They Never Looked Inside

by Michael Gilbert

  “Because I recognised you.”

  “Explain that, please.”

  “I don’t expect you’ll believe this for a moment, but I first saw you months ago—at the end of last November at the — Hotel. I didn’t know it was you of course. I just—er— remarked on your face.”

  “All right,” said Mr. Brown. He seemed impervious to sneers as to heroics. “Go on.”

  “Some time after, you may remember, I followed the late but unlamented Blanco White to Kensington. Your usual method of receiving visitors seems to be to hit them with a blunt instrument. On that occasion you excelled yourselves, and I was knocked out twice. The second time, just as some person was about to come in at the door. Presumably, in fact, I was knocked out so that I should not be able to see who that person was. It didn’t quite work. I did see it—it was you.”

  The person who seemed to take this reminiscence least well was the Demon Child. No doubt he felt that it reflected on his professional skill. He started to protest, intercepted an urbane and thoughtful look from Mr. Brown, and desisted.

  “At the time,” went on McCann, “my idea of the connection between the two occasions was rather misty. I knew that I had seen your face before, and I knew that I should recognise it if I saw it again. This morning I saw it again.”

  Keep quiet about the photograph, thought McCann – it’s dynamite. Where the hell is Hazlerigg?

  “I see,” said Mr. Brown. “Not, as you say, a very likely story. So unlikely, in fact, that it might even be true. One further question. When you saw me and followed me this morning, were you alone?”

  “Yes—quite alone.” Stick to the truth if possible.

  “And you followed me on your own?”

  “Yes—considerably against my better judgment.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I wanted to get help,” said McCann, with what he hoped was a disarming candour. “You see—I remembered only too clearly what had happened last time I tried to play the hand on my own.”

  “Then why didn’t you get help?”

  “There was no time—I saw you in Berkeley Street. You were on foot. I picked up a taxi a minute after you did – in Davies Street – remember? I hadn’t time to do anything but keep on your tail.”

  “Yes?—and afterwards?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Surely it occurred to you to send your taxi driver back with a message for the police.”

  McCann felt that his mouth was unaccountably dry.

  “It should have occurred to me,” he said, “but, believe it or not, it never did.”

  “Since you offer me the choice,” said Mr. Brown, “I don’t believe you. By the way, I think that this is yours.”

  He threw down on the table a pound note.

  McCann felt sick. For some reason he found himself thinking of Sergeant Pollock, whom he had never met.

  “The note to Inspector Hazlerigg,” went on Mr. Brown, “I shall retain. It shall join my collection of famous last words.” The man was positively purring, bubbling over with pleasure. “Both taxi drivers were members of our little troupe, of course. That’s just a safety play – known in America as the double-taxi convention invented, I believe, by the redoubtable Dion O’Banion.”

  McCann tried to force himself to think.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked – and was himself surprised at the question. It certainly wasn’t what he had intended to say.

  “Curiosity,” said Mr. Brown gently, “seems to be your besetting sin. Since you ask, I shall probably set you in concrete and add you to the foundations of Waterloo Bridge – you have until tonight to think it over. Any alternative suggestions of an amusing nature which you may put forward will receive our closest attention. Take him up.”

  McCann staggered to his feet. His hip still hurt abominably. Jock gripped him professionally by the upper part of the left arm. The Jew fell in, two paces behind. In silence they climbed two flights of stairs and went down an uncarpeted passage until they reached the door at the end. This had a square grated hole cut in it, about two-thirds of the way up, and McCann noticed that the Jew took a quick look through this judas before stooping to unlock the door.

  “Here’s some company for you, Clarence,” he said, and at the same moment Jock shifted his grip and thrust McCann sharply forward.

  The door clanged shut, and the footsteps died away down the passage.

  McCann saw that he was not alone in the room. In the farthest corner, lying on a little pile of army blankets, was “Ronnie”.

  “Good God,” said Ronnie, climbing to his feet. “What are you doing here?”

