by Peter Baron
“Only my last torn remnant of convention,” she smiled. “Driving a police Inspector—and a married one at that—is bad for the reputation.”
A remark which made Keating smile. It was his misfortune to look middle-aged, married and safe. It had spoilt many a promising romance. He lapsed into philosophic reflection.
“In this world, if you’re young, unscrupulous and without prospects, any girl will get herself nip over trying to rope you in,” he said weightily. “Whereas a man of substance—”
“And a married one,” she rebuked.
“Where do you get that married stuff?” he asked suddenly.
“You were talking about your bereaved widow early this morning.”
“Bereaved. She was never born. No. I’ve not struck one yet. That’s because I’m not a matinee idol like our young friend Wade.”
“What about him?” she asked interestedly.
“Conforms to type,” he replied. “Got all the qualities I have enumerated. That’s a good word. I suppose I do mean Enumerated’ or is it Enunciated?’”
“You were talking about Larry Wade,” she prompted, and he looked at her suspiciously.
“The fell spell is beginning to work,” he grunted. “If his photo will do that, you’d better watch your step when you meet him. He’s a wrong ‘un.”
“Meaning a crook?”
“Meaning just that. Ever heard of a gang boss?”
“Are you telling me that that boy is a gangster?” she asked incredulously. “I don’t believe you.”
“Oh, figure of Fairbanks. Oh, nose of Novello,” he moaned. “I knew it. Cast off Barbara, he’s all bad, I tell you.” She gave her attention to the road for some time.
“I didn’t know there was such a thing as gang war in England,” she said at length.
“No, my dear,” Keating murmured, “but thinking of all the things you don’t know would give you a headache. There are at least two prominent gangs in London at perpetual warfare. Larry runs one of them. The crew of thugs who operate in Aldgate, Houndsditch and the Minories. Surprises you?”
“It does seem strange,” she admitted. “How old is he?”
“Twenty-five,” Keating grunted. “He admires bobbed hair, believes in vitamins and reads Michael Arlen. For further information see ‘Home Chat.’ Believe me Barbara you’ve got Larry all wrong. He’s no squire of dames. There was a girl once—she turned out to be a decoy of the Shadwell and Stepney bunch. We had rather a busy time when he found out.”
“But he looks too refined to mix with Aldgate toughs.”
“He is. He’s the man on top. Mixes with the nobs and passes on the tips to the man underneath. He doesn’t do many of the jobs himself, but he’s sudden death to anyone who poaches on his territory.”
“Poaches?” she asked.
Keating lighted a second cigarette. “These gangs run a separate territory,” he explained. “Each gang sticks to its own ground and it’s unsafe for any other gang to butt in. If the Shadwell gang ever pull anything on Aldgate territory they’re poaching on Larry’s hunting ground.”
She drove through the tunnel entrance to Reigate town and out on the other side for some distance down the Brighton road, before she swung the little car neatly between a pair of iron gates and up a long drive.
Keating got out, stretched his legs and accompanied her up the wide steps to the big door.
“The last time I was in Reigate,” he said, “I was trying to round up what is known as the ‘cream of the underworld.’” He rang the bell and in a few minutes a small motherly little lady with white hair and a kindly face, opened the door.
“And I could do the same thing right now,” he said, staring blankly. “Good evening, Kate Alice. Ian in?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The little woman started and a peculiar expression crossed her face. It was not fear, neither was it actual dislike, but it was a cross between the two. Nevertheless she stood aside and motioned them to enter.
“Will you wait in here, please?” she asked, indicating a large sunny room on the left overlooking the main road. “What names?”
“And that horse won’t jump, either,” grinned Keating. “Come on ‘Mrs. Brownrigg.’ I’m in a hurry.”
The old lady’s eyes glittered.
“You never did know how to address a lady,” she snapped.
“I don’t have to,” Keating grunted. “You’d never be a lady unless they could make your old man a peer, and the only time they ever made him ‘appear’ was before a beak at Vine Street.”
