Hopscotch

by Brian Garfield

  He’d had the Cortina since morning and it would be heating up by now. He drove out of the mews ten minutes behind the memsahib.

  After dinner and a movie he purloined a Rover from the car park of a block of high-priced flats near Victoria Station. He chose it for three reasons: it was expensive enough to be in keeping with Chartermain’s quarter; it had a Spanish plate and diplomatic tags which meant it wouldn’t be disturbed by traffic patrols for illegal parking; and the keys had been left in it.

  By the time its operator discovered the theft in the morning Kendig would have abandoned it like the others; in time it would be returned to its owner with the apologies of the Foreign Office and a shrug of the shoulders and a word of advice about leaving keys in the ignition.

  He drove into the mews at half-past ten and made a three-point U-turn at the end of it and drove out again. It happened five times a day, drivers losing their bearings and not knowing they were going down a dead end. He drove slowly out of the mews again, scrutinizing the house. Two windows were alight upstairs; and a light burned in the bedroom of the apartment above the garage.

  Both servants would be in the coach house by this hour. The two lights in the house were at the head of the main stair and in the memsahib’s room—some sort of reading or sewing chamber where she seemed to spend part of each evening when they weren’t entertaining. It didn’t seem a room to which Chartermain repaired. The conclusion to be drawn was that there was no one in the house; the lights had been left on purposefully by the servants. Chartermain might have gone from his office straight down to Kent but it was more likely he was working late trying to collate the clues to Kendig’s whereabouts.

  He made three successive left-hand turns and parked the Rover in a no-parking space within fifty feet of the gap between the two Georgian blocks where the rear of Chartermain’s lane emerged, chained off at the pavement. The Watney’s pub at the corner was getting ready to close but he squeezed in and used the pay phone. He let it ring seven times; there was no answer. He went back to the lane and stepped over the chain and walked into deep shadow between the two five-story buildings, guiding on the weak lamp at the head of the servants’ stair.

  He stopped under the stair and studied the rear of the main house. There was a light burning in the cupola over the kitchen door, illuminating the steps down to the lane. Beyond at the head of the lane was a streetlamp. But the back of the house was dark; upstairs the middle window showed a vague glow from the stair-head chandelier at the far end of the corridor. He’d been up the main staircase, along that corridor and inside Chartermain’s study which was at the rear of the house on that floor.

  He wasn’t a second-story human fly and that sort of ivy probably wouldn’t hold his weight. An expert might do it but Kendig’s expertise didn’t run in that direction. He’d have to enter at the ground floor and go upstairs inside the house.

  He crossed the lane, stepped over a cultivated bed that had held annuals in the summer, crossed the back lawn and stood in the shrubbery examining one window. It was a casement affair, latched on the inside with a heavy brass fitting. The only way to get at it would be to cut or smash a pane, reach inside and undo the latch. He had no glass cutter and he couldn’t risk breaking a pane because the servants’ bedrom window looked out on the house and they’d hear the glass shatter.

  He tried four windows—all there were. They were latched firmly. He had no better luck with windows on both sides of the house toward the rear and he couldn’t try the ones nearer the front because he’d be exposed to the mews there.

  It left only the kitchen door. It could be seen from a small area in the end of the mews but he didn’t see anyone there; it also would be plainly visible to the servants if they happened to look out their bedroom window but their curtains were drawn.

  He had with him the only tools he’d bothered to improvise—a coiled length of coat-hanger wire and one of the hotel’s plastic pocket calendars. The latch was a modern spring-loaded affair and the plastic sheet unlocked it easily and without sound but when he pushed the door open it creaked a bit on an unoiled hinge. He made a face, slipped inside and slowly pushed the door shut behind him, twistting the knob to prevent the latch from clicking when it closed. Then he turned to the window and looked out toward the coach house.

  Did the servants’ curtain stir? He couldn’t be sure; he watched it but it didn’t move.

  Well the uncertainty put a little spice into it. He moved very slowly through the unfamiliar room, feeling his way with the backs of his fingertips: if the fingernail touched an object it would flinch away rather than toward and there was less likelihood of knocking anything over.