  “I might ask you the same, Sergeant,” said McCann.

  “You know who I am, then,” said Ronnie.

  “I do now. I didn’t when I met you at the Atomic Club—you remember? What happened?”

  “Everything happened. Everything happened at once. I think they suspected me for some time. They nabbed me that night. I’ve been here for days—weeks.”

  “It’s certainly snug,” said McCann. In the relief at finding an ally his spirits were wonderfully restored.

  The room, in fact, was bare.

  Apart from the pile of blankets on which the Sergeant had been lying there was nothing at all. The windows were shuttered, the walls were of unplastered cement. The electric lights were inset behind thick glass, let into the high ceiling. It looked like a condemned cell.

  “Well,” said McCann, when he had completed this brief survey. “How do we get out?”

  Ronnie laughed mirthlessly.

  “That’s how I used to think, sir,” he said, “for the first few days. You’ll soon find out. This room wasn’t built to be got out of. Just take a look at those shutters, for a start. Steel shutters and steel bolts. Every bolt locked through on the outside – a lovely job.”

  “The door?”

  “It took me twenty-four hours to shift one of the panels. Look!” He held up his right hand and McCann saw the torn fingers. “Then I found out what I ought to have guessed before. It’s steel-lined – on the outside. The lock’s on the outside too, of course.”

  “The floor?”

  “I’ve made no impression on it yet – but you’re welcome to try – it’s six-inch oak boarding – but please don’t mention the ceiling – because we’ve nothing to stand on – and we’re neither of us fifteen feet high – and even if we could reach it the room above us is occupied.”

  McCann had seated himself with his back to the wall. Now he looked thoughtfully down at the youngster lying beside him – at the white face and the winking eyes.

  He selected his next question with some care.

  “Have these people—hurt you?” he said at last.

  Ronnie flushed. “No,” he said. “No, sir, they haven’t touched me. What made you—I mean, why did you say that?”

  “Just this,” said McCann equably, “that they seem, somehow, to have got you down. You’ve managed to convince yourself that the situation’s hopeless. You’ve done nothing but tell me the ways by which we can’t get out.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Ronnie. “Fact is, perhaps the morale was a bit low. It was being alone and not knowing where I was or how long I’d been here – or what was going to happen next. My watch stopped when I was unconscious – I didn’t know if it was night or day – they never put this light out, you see.”

  “Yes, I see.” McCann’s voice was hearteningly matter of fact. He was Major McCann once more. He was in charge.

  “How often do they come round?” he asked.

  “About once every two hours.”

  “Do they come in?”

  “Not unless they’re bringing me food or letting me out – that happens sometimes –quite good food, too.”

  “Then the other times—what happens?”

  “One of them just comes past the door and looks in.”

  “Let’s get this quite straight,” said McCann. “It may be important. At odd ti
mes in the day they come up and give you food—and let you out.”

  “Yes—down the corridor to the lavatory. On those occasions there have always been two of them.”

  “And this two-hourly visit of inspection – is that made by one man or two?”

  “Only one—hold it. Here he comes.”

  Footsteps sounded along the passage. McCann was aware of eyes regarding him through the grating. It was a careful examination, which took some minutes. Then the footsteps went slowly away. McCann looked at his watch. It was exactly one o’clock.

  “The food should be coming along soon,” said Ronnie.

  “I don’t think we shall get any food.”

  “Oh.” Ronnie looked up. He was not exactly scared, McCann decided. But his treatment of the last week – the efficiency and silence and impersonality of his gaolers – had served to sap his resistance. His courage was still intact, but his will-power was compromised.

  “I gather today may be our last day.”

  “I see.”

  “Have you picked up any ideas as to why they’ve been waiting here—and what they’re waiting for?”

  “Yes,” said Ronnie, “I think I know that. They closed the organisation last Saturday night. I think they meant to shut down anyway – when they found me smelling round the Atomic they called time at once.”