To which she made no reply. She had lost her flashily garbed husband at about the same time that she began to lose her figure, but her love had survived his death, and Keating had touched a raw spot.
She withdrew silently and he turned to find Barbara regarding him with a disapproving expression.
“Why liken that dear old soul to the infamous Mrs. Brownrigg?” she asked.
“Why not?”
“Well, she seems rather nice and homely.”
“Yes, about as nice as veronal and as homely as a python. She’s the woman who put all the harm in charm, and she’s been the life and soul of one or two little funerals in her time.”
“Meaning?”
“She was housekeeper to two old gentlemen who died,” he said, and added, “from no apparent cause.”
“But that’s not remarkable.”
“No, but that Kate Alice should have been sole beneficiary under their wills, was more than remarkable. It was engineered!”
She looked a little shocked. “And her husband?”
“Sam? Oh, Sam was an engraver.”
“That sounds quite respectable and rather clever.”
“Yes, he was so clever that the Bank of England offered five hundred pounds reward for his capture,” he retorted, and gave her a brief outline of the gentle art of forging and uttering.
“Sam was five feet of fraud, with more personality than prospects,” he continued morosely. “I never knew why he married Kate Alice. Anyway, it was a case of love at first slight. He left her for some other wench, and never went back to her. I reckon he found that absence made the heart grow fonder, of absence. He was eventually hanged for murder!”
Before she could answer Ian entered the room, and his expression on seeing Keating betrayed no overwhelming pleasure.
“Well?” he asked uncompromisingly.
“Pretty fair,” admitted Keating. “A little cold. We’ve been driving.”
That was the first intimation of the “we” that Ian had received. He stared past Keating at Barbara and without recognizing her, unbent a little.
“I beg your pardon. I had no idea that any one besides the Inspector was present.”
There was a rather awkward pause while he stood there obviously expecting Keating to introduce them. Which caused Keating, who had no intention of doing any such thing, infinite pleasure.
At length Barbara moved forward into the light.
“Don’t you recognize me, Ian?” she asked.
He stared hard.
“Good Lord, it’s Barbara,” he jerked out and took her proffered hand. “This is a surprise. I’d never have recognized you.”
“And I,” she replied, “would have recognized you anywhere.”
“The famous leave a deep impression,” murmured Keating. He had been about to say “infamous” but thought better of it.
Ian held the girl away from him and looked at her admiringly.
“Quite the woman about town,” he said.
“Don’t be paternal,” she pleaded. “I can’t stand it.”
“Still cheeky,” he smiled.
“Nor reminiscent. It makes you look older than you are, and me seem younger than I am. When a girl drops her skirts she drops her past.”
“And when she puts up her hair, her nose goes with it,” Keating observed in a detached tone.
“What are you doing here, anyway, Barbara?” Ian asked, and his expression quite plainly added, “with
a police Inspector.”
Keating correctly interpreted the other’s look and grinned.
“She doesn’t run true to type, Ian. Any of your men folk would have been called informers if they’d shown a taste for busies. As for her business here, she drove me down. You and I have got one or two things to talk about.”
“What could be nicer?” Ian wondered. “Shall we go to my room? There’s a fire there.”
He escorted them across the hall to the room that had once been the colonel’s study. It was essentially a man’s room and consequently devoid of interest to any but its normal occupant, but the cheery fire interested the newcomers. At least it interested Barbara, and she saw nothing but a manservant in the tall, rather weak faced man who was putting coal on the fire.
Keating saw something more and his eyes narrowed.
“Veil, if it isn’t Clem,” he said delightedly. “Taken to breaking coal instead of safes, Clem?”
The man looked up swiftly with every vestige of expression wiped from his face.
“Ain’t he de cute lil feller,” he drawled. “Full of wise cracks ain’t you—you sap!”
He literally spat the last word and his sudden change of expression startled Barbara.
It had no effect on Keating, or Ian.
