by J. J Marric
"Don't know yet," said Gideon.
But I'll know after tomorrow morning's papers, he thought, and made a penciled note to check how many other men at the Yard and at the divisions were going without holidays. Tired men couldn't do their best: that was another angle. Pity he hadn't thought about it while he was with the man from Fleet Street.
It was half past one before he had finished, but Saturday lunch was a movable feast. He stopped at the newspaper shop, which still had the Bournsea crime poster on show, and ordered a copy of each Sunday newspaper to be delivered next day.
He wanted to be sure exactly what coverage he was given.
There was a match at the Oval he would have liked to see for the afternoon, but he owed the afternoon to Kate and did not really regret missing his cricket. The whole family was home, all very bright, cheerful and noisy. Matthew rubbed salt in the minor wound by saying that he was going to scorch off to the Oval as soon as he could; the match he was to have played in this afternoon had been scratched. The girls had tennis on their minds, the youngest boys swimming. It was a medley of voices, laughs, retorts; as cheerful as a family could be, with Kate ruling it very quietly—and Kate with something on her mind.
When he had reached home, she had said: "Did you talk to that newspaperman?" and he'd answered: "Yes, gave him the lot," and after that had realized that she hadn't asked for the sake of it. She went to do the washing-up, with the girls, and Gideon went upstairs to change into a pair of old flannels and a jacket; he planned to go round all the windows this afternoon, putting in new sash cords and checking the blinds. He heard Kate coming up as he sat on the edge of their big double bed, lacing up a pair of paint-spotted old shoes which hadn't been cleaned for years.
"My turn for mind reading," he said, looking round and catching sight of three Kates: the real one and two reflections in the winged dressing-table mirror. "What's worrying you, dear?"
"I think you're going to hate it," Kate said.
"Oh, lor'." He hadn't the slightest idea what this presaged, unless it meant that Prudence wanted to advance the time of her marriage; she was planning to marry next Easter, but he had seen signs that her young man was not too happy about waiting so long.
"I tried to get you on the telephone, but they wouldn't put me through," Kate said. "It would have been difficult to talk about anyhow." She was not often exasperating, like this. "It would probably have been too late, too—what time did you talk to the newspaperman?"
"Eleven." Then this was nothing remotely to do with Prudence. Gideon sat looking hard at Kate.
"I didn't get the invitation until a quarter to twelve," she said.
Gideon got up. "What invitation? What difference—"
"The Commissioner's wife rang up and asked if we would like to go and have lunch with her and the Commissioner tomorrow," Kate told him. "I didn't see how I could say no, because obviously he wants to talk to you away from the office. If I could have got you in time I'd have stopped you from talking to the press, but you can't very well withdraw now, can you?"
"No, I can't," said Gideon, heavily. "God, what a blurry mess that makes." He caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror, and he had never looked so lugubrious; it almost made him grin. "Well, can't be helped, blast it. What did she say?"
"Not very much, really. She couldn't have been nicer, and I'm quite sure she wouldn't have invited us if the Commissioner really felt strongly against you."
"No," agreed Gideon. "Probably not."
Neither of them added the superfluous comment that whatever was in the Commissioner's mind might be altered by tomorrow's headlines.
Gideon finished tying his laces.
"Well, it'll be a damned good lunch, anyhow," he said. "Never got further than a drink before, but I'm told the Old Man's a gourmet." Quite suddenly, he grinned. "Decided what you're going to wear?"
"I've decided that I was a fool not to have bought that hat last week," Kate said, "but I'm not going to go and rush out and get something that I'll probably hate in a week's time, so you'll have to take me in the best I've got. You ought to have had your new suit pressed. I'll do that." She came and rested a hand on his shoulder. "I think perhaps he's much more human than you've ever realized, George."
"Might be," Gideon said. "All the same, I wish to heaven I'd kept my big mouth shut."
"Do you?" asked Kate, very quietly.
He looked at her steadily, and began to smile again.
