They Never Looked Inside

by Michael Gilbert

  Someone said: “Quick. No time to waste.”

  He was never quite sure whether it was himself or Ronnie.

  Stooping, he grasped the Jew’s ankles and dragged him along the passage and into the room. Jock was lying where he had fallen. He went back and, getting an arm round Ronnie, he half carried him back and sat him down against the wall.

  “It’s no good,” said Ronnie, with a very white face. “I can’t move. If I put any weight on this foot I shall pass out. For God’s sake clear out quick and get help.”

  “All in good time,” said McCann. His mind was working again now.

  A rapid search produced one gun – a German automatic with a full clip of nine – a cosh, a pair of steel “knuckles” and the door key. He pulled the two bodies over to where Ronnie was sitting and laid them face downwards on the floor on either side of him.

  “Tie their wrists together,” he said. “Use their ties and handkerchiefs and belts. Start with Jock. I think the Jew’s dead – but don’t risk it. Tie him just the same.”

  “Okay,” said Ronnie, “but hurry.”

  “I’m just going,” said McCann. “Take this—you’ll need it.” He passed over the gun. “I’m going to lock the door on the outside. There’s just a chance that this is the only key. Anyway, if you sit well back you’ll be out of range from the spy-hole. Good luck.”

  Thirty seconds later he was creeping down the stairs.

  As he reached the first floor landing he heard steps coming up and Mr. Brown’s voice said: “Jock—Benny. What the hell’s wrong with everyone tonight.”

  McCann opened the first door he saw and slipped inside. It was a bedroom, he saw, and mercifully empty.

  He waited until he heard the footsteps starting up the second flight to the floor above. It was a fair drop, with what looked, in the dark, like a flower-bed.

  He threw one leg over the window-sill, turned on to his stomach, slid out the full length of his arms, and let go. The flower-bed, he discovered, was full of standard rose bushes.

  As he picked his way painfully to his feet he heard a shout from inside the house, high up. And then the slam of an automatic.

  16

  Finale

  The machinery was running at full throttle now. Hazlerigg sat in his room at Scotland Yard and listened to the reports coming in.

  Throughout the metropolitan area and out into the fringes of the home counties hundreds of policemen, squad men, uniformed and plainclothes detectives, searched and patrolled and asked questions – and listened.

  They were looking for Leopold Goffstein, late of Flaxman Street, and they had several excellent photographs to assist them. They were looking for Benjamin Kraftstein (“Benny” the Jew had been identified at last). They were looking for a youth “name unknown, aged approximately nineteen years, height five feet nine inches, hair brown, no distinguishing marks” – and all they had to help them in that case was a seven-year-old photograph taken from a boxing group.

  They were looking, too, for Sergeant Catlin and Major Angus McCann, the last as the result of a panic-stricken telephone call from Miss Carter which had reached the Yard at four o’clock that afternoon.

  “I sat in the North-West Auction Rooms today,” said Hazlerigg to Pickup, “and watched the Demarest diamonds being sold by Curliers. I don’t think they knew who they were really acting for—I did.”

  “Couldn’t you have stopped the sale?” said Pickup. He knew that he was talking nonsense and the telephone bell saved Hazlerigg from the necessity of answering.

  The instrument cackled for nearly a minute.

  “No,” said Hazlerigg at last. “I’m sorry. Yes, I quite agree. It’s not definite enough to act on. Keep him under observation.”

  “Who’s seen who—and where, sir?”

  “Goffstein’s been seen in Whitechapel.”

  “And Birmingham and Welshpool and—oh, yes. Saffron Walden.”

  “He gets about,” agreed Hazlerigg.

  The phone bell went again.

  “A resident of Highgate,” said Hazlerigg at last. “Whereabouts?—Oh, the Holly Lodge Estate—yes, wait whilst I get a map, please. Go on. I see. Yes, all right. You can take that up. Report back here.”

  To Pickup he said: “Highgate police have had a man in who reports hearing revolver shots. He says they sounded like an automatic. He also says that he fought in the infantry for six years and knows an automatic when he hears one.”

