Another ten minutes and the hole was larger.
“Anything?” said Peter, who was shovelling away the stuff Michael got out.
“Yes. Lath and plaster now.”
“Let me try.”
They changed places. Michael leaned on the shovel and wiped his brow with his forearm. Two policemen were walking on the other side of the road. One of them seemed to glance across, but he evidently didn’t notice anything strange.
“We’d better get a bit more of this down first,” Peter said. “ We don’t want to look as if we’re simply knocking a hole.”
By two they had made a jagged opening four feet square. Then Michael went back to the lorry for a saw. They sawed through the laths, and in a shower of dust and plaster he pushed his way into the empty kitchen of No. 229.
“O.K.” he said. “Are you coming?”
“No. I’ll stay here. Don’t be long. The sooner we’re away now the better.”
Michael made a quick survey of the condemned house, up to the top story, examined the dormer window of the attic, came down again. Peter was shovelling rubble off the edge of the flooring and tipping it into the basement below.
“Right,” said Michael again. “ Let’s go.”
“Take your time,” said Peter, leaning on his shovel. “ Remember all the people who may be watching us. You go down. I’ll follow in a minute or two.”
Michael carried one ladder away and stacked it against a wall. Beside the wall was an old dentist’s chair, broken and oozing horse-hair padding as from an open wound. He walked back to the lorry and got in. In a while Peter joined him. Michael kicked the starter and drove off.
In all human affairs there is an element of chance. If Michael had driven round Cadogan Gardens and down Sloane Street they would have seen the taxi drawing up outside No. 241 and a tall stout man carry his suitcase to the door of the house and let himself in. Instead Michael turned left out of the mews and then right at Symons Street.
Even the most careful staff work would have been unlikely to have discovered the arrangement between Mr Bernard Gilbert and his brother Captain Oliver Gilbert whereby Captain Gilbert used his brother’s town house at week-ends whenever he chose. Bernard Gilbert was notified by postcard and left a bed prepared; but Captain Gilbert was in the Diplomatic Service and was sometimes not seen in London for years. Just now he had been in Kenya, and after briefing in London he was to fly to New York on the 15th for a lecture tour.
Today Captain Gilbert, having travelled through the night, went briefly upstairs for a bath and shave, changed his clothes and then went out to his club.
Peter and Michael spent what was left of the day in Michael’s flat. Michael lay on his decrepit settee, moving only every half hour or so to change his records. Peter chain-smoked on a chair by the window, but not nervously. His hands and his manner were passive. He seemed at rest.
Michael made coffee about six. Over it Peter said: “I miss the Middle Pocket. That had a legitimate flavour, give it its due. The others are either too respectable or too sleazy.”
“Have you ever seen Dick Ballance since that night?”
“Twice. He says there’d be no trouble going there again now, but maybe it’s better to be sure.”
“I hope you can flog this stuff when we get it.”
“I know I can. There’s a tremendous demand in France and of course in America. I’ve been promised fair prices.”
“I’m glad.”
“Well, naturally.”
“But specially, as this is my last job.”
Peter didn’t say anything.
“Will you go on?” Michael asked after a while.
Peter shrugged. “ Not for a time anyway. Dear Ma-ma has gone to Estoril for the winter, and I shall probably join her. It’s always interesting to see her face when I turn up somewhere unexpectedly.”
“Why particularly?”
“I’m her problem child, dear boy. Privately I believe she thinks I’ll do her in some day.”
“But why?”
“Ma-ma’s a great one for the psychiatrists. She’s always having a go with one, and, as soon as I lifted an unorthodox finger, off I went too. They’ve been a familiar figure in my life ever since I can remember. Then when I was in my late teens I beat up a butcher boy because I saw him kick a pony. He went to hospital and I went in triumph to a new skull thumper. Unfortunately this new man fairly loaded Ma-ma with guilt by telling her she’d let me down. Then I believe he dropped the word Orestes into the conversation, and she’s never completely recovered her nerve since. I only have to brood a while and she thinks her moment has come.”
“It’s an interesting idea.”
“In fact you’re a much better brooder than I am. If she had you to deal with she’d be scared right out of her pants.… Personally I’d never so much as touch a hair of the silly old woman’s head.”
Michael poured himself more coffee. “ What is this thing you have about animals, Peter?”
Peter raised his eyebrows. “Have I?”
“I think so.”
“.… I don’t know.… To me animals are the blind alleys in evolution’s struggle to evolve the perfect creature—man.… But somewhere along the way, out of perfection has come infinite evil. So I can’t bear to see these—these less perfect creatures humiliated or hurt by a form of life that has forfeited any right it may ever have had to be considered superior.”
When darkness fell they went out and had a meal. Michael was for going ahead very soon but Peter said patience.
They went back to Michael’s flat and spent the evening reading and listening to the radio. About midnight they put on old clothes and took out two battered brown valises Michael had bought early in the week. They parked the M. G. near Olympia, picked up the old lorry and made a devious way to Pavilion Road.
