Calamity in Kent, A British Library Crime Classic (22 page)

And there, certainly, Shelley had uttered what was perhaps the wisest remark he ever made.

Chapter XXIV

In Which We Try to Find the Chief

I knew well enough that when once Shelley had got on the scent of a case he was not a man to let go until he had got the whole thing thoroughly and finally solved. But at the same time I realised that he had now got something difficult to do. The general outline of the problem, as he had given it to us, was no doubt correct enough.

Personally I could not see how the question of the lift could be solved. The thing seemed to me to be fantastic and impossible to straighten out. How a body could be found in a locked lift, the locks clearly not having been in any way tampered with, seemed to me to be such a nightmare problem that any rational solution appeared absolutely impossible. I was, indeed, not at all surprised that Shelley thought this of really vital importance.

In fact, it seemed to me that Shelley had now succeeded in solving the case in its broad outlines; he had not, however, settled one not unimportant part of it—the identity of the murderer. That the chief of the drug-peddling gang was the man responsible for the deaths of two members of the gang seemed to be certain.

But who was the chief? That was the great problem. After all, if he was someone outside those we had already met in the case it would not be at all easy to get hold of him. We should be working completely in the dark. If, on the other hand, he was one of those we had already met, who could it be? I assumed that Tim Foster and Maya Johnson were not implicated in the crime; and somehow I couldn't see Mrs. Skilbeck as one of the great figures in a drug racket. Bender had no brains, and, while there were a few others who had entered on the fringes of the case, I could not readily envisage them as drug-kings. The whole thing was, it seemed to me, as puzzling as ever.

I looked back at that morning when I had seen Bender staggering over the promenade. Many things had happened since that moment, and, while I now knew a lot more about the background of the case, I was really not much further forward in my knowledge of its fundamentals.

I wandered into another little café after I had left the Police Station, ordered myself a pot of tea and some toast, and sat back, in a brown study.

Then I suddenly became conscious of the fact that a familiar figure was sitting opposite me. It was Shelley.

“Where did you come from?” I asked in some surprise.

“Deep in thought, weren't you?” Shelley said with a broad grin. “Well, Jimmy my lad, I thought that I'd like to have a few words with you away from the estimable Beech. He is a perfectly respectable officer, for whom I have a good deal of admiration, but he doesn't possess one of the vital necessities for the good detective.”

“What's that?” I asked.

“That little touch of creative imagination which is needful if you are to get to the heart of a case from the start,” Shelley said. “You see, I had to apply a considerable amount of pressure to our friend Mrs. Skilbeck before I got her to admit the connexion of Tilsley with the drug racket. Her main aim now seems to be to keep his memory sweet. And if for a moment she was prepared to admit that he was a peddler of cocaine it would make him a bit of a disreputable individual—not at all the sort of person whom she wants to remember. But at the same time she gave way when I pressed her hard. And I don't think that Beech would ever have got to that point. The idea that the man might be selling cocaine is the sort of idea that only comes to a man with a trace of creative imagination.”

I smiled. Shelley seemed to have forgotten that the idea had come from me—or rather from Maya Johnson originally. Still, as long as the idea seemed to be leading somewhere I didn't mind all that much if my part in it was rather overlooked.

“The greatest problem, I suppose, is finding the identity of the chief,” I said.

“Yes; that was why I followed you here, Jimmy,” Shelley said. “You see, our branch at Scotland Yard have sent me some details that I think may lead us to the man we're after. They're a bit too vague to be immediately valuable, but I thought that if you did some unofficial snooping around you might be able to lay your hands on what we're after.”

“You want me to become a detective again?” I remarked with a grin.

“Something like that. Mind you, there will be a bit of danger attached to this, Jimmy,” he said. “I'm not questioning your personal bravery, but I think that you should be warned before you shove your head into the lion's mouth.”

“I'm not braver than the next man,” I said. “But if I'm allowed eventually to publish what I find out, I don't mind taking a chance on it.”

“Good man!” Shelley answered. “I thought that was what you would say.”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Well, it's a bit of a long story,” Shelley explained. “If you'll listen I'll see if I can make it clear to you.”

Fortunately the café in which we were sitting was practically empty. We could talk quietly without much chance of being overheard.

“Our men at the Yard usually have a fair idea of the gangs that are involved in this drug business,” the detective went on. “They may not always have enough evidence to convict them, but they keep a pretty close watch on them, and are ready to jump at any moment if it seems likely that a conviction can be obtained. I hope you understand what I mean, Jimmy.”