  “That’s not saying it’s anything to do with this case, sir, even supposing he’s right.”

  “Of course not,” said Hazlerigg. “Go and get some dinner, there’s a good chap. I’ll have mine when you get back—hold on, here’s another.

  “Hello—hello. Yes. Who?” Something in the Chief Inspector’s voice halted Pickup at the door.

  “Oh, well done, Major,” said Hazlerigg. “Well done indeed. Yes. Hold on, we’re coming.”

  II

  At the foot of Highgate West Hill, Hazlerigg issued his operation orders. The few citizens who were about at that hour gaped at the concourse of squad cars which had materialised so softly and now seemed to fill the road. Pickup was talking to the Superintendent from Highgate. He ran across to the Chief Inspector.

  “They’ve got the man here, sir,” he said, “—the one who was going to investigate the shooting when your message came through. He says he knows the house well.”

  “All right,” said Hazlerigg. “He can come with us as a guide. One car ahead now, to block the driveway. The rest of you on foot from here.”

  The Superintendent said: “My men are coming down from the top, Inspector. They ought to be in position in a minute.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Hazlerigg. “Other cars to follow in three minutes.”

  The stage emptied.

  At the corner of the private roadway was the driver of the squad car which had gone ahead to block the entrance. He had some disquieting news for them.

  “Just a matter of a split second,” he said. “As I brought the car over, out he came – on a motorbike. Missed my bumper by an inch. Turned up the hill.”

  “Did you recognise him?” asked Hazlerigg.

  “Young chap, sir. Slim sort of build – and a white face. That’s all I could see. I’d have stopped him if I could, sir—”

  “All right,” said Hazlerigg, “I’m sure you did your best. The Superintendent’s men will probably have picked him up at the top.”

  The Superintendent loomed in front of them.

  “We’re all round the house now,” he said. “Shall I give them the word to close? I’m leaving this part to you.”

  “Thank you very much, sir,” said Hazlerigg politely. “I think I’ll give the house a knock first in the routine way.”

  As he spoke, the clouds which had been thinning for some time shredded away, and the clear cold full moon rode out.

  Hazlerigg walked up the path alone. The click of the garden gate as it shut behind him was startlingly loud. His footsteps crunched on the gravel. From the house no gleam of light showed. As far as McCann could make out from his vantage point in the laurel hedge, all the downstairs windows were shuttered.

  “It’s Lombard Street to a china orange they’re all away,” he thought. “When Mr. Brown found that I was gone, he must have known – that gave him a clear ten minutes to get cracking – unless he stopped to deal with Sergeant Catlin.”

  McCann’s eyesight, as has been said, was good, particularly at night. He saw the shutter of the front room swinging back and caught the flicker of moonlight on steel.

  Three voices shouted at once.

  Hazlerigg, whose hand was outstretched to the door, flung himself sideways, rolling as he fell, so quickly that the action seemed to synchronise with the opening of the shutter and the burst of fire.

  McCann was deafened by the crack of an automatic from almost behind him and, turning his head, he became aware that M. Bren was standing in the edge of the shadows, a gun in either hand.
/>   As he looked the Frenchman fired again. It was good practice, at thirty yards, and at night. Every shot was hitting the steel shutter and the man behind the shutter was clearly afraid to open it further.

  Hazlerigg, apparently unhurt, had taken advantage of this diversion to disappear into the line of hedge nearest the house.

  “Flip me,” said a cheerful voice from behind the wall, “talk about the battle of flipping Sidney Street – this is it.”

  “Keep yer head down, Nobby. Remember you’re only six months orf y’ pension.”

  “Keep those men quiet. Sergeant.”

  Outside in the road McCann found the Superintendent and Inspector Pickup. A moment later M. Bren joined them.

  “They mean business, all right,” said the Superintendent.

  “I hope—no, here comes the Inspector. He looks all right.”

