An Apostle of Gloom (21 page)

Roger said: “No-o.” He looked at the silent, rather subdued, Cornish and there was a faint smile on his face. Cornish probably felt grieved because he had missed the fight. “It's time I pretended to be a policeman and worked by regulation, I think.”

“You mean – interview Oliphant?” Mark asked.

“Yes. I'd better have a word with Abbott first,” said Roger. He went to the telephone but it was cut; he realised that he should have expected it to be, for had Malone been able to telephone the solicitor he would not have sent a man. On such small mistakes a great deal depended, Roger thought, inanely. “Oh, well, I'd better go to see Abbott,” Roger said: “but – Mark, will you stay up until Janet arrives?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Thanks,” said Roger. “I think I'll get the car out,” he went on; “you'd better stay around for a bit. Corny, in case anything else blows up – they seem quite determined to let it all happen here.”

“All right,” said Cornish.

He walked through to the back door. The police had forced a window but Cornish had entered using the back door key which had been replaced in the tool shed by Morgan's man. There were signs of the struggle when the police had first entered but the kitchen looked in perfect order compared with the lounge. Roger scowled as he took out his keys, yet realised he had a great deal to be thankful for; when he thought of Malone he touched his cheek.

A single slip had finished Malone. It was difficult to believe that the man was on his way to the police cells, that the striking arm of the Pickerell-Oliphant organisation had been paralysed

The quicker he interviewed Malone the better; not that he expected the man to squeal, although probably some of his gang would. Roger forgot his anxieties and the disappointments awaiting Janet in a sudden burst of confidence. If anything was puzzling him at the moment he opened the doors of the garage, it was that Tennant had behaved in a peculiar way, to say the least. He had appeared to go for Malone as if he thoroughly enjoyed it, his temper had dissipated with remarkable facility. Perhaps Lois had told him more about Malone.

“What the—” gasped Roger.

The garage doors were wide open when he looked inside. His car was there, bonnet towards him. Sitting at the wheel, eyes wide open and mouth hidden by a scarf tied very tightly, sat a man with a peaked cap pushed to the back of his head, and with his hands tied to the steering wheel.

 

 

It was Dixon, the taxi-driver.

He could not speak even when Roger removed the scarf, and his mouth would hardly close; great red ridges showed on either side. His hands were so stiff that Roger had to prise them from the steering wheel. By then he had called for help, and Mark and Cornish, Tennant and two other policemen, were standing outside the garage.

Roger helped the man from the car; without his support Dixon would have fallen.

They carried him into the house, put him on a settee, then began to massage his lips and legs and wrists. Mark made some strong tea, put plenty of sugar in a cup, and spoon fed the man. The tension, which had relaxed after the disappearance of the Black Maria, was more acute than ever. Roger was desperately anxious to find out what had happened to Dixon, and who had brought the man here. He did not doubt that Dixon could give important information.

It was half an hour before the man could speak and then only in a voice a little above a whisper. Time and time again in the half-hour, Roger had remembered him at the wheel of his cab, starting in the wake of Cartier's Daimler.

The story quickened with excitement although it took twenty minutes in the telling.

Dixon had followed the Daimler to Bonnock House. Soon after he had parked his cab at the end of the road, another had arrived, bearing Mrs. Sylvester Cartier. With her had been a man whom the taxi-driver knew by sight because he had worked a great deal in the East End and had often been to the Old Bailey for a free entertainment. The man's name, he said, was Oliphant.

“Oliphant!” Roger exclaimed.

“Sure – an' the lady.” Dixon licked his lips, it was still an effort for him to speak. “Maybe I got too curious, mister; I went too close. I was hanging around and Malone arrived – you know Malone? He's poison, he—”

“He's at Cannon Row,” Roger said.

Dixon's eyes glittered. “I wish I could ‘ave ‘ad a go at ‘im first, the—” he broke off, gulped again and licked his lips painfully. “Okay, then, I just stayed around. Malone was watching. The toff who had been with the lady came out and got into the Daimler again and I started to follow but before I got far Malone came on the running board. Know ‘Ampstead ‘Eath, mister? Well, it's lonely enough an' I couldn't do a thing about it. There was four of them. They—they—” his voice was hoarse with anger, “they tied me up an' put me at the back o' me own cab an' drove it ‘ere.”

Roger said: “And you've been here ever since?”

“Every ruddy minnit,” said Dixon; “they never even give me a drink o' water. They tied me ‘ere an' told me I'd be lucky if anyone came before I was stiff.” He gulped. “I couldn't even get to the ‘orn, it was just in front o' me but I couldn't move me ‘ead, Guv'nor. Wouldn't I like—”

“Did they talk much?” Roger asked.