“I think I do.”

“You see, there's a fairly constant amount of illegal cocaine in circulation in this country. If some new source of supply becomes available we usually learn about it pretty soon. And then the job is to run this new source down. If we can do that, we're happy.”

“And a new source has become known lately?”

“Yes. And it centres on this bit of the coast. The idea they were working on at the Yard was that it was being smuggled in.”

“Smuggled?” This surprised me somewhat.

“Yes; there still is a certain amount of smuggling of one sort and another going on, and it seems at any rate possible that drugs are being smuggled in from a continental port,” Shelley explained. “You see, it is almost impossible for the coastguards to protect the whole of the English coast. The coastguards, in fact, are spread out pretty thin, and there are bound to be spots where little guard is kept. I don't suggest that this corner is in any way worse protected than the rest; but it is here, in Kent, that our drug squad suggest a new source of supply of cocaine has become available in recent months. It's not at all difficult to decide just where the stuff is centred on, you know.”

I followed this pretty well. It was clear that the drug experts at Scotland Yard would have a fair knowledge of what was going on. If cocaine was being smuggled into the country and was then being distributed from some spot on the east coast, it might well be that Scotland Yard would become aware of that fact. But Shelley had asked me to help him in the case, and I couldn't for the life of me see just where it seemed to him that I should be useful in the present set-up.

“But what is to be my job in all this?” I asked, rather puzzled.

“I was coming to that in a moment,” Shelley said. “You see, as I have explained, our people get some idea of what is going on; they know, with some degree of accuracy, just where the drug comes from. And sometimes they have a fair idea, too, of where it is going to and how it is distributed.”

“They have that in this case?” I asked.

“Well, I don't know that I should say that they know all about these things,” Shelley admitted. “But they have some idea, and those ideas lead them to some particular spots which need close investigation.”

I began to see what the detective was getting at now, and I said as much to him.

“They know,” Shelley went on, “that the centre of distribution is somewhere not very far from Broadgate. They have a suspicion that one or two local people are in some way connected with the business of distributing cocaine. But, in general, this was one of the cases that I was describing to you just now—a case in which suspicions may be quite strong but in which it is not possible to go into any definite legal action, since the direct evidence is lacking.”

“You think that I could get that direct evidence?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“What have I to do?” I asked.

“Don't forget what I said about the dangers involved in this business,” Shelley warned me.

“I haven't forgotten,” I assured him.

“Right. Then I'll give you the details, as they were given to me on the phone from the Yard this morning,” Shelley said.

You may be sure that I awaited this with some eagerness. I felt in my bones that this was the last lap. Even though there might still be something to do, the fact remained that if I could do what Shelley was suggesting, I might well lead them to the end of the chase. Thus I might be leading to the final proof of the innocence of Tim Foster and Maya Johnson. If I could bring that off, I should have no complaints. I should think that my intrusion was in every way justified, and I should be finally putting myself in the running for almost every special job that Fleet Street might have to offer me.

“Our people at the Yard,” Shelley continued, “have no idea who is the leader of this conspiracy. Various names have been mentioned, but none of them convey anything to me, or to any of the others at the Yard. In fact, they are almost certain to be false names. Few people in this racket sail under their true colours, you know.”

“I didn't expect that they would,” I commented.

“So, unless the names they use are in some way already moderately familiar to our people,” Shelley said, “we can't depend on getting much out of them merely from their names.”

“But you have to start the investigation in some way,” I objected.

“Usually by finding a place which is important,” Shelley said. “You see, people like this gang may work out a most elaborate way of distributing the drugs to the unfortunate folk who are slaves of the drug habit. That's all right. What I may call the secondary distribution may be brilliantly organised. But what about the primary distribution?”

For the first time I was a little puzzled. I didn't quite see what Shelley was getting at, and I told him so, saying that I wasn't able to appreciate just what he meant by primary and secondary distribution.

“Well,” Shelley said, “let me explain. If you smuggled some illegal drug, like cocaine, into this country, and had to get rid of it, selling to a lot of drug addicts in various parts, how would you set about it?”

“Get some sort of legitimate business as a screen, I suppose.” said I.

“Yes; that is what I call the secondary distribution,” the detective said. “You see, if the thing is done on a fairly big scale, it is necessary to have a number of sub-agents, who may be bad lots, like Tilsley, or may be perfectly innocent folk, as you assume Tim Foster to be. But the reception of the drug in this country must take place at a sort of headquarters somewhere. And it is probable that the same headquarters will be the place where the stuff is distributed to some of the principal agents. Now do you see what I am getting at?”