  “Thanks to Monsieur Bren,” said Hazlerigg. He, like McCann, seemed to have encountered a painful number of rose bushes in his escape, and was wiping blood from his cheek.

  “I have never understood before,” said M. Bren, “why the British policeman does not carry a weapon. Now I comprehend. Had they been armed tonight”—he indicated the line of excited constables behind the wall—”nothing could have saved you.”

  “What’s the next move?” said the Superintendent. “Have to wait for the military, I suppose.”

  “They won’t be long, sir,” said Hazlerigg. “I gave Colonel Hunt the word before I started—just in case. And talk of the devil—”

  An unmistakable figure had materialised beside them.

  “I have a section of the Brigade of Guards in two trucks at the end of the road,” said Colonel Hunt. “I heard firing as I came up—”

  “They fired on the Chief Inspector,” said the Superintendent.

  “Splendid,” said Colonel Hunt, “splendid. That regularises the situation at once. This is Lieutenant Sir William Carpmael, who commands the section. He will have the actual handling of the troops of course.”

  Lieutenant Sir William Carpmael plucked at his long blond moustache and then said: “Well, now, perhaps you could put me in the picture.”

  “We shall have to rush the house,” said Hazlerigg. “Since none of my men are armed, I propose to keep them well back, as a cordon. Lessen the chance of accidental casualties that way.”

  “Right,” said the Lieutenant. He surveyed the moonlit scene for a long minute and then pointed to the house on their immediate right – the middle one of the three buildings. “What about kicking off from there?”

  “Just what I was going to suggest myself,” said Hazlerigg. “It will make a good starting-point and it will give us cover up to the last ten yards.”

  “We’ll put the P.I.A.T. there, too,” said the Lieutenant. “Sergeant!”

  Not the least surprising happening of that surprising evening was that when Hazlerigg, after a cautious approach, rang the bell of the centre house, the door was opened by a smart parlour-maid.

  “Excuse me,” said the Inspector, “but is your master at home? Don’t be alarmed, miss, it’s quite all right.”

  “Yessir,” said the girl faintly. Before her startled eyes the hall seemed to be filling with enormous policemen and no less enormous soldiers. “Mister Pilkington—sir. He’s in here, sir. Shall I announce you?”

  “Now, don’t you bother,” said Hazlerigg. “I’ll announce myself.” Six more guardsmen arrived, carrying a P.I.A.T. projector and two Bren guns. The girl retired down the kitchen stairs to have hysterics in the basement.

  Inside the room she had indicated Hazlerigg found Mr, Pilkington, a neat, bird-like man of some eighty summers. He looked up from a game of patience, which he was setting out on a small table in front of the fire, and regarded the Inspector with considerable surprise.

  The question as to why so far he had shown such a lack of interest in the violent and exciting scenes being enacted around him was in part resolved. He picked up from the table an old-fashioned horn ear trumpet.

  He was clearly very deaf.

  “Excuse me,” bawled Hazlerigg, “but we shall have to make use of your house. Good gracious me—I didn’t realise there were quite so many of us.”

  Before Mr. Pilkington’s fascinated eyes, there entered in succession Inspector Pickup, four uniformed policemen, M. Bren (a fearsome figure with two long German automatics belted outside his mackintosh), a sergeant and six guardsmen, Lieutenant Sir William Carpmael, Major McCann, Colonel Hunt and, finally, the Highgate Superintendent.

  “Would you see if you can explain things to him?” said Hazlerigg optimistically to the Superintendent. “Here, for God’s sake, Inspector, take some of those constables back into the hall. I think we’ll find what we want through here.” He indicated a connecting door which evidently led to the dining room.

  “Keep your heads down, now,” said the Lieutenant, “they can see you from that side of the house. Corporal, we’ll have the Piat at the middle window. Bren guns on either side. Sergeant, when I turn the light out I want you to get the rest of the men out of the two end windows and into the flower border, lying down.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “We’ll give you cover if they open up, but no one’s to fire until I give the word. Carry on.”

  He turned the switch and the room was plunged into darkness.