"You'll sing a different song when we're back on the breadline," he said, and with a swift and quite irresistible movement he drew her down so that she was sitting beside him. "How about forgetting window cords and ironing for the afternoon, and having a tumble—"
"I've got too much to do," Kate said firmly, but she didn't get up, and held his hand tight against her. "Anything else in, George?"
He didn't tell her about the East Coast child murder; she hated crimes of that kind, and there was time enough to tell her tomorrow morning; then his own headlines would be enough for her to worry about.
He wondered what kind of a weekend it would be for crime; in general that "war" of his. He found himself thinking that by calling it a war he had dramatized the whole issue, and others who were not so close to it as he might find it melodramatic. Then he shrugged gloom off, and wondered whether the two detectives now on their way to the East Coast would find any connection between that crime and the one at Bournsea.
Bournsea, like all other seaside resorts, had a weekly exodus as well as a weekly influx of visitors. Saturday was the least crowded day on the beach for the casual visitor, but they seldom realized it. The people who had been here for the week were on their way home, and new holiday-makers were still settling in at their hotels. Very few people who had seen the party of four children, the man and his dog during the week were still here.
One or two Bournsea regulars noticed them; especially the man, the dog and the child who were strolling along the water's edge, toward one of the black groins. Beyond this was an even less frequented stretch of the promenade, and beyond this, in turn, some little stretches of woodlands, beloved at night by courting couples and the promiscuous alike, but used very little by day. It was here that the dog ran, pouncing, after a ball which the man had tossed for him. The man and the child, hand in hand, were now on the promenade itself, and the other children were still in the water.
"Shall we go and help him find it?" the man asked. "Whoever finds it first can have three toffees."
"Oo yes, please," the child said, and actually tugged at his hand.
Five minutes later, she could not understand why he was holding her so tightly.
She was not really frightened. . . .
The dog was chewing the sticky mass; that would keep him quiet for a long time.
Gideon woke a little after seven o'clock on Sunday morning, lay with Kate sleeping by his side for ten minutes or so, and by that time could not stay any longer without fidgeting. The bed spring creaked as he got up. He ran his fingers through his hair, to flatten it, and rasped his hand over his stubble. Kate didn't look as if she would stir, so he went out. There was no sound from the children's rooms on this floor or upstairs. He looked down at the front door, knowing he would be lucky if the Sunday newspapers arrived before eight o'clock. He shaved, took his time bathing, and finished by twenty to eight. By then voices were sounding in the big attic-floor room which he had partitioned for the boys years ago. Prudence came out of her bedroom, tying a dressing gown round her. If her Peter had ever seen her like this, it was easy to understand why he was in a hurry; she was stretching and yawning, and looked lovely with sleep, and seductive. His daughter. She was wearing one of Kate's old nightdresses, which had always been a size too small for Kate but was two sizes too large for Pru, and it gaped at the breast.
She was very, very lovely.
"Morning, Dad," she said, and suddenly became wide awake. She pulled up the neck of her dressing gown hastily, and then went on: "Dad, can you spare me a min
ute?"
"Just going to make some tea," he said. "Come down and help me."
"I won't be a jiff, must pop into the bathroom," she answered.
It would be about advancing the date of the marriage, of course, and a wise parent ought to recognize the danger signals. Gideon had fought for a two years' delay, had won a year already, and Kate agreed that this was the time to give in. Peter was a nice lad, too; almost certainly dependable.
But twenty-two seemed very young.
Was it?
Soon Pru came, so eager and so earnest, and full of logical argument. Peter wanted to take another job, he had to be married before he could get it, it meant two hundred pounds a year more, with a bit of luck they could even afford a small car, and Mum didn't mind, not really.
Gideon felt a little choky when he'd given way, and Prudence flung her arms round him with a passion which told him how lucky Peter was.
Then he saw that the newspapers were in the letter box.