“Jose de Mello is still looking for you, Clem,” continued Keating amusedly. “He thought that safe of his was burglar proof. You’ve wounded his amour propre. That’s rather good. I must tell Kaye that one. Anyway an Argentine banker’s vanity is not a safe thing to monkey with, Clem, even for a fellow who spends his life monkeying with safes.”
“Banana oil,” retorted Clem politely. “De only safe I ever cracked was de one at de dames’ flat and dat was a cold store for de joint.”
“Straight from the Y.M.C.A., Barbara,” jeered Keating. “Meet Clem Wade. Incidentally, brother of our mutual friend Larry.”
“Pleased to meetcha,” said Clem coolly. “You don’t have to take no notice of dat poor hick, miss. Nor you ain’t got no call to have him trailing along wid youse. He ain’t fit comp’ny fer a swell jane like youse.”
“Thank you,” smiled Barbara and Clem’s admiration became a little more obvious.
“That’s the only thing Clem and Larry have in common,” interjected Keating. “The name. They’ve both got an accent, only Larry’s is Oxford. The same applies to their brains.”
Clem spat sideways into the fire.
“Dat egg sure gives me de heebies,” he derided. “Always crabbing about Larry, Miss. I admit Larry’s all dere from de bell where brains is concerned, but he ain’t cornered dem. Fleapowder’s got a grouch because I hands him de air every time dere’s a mill.”
With which sapient but to Barbara, totally unintelligible remark, he turned to Ian, who had remained a silent, amused spectator.
“Want anything more?” he demanded.
“Only your withdrawal,” Ian answered and Clem nodded.
“Sure,” he agreed and slouched out.
Keating watched him go, speculatively, and glanced at Ian.
“Running a remand home or reforming crooks? You’ll find it hard going.”
“Think so?”
“Sure. When the blind lead the blind, they’re liable to get run over,” Keating explained and added meaningly, “by one of the Squad’s cars.”
He pulled a chair forward for Barbara and seated himself on the edge of an adjacent table.
“Nice little home you’ve got here,” he said comfortably, helping himself to a cigarette from the silver box on the table.
“I had,” corrected Ian. “It seems to have changed owners.”
“Nice situation,” murmured Keating placidly.
“Possibly, but you didn’t come twenty miles to tell me that?”
“No, and I didn’t come twenty miles to tell you that one of your brothers is dead and the other about to be hanged, but you may as well know it.”
Ian took the blow well, but his face went very white and his voice when he spoke was strained.
“What do you mean—how do you know——?”
“Because Dennis raided Ralph’s flat last night,” said Keating, and he saw the other’s suddenly raised eyebrows.
“Did he—find anything?” asked Ian slowly.
“No, only Ralph. And he shot him. And I shot Dennis.”
Ian sat down abruptly. “Dead?”
“Who, Dennis? No; he’ll live till the judge says he can die.”
“Not Dennis—Ralph.”
“Oh, him. Yes, he’s dead all right. Never saw anyone deader. Face blown in and—sorry, Barbara.”
He looked anxiously at her, but she was staring into the depths of the fire and apparently had not heard the remark.
“This means the rope for Dennis,” Keating concluded, “and it also means two or three years in stir for anyone who uses those slips of paper that the Colonel left as a legacy. Know anything about them?”
His last words were almost persuasive, but not in their effect. Ian’s face automatically ceased to register any emotion whatever and Keating knew his answer before he heard it.
“Nothing,” Ian smiled and looked at the girl. “Barbara you’re privileged to see the world’s best and the world’s worst dissembler. Modesty forbids me naming the former, and courtesy the latter. They say your friend, Keating, put the ‘busy’ into business. Perhaps he did, but his approach is about as cautious as a herd of elephants in flight.”
Keating frowned.
“None of your family ever listened to reason, Barbara,” he said, sadly. “I’m willing to bet that one day we shall see our Ian regretting that he didn’t take uncle Sam’s advice and leave emeralds alone. Green’s a dangerous color.”
He began to fill his pipe slowly.
