair haired, rather a pansy type. Everyone called him ‘Ronnie’, but I don’t suppose it was his real name.”

  “I’m afraid you’re wrong,” said Hazlerigg. “It’s my guess that it was his real name. Sergeant Ronald Catlin. He’s been working that area under cover for years. One of our ‘ghosts’.”