  The door to the hallway was open; once he’d passed through it there was some light—it filtered along the hall from the foyer which was lit from above by the chandelier at the head of the stairs. He could see his way now and he moved rapidly to the foot of the steps. The staircase was a sweeping carpeted affair with a handsomely carved hardwood bannister. There was a bust of Churchill on a marble side table, a filigreed mirror beside the cloakroom and a portrait that probably was a likeness of the memsahib’s father or grandfather.

  Going up the stairs with the chandelier in his eyes made him uneasy; he passed beneath it quickly and retreated along the upstairs corridor before he stopped to double-check his bearings. The study would be the third of the three doors on the left. He went along opening doors and looking into the rooms on both sides; that was elementary caution—better to be surprised while he was in the open corridor than to be trapped in the study. But he didn’t really expect the house to be crawling with agents waiting to nail him. They hadn’t enough evidence to lay that sort of trap. He hadn’t confided his wild-hair scheme to anyone and it wasn’t the sort of thing any of them could have anticipated.

  The door to the study was locked and that pleased him because it meant there was something beyond the door that Chartermain wanted to protect.

  Just as he was not an accomplished cat burglar, so he was not an expert lockpick; but he’d had rudimentary training in the art and he was not pressed for time and after several minutes with the coat-hanger wire he had the old throw-bolt lock whipped and he was ready to open the door. But first he reached up and unscrewed the bulbs in the wall fixtures. They weren’t burning but if there was a trap set up he didn’t want them to throw a switch and silhouette him in the doorway like a cardboard shooting-range dummy.

  He took several very deep breaths. If he was jumped it would help to have his lungs full of air. Then he went in.

  He was alone in the room. He left the door open behind him; he wanted an available exit in case of trouble and besides he didn’t want to light a lamp because that could be seen from the servants’ window and he wasn’t sure the drapes here would be opaque. The indirect illumination from the distant chandelier made the room dim but it would be enough to work by.

  Something creaked. He froze until he was satisfied it had been natural settling; it was an old house.

  He commenced his search, not sure what he might find, keenly hoping for one thing but not counting on it. If Chartermain wasn’t carrying his passport it would be in his office in Whitehall or it would be here. With luck it would be here.

  There was a wall safe; he didn’t examine it—it would be impregnable to him, its contents largely composed of documents in binders with stern warnings from the Official Secrets Act on the jackets. He wasn’t interested in stealing state secrets. He went through the desk drawer by drawer and had his piece of good luck: it was an old wallet, very thin pliable expensive pigskin of the old-fashioned diplomatic style, containing Chartermain’s official red passport, the memsahib’s civilian black-bound one and an assortment of documents and foreign currencies.

  Kendig took everything out of the wallet; he left the currency, the memsahib’s papers and the rest of the things on the desk. Then he tore his photo out of his own passport; he put that back in his pocket along with Chartermain’s VIP passport. He put the
Jules Parker passport into Chartermain’s wallet and placed the wallet on top of the other things in the middle of the desk blotter.

  He wrote a little note in Chartermain’s pad and propped the note against the wallet; and left the room.

  The house creaked again but he went right along the corridor and retraced his path to the kitchen. He paused by the door before opening it and had a glance through the window at the coach house. The servants’ light still burned upstairs; the curtains remained as they had been before.

  He opened the door silently and slipped outside, unable to eliminate the click when he pulled it shut behind him; he went down the steps and then paused and turned his head, and wondered why he had hestitated; then he had it—a trace of tobacco smoke on the air.

  They jumped him from either side of the steps. One of them pinioned his arms; the other whipped around in front of him and he saw the billy club.

  “Red-handed, mate,” said the one behind him with relish.

  They were London police, not Chartermain’s agents. He had to do it very quickly: he said, “Cor stone the crows, you give me such a fright!”

  “Give you a heart attack mate, if I had my way.”

  At the head of the coach-house stair the door opened and the butler-chauffeur came hurrying down. “Good work, officers!”

