The Doors Open (6 page)

“All right,” said McCann. “I hoped we could settle this without hard feelings. Now just help yourself to a look out of the window.”

Without taking his eyes off them, Luciano sidled across to the window, then lifted a corner of the lace curtain and shot a quick glance out.

“You see him?” said McCann.

“Yes, I see him,” said Luciano mildly. “You’re a clever chap, Major. Such a fine, clever chap that it would give me great pleasure to kick you in the guts, eh.”

“That goes double, you greasy little ice-cream merchant,” said McCann without rancour. “And now will you open the door?”

Luciano must have pressed a bell, for a man appeared with suspicious promptness.

“Unlock the door, Tony,” said Luciano, “our guests are leaving us.”

“You want to let ’em both go?” said Tony.

“In the circumstances, yes,” said Luciano. He glanced again out of the window. “We must not keep the Inspector waiting – such a cold night.”

2

Outside in the street stood a short, square-rigged man in a blue overcoat. He regarded them impassively.

“Thank you very much, Inspector,” said McCann,

“Any trouble, sir?”

“None at all,” said McCann with a grin, “once they spotted you.”

“Ah,” said the Inspector. “They’re very good boys – when I’ve got my eye on them. But once take it off, and there’s no saying what they’ll get up to.”

“Thank you, anyway,” said McCann again. “And Kitty told me to ask if you’d forgotten the way to The Leopard.”

“Not much,” said the Inspector. “I’ve been busy. But I’ll come round and see you tomorrow. I’d like to hear a little bit more about – that.”

He jerked a thumb at the now darkened and innocent-looking frontage of the Mogador.

“I think I’ll just run this young man home,” said McCann. “I’ve got my car here.”

Nap, who was beginning to feel a little tired of being treated like a pantomime extra, said, “It’s quite all right, thank you very much; if it’s any trouble I can quite easily walk.”

“Not half you couldn’t,” said Inspector Roberts genially, glancing down the street. “As far as the next corner, I expect – with luck.”

Nap gave it up. He climbed without further protest into the back of McCann’s ancient saloon car and Inspector Roberts packed in on top of him, saying, “You might drop me off at the West End Central Police Station if you don’t mind.”

“Right” said McCann. “Let’s go.”

Midnight was striking from St Clement’s-le-Strand when they reached the gates of the Inner Temple. Nap saw from the light in the window that Paddy was waiting up for him. He himself was beginning to feel surprisingly wide awake, and with it came a consciousness that he had been more than a little ungracious to his rescuer.

“Look here,” he said. “I haven’t started to thank you for what you did tonight.”

“Then oblige me,” said McCann hastily, “by not starting.”

“Don’t be alarmed,” said Nap. “I’m not going to be embarrassing. What I was going to say was, why not come in and have a drink? There are roughly a million questions I want to ask you. That’s to say, if you don’t mind – it’s a bit late.”

“Fine,” said McCann. “I’m a late bird. Most publicans are. It’s the demoralizing effect of not having to get up before ten o’clock in the morning: Lead on.”

They found Paddy stretched in front of the fire reading market reports.

“Where the hell have you been?” he said. “Do you know I was on the point of ringing up the police.”

“Then you were on the point of doing something dashed sensible,” said Nap. “This is Major McCann, my guardian angel. McCann – Yeatman-Carter. Be a good chap, Paddy, and get out that last bottle of John Haig. I think I put it in the washing basket for safety, but it may be in the broom cupboard under the stairs. Grab a chair, Major, whilst I get some glasses.”

The appropriate rites having been performed, Nap proceeded to give both men a summary of the events leading up to that evening.

McCann said, “I’ll keep my questions till the end. But I think you had some points you wanted clearing up first. Fire away.”

“Who’s Lucy?” said Nap briefly. “Who’s Birdy? And what is the racket at the Mogador?”

“One thing at a time. ‘Lucy’ is Luciano Capelli, a Neapolitan by birth, though he took out English nationality back in the early thirties – that was before Mussolini started banging the drum and the FO got so cagey about Wops. I am told that under the compulsion of conscription he even served his new King and Country during the recent hostilities – for one discreditable year in the Army Catering Corps, followed by a spell in the glasshouse for sticking a knife into the backside of the Sergeant Cook.”