“I think so.”

“And you also see what it is that I am asking you to do, Jimmy?” There was an almost eager tone about Shelley's voice as he said this, a tone which seemed to indicate that he thought I presented him with the best possible chance of finding out what he was after.

“You think you know where this distribution centre is?” I asked.

“Yes,” he nodded.

“And it's in this neighbourhood?”

“Yes.”

I looked at him rather curiously. “Don't think that I'm trying to wangle out of this, Inspector,” I said. “But there is one thing that strikes me as a little odd.”

“What's that?” he snapped.

“If you are pretty sure that you know the place where the gang meet, why don't you have an ordinary police raid, and pull them all into the net? You could easily sort them out afterwards, surely, and decide which of them were the birds you are really after. I should have thought that would have been the normal course of action.”

He grinned cheerfully. “Of course it would, Jimmy,” he admitted. “That would have been the normal course of action, but then, you see, this is not quite the normal sort of case. That's why I'm suggesting something different.”

“What is abnormal about this case?” I asked.

“The murders,” Shelley said, and there was something impressive, I thought, about the very quietness of his voice as he said this. “This gang won't be so easy to deal with. You see, if a man is found guilty of dealing with dangerous drugs, he may have to face a heavy fine, he may even, if it is a bad case, have to face a stiff term of imprisonment. But this is a murder case, and if a man is found guilty of murder, he may have to hang! And that is something that makes every criminal sit up and take notice. If we raided the place, we might have a shooting match that would end in a shambles; and the man might succeed in getting away. Then we should have to begin all over again.”

“But what makes you think that I could do any better?” I asked. I wasn't trying to get out of things; I was merely curious.

“You can go there, Jimmy, as a stranger. You can get into conversation with people, and you can let us know the results of your conversation. You may even be able to let us have the name of the chief villain. That's what we want.”

“All right,” I said, “when and where do I begin?”

“Good man!” he exclaimed. “You begin as soon as you like, and the place you go to is the Smithy Inn, not far from Deal.”

Chapter XXV

In Which I Visit an Inn

I have handled some ticklish assignments in my time—what man who has spent some years in Fleet Street has not?—but I anticipated that this business at the Smithy Inn would probably be as tricky as anything that I had ever tackled. You see, it was pretty sure, if this was the meeting-place of a gang of drug-smugglers, that they would be suspicious of anyone who came, however outwardly innocent. Also there was the fact that if, as Shelley clearly suspected, the head man of the gang was someone from Broadgate and someone with whom we'd already got into contact, he would at once realise that I was there for no good purpose.

And I hadn't needed Shelley's warning to realise that there was a lot of danger in the situation. Not that the dangerous aspect worried me over-much. I had been in the R.A.F. during the war, and had got through some unpleasantly sticky spots. But I did not really fancy the idea, as Shelley put it, of sticking my head in the lion's mouth without at least knowing who the lion was. And yet to find out the identity of the lion was my real reason for coming here. I hope that I haven't mixed my metaphors. Even if I have, I hope that my meaning is reasonably clear.

Anyhow, I went on to the promenade at Broadgate that evening, close to the bandstand, where the pleasant little string orchestra was already tuning up for the evening concert. I looked at the lightly dressed couples making ready for their pre-dinner walk. And I saw the tired children being brought home from their last paddle or bathe. It seemed to me that there was a queer contrast between their activities, so harmless and enjoyable, and the way in which I was to spend the evening.

I had warned Mrs. Cecil that I should not be home for the evening meal, and had added that I was going to see a friend at Deal. I told her that it was possible that I might even spend the night with him, so that she was not to worry if I did not arrive back that night.

I waited at the bus-stop near the bandstand. I knew that there was a bus for Deal and Dover about every half-hour, and I guessed that I shouldn't have long to wait. As the bus swung around the corner and came towards me, the orchestra struck up its opening number, the overture to “William Tell.” I thought of the legend which had inspired that bright and cheerful music. I remembered Tell's great accuracy in shooting the apple off the boy's head, and I thought that the task that lay before me was possibly more difficult than that which Tell had performed.

As the bus moved off the music died away. Before I had been plunged into this mystery I had often spent an enjoyable hour listening to that orchestra, and now I wondered if I should ever hear it again. I gave myself about a fifty-fifty chance of getting out of this thing alive. But at the same time it was something that I would not have missed for the world.