  In his Cockney rasp Kendig said, “’Ow’d you get onto me then?”

  “Mr. Musgrove saw you in the act of breaking and entering.”

  The old man bobbed his head vehemently. “Heard something, looked out my window, saw the door just closing behind the thief. Called you right the instant.”

  The policeman still had his arms in a vise lock and his partner was frisking Kendig for weapons, sliding around like a contortionist to keep out of range of any kicking Kendig might have in mind to do. The man holding his arms had the exact positioning of long practice; both wrists high under the shoulderblades, twisting him forward in a half-bow; there was no way out of that hold. Then the partner locked the handcuffs on him.

  “You’ve a keen eye, Mr. Musgrove. You’ll want to come down in the morning, I’m afraid, to give us a statement.”

  “Glad to do my duty,” the old man said, rearing back on his dignity.

  “I imagine the governor’ll give you a rise for this, old boy.”

  Musgrove smiled. His wife stood at the head of the outside stair, watching with suspicion. The policeman hustled Kendig along the lane into the mews. Their car was a Morris 1100 with a globe light on the roof; he went into the back with the muscular officer who’d pinioned him. “Bloody crackers,” Kendig mumbled.

  “What’s that, mate?”

  “Crackers I said. Old fool ought’ve been fast asleep, this hour. Tell you I never had nothin’ but hard luck my whole life.”

  “Ruddy well asked for every bit of it, didn’t you,” said the second policeman; he started the car and they rolled out of the mews.

  It was a small police station, casual and Edwardian; a dozen police officers roamed in and out. His captors delivered him to a sergeant in a partitioned office. The sergeant said, “Give a squeal to in the morning to find out if he has any form, Good work, you two,”

  “It was the butler did it,” the first policeman said and they all laughed at the little joke, all except Kendig who sat deep in a feigned gloom of self-pity, his senses cataloging everything and his mind racing with calculation.

  The two arresting officers retrieved their handcuffs and left the room. A youth in the dark uniform passed them on his way in; he had a stenographic note pad. The sergeant said, “Very well now. Your name?”

  “… Alfred Booker.” He said it as if with heavy reluctance; he kept shifting his baleful guilty stare from one patch of floor to another.

  “How’s it spelled?”

  He snarled. “Spell it yourself, copper.”

  The sergeant’s weary eyes sought inspiration and patience from the ceiling. “Come on now Alfie.”

  “Booker. Bee double-oh kay ee are.”

  The young cop wrote it down; the sergeant said, “Vite stats now, Alfie.”

  His whine got more resentful. “I’m forty-six, right? No permanent address.”

  “Got a job, Alfie?”

  “No.”

  “Got a wife? A mother, a dad, anybody we should notify?”

  “No. Let’s get this over with.”

  “Solicitor?”

  “Don’t they give you one?”

  “If you haven’t got your own the court will appoint one for you. What’s this, Alfie, you new at this game?”

  “I got no bleeding record if that’s what you mean. I’m clean as her ladyship’s fingernails, copper.”

  “Not after tonight you’re not. All right, come over here and empty out the pockets, that’s a good lad—let’s see what you made off with.”

  There was no helping it. Physical reluctance would only make them treat him with greater caution and he didn’t want that. He emptied everything out onto the desk. He managed to turn while he was doing it so that he had a good view through the sergeant’s open door—the back of the officer on the desk, the counter, the small squad room, the outside door beyond. A hell of a gamut to run but he had one thing in his favor: none of them was armed, they didn’t carry sidearms.

  The sergeant watched him with shrewd cop’s eyes. Kendig passed his jacket to the sergeant and turned his pants pockets inside out to show he’d emptied everything. The sergeant went through the jacket meticulously. “Swank stuff for a Soho tramp. Paris label. Where’d you steal the threads, Alfie?”

  “I paid good money.”

  “Whose?”

  “You got me on nothing, copper. I stand on me rights.”

  “Rights? It’s dead to rights for you, Alfie. But have it your own way. Now there’s a money belt under your shirt. You can take it off or we can take it off for you. Which’ll it be?”

