by John Creasey
Chapter Twenty-Eight
News From Afar
Sybil came slowly into the room, without looking back at Jeremiah. She was pale and her hands were trembling. She walked as if she were in pain, and sat down in the chair which Jeremiah had vacated without being invited. Then she looked at Roger with her eyes rounded and showing traces of the shock of that encounter.
“You hate that man, don’t you?” demanded Roger.
“I don’t—like him.”
“You hate him, and you must have reason to hate, and you’re frightened of him,” said Roger. “Is he one of the men who’ve forced you to work for them? Are you scared of naming him because of what he might do to you?”
She moistened her lips.
“No—no, I just don’t like him. Don’t trust him.”
“Did his brother work with him?”
“I—I don’t know,” she said. “It’s no use asking me anything about him; I don’t know more than I’ve told you.”
“All right, Miss Lennox. Have you read through the typewritten copy of the statement you made last night?”
“Yes, and I’ve signed it.”
“You’ve remembered nothing more?”
“No, nothing. There—isn’t any more.” She leaned forward now. Her eyes were really lovely, he could well understand how men could fall for her. Was she far more cunning than she appeared – and as Jeremiah seemed to think? “Mr West, I—I would tell you more if I could, I know it’s no use holding anything back now, but – everything I know is in that statement.”
“Very well,” said Roger.
She didn’t get up.
Roger said: “Mr Lessing travelled with you?”
“Yes, with—with two policemen.” She shivered. “I don’t want to go back to Brighton, and I don’t want to go to Mrs Clarke. I’m—still so afraid.”
“You needn’t be,” Roger said more gently. “We’ll look after you now.”
“You didn’t before,” she reminded him. “Can’t you keep me here? Safe? They can’t get at me here; it’s the only place where I can rest now.”
Of course he could charge her.
It need only be a nominal charge; she could be remanded next day in custody – no magistrate would refuse a remand. And she would be quite safe; she was probably right about the danger, although he had tried to convince himself that ‘they’ would no longer be interested in her, because they knew that she could no longer be frightened into keeping silent. But he would prefer her to be at large, although closely watched – so that if there were another attack her assailants could be caught.
A telephone bell rang.
He was glad to look away from her as he lifted the receiver.
“West speaking.”
“Come along and see me, will you?” asked Chatworth, and his voice was so gruff that Roger felt sure he had more news.
“May I be a few minutes, sir?” asked Roger. “I’ve someone with me, who—”
“Be as quick as you can,” said Chatworth.
The girl had not once looked away from him while he had been talking to Chatworth. He now knew what action to take, the moment of weakness had gone.
“Miss Lennox,” he said, “you will have full police protection. I advise you to return to your usual boarding-house in Chelsea. In any case, wherever you go, a police escort will follow you. Now I’ve urgent business to attend to.”
He stood up in a gesture of dismissal.
The girl looked at him with silent reproach, and then turned and limped away.
Mark was waiting for her downstairs. She told him what had happened, and he showed no surprise. Two police-sergeants followed them from Scotland Yard, and one came forward when Mark beckoned from the wheel of his car.
“We’re going to my flat,” Mark said. “Tell Mr West when you can. And see that it’s watched, please.”
“Will Miss Lennox be staying there?”
“Yes,” said Mark emphatically.
Chatworth was sombre. The Echo had brought strong criticism from the Home Office, and they were after someone’s scalp. “Have you made any progress, Roger?”
“Not much, it won’t surprise me if we get another crop of robberies soon,” said Roger. “I’ve asked the Brighton police to raid Perriman’s big wholesale branch there. The report should come through at any time.”
“What about other branches?” Chatworth demanded.
“I can’t see much point in picking ’em out with a pin,” said Roger.
“Had any news about the Perriman Rolls-Royce?”
Roger had to grin.