"Take your tea up to your mother, tell her I'll be up in a minute, and then go and get the others up," he ordered, gruff so as to hide his feelings. He strode to the door and took out four newspapers, all folded, opened the door and found the others on the porch. He gulped as he picked them up, then spread out the Sunday Globe, with a five-million circulation which the Fleet Street man had said was "in the bag."
Gideon almost winced.
C.I.D. CHIEF SAYS YARD LOSING
BATTLE AGAINST CRIME
The Echo put it more simply:
CRIME ON THE UP AND UP—Yard Chief
Gideon took the newspapers upstairs slowly, tucking several of them under his arm and looking at others in his hand. His photograph appeared in every one, a picture taken some years ago on a case; he looked ten years younger than he did today.
LONDON UNDER THREAT OF CRIME WAVE
another headline read, and a fourth:
SCOTLAND YARD LOSING TO CRIME
Prudence was coming out of the big bedroom, hurrying, but she stopped when she saw her father.
"You look as if you've lost a pound and found a penny," she said. "Has something happened during the night?" She glanced at the newspapers, and her eyes widened. "Gracious! Well, you must have expected something to get all those. May I see?" She took a newspaper, and delight sprang into her eyes when she saw her father's picture. "My goodness, they have done you proud! Mum," she went on, hurrying back into the bedroom, "Dad's hit the headlines at last. He looks like a cross between Jack Hawkins and Gregory Peck."
She went off with one of the newspapers, to carry the news to the rest of the family. Gideon spread the other papers out on the bed in front of Kate, who was sitting up; the tea tray was on a bedside table.
"That one has a circulation of three million," Gideon announced factually. "That one five, that one nearly two. . . ." He estimated for each one, while Kate looked at him, not at the newspapers, and when he had finished, she said:
"Seventeen million copies."
"That what it adds up to?"
"Yes."
"Wonder if the classy ones have anything about it," Gideon said aloud, and looked at the two smaller-circulation newspapers, the kind that the Commissioner would be certain to read. "Here's the end column on the front page, no photograph though." He flipped over the pages of the other. "Middle page, and a profile," he said, and sat down heavily on an easy chair. "They've certainly gone to town on it; it'll take me all the morning to sort this lot out."
Kate was pouring tea.
Half an hour later, Gideon knew the gist of the different articles. In all but two, what he had said was connected with the murder of Syd Taylor; two mass-circulation newspapers had interviewed retired C.I.D. men, and in every case they were quoted as saying that the Yard had been seriously undermanned for at least twenty years.
Ever since the beginning of the Second World War, the greatest police force and the greatest detective force in the world has been compelled to fight its own war with two few men and too few weapons.
Government economy with the Criminal Investigation Department is criminal in itself.
It must not be permitted.
"Well," Kate said, an hour later, "it hasn't spoiled your appetite. Don't forget that you're going out to lunch today."
"If the Old Man doesn't cancel the invitation when he reads all this," said Gideon.
"No man could be such an utter lunatic," said Matthew.
That gave Gideon one supreme moment, for he saw the way his children looked at him and sensed the hero worship of each one.
There was no mention in any of these newspapers of the seven-year-old girl, Rose Jeffson, who was missing from her home in Bournsea.
The local police knew about it, of course, but they assumed that the child had been drowned, and expected the body to be washed up on the beach before long.
Micky the Slob, hiding in the hold of a small tramp steamer due to sail for America the next morning, read the newspapers and saw himself mentioned in every one. He was no fool, and realized that the police would strain everything they could to get him.
Micky the Slob was frightened.
Among the other thirty-odd million people who read the story in one newspaper or another was Keith Ryman. He was sitting in his small flat in Mayfair, with the newspapers spread out about him, when his "wife," a blonde as pretty as could be, cuddly, and dressed as if Hartnell had made her clothes, came in from the bedroom to the chair where he sat looking through a large window over Hyde Park.
"Sure you won't come out with me, darling?"