It was a dark night, and as they turned in at the demolitions only a few of the square eyes of the houses round were lit; not nearly so many as on a mid-week night. The street lights from Sloane Street were not bright, and Michael stopped the old lorry in the shadow of a partly demolished wall, killed the engine and switched off the lights.
They changed into gym shoes, put on thin gloves, carried the ladder back to the place where they had been a few hours ago, went up with the bags and through the wall into the empty house to the top floor. Here there was a dormer window which opened without trouble.
Climbing over the roofs was moderately tricky. They were invisible from below, but they had five intervening roofs to negotiate before they came to No. 241 and they had no means of knowing how many of the houses were occupied over the week-end.
So the prime need was quietness. Even then the difficulty was not great. There was always a comfortably wide parapet, sloping slates could be edged round, there were broad areas of flat roof, occasionally a chimney stack to be skirted. The only real danger lay in the bags which were big and unwieldy to carry.
The dormer window of No. 241 was latched on the inside. Peter had been practising for two weeks. He took a roll of broad tape from his bag, cut a strip and brushed it with a quick-drying gum. Then he pressed it over the glass until it stuck. While he was holding it there Michael cut another piece of the tape. So they went on until the whole pane was covered. After waiting until the gum was dry Peter took a blanket out of the bag, held it to the window and gently pressed. There was a light cracking sound, then another. He took the blanket away. The window had broken through but the glass was sticking to the tape. He slowly wriggled his gloved hand between two pieces of the tape until he was through the hole and could reach the catch. The hinges creaked. While Michael held his bag Peter let himself down into the room.
The two bags were passed in; Michael followed. They were in a room exactly like the one they had left seven doors away except that this one was furnished. A bed, a dressing-table, frocks behind the door. Michael latched the window half open and pulled the curtains.
Peter switched on his pencil-beam torch. “Thre
e-point landing. It’s all a matter of technique.”
“Yes.”
“Ground floor first and work up.”
“That’s a good miniature to have in an attic bedroom,” Michael muttered.
“Slip it in your pocket when we leave—if there’s room for it.”
When they opened the door on to the landing another bedroom door faced them, and stairs led down. All the way down this flight and the next were miniatures and small oil paintings. On the ground floor there were three rooms because a kitchen had been built out at the back to serve the dining-room.
They drew the curtains both front and back; but the curtains at the front, being on big bone rings, made a rattle as they were slowly pulled, and it was this that disturbed Captain Gilbert from his first deep sleep.
Both rooms they found were full of good pieces. Among other things in the dining-room were a pair of silver salvers of early eighteenth-century design, an Elizabethan silver-gilt goblet, a Queen Anne chocolate pot, a Meissen tea service. Michael hesitated over the china for he could neither bear to leave it nor bear to damage it. Presently there was a sound at the door, and he turned to see Peter with his bag half full, watching him.
“I’ve got a Degas drawing and a superb little Epstein head of a sleeping child. God knows what they’re worth.”
“I’d like to keep some of these things myself,” said Michael. “Look at this gold and enamel box.”
“Leave space. We’ve three bedrooms yet, and if I know people like this they’ll have bought so much stuff that there will be pickings everywhere.”
“Peter, I’ve been thinking. There’s so much here, and we’ve five hours of darkness. Why not a second journey?”
“Maybe. See how it works out this time. Anyway there’s no hurry. I’ll go on up.”
“Have you pulled the curtains back in the front room?”
“No, they made such a clatter. Watch your step coming up the stairs; there’s a window looking out at the back that hasn’t any curtains.”
Peter went out, and Michael picked up a pair of famille rose octagonal plates enamelled in colours. But he decided to leave all the china, for his bag was three-quarters full already, and heavy. He zipped it up and carried it across to the drawing-room to give that room a quick glance over in case Peter had missed something obvious.
The other pictures were undisturbed. He made a round of them and stopped at a small flower palming. It didn’t appear to be signed, but the art sense he had picked up from his father suggested it was a Fantin Latour. If so it might be the biggest prize of the lot. He lifted it down. As he did so there was a loud bump on the floor above.
Damn Peter for a clumsy fool! These houses were narrow and thin, and some nervous old lady next door might ring up the police. The picture under his arm and the bag in his other hand, he went up the stairs.
Half-way he stopped. There was a light on. This was beyond reason. And then he heard a voice.
For an insane second it came to him to hope that Peter had accidentally switched on a radio. Then sickly, he heard Peter’s voice:
“… yes, it does rather, doesn’t it?”
“So you’ve nothing to say for yourself, eh?”
“What can I say? You can’t suppose that I’ve called about the rent.”
Peter had dropped something on the floor to warn him.
Still rather insanely carrying both the picture and his bag he came to the top of the stairs. Peter was standing in a bedroom, his hands half-raised. He looked pale and he kept blinking his eyes as if in smoke. A stout dark man stood in the doorway in his pyjamas; he was holding a small automatic pistol.
“Lucky I’m a light sleeper, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I’d have come into your bedroom and wakened you.”
“Well, now we’ll just waken the police.”
As the man turned to the phone Michael stepped in and swung his heavy bag at the man’s head.
He went down. The pistol exploded and a window shattered. The man had fallen in a heap, the receiver swinging, the automatic somewhere under him; Michael switched off the light.