“There are seven in the family, sir! I’ve accounted for six, and I’m waiting for a report on Emanuel’s, which I’m told is never taken out at night. Meanwhile I’m going to tackle the other football clubs. If the organisation is as big as we fear, hundreds – even thousands – of small operators are in it. They’re probably working in cells – one at Fulham, others all over the place. Although there’s overall control and direction, each cell will work independently. Probably the one at Fulham has no idea there are others – at the Arsenal and White Hart Lane, for instance. If the show is coming to a head, very soon general orders will be sent out – and that will be on a Saturday. If we could make a simultaneous swoop on them all—”
“Very effective,” said Chatworth dryly. “But you’re jumping a bit, Roger.”
“They must have a means of communicating with their men,” said Roger. “I can’t think of a better one than the programmes.”
“All right, have a shot at it.” Chatworth rubbed his chin. “How will you start?”
“I’ll get the Fulham people to make inquiries through the London clubs, and visit one or two of the big provincial clubs myself,” said Roger.
The Fulham club agreed at once to help.
Roger visited Aston Villa, Newcastle, and Blackpool on a whirlwind tour, and had two long talks by telephone with the manager of Glasgow Rangers.
Most of the clubs were having ‘pirate programme’ trouble. None of them took it seriously. Such outbreaks came from time to time, and usually faded out because the supporters wouldn’t patronise the sellers. In them all were various misprints.
Each had been printed on the same machine, Roger thought, but to satisfy himself, he consulted the master-printer of HM Stationery Office.
“Yes, Inspector,” he agreed, “they’ve been printed on the same machine – a monotype set. You can see from that slightly broken ‘e,’ the broken tail of the ‘g.’ But don’t be misled by the broken type-face, that’s been run off on a new machine.”
“How new?” Roger demanded sharply.
“We installed one eighteen months ago,” said the master-printer, “we brought it over from America. I doubt if a dozen have been imported since the war, but that’s new typeface.”
“You’re sure that only a few machines have been imported?”
“Quite sure. You’re going to the Board of Trade, I suppose, to find out who else has one of them?”
“I am,” said Roger firmly.
HM Stationery Office printing works had four of the twelve which had been imported.
Three large printing works had one each. Tucktos had three.
The other two had been installed at the Midlands plant of the Crown Printing & Manufacturing Company – Randall’s firm!
Peel, as an inspector of the Board of Trade, was as satisfactory as he had been as a porter at Perriman’s Woodhall factory. With him, when he visited the Crown works, was the master-printer, and in a café a mile away on the Solihull Road sat Roger West.
Jim Wilson of Crown showed them round the big machine-room. His gingery hair glistened, his eyes sparkled, he looked to Peel an athletic and nice young man – as he had done to Roger.
He was enthusiastic, as became a man who had only recently become a director. The Crown works had done a wonderful job recently; they had expanded considerably, bought up several smaller firms, and they were by way of competing with the octop
us concerns like Tucktos.
He spoke quietly, but managed to make his voice sound above the din of the machines. There were dozens of these, some huge ones and some smaller and, at the far end, the two new monotype machines. They were the latest, from the States – a wonderful job.
Two men sat at the keyboards, typing rapidly.
The master-printer hummed and hawed, said how wonderful it was, could he see some specimens of the typeface? Oh, of course, said Wilson, and sent a boy for some specimens. Wilson took these and began to enthuse.
Peel watched the master-printer.
After a brief inspection, the man nodded meaningly.
Roger saw Peel’s car draw up outside the café, and, weary of waiting, hurried out, to the astonishment of a waitress to whom he hadn’t yet given an order. One look at Peel told him the result, and, the master-printer said, this could be proved up to the hilt: the programmes had been set on that monotype and printed off on the same machine.
That day, Friday, Roger and Peel returned to the Yard just after half-past five and Roger went straight to the Assistant Commissioner’s office.