  “Then why haven’t they disappeared to the four corners of the earth with the proceeds – they could catch the boat-train tonight – for all we could do to stop them,” he added bitterly.

  “It’s not quite as simple as that, sir. Two of them are known. Goffstein – he’s in hiding somewhere in this house – there’s an ‘all-stations’ out against him—and that kid, I don’t know his name.”

  “Oh, the Child Menace—yes.”

  “The others would go if they could – but they haven’t got all the money in yet. There were to be three big sales all coming off this week – but one of the lots got lost – some French stones.”

  “Yes—we got those,” said McCann. “I’ll tell you about it in a moment. Go on. Are these the final sales?”

  “I think they must be,” said Ronnie. “Yes, I think they must be.”

  Final Clearance Sale, thought McCann. Damaged and unwanted stock. Item, one police sergeant the worse for confinement. Item one ex-army Major, last year’s model.

  Ronnie was talking.

  “—if that’s so, sir, we ought to think something out and do it pretty quick.”

  “I’ve done all the thinking,” said McCann simply. “It wasn’t difficult. There only is one plan. I’m taking your word for it that we can’t break out by ourselves—”

  “There’s no harm in trying, of course,” said Ronnie, “but I think we’ll be wasting our time.”

  “Exactly—then that only leaves one chance. We shall have to rush them when they come to fetch us.”

  “All right,” said Ronnie. “It’s not going to be easy. Whenever they came to let me out, one of them looked through the spy-hole first – to see that I wasn’t lying in wait for them behind the door or any boy-scoutery of that sort. Then he opened the door and came in – while the other stayed outside.”

  “That’s much what I thought,” said McCann calmly. “In fact that’s just the procedure I’d been banking on. If only two of them come, then we’ve an outside chance. If they send three—well, we might as well give them a run for their money. Now here’s how it goes. We’ll split this pile of blankets into two”—McCann suited the action to the words—”and lay out two beds, both against this wall, in full view of the door. It’s past one o’clock now – and it doesn’t get dark before six. We can expect to be looked at at three o’clock and five o’clock. At both those inspections I want the man to see the identical picture. You will be asleep on your bed – I shall be squatting on mine, with my legs tucked under me, thinking hard about nothing. All right so far?”

  “Carry on, chief,” said Ronnie. McCann was glad to see the tiny signs of increasing confidence. They were going to need all of it.

  “All right. Now we wait for zero hour. And zero hour is the moment when we hear two or more people coming down that passage. That’s when we’re going to need to move quick. What sort of shoes have you got on?”

  “Dancing pumps,” said Ronnie disgustedly. “Not much use, I’m afraid. Part of the old get-up.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of them as weapons. Look now – we’ll roll up some blankets under the bedclothes – I take it you usually sleep with your head under the blanket to shut out the light – just so – and we’ll add a touch of verisimilitude to this otherwise extremely bald, not to say, corny deception by exhibiting your shoes sticking out from under the end of the blankets. Let’s try it now.”

  Half an hour’s work produced a passably lifelike figure. It was extraordinarily difficult to arrange the shoes at anything like a natural angle, but they got it at last.

  “I’m beginning to get the hang of this,” said Ronnie. “I suppose that I hide behind the door.”

  “Not behind the door. Flat against the wall on the side that it opens. The next thing is – weapons.”

  Ronnie’s face fell. “I’m afraid I’ve got nothing. They stripped me pretty thoroughly, and, as you can see, there’s nothing movable in this room at all – except those blankets. I suppose we might rig up some sort of sandbag.”

  “I think we can do better than that. First, I’m prepared to sacrifice one of my shoes – see how you like the feel of it.”

  It was a formidable, iron-studded, thick-soled walking shoe, which must have weighed all of two pounds.

  “Mind you,” went on McCann, “I don’t like the idea of tangling with these types in bare feet any more than you do – but I see no way out of it.”

  “What are you going to use?”