  McCann, who was crouching beside M. Bren and the Inspector, viewed the last fantastic act of the night’s drama by the light of the full moon filtering in at the three long dining room windows.

  How good the Guards were – always. He noticed that not one of them had said a word about the whole extraordinary business. Absolute silence, absolute discipline. The Lieutenant seemed to know his stuff too.

  Outside the dining room windows was a low herbaceous hedge, and behind this there were now about a dozen guardsmen lying. Twenty yards away, through the trees, the other house stood silent and shuttered in the moonlight.

  McCann was watching the Corporal, who was sitting behind the heavy anti-tank projector at the centre window. The Lieutenant was crouching at his side.

  Suddenly, from inside the house they were watching, came the double crack of an automatic.

  “What the blazes is that?” said Hazlerigg, quietly. “Have they started shooting each other?”

  “It might be Sergeant Catlin – I’m afraid.” McCann, too, found himself whispering.

  The Lieutenant seemed not to have heard the sound, or if he had, he gave no sign of it, but continued to watch the Corporal who was fiddling delicately with the sights of the projector.

  “The middle of the shutters,” he said. “Aim for the join.”

  The Corporal nodded.

  The Lieutenant placed his fingers in his ears and everyone in the room hastily did likewise.

  The noise of the detonation was curiously soft, followed almost immediately by a shattering roar as the projectile struck the shutters squarely.

  The window dissolved in a cloud of yellow smoke. As it cleared, the watchers could see no window at all, but a jagged hole in the brickwork, and through the hole the leading Guardsman was climbing.

  The Lieutenant was halfway across the lawn, and behind him, a smile of supreme satisfaction on his face, trotted M. Bren.

  McCann got up on to his feet. He felt desperately tired but he knew there was one more job to be done. By the time he reached the house everyone else seemed to have disappeared. A long arm in battle-dress reached out and pulled him through the hole.

  Somewhere on the other side of the house, a battle was going on.

  McCann ignored it, turned up the stairs and reached the second floor, without meeting a soul. The long corridor was empty, too, and at the far end a square of light showed from the open door of his recent prison.

  With a sudden and irrational presentiment he hurried forward. Instinct flattened him at the edge of the doorway and the bullet, fired from inside the room, buried itself in the plaster a foot in front of his nose.


  Enlightenment came. “For God’s sake, sergeant,” he said, “a little discrimination please. It’s me—the Navy’s here.”

  “Thank God for it,” said the voice of Sergeant Catlin faintly. “That was my last bullet.”

  III

  Downstairs the fight was over. Considering the amount of lead which had been thrown about, there was surprisingly little damage. Two of the soldiers were slightly wounded. Inspector Pickup had suffered the indignity of a neat bullet-hole through the centre of his bowler hat. Mr. Brown, the Spaniard, and two of his men, were apparently none of them hurt. They stood now in a group at the end of the drawing room whilst a young soldier with a tommy gun regarded them impassively. His last action had been against German paratroopers in the Valley of the Santerno. He found his present victims unimpressive.

  Chief Inspector Hazlerigg removed a much folded paper from his pocket and addressed himself to Mr. Brown.

  “I have here,” he began, “a warrant for your arrest charging you firstly with being concerned in the murder of Sergeant Pollock then attached to the Special Branch of the Criminal Investigation Department—”

  IV

  Four months had gone by.

  McCann and Mrs. McCann (formerly Kitty Carter) were sitting in their private sanctum. The last customer had yielded to persuasion and gone from the saloon bar of the Leopard, and the kettle was boiling for their nightly cup of tea.

  Glasgow had left a final edition of the evening paper on the table and McCann read from it the account of the double execution of Samuel Garret, alias Samuel Gilbert, alias William Brown of London, and Ramon Martinez, late of Seville.

  The public had been told surprisingly little of the true circumstances and their interest tended to be statistical. As “Jack of London” remarked, in his popular and widely read column, it was almost exactly twenty years since two men had together suffered the supreme penalty of the law; by coincidence, on the former occasion also for the murder of a policeman.