“This will shake you, sir,” said Roger with deep satisfaction. “We’ve traced the machine, we know who printed and distributed the programmes. I haven’t made any arrests yet, I’d rather wait until tomorrow when we’ve cleared up the gangs at the football grounds, but—”
“Why should this shake me?” asked Chatworth mildly.
Roger laughed.
“The one place we should have looked and didn’t, sir – Randall’s company. The man concerned is Wilson, one of the directors. He was Randall’s friend, or was supposed to be – the man from whom Randall had a letter on the day of his death. Remember?”
Chatworth just stared.
“I’ve checked very closely,” said Roger. “Wilson’s very keen on his work and used to be a working printer – as apart from an executive. He spends two or three evenings a week working late on special orders, and a van collects the stuff every Thursday night. It’s rumoured that it’s private Government work, very hush-hush. No one thinks anything much about it. The night-watchman always see the van off the premises, and I’ve had a long talk with him. There’s been a change of driver lately – and he identified Mike Scott as the driver until a fortnight ago.”
“Well, well!” murmured Chatworth.
“Wilson and Scott always left together – the night-watchman understood that the driver gave Wilson a lift home,” said Roger. “The van is put in a lock-up garage and the parcels posted from Birmingham Central Post Office early next morning. They’re sent all over the country. I’ve a list of most of the districts, and the country is pretty widely covered – every town where there are ‘pirate’ programmes gets a parcel. It looked foolproof – it was until we got on to the printers.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Chatworth, “but don’t go too fast. Perhaps we’ve got Wilson but he isn’t in this alone.”
“Wilson’s a football fan,” said Roger, rubbing his hands. “Peel got him talking. Spent his boyhood in Fulham, he says, and comes up to every Fulham home match. He’ll be at the Cottage tomorrow.”
“Or won’t he be scared off now?” asked Chatworth.
“Because he knows we’re on to the Fulham programmes?” asked Roger. “I don’t think so, he’ll come to see that everything’s all right, I fancy. Remember his London associate can damn him, and he’s killed whenever he’s in danger. He’ll meet his partner tomorrow or I’ve missed my guess.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Chatworth fervently. “What else? Any idea who his accomplice is?”
“Once we go back to the day of Randall’s death,” said Roger, “we come to the fact that he got a Perriman order, to Jeremiah Scott’s astonishment. Perriman’s are involved – someone at Perriman’s, anyhow. The director whom Randall saw that day was Samuel Perriman. I should say that Randall tumbled to what was happening, or else knew and wanted an extra cut. He was given the order to placate him, and then bumped off. A talk with Samuel is indicated, but not until after the match. I’ve an idea that I could get you a centre-stand ticket for the match, sir. Care to come?”
The next morning, James Wilson left his factory a little after nine-thirty, and drove to London. His progress was reported, every two or three miles, by police patrol cars, and one was never far behind him. In London, a police-car – without any tell-tale sign up – followed his gleaming Alvis through the West End and the City, until it stopped near Perriman’s Head Office. Wilson did not go into the building, however, but to a popular café nearby, where he was shortly joined by a small, dapper man. It was a quarter-past twelve; they ordered lunch.
A plain-clothes detective sat at the next table, but could not overhear all the conversation although he heard snatches of it, and one sentence impressed itself deeply on his mind.
It was Wilson who uttered it: “After next week, they won’t know whether they’re coming or going. This week’s show was child’s play!”
This, and other snatches of conversation, were duly reported to Roger at Craven Cottage. He arrived there just after one-thirty, when there were only a few hundred people in the ground.
It soon began to fill up.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Last Kick-Off
At all the League grounds the crowds thronged to see the last kickoff of the season. There appeared to be no more police than usual, because most were in plain clothes. Several were standing near the turnstiles – not far, in each case, from a seller of ‘pirate’ programmes.
Inside each ground, there was a peculiar situation near the turnstiles.