He slid out through the door, and in ten seconds Peter was beside him.
“Up!”
They ran up the stairs; as they came to the top flight the man downstairs came out, started firing: thrump, thrump, into the woodwork. They were in the bedroom; there was a key m the door; Michael turned it.
Peter was already at the window. “Come on.”
They got out. “Pity you lost your bag,” said Peter. Michael saw he was carrying his.
Not a pleasant journey back. “Take your time,” Michael said. “He’ll be ten minutes breaking that door. And if he goes down and out into the street he won’t know where we’re coming out. Oh-ho, clumsy.”
“Didn’t see that guttering.”
They made two houses, began the third; all was quiet now; yet one couldn’t imagine glass clattering into a London main street even in the middle of the night without attracting some attention. And the revolver shots.
The third done. “ Who the hell was he?” Peter muttered. “ Man should be arrested, shooting like a drunken cow-hand.”
The fourth. One more. Michael paused to put his nose over the parapet. “He’s out and looking up. He can’t find a policeman. There’s another man talking to him.”
Fifth. Nearly there. “This bag’s heavy,” said Peter. “ Hope there’ll be enough for two. Can you take it while I get in.”
Michael took it. Sound of a car down below. If the people below crossed the street and looked the right way he could still be seen.
“Right,” said Peter.
Michael swung in the bag and followed. To be away from the spaces of the London roof tops.
Peter was running lightly down the stairs ahead of him; Michael followed more slowly. The kitchen and the hole; Peter was peering out.
“All quiet, I think. I’ll go and try.”
He left the bag until he was on the ladder. Then Michael handed it to him. He went down; Michael followed; ground again, solid ground. Peter was a shadow ahead, dodging towards the lorry. He was there, lifted the bag into the back, climbed into the cab; Michael caught him up.
“This engine’ll make a row.”
“Got to chance it. We’ve got to get away before the whole area is cordoned off.”
Michael started the engine, let in the clutch too fiercely; the engine stalled.
“Gently does it.”
The second time was better; but they had not backed the lorry before leaving it; Michael shunted it round, catching one wing on a wall, the engine roaring.
“Turn right when you get out.”
They went lurching and jolting over the rough ground, came to the mews; not blocked. Screeching of tyres as they came into Pavilion Road.
“Lights,” said Peter. “And slower a bit. Left here.”
They eased their way round a corner. Car coming towards them. It kept on its own side. Taxi.
“Right here.”
No one followed.
“Slower, boy.”
They came out into Pont Street.
“Well,” said Peter and let out an uncertain breath. “That was a near miss. Thanks for the back-hand volley.”
“We should have stopped and tied him up and gone on with the job,” said Michael. “As soon as anything blows off we lose our heads.”
“I don’t like thick-ear stuff.”
“Sometimes it’s necessary.”
“Cigarette?”
Michael shook his head.
They drove on through the deserted streets.
“It might be wise to make a detour,” said Peter.
“I don’t feel like any more detours.”
It was just after three when they came to their garage. They drove in and Michael cut the engine. He said: “This is another tricky part.”
“How come?”
“That man shot me in the leg and I’m bleeding like a pig. How do I get home without le
aving bloodstains?”
Michael sat in the garage while Peter went for the car. Wrapped in the car rug and the blanket, he made the journey without staining the leather. Once in the house Peter had a look. The wound was in the upper part of the thigh, well towards the back.
“God, this will have left a trail! And all over the seat of the lorry.”
“Would you rather we’d stopped for repairs in Sloane Street?”
Peter was dabbing at the wound. It had almost stopped bleeding, but the delayed effects were showing in Michael; he was pale and sweaty from shock.
“The bullet’s still in, isn’t it? That means a doctor of some sort.”
“Dangerous.”
“Dangerous either way.”
Peter said: “I’ll tape you up now and see if I can get someone tomorrow.” He began to tear a sheet into strips.
Michael screwed round to look at the wound. “ What sort of a gun was it?”
“A .25 automatic, I think. It’s a perfectly clean puncture. It would heal on its own.”
“Not with the bullet in.”
“Oh, I expect it could. My tutor at Cambridge still had bits of shrapnel in him that he’d carried for thirty years.”
“I’d prefer not to carry this.”
Peter began to bandage the place. Now that the emergency was over, his own hands were not steady.
Michael said: “How do I go about things until this does heal? I was seeing Bennie tomorrow—I’ll have to cancel that.”
“Say you fell and ricked your back. I’ll phone Bennie for you, if you like.”
“No, take a note round tonight before she gets back. She didn’t know I was seeing you. Take it as you go home.”
Peter’s face twitched. “I wasn’t going home. But on second thoughts I will. I don’t like that bag over there. It’ll be safer in Portland Place.”
Michael wrote:
Darling,
To my fury old Bartlett wants me to go to Liverpool for a Book Week they’re having there. It’s maddening but I can’t refuse. I tried to catch you before you left but it was too late. I hope to be back about Thursday, in time perhaps to see something of the libel action, if it isn’t all over by then. I shall rejoice if it is.
The Tumbled House Page 27