“Splendid,” said Paddy. “Many an army cook would have been the better for it.”

“No doubt. The Court were unable to appreciate the purely aesthetic side of the case and gave him nine months rigorous. For there’s no doubt that Lucy is an artist – an artist twice over. He’s a first class caterer–”

“Agreed,” said Nap heartily. “I haven’t tasted such food since before the war.”

“–and also a first class practitioner with a knife. If he’s angry with you, you must never let him get within thirty-six inches – or you’ve had it.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” Nap promised him; he thought of the scene in the lobby of the Mogador. As though reading his thoughts McCann said, “I expect you noticed that I was careful to keep well over on his right side tonight. Like most knife-artists he’s left-handed. Not that I was in any great danger seeing that I’m a friend of Birdy’s.”

“Birdy?”

“That’s Birdy McLaughlan – a native of Glasgow. Birdy runs the strong-arm side of the food and drink racket. He’s a big man in almost every way. No, I don’t know why they call him Birdy, except that he always dresses in black like an undertaker and looks rather like an amiable carrion crow. I don’t deal with him in the way of business – not on any high moral grounds – simply because I find it easier to run The Leopard honestly. Do you know,” he went on, “if people understood the amount of sheer hard work involved in breaking the law, I’m certain that half our criminals would never have embarked on a career of crime. However, that’s by the way. Birdy’s a personal friend of mine – I was able to do him a good turn once, through a man I know at Scotland Yard.”

“And Luciano and Birdy – ”

“Well, they’re certainly not friends. But they’re not open enemies. Neutrals, rather. Polite and powerful neutrals. I don’t think they like each other much. But they won’t tread on each other’s toes if they can avoid it.”

“It was lucky you happened to be passing,” said Paddy. “I always told young Nap he shouldn’t go out to these haunts alone.”

“Yes,” said Nap. “How
did
you happen to be there? It was mighty opportune.”

“The Soho grapevine,” said McCann. “It’s not a thing which I profess to understand. I can only give you the facts. I knew at half past eight what all the pimps in Shepherds’ Market had known much earlier – namely, that there was going to be ‘trouble’ at the Mogador. Then I heard a name mentioned – Rumbold. I thought that must be you. It’s not a very common name, and, of course, you’d been under discussion before.”

“Before?”

“Good grief,” said McCann. “You can’t spend every Friday evening for three weeks at Ma Pinkin’s Café without getting a certain amount of publicity in the process. Everybody in that place knows everybody else. As soon as you came in they wondered what your game was.”

“And they tried pretty hard to find out,” said Nap, with memories of his first trip.

“Well, thinking it might be you, I got my car out and rolled along. Only being a little more cautious – or possibly a little more experienced – I rang up Inspector Roberts first. He’s been a very good friend to me and my wife on more than one occasion – he works at the West End Central Station and knows Soho like his own back garden–”

“And if you hadn’t turned up,” said Nap, “what was the programme?”

“They were going to beat you up,” said McCann simply. “And when that crowd beat someone up, they – well, it’s just not the sort of thing one wants to happen to one’s friends.”

“But look here,” said Paddy, “how did they think they were going to get away with it – short of killing Nap, I mean.”

“I don’t think they meant to kill him.”

“Then,” said Nap, “what was to stop me from going straight round to the police.”

“As soon as you could walk – and always supposing you were still able to talk–”

“As soon as I – I say, you do think of the nicest things. Yes, well; sooner or later I must have got in touch with the police. Even if I’d had to crawl there on my hands and knees. That chap Luciano would have been for it–”

“I doubt that,” said McCann calmly. “The story would have been that you got very drunk and insulted one of the girls in the café. Her boyfriend very naturally stood up for her. There was a fight – and you lost.”

“I see.”