"Too lazy," Ryman said, smiling at her; his eyes crinkled attractively when he smiled. "You take Flossie for her exercise. I'll be ready to take you out to lunch when you get back."
"All right." Helen Woodley, who called herself Helen Ryman, kissed him lightly on the forehead and went out, calling her French poodle from the bedroom. Ryman waited for the door to close, and waited again until he saw Helen walking across Park Lane, toward the park. Then he stretched out and dialed a Mayfair number, and was answered at once.
"Come and see me, Rab, will you?" he asked.
"Right away, Keith. Wouldn't have anything to do with a certain front-page story, would it?"
"Wouldn't it?" Ryman smiled as he replaced the receiver. He leaned back, put his folded hands beneath his head, and looked out at the sky. "Hit 'em hard and often in five or six places at the same time, and then do the real job when they're not expecting it. That's the strategy, all right."
He took his hands from the back of his neck and rubbed them together.
Chapter 7
LUNCHEON
"Well, hold your breath," Gideon said.
He had parked the car a few doors away from Scott-Marie's house in Radlett Square, one of the smaller, lesser known and more exclusive of London's squares; it was still residential. There was a small green patch in the middle of it, with a few plane trees, some rhododendron bushes and some laurel. One or two dogs were playing, two nursemaids were sitting on a wooden bench with a pram by each. On another seat were a boy and a girl; lovers.
Gideon saw all of this without appearing to notice it as he armed Kate up the short flight of stone steps which led to Scott-Marie's house. The front door was painted black, and the knocker and letter box looked like solid silver.
"At least we've the same color scheme," Kate remarked.
Gideon said, "I'll bet he didn't do any of the painting himself," and pressed the bell.
He was dressed in a suit, bought at Kate's insistence last year, which served him for many formal daytime occasions; it was nearly black, had a very narrow gray stripe, and was beautifully cut and made by a little Jewish tailor who worked in the East End and had known Gideon for many years. He looked and felt spruce and almost too much at his best. During the moment or two that they waited, he looked Kate up and down. She had on a bluey-green silk suit, perhaps a trifle easy fitting, for she hated her clothes to be too tight, and a hat to match—she had trimmed it herself
with the same material as the suit.
"What's the matter? I look all right, don't I?" she asked urgently, for he seldom looked at her so intently.
"You look—" he hesitated, and then let the words come: "Just right. Don't alter a thing."
She squeezed his hand.
The door was opened almost without a sound by a youngish footman, bandbox dressed. Hardly had the effect of this unaccustomed formality touched the Gideons when Lady Scott-Marie came hurrying from a big room with double doors. She could not be much more than thirty, and her husband was undoubtedly in his late fifties. She was tall but not so tall as Kate, and strikingly attractive. She wore a suit of pale gray with white spots, and Kate could not have been more suitably dressed.
"Hallo, Mrs. Gideon, I've so often wanted to meet you, and I've heard so much about your husband." She had blue eyes, the merry kind. "Do come along in."
Gideon was handing his hat and gloves to the footman, and wondering how the subject heaviest on his mind would come up. Would Scott-Marie's tactics be to talk on trivialities before and during the meal? Socially, that would be right, but Gideon hoped that there would be a way of avoiding a long delay, although he must not break the ice himself.
The hall was small, and he did not notice much about it, except two portraits, the circular staircase, and the passage alongside. The room into which Scott-Marie's wife took them was much larger than he had expected, high-ceilinged, with a beautiful double bay window overlooking an unexpected garden, vivid with wallflowers and tulips, forget-me-nots and polyanthus. All this Gideon saw as one takes a photograph. There were the black grand piano, the Regency style of decor and furniture, and the Commissioner, moving forward from the Adam fireplace.
Scott-Marie was dressed in a black-and-white overcheck suit; not exactly sporting, not really formal; and on the instant Gideon felt overdressed. Thank God Kate wasn't.
Scott-Marie was shaking her hand.
Then he was taking Gideon's.