It was a fairly short run to Deal. Here and there the bus stopped, people got on and people got off. Some of them were people who had been doing their shopping. Some were merely holiday-makers out on the spree. I saw that most of the latter got off at one or other of the numerous little country pubs that we passed on our way.

I had dressed myself to suit my pose of a man out to enjoy his evening. I wore an old pair of flannel slacks, an open-necked shirt, and a blazer. I thought that the line to take was that I was out for an evening's drinking. Then, if my friends the enemy turned out to be too curious about me, I could feign drunkenness. I knew that this might not be effective, and I was well aware that my plans might have to be changed at a moment's notice. But at the same time it was as well to have a general plan of campaign worked out, so that I should be well prepared to take up a particular attitude, should the curiosity of the other side turn out to be too pressing.

Not far from Deal the bus stopped. “Smithy!” the conductor rapped out, and I was glad to see that a considerable number of my fellow-passengers alighted. This was a popular pub, that was clear. It was good. It meant that I could submerge myself in a crowd. And in my present lonely task to be one of a crowd seemed to me to be the ideal state of affairs.

I made my way into the saloon bar of the Smithy. It was a small room, with a low-built ceiling, and it appeared to be absolutely packed with a seething mass of humanity. I looked around me with some curiosity. I couldn't at first see anyone I knew—not that I expected to be able to do so. After all, that little room, about ten or twelve feet square, must have contained not much short of a hundred people, and it would have been a miracle if I had been able to recognise any of them.

Still, my first instinct on going into a pub is to get a drink. I had nearly to tear apart those who stood between me and the bar. Still, by using shoulders and elbows, I made my way to the counter.

“Half of bitter, please,” I said to the tired-looking barmaid who was serving there.

“Tenpence,” she snapped, pulling at the handle of the beer engine.

I put down a shilling and got my twopence change. Then I made my way back to the side of the room. I thought that if I stood at the bar I should get intolerably bustled by others in search of beer. And I wanted to fade away into the background. I knew that the last thing that I should do would he to push myself into the forefront of the crowd in that bar. The main thing was to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

I looked around me. The crowd in that bar seemed to be the typical sort of holiday crowd that you would find in almost any seaside pub in England between June and September. There were the middle-aged gentlemen who thought that a holiday without plenty of beer would scarcely be worthy of the name of holiday.

There were the people who had merely come out to escape the problems of life at home—these were the local folk whom one sees in almost any pub anywhere.

There were the young people—too young, one would have thought, to have acquired the taste of alcohol. But no doubt they got quite a “kick” out of the swirling life of the saloon bar which surrounded them.

I sipped my beer and looked around me. I tried to make my glances look careless. Actually, however, I was doing my best to see if there was anyone present whom I had already come into contact with in Broadgate. That there must somehow be a connection seemed to be obvious from what Shelley had learned from his people in London.

There was, however, no one whom I knew. At least, I couldn't see anyone at a first glance. The whole crowd was, to all appearances, out to enjoy itself. There seemed to be nothing that I could do for the moment.

I thought ruefully that I might be engaged on a wild goose chase. Even if the people I was after were meeting here, it might be that they were meeting in some quiet room upstairs, far from the saloon bar. The pub was a fairly big place, and there must, I thought, be a lot of rooms out of sight, rooms to which the ordinary public never gained access. But somehow, if I was to get anywhere, I had to find out where this room was, and what was going on there.

Then I spotted something a little odd. Every now and then one or other of the crowd would silently detach himself from the rest and would melt away somewhere at the back of the bar. Sooner or later he would return, but he would be missing for a good ten minutes or so. It was not a matter of going to the toilet rooms, since these were in the opposite corner of the bar.

I went up and bought myself another half-pint of the really excellent bitter; then I edged myself into the direction of the corner from which the various individuals I had been observing had disappeared. I thought that if I still stayed inconspicuous I might perhaps see what was going on.

I soon realised what had happened. In that corner of the room, almost invisible in the press of people, was a little door, covered by a chintz curtain. As I stood not far away, half hidden by a hilarious crowd of youngsters, I saw a man's head emerge from the curtain, glance around him swiftly as if to make sure that he was unobserved, and then the man came out.

The man moved quickly towards a pint of bitter standing on a table. He picked up the glass and took a sip, looking around him in such a way as if to make sure that no one had noticed his manoeuvre. I swiftly turned my head away, before his roving gaze had come in my direction.

Then, when I thought that I had been looking elsewhere for long enough to destroy any suspicions which he might have entertained, I looked back at him. He was an odd-looking fish. Tall, gaunt, almost emaciated in features, his complexion was almost dead-white. What colour there was in it was a kind of sickly grey. I thought that here, at any rate, was a tie-up with Shelley's suspicions. Unless I was very much mistaken this man had the typical colour of the drug addict.