  “I’ll show you.” McCann extracted his thin leather wallet, and a handful of coins. “This is the knuckle-duster Mark I – rough but effective.” He folded the wallet into a fat cylinder and grasped it in his right hand. Then he selected two florins and a half-crown (“milled edges, better than pennies,” he said genially) and inserted them, edgeways on, between his clenched fingers.

  “The things they teach you in the Commandos,” said Ronnie admiringly.

  “Commandos!” said McCann. “I learnt that at my prep. School – now let’s start rehearsing.”

  The next three hours were in some ways the most singular McCann had ever spent in his life. What little they could do by way of preparation had been completed. There was nothing else to do but wait.

  He himself was physically not uncomfortable. He was sitting on the blankets, his shoeless foot tucked under him, his armed right hand lying under his coat. Experiments had shown that from a sitting start he could reach the door in just under two seconds. After that everything would have to be left to chance. But his mind was desperately perturbed.

  At three o’clock and again at five o’clock a face had peered at them through the grating. McCann thought he had recognised the Jew. No word had been said and the door had remained shut.

  Ronnie was sitting against the wall now, ready to get into position. His face was very white and it was difficult to say what he was thinking. Attempts at conversation had been given up long since.

  The minutes crawled by.

  Supposing they don’t come at all tonight, he thought. Perhaps Mr. Brown was just pulling my leg – it would be well in keeping with his sadistic soul. God, if I could get my fingers on him once – just once.

  “Someone coming, sir,” said Ronnie. He stood up quickly, and flattened himself. “Only one, I think.”

  “More than one,” said McCann. “Two at least.”

  His heart was thumping and the blood was hammering in his head.

  Normal, you fool, Angus; look normal. Stop scowling. Take a grip of yourself. This is it.

  What followed seemed to McCann to happen in the slow motion of a nightmare.

  Eyes looked through the grating. There was a
mutter of conversation. It was impossible even at that point to say with certainty whether there were two or three men outside.

  The lock clicked, the door swung open, and the Scotsman, Jock, stepped quickly into the room.

  “Stand well back, and aim for the temple,” McCann had said.

  The heavy shoe seemed to hover interminably. Then there was a sound such as a leather cricket ball makes as it meets the soft surface of a cricket bat.

  Jock crumpled forward.

  McCann saw Ronnie drop the shoe and leap quietly through the doorway.

  Then he found himself on his feet.

  He didn’t know whether Jock was finished or not, and there was certainly no time to find out.

  As the Scotsman tumbled forward, he hit him square in the face.

  In the passage some desperate action was obviously going on, but it took McCann a vital second to clear the body of his adversary in the doorway.

  Outside, things were not going well. McCann had seen all along that the tiny delay necessary for Ronnie and himself to get through the doorway and into the passage would give the opposition side just enough time to square up to the attack. There was only one man there, but it was the big Jew and he knew the ropes.

  Ronnie had simply thrown himself at him and had succeeded in getting his hands round his throat. Nine men out of ten would have wasted time trying to tear those hands away. The Jew was the tenth. Steadying his broad back against the wall he had shifted his weight on to one foot, and then brought down the heel of his other boot hard on to Ronnie’s stockinged foot.

  There was a horrid crunch and a noise, half gasp, half yell, as Ronnie collapsed. As he went down some merciful instinct caused him to maintain his grip on his adversary’s throat.

  It was at this moment that McCann arrived.

  The Jew was bending half forward under Ronnie’s sagging weight and his attention was distracted. McCann pivoted on to his left foot and put all his weight and strength and skill into one wholehearted uppercut.

  The Jew buckled to his knees and his head sagged forward. McCann kicked him hard in the throat.

  The fight was over.

  From beginning to end it had taken almost exactly ten seconds. McCann found himself gasping for breath as if he had run a mile. His right hand was swollen and thick with blood – some of it his own. He noticed that two of the coins were still in place, and slowly picked them out and dropped them into his pocket.