“We know you’ve got one of those slips, Ian, and there are at least two others in existence—Dennis and Ralph had one each. What happened to Dennis’s slip, gets past me, but Ralph’s is in the hands of the Poacher.”
In the act of lighting a cigarette, Ian paused. He paused so long that the match burned his fingers. Then he swore, and Barbara received the impression that it was Keating’s words and not the burnt finger that was responsible for the lapse.
“Is that true?” he asked. “If it is I advise that you watch—the Poacher.”
“Sure I’ll watch him. Where do I lode?”
“Not a mile from Bruton Street,” Ian said with peculiar emphasis, and Barbara looked up.
“Bruton Street?” she asked. “Larry Wade lives there, doesn’t he?”
Ian smiled grimly. So did Keating.
“Come on, Ian,” he invited, “quit sparring and talk plain and sensible. Not that I expect any Teyst to act sensible. Except my little friend here, that is. She’s got the sense to go straight. The rest of you’ll only go straight once—to jail.”
He looked thoughtfully at Barbara. “And what’s she going to do now that our Ralph has shifted the mortal coil?” he asked. “Did I say mortal coil? I’ll have to watch this habit. I’m beginning to quote Kaye.”
Ian’s thoughts came to earth.
“There’s a home here for Barbara whenever she likes to take it,” he said courteously and looked up to find her eyeing him surprisedly.
“That’s really very nice of you, Ian,” she said, “I’ll think it over.”
“You’ve only to say the word and I’ll have a room fixed up for you tonight, that is if Keating hasn’t scared you with atrocious stories about my servants.”
“Confederates,” corrected Keating, and Barbara asked, “Are the stories true?”
“As true as most things he says. But if he likes to stay and see that nobody steals your wrist watch or poisons your porridge, he’s welcome.”
Keating’s lips curled.
“About as welcome as a bee in the wrong hive,” he grinned. “What do you say, Barbara?”
“I say, yes. And I think I can look after myself, Mr. Keating.”
“Make it Sam,” he pl
eaded, “and I’ll stay too.”
“Stay as long as you like, Barbara,” Ian invited.
“If you’ll repeat your earlier offer about the home,” said Barbara suddenly, “I think I’ll say yes to that too. I can’t go back to Brook Street, somehow.”
Ian inclined his head.
“I’ll be glad to have you. We get good golf, tennis and swimming down here. Of course, it may seem a bit quiet after London. We live a rather peaceful and uneventful life.”
“Very,” commented Keating drily. “We only murder on Fridays, but what’s a corpse or two among friends? If you’re looking for peace and quiet, Barbara, you’ve struck a good patch here.”
His host smiled good-temperedly.
“Perhaps you’d like some tea? After your drive you must be cold. I can promise you that it won’t be doctored.” The last mockingly to Keating.
“No, thanks, I’m going down to the town to find my room for the night,” answered Keating.
“Staying at the White Hart?” Ian asked politely.
“I don’t think I’ll tell you where. I don’t want my rest broken.”
Barbara who was, womanlike, dying for a cup of tea decided nevertheless to sacrifice it. There were one or two questions she wanted to ask Keating.
“I’ll go with you,” she offered. “I can run you down in the car and we can get tea in the town.”
If Ian guessed her reasons for that statement he did not betray it. He stood aside for them to pass, but Keating made no move to do so.
“After you.”
“The courteous Inspector,” grinned Ian.
“The cautious Inspector,” Keating corrected pointedly. “I’d sooner be a boor and live to bore.”
Ian led the way but Barbara saw his frown.
At Keating’s request, Barbara drove him to a small inn just outside the town and after he had booked his room, drove slowly back, and up the hill to the woods.
They left the car in a secluded little shelter and strolled along a carpet of pine needles beneath the trees.
Keating paused suddenly to light a cigarette and, having done so squatted down on a tree trunk.
“If I were you, little Barbara,” he said thoughtfully, “I’d book a room at the White Hart.”
She looked down surprised.