I glanced again at the curtain that held behind it the entrance to the more secret part of the building. I really felt that at last I was getting somewhere. The trouble was that I didn't know how many of the apparently harmless crowd in that room might be in some way involved with the drug-smuggling gang we were up against. And if I went into the room that I was now sure lay behind the curtain, I might be attracting to myself the very attention I was so anxious to avoid.

Yet I knew that I had to get there somehow. I continued to watch the curtain. Now a girl, pretty but with anxious wrinkles in her forehead, approached the curtain. She glanced nervously around, as if she didn't want to attract any sort of attention from anyone. Then, with a sudden whisk of the curtain, she was in there. I thought I had the secret now. I stood quite still, doing my best to efface myself behind the hilarious group, and kept watch.

It was a good quarter of an hour before the girl came out again. Now the anxious look had gone. Her face was serene and peaceful. I was sure of what had happened. She was a drug addict, probably in the early stages of the habit, since her face had not shown the typical degeneration of the man I had previously seen. And she had gone behind that curtain to get a supply of the drug that she was after. Her anxiety had doubtless had its origin in the fear that it might not be available. And now that she had secured the new supply that feeling of desperate anxiety had suddenly disappeared.

Shelley had been right. I thought that the machinery of Scotland Yard was really rather wonderful. How on earth they had stumbled on the information about this apparently innocuous little pub I couldn't say. But there seemed to be no doubt that it was a centre from which dangerous drugs were being distributed.

What I had to do was to choose my moment so that I slipped behind the curtain comparatively unobserved. Just what I should do when I got there I didn't know. I should have to improvise, let the moment bring its own inspiration.

There must, I thought, be some sort of signal which the regular customers gave each other—either that, or they had some sort of regular time-table, which ensured that they should not overlap in their visits to the room beyond. For as I watched I came to the realisation that there were never two people going through at the same time. Within a matter of a minute or so of one person coming out, another would go in. The decision which I now had to take was just how to slip between these people who presumably had definite appointments.

A man had just gone in—a fat, rosy-cheeked individual who seemed to me to be the very reverse of what one generally understood by a drug addict. But he was only in there about a couple of minutes, and when he emerged he was smiling all over his cheery face. He had not looked exactly worried when he went in, but he certainly looked more cheerful when he came out.

I thought that they must be doing good business in that inner room. There was a regular procession inside there. I had now been quietly and unobtrusively watching that curtain for nearly an hour and there had been seven people in and out. They were all types and classes. One or two of them had seemed ordinary working folk, almost out of place in the comparatively luxurious surroundings of the saloon bar. But one and all had been marked by a change in expression from the moment when they went in to the moment that they came out.

Anxiety disappeared, wrinkles were ironed out. There was something very striking about this. I didn't think that it was in any way due to imagination on my part, derived from my suspicion that this was a centre of drug distribution. I was sure that this was the place that I was after.

Still, I had somehow to penetrate. By this time I was drinking my fourth half-pint of bitter. I had made the beer last as long as possible, for I knew that I should have to keep my wits by me for the ordeal that lay ahead, and I was only too conscious of the fact that it would be no good to go in there in a half-fuddled condition. Yet if I didn't have a glass of beer in my hand, and if I didn't take a sip from it fairly regularly, I knew that I should attract undue attention to myself. And to attract any attention at all was about the last thing that I wanted to do.

I looked at the curtain irresolutely. Another young girl had just gone in. I was making up my mind that when she came out I would just take my courage in both hands and go in there to see what was going on. As I said before, I could scarcely make any sort of plan as to what I was to do when I got there, until I saw what was hidden. But I knew that I should probably have to put up some sort of fight.

Shelley had given me a small automatic pistol. This was in the pocket of my blazer, and the feel of its cool butt in my hand gave me at any rate some sort of courage. I still watched the curtain. I saw the girl come out, glance around her, and make her way to a table where an obviously untasted glass of gin and lime was standing. She picked this up, tossed it down her throat at one gulp, and made her way swiftly to the door. In her case it was only too clear that the drink had been a mere excuse. She had deliberately come to the Smithy for whatever it was that was obtainable behind that curtain.

I made up my mind. I put my now empty glass down on a nearby table and strolled apparently carelessly over to the curtained doorway. I pushed the curtain on one side, and made my way in. Well, I had burned my boats with a vengeance!