“Talk – they never did nothing else!” said Dixon. “They arst me ‘ow long I'd been a squealer, me – me a perishing nose! I arst yer! They wanted to know if I'd been told to watch the lady an' whether you had said anything about her, I said you said I was to watch the toff, Guv'nor. I didn't see no sense in giving them what they perishin' well wanted.”

“Good man!” said Roger, warmly.

“That tickled Malone,” Dixon said, “'e laughed as if it was the best joke in the world, Guv'nor – but I ‘ad the laugh, ‘cos ‘e didn't know you was really after the dame.”

“And that's the lot?” asked Roger.

“It seems plenty to me,” said Dixon, putting a hand to his eyes. “Strewth, if I don't get some shut-eye soon I shall drop dead, that's what I shall do, drop dead!”

“We'd better get you home,” Roger said.

“Guv'nor, if you've got a bed ‘ere—”

Roger said: “Yes, of course.” He left Mark and Tennant to put the man to bed, smiled crookedly at the thought of Janet's homecoming, then drove in his own car to the Yard. There seemed nothing to do but detain Mrs. Cartier and Oliphant and hope that one or the other would make a full statement. The woman might break down. There were some things which continued to puzzle him – if Malone had known that the woman was implicated when Dixon had arrived, he must have known later that evening – yet there had been nothing phoney about the way he had assaulted her.

“To make me jump to the wrong conclusion,” Roger said aloud; “it couldn't mean anything else.”

He reached the Yard and immediately gave instructions for Mrs. Cartier and Oliphant to be shadowed. He learned from Eddie Day that Abbott had put a man on Oliphant after all; rueful but relieved, Roger reflected that Abbott was still capable of being two-faced. Until he saw Abbott, he thought that Mrs. Cartier had no watcher but he was wrong. The Superintendent was apologetic; Chatworth had ordered him to have Oliphant watched, as well as Mrs. Cartier; the A.C. had not been prepared to leave it to Roger. And: “I think he was right, West,” Abbott said.

“So do I,” admitted Roger. “There's no sign of Pickerell?”

“No.”

“You've heard about Malone, of course?”

“I've just come from him,” said Abbott; “he will not talk – but then, he is hardly in a condition to talk, he will be in hospital for several days. Who dealt with him? Was it Cornish?”

Roger smiled. “No. There was a bit of a scrap, I can't say who hit who.”

He expected to be pressed on the point, but a buzzer rang on Abbott's desk and the Superintendent stood up quickly.

“That's Sir Guy,” he said. “I told him you had arrived and he promised to ring for us as soon as he was ready.” He led the way up to Chatworth's office and they went in immediately, finding Chatworth sitting at his tidy, shining desk. His fringe of greying hair was sticking out raffishly from his head, as if he had been trying to run his fingers through it. He looked at Roger with a faint smile.

“You're having quite a week, aren't you, West?”

Roger grimaced. “Yes, aren't I?”

“Still, it looks as if the worst is over,” said Chatworth. “Abbott's told you that we're watching
everyone
?” Roger nodded and Chatworth made no other reference to the countermanding of the permission to handle the Oliphant angle himself. “All the people whom the Randall girl named have been interviewed
except
Oliphant,” he said; “we've been very busy all through the night, West.”

“Good!” said Roger, smiling with genuine relief. He should have realised that the Yard would act swiftly and thoroughly. He had not yet got it out of his system that he was working this case on his own.

“And we have a very remarkable story,” Chatworth said. “You haven't told him, Abbott?”

“No,” said Abbott.

Roger stared. The A.C.'s eyes held a smile and he realised then that Abbott seemed very self-satisfied, even smug. It dawned upon him that they had discovered the motive behind it all; while he had been asleep and puzzling his mind for it, the Yard had found the truth. He felt a little foolish and yet greatly relieved.

“What is it, sir?” he asked.

Chatworth said: “It's a combination of things, West. First, many of the jewels which were looted during the blitz have not been disposed of. Pickerell sold items to some of the people to whom Miss Randall took the packages – she actually took the goods. There followed ordinary fencing, stealing of gems – always gems. Pickerell was the fence, working from Welbeck Street.”

“Yes?” said Roger. “That was not all?” Everything in Chatworth's manner told him there was more to come.

Chatworth gave his smug smile.

“And then there was the
real
purpose of the Society of European Relief, West! Relief!” He threw back his head and uttered a short laugh. “Oh, it had its genuine side but the chief angle was
very
clever indeed, and they had a cool nerve. Jewels were brought in from the Continent. There's been smuggling, we've known that for some time. Some were dropped by parachute at appointed places and members of the Society collected them and brought them to Welbeck Street.”

Roger thought: ‘Smuggled sparklers, so that's it.' He felt annoyed with himself for being disappointed. It was a big enough conception and its effrontery would take some beating, yet it lacked the proper finishing touch.