There was one programme seller unknown to Fulham officials – the ‘pirate.’ Every man who bought a programme from the ‘pirate’ and then paid his money and was clicked through was touched on the shoulder and taken to a large tent which had been erected nearby. Most of them were too astonished to protest. A few tried to get away, but couldn’t go back through the turnstile and found every other exit blocked. Only one or two slipped through the police cordon. There were many innocent fans, but no protest availed them. As the time for the kick-off arrived, plain vans drew up, ready to take the men off for interrogation. The guilty would be held, the innocent released with a spate of apologies.
The ‘pirate’ programme seller stood in a different position near the wharf. He was a little, middle-aged man with a hang-dog look, and was obviously nervous.
In the stand Roger and Chatworth were sitting together. Samuel and Emanuel Perriman were in their usual places. Jeremiah Scott had been quick to see Roger and grin. Peel and other Yard men were near the exit from this block; in the third row, Jim Wilson sat smiling, and next to him was Akerman – the Perriman buyer.
“Everyone here?” demanded Chatworth.
“Yes,” said Roger, who could see everyone in whom he was interested. “I wonder if it is Akerman of Perriman’s we want.”
“Looks like it,” said Chatworth.
“I’m rather sold on Samuel,” said Roger. “I—”
His words were drowned in a roar which greeted the West Bromwich team as the players ran on to the field. Another roar greeted Fulham.
Then suddenly a man appeared at the top of the steps – a little furtive man; the programme seller. Roger stiffened and nudged Chatworth. The programme seller sidled past Peel, who was on duty there, and touched Wilson on the shoulder. Wilson glared at him and waved him away, but the man bent forward and whispered urgently – doubtless telling him what he knew of the detentions.
On the field, the two captains were shaking hands, the referee had a coin poised on his thumb-nail.
The Fulham captain won and indicated the direction he would choose, bringing another roar from the crowd.
Wilson and Akerman jumped up.
Peel and two uniformed constables blocked the exit.
Wilson, who had seen the police, suddenly moved forward, pushing aside two people on the seats in front of him, climbing over the shou
lders of the spectators in the next seats in front again, A man protested, but Wilson ignored him and was near the first row. Akerman tried to follow, but Peel grabbed his arm. Now people were standing up in protest. The programme seller ducked and tried to get to the exit, but a policeman held him.
Wilson reached the first row of seats, immediately behind the standing enclosure – no one in front of him had yet seen anything of the disturbance. Roger was already hurrying down the gangway. Wilson sprang down into the enclosure, pushed his way to the railings which guarded the playing pitch, and vaulted over them.
The teams were lined up for the kick-off, the referee had the whistle to his lips.
Roger crashed through the people in the enclosure and cleared the railings. Wilson looked round, saw him, and then rushed straight on to the pitch. The whistle blew, the ball was swung out to the wing. A roar of protest boomed out as people saw Wilson, then Roger, invade the pitch. Two or three uniformed policemen followed, looking ungainly. The ball passed Wilson and came straight at Roger.
He kicked it out of his path and sent it ballooning up into the air, bringing an ironic cheer. The referee blew his whistle shrilly, but Wilson went straight across the pitch, with Roger only a few yards behind him.
Wilson snatched something out of his pocket and turned round. Roger saw a yellow flash and then heard the report. It silenced the crowd.
The bullet missed Roger. Several of the players who had started after Wilson backed away when they saw the gun. Policemen near the touchlines were closing in, but there was a wide gap – a gap through which Wilson hoped to pass. If he once got into the crowd on the main terrace, he might get away.
He fired again.
Roger felt a sharp pain in his right arm, but it didn’t slow him down.
Wilson was only a few yards from the touchline now, with a dozen police some distance away. Then a slim, dark-haired figure in white moved forward swiftly, went down in a flying tackle and caught Wilson’s ankles. Wilson turned the gun on him and fired. The report was loud – and followed by a mighty roar of anger. But Wilson went over, the gun slid from his grip, and Roger pounced.