“The girl would have been produced. She would have told the court exactly what you said to her and what suggestions you made to her. There would have been at least half a dozen witnesses to support her story. I’m afraid the sympathy of the court would have been with your opponent. He would either have been acquitted or, at the worst, bound over. Luciano might have had to pay a fine for permitting the fight on his premises. I’ve seen it all happen so often–”

“But,” said Paddy incredulously, “these people – don’t any of them put up a show. If someone started pawing me about – I mean, I’ve done a bit of amateur boxing–”

“When I hear you talk like that,” said McCann, “I begin to wonder if you really know what you’re up against.” He paused, then added, “I don’t want to sound morbid about it, particularly as it never happened, but have you any idea of the kind of man who was waiting to start on you this evening? ‘Dumb-Bell’ – so called, I fancy, because his name is Bell and he is, quite literally, dumb. A sort of moron with the body of an all-in wrestler and the brains of a child – rather a nasty child. Or Tony Peroni – he’s from Malta, and a handy man with a broken bottle – or his cousin Rudi, who was a meat-porter until he settled a difference of opinion with a market rival with the sharp end of an ice pick. Have you ever seen anyone after they’ve given him a proper working over? What’s the use of talking about amateur boxing? There’s only one rule when fighting men like that, and it’s a very simple one. Take anything that’s coming, but take it on your feet. Die on your feet if necessary.
But don’t fall down.
Because no one is ever quite the same again after he’s been scientifically kicked in by those beauties.”

There was a rather uncomfortable silence: the thoughts of the three men were deflecting towards the same question; but it was not too easy to frame it in words.

It was McCann, again, who spoke.

“Some time ago,” he said, “you asked me, what was my connection with these people – the Luciano – McLaughlan crowd. To the best of my ability I’ve told you. Now let
me
ask you the same question. Where exactly does your line cross theirs?”

“Well, now,” said Paddy, “we’ve explained the set-up as far as we know it–”

“You’ve explained nothing,” said McCann, and looked at Nap, who nodded agreement. “All you’ve done is to deepen the real mystery. Let me put it this way. You were having trouble with a dishonest cashier in a highly respectable insurance corporation. Maybe only with him, maybe with other members of his firm, too. I didn’t follow that part very well. But whatever it is, it’s financial jiggery-pokery of some sort. This chap Brandison – he may have been robbing the till and he may have been rigging the stock market – it doesn’t alter the fact that he’s a black-coated worker.”

“And yet,” suggested Nap, “he seems to have a firm hand on the strings with Luciano and his boys.”

“Right,” said McCann. “Somehow he’s got contacts with these strong-arm boys. And he’s got a pull. A hell of a pull. You saw what happened tonight. Lucy didn’t like it much, but at a pinch he was prepared to go ahead with his programme even though I’d warned him it would mean trouble with Birdy. And that says one thing to me. Someone’s paying him quite a lot of money for that job. You’ve got to realize, those boys of his are high-class experts. I don’t say they’re much to look at. You might pass them up among a crowd in the saloon bar. But when it comes to action, they know their stuff.”

“What’s Luciano’s racket?” asked Paddy.

“He sells his services. I’m not sure what he’s doing now but I can probably find out. Prostitution – black market – racing – last year they were on the greyhound tracks.”

“If you could find out, it might suggest a lead,” said Nap, “though I’m bound to say that on the face of it none of the things you mention fit in very closely with the Brandison we know. However, we’ve only been watching him for a short time.”

“We shall just have to keep pegging away,” said Paddy. “When you’re pulling down a wall, you have to do it brick by brick. Many a mickle makes a muckle.”

“You have got the most comforting and splendid way of saying the most obvious things,” said Nap sleepily.

“Good God,” said McCann. “It’s past three. I’m off. Good night to you both. And thanks for the whisky.”

3

Next morning McCann rang up and made an appointment to see his old friend Chief Inspector Hazlerigg in his office at New Scotland Yard. And there and then he told him the whole story.

“It’s got points of interest,” said the Great Man, when McCann had finished. “I don’t think there’s anything in it for us though.”

“Not yet – but don’t you think there may be?”

“Yes. Those two fellows – Rumbold and Carter. Are they all right?”

“Good Lord, yes,” said McCann. “They’re both honest, if that’s what you mean. I don’t think Paddy Yeatman-Carter’s any great shakes in the way of intellect, but he’s quite straight. Young Rumbold’s a nice lad, too. I knew him in France. He did a very good job in the Maquis. You could always check up on him through MI5.”

“Of course,” said Hazlerigg absently. “Yes. I wasn’t thinking about him so much as his friend.”

“Paddy? I’d stake my week’s takings that he was on the level.”