“Most of them came from Germany and Italy,” Chatworth said, gently.

Roger stared. “Germany?”

“Ever heard of the fortunes which Goering, Goebbels, Himmler and the rest of them are supposed to have wafted away?” asked Chatworth. “Of course you have! But other well-placed Nazi officials and German industrialists weren't able to do it. They wanted to save something from the wreckage, so they put their money in jewels – many of them pillaged from the occupied countries – and they sent them over here. The Society of European Relief became an organisation”—Chatworth laboured over the words—”to help Nazis and Fascists who thought they had a chance of saving their skins and wanted a comfortable fortune handy for the time when things settled down again. Follow that, West? The Society of European Relief!” he added, scathingly.

Roger said, faintly: “What use would it be to them? If they were Nazis they would be up for trial on the War Guilt clauses.”

“Yes, yes,” said Chatworth, “these people weren't the real Nazi officials, they were lukewarm, party men, guilty as hades but likely to get away with it because they had never been important in the Party machine. They were afraid that red revolution would break out in Germany – as it probably will – and in Italy. Nowhere in Germany or Italy would be safe for their filthy lucre. They had visions of another financial collapse like there was after the last war. They wanted to be quite sure that they had something to fall back on, so they sent the jewels to England – with Nazi connivance, of course. The Italian end has been closed for some time, but the German one is still open. Satisfied, West? Is it big enough?”

“Ye-es,” said Roger. He felt breathless. “The nerve of it!”

“Oh, yes,” said Chatworth. “But think how clever it was, West – they actually had a genuine organisation ready for distributing the jewels, which were never allowed to remain in one place for long. Very pretty, isn't it? For every genuine applicant for relief there was one who was a party to this precious scheme. There were people with friends in Germany and Italy, prepared to help when Mrs. Cartier persuaded them – men who wouldn't touch the jewels for themselves but were prepared to hold them. I don't know what precious argument the woman puts up – she probably told a lot of them that they were jewels belonging to Nazi victims. There are some very big names on the list of patrons of the Society – oh, it will prove quite a scandal! Beginning to understand how important it was that you should not connect the murder of the woman Cox with this?”

Roger said: “Yes, but – it's doubtful whether I ever would have done.”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Chatworth; “you have ideas sometimes! I think Oliphant must have been afraid that you'd seen something. I've heard from some of the people concerned that they have been afraid of a raid for several months. They had the wind-up all right and”—he laughed—”Friday the 13th worried someone!”

Roger said: “Ye-es. It couldn't have been that alone. You've enough on Mrs. Cartier and Oliphant to arrest them, of course?”

“We can pick them up when we want them,” said Chatworth; “that's why I didn't leave Oliphant to you at first, I couldn't take any risks. But you can't say that I haven't been generous, West, I'm leaving him and Mrs. Cartier to you after all! Your job to charge them.” He smiled. “Does that please you?”

Roger sat back in his chair, trying to assimilate all he had heard. The subtlety and simplicity of the plot was something to admire; he did admire it, even though reluctantly. Malone and the organisation built up during the days of 1940-1 had been harnessed with depressing efficiency to a chariot which would salvage the fortunes of some of the enemy. Mrs. Cartier, trading on her husband's social connections and her own beauty, had been a perfect intermediary. He wondered who had first thought of the Society and be remembered how she had talked to him when she had first told him of Lois and her conversation with Pickerell.

Suddenly, he said: “I think we'd be wise to defer arresting Mrs. Cartier, sir.”

Chatworth stared, genuinely startled.

“Now, West—”

“Look here,” said Roger with feeling, “she came to see me and first awoke my interest in the Society. Are you aware, sir, that if she hadn't come to pretend that she wanted my wife's help, I would probably never have gone to Welbeck Street? We might have traced Malone to Bonnock House, but even that's doubtful; it's the last place we'd have looked for him. We might, after a long time, have realised that the Society was up to no good, but I'm not at all sure. But for Mrs. Cartier we wouldn't have been able to make a move and I would still be under suspension.”

“Now—” began Chatworth again.

“It is true, isn't it?” Roger insisted.

“Come, West, come! You're grown up!” Chatworth's sarcasm, as heavy as a spade, was telling. “She has been a very smart, clever woman, no doubt about that.” He looked over the tops of his glasses. “Why, she even got five guineas out of me!” He hurried over that evil memory and went on, scowling: “Oh, yes, very clever. She told you some things and she meant to be sure that, whatever else, you would not suspect her.”

Roger said: “I don't know, sir. I saw Malone strike her. I saw the way her head went from side to side. That wasn't faked – he hurt her. I know what power Malone can put into his blows,” he added with feeling.

Abbott began to speak but stopped. Chatworth pursed his lips and waited for Roger to go on.