  He pulled his shirttails out and undid the canvas belt and dropped it on the desk. The sergeant gave his jacket back to him. He thrust his shirt back into his waistband and put the jacket on. He had a reason for doing that but it didn’t arouse the sergeant’s suspicion.

  The sergeant intoned, “One length wire, heavy gauge, coiled. Probably coat hanger. One pocket calendar, plastic, Kensington Close Hotel. One knife, pocket clasp, two blades, one awl.”

  “That ain’t no switchblade,” Kendig snapped. “Just you make it clear, copper.”

  “Not a switchblade,” the sergeant drawled wryly. “Pocket coins—let’s see, fifteen, seventeen, shilling, hate this bloody coinage mess—make that thirty-five new pence. Pounds sterling, loose”—the eyebrows went up as the sergeant counted it like a bank teller, moistening his thumb and flipping up the corners of the notes—“blimey. I make it three hundred forty-six quid. Hit yourself a jackpot, didn’t you Alfie.”

  “I didn’t lift that money. Nobody can prove I did.” In the outer office the cops were milling to and fro. The telephones rang now and then; two men laughed easily at something one of them said.

  “Stole the governor’s pasport, I see,” the sergeant observed. “Know whose house that was you chose to break and enter, Alfie?”

  “Boffin or something, in’t he? But what’s it matter anyhow.”

  “Hardly a boffin, mate.” The sergeant chuckled. “Bit of a laugh, old Chartermain getting invaded by a common thief.”

  “I ain’t no common thief,” Kendig said loudly. “I was just—”

  “You were just what?”

  “Nemmind. I talk to my solicitor.”

  “Do that,” the sergeant said. “One passport, diplomatic, property of William David Chartermain, Esquire. One wallet-size photograph of suspect identified by himself as Alfred Booker. One money belt, canvas. One ring of car keys to fit a Rover automobile. Rover, Alfie? Traveling in style, aren’t we.”

  “I just happened to find those keys.”

  The sergeant glanced at the youth who was copying down the items. “Those aren’t Chartermain�
��s keys—I think it’s a Jaguar he drives.”

  “And a Mini. No Rover—I know the house, sir.”

  “Right. Let’s have a look for a stolen Rover in the neighborhood. Just getting in deeper every minute, aren’t we Alfie.”

  “You can go right to bloody hell, copper.”

  “Let’s have a look at the inside of this belt now.… Well well well! Seems our friend the master spy must keep a devil of a cash fund in his library—and American dollars at that.… Let me make the count.… mmmhm … Roll me over, laddie, this would dent the bloody Westminster Bank.… five one, five one fifty, five two … Mark this now, seven thousand one hundred fifty dollars in notes of fifty and one hundred denominations. We’ll run a list of serial numbers but you’d best keep it to a single original, no copies. Chartermain may prefer there be no record. We’ll have to clear it with him.”

  “Aye Sergeant.”

  The sergeant hit his intercom key. “Are you chaps ready to fingerprint our boy?” He released the key and said to the youth, “Ought to find a proper way to hint to the old boy he ought to put first-class locks and alarms on his house if he means to keep this sort of lot on hand—”

  Kendig scooped up the little photograph from the desk and made his break. He went out like a projectile: vaulted the phone desk, rammed shoulder-first into a policeman and hurled the man against his partner, dodged among the desks, caught glimpses of their faces agape, elbowed a third in the ribs, slithered past a belatedly swinging club, stiff-armed the last cop off his feet, wheeled through the door and sprinted into the night.

  He had a forty-yard jump on them before they came boiling out into the street. There was the shrill silly bleat of their whistles, the clamor of their voices, the rattle of their feet; he rah around the corner and pushed along as fast as his legs could pump, aiming straight for the traffic light at the intersection. That was his only prayer of reprieve, the traffic light. Cars flowed through it along the high street; it was changing as he ran and they were stopping in their neat obedient column. He flung a glance over his shoulder—some of them were a lot younger than he was, some of them had longer legs and better wind; the pack was dissipating but the leaders were gaining on him frighteningly fast.