They Never Looked Inside (24 page)

“He was a theatrical agent – people used to come and visit him at odd hours. She thought they were clients. No, she didn’t know he had a private telephone line. He seemed quite a respectable man to her. Medium height, medium build, no distinguishing features. Hair neither noticeably light nor noticeably dark. She never had any letters from him. He gave no references. In fact, she won’t talk. And I don’t think we shall get any further unless we are prepared to caution her—and in view of what you said—”

“I see. Did she mention any other boarders?”

“No—she says the other rooms have been empty for the past month.”

“Well, that’s a lie, anyway. Sergeant Catlin was using one of them as late as last Saturday.”

“Sergeant Catlin, sir!”

“Yes—spring that on her and see if you can make anything out of it. And keep at her. The more rattled she gets the better. Keep plugging—oh, wait a minute.”

“Ask him,” said McCann, “if he noticed a photograph on Mrs. Purcell’s dressing-table. The photograph of a young officer in the uniform of the nineteen-fourteen-to-eighteen war.”

There was a long silence the other end, and then Pickup said: “I’ve been along myself to have a look. If it was there, it’s not there now.”

“All right,” said Hazlerigg, “keep trying.”

That afternoon Hazlerigg saw the Commissioner.

“Everything points in the same direction, sir, I’m afraid. They’ve shut up shop. I don’t know whether it’s temporary or permanent. I hardly know which to hope.”

“What about the people at the top?” said the Commissioner. “We want their scalps, you know.”

“And I wish I could say that we were close to catching them, sir, but it just wouldn’t be true. There are three possible lines – that’s all. Mrs. Purcell from the Atomic Club – she’s being followed. There’s a dragnet out for Leopold Goffstein. And Sergeant Catlin – he may turn up. He’s a good man.”

But it was failure, all the same. The Commissioner didn’t say so, but Hazlerigg knew it. Even McCann knew it. He said to Miss Carter that evening: “The racket’s busted all right, Kitty. I mean, we know how it works, and we can take steps to see it doesn’t happen again. But unless we catch the bosses—well, I reckon we’re well down on the rubber.”

“What’ll happen to Hazlerigg?” asked Miss Carter.

“I expect they’ll promote him—to a nice innocuous Chief Constableship.”

McCann slept badly that night.

The next morning was beautiful. A blue sky, a soft wind and a candid sun. The first real spring day in the first spring of Peace.

McCann strolled slowly among the crowd of Saturday morning shoppers. Half of his mind was playing with the uncomfortable problems of the previous day, worrying at them in a fitful, useless sort of way, like a sufferer worrying a jagged tooth, whilst the other half was considering, not for the first time, the incongruities of the celebrated Mayfair street in which he found himself, the cheap and hideous upper storeys and the bright, modern and quite disastrously expensive little shops underneath them.

On McCann’s left was a celebrated hostelry, and since it was now the proper and legal hour, he turned into it.

Almost to collide with a man coming out.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the doorman curiously. “Can I do anything for you?”

McCann wondered, with a start, how long he had been standing rooted to the spot, frozen, gaping like a ninny.

“Should I call you a cab, sir?”

“Yes—no,” said McCann. “Who was that gentleman? The one who went out just now; I almost ran into him.”

He indicated a well-dressed, middle-aged man, by now some ten yards away up the street.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir,” said the doorman. “He’s been in here once or twice, that I do know. Why don’t you run after him—you could catch him quite easy?”

“Thank you,” said McCann. “Yes, I will.”

He turned up the street.

He was still trying to adjust himself to the new situation.

Everything was now so dazzlingly plain. Every problem which had puzzled him the night before was resolved. The man he had just encountered, and was even now following, was the one whom he had seen on that night – how long ago now? – the first night of his leave in England – and in that same hotel. The brick-red skin, the pig eyes, the heavy, masterful chin. It was a remarkable face – and it was the face that had looked at him, for a second time, as he tottered on the brink of unconsciousness in the attic of the chemist’s shop near Kensington. And more than once it had looked at him in his dreams.

Every piece of the jigsaw was falling into place. The first time he had seen him he had thought of him as “The Major”, and now he realised that the instinct had been a true one. The man
had
fought in the 1914-18 war. He was the original of the photograph in Mrs. Purcell’s bedroom.

He was Number One. He was the Boss.

“What the
hell
,”
said McCann, “what the
hell
am I going to do?”

Call a policeman? He hadn’t a shred of evidence. The man would give a name and address – both false – and would certainly be allowed to depart unmolested.

Follow him, thought McCann, and take damned good care not to lose him. And somehow, somewhere, you’ve got to get word to Hazlerigg.

They had crossed the Square now, and were both in Davies Street, moving north.

He doesn’t look like a walker, thought McCann. If it wasn’t such a lovely day he’d have his car out. As it is, he’s going to take a taxi soon. If a taxi comes from behind, I’ll hail it first and get hold of it. If it comes in from in front, then I’m probably sunk.

He remembered a story M. Bren had once told him of how the lives of six men had depended on whether a certain Gestapo agent shaved before or after breakfast. The lives and happiness of a good many people might depend on which direction the next taxi came in.

Pat upon the thought came a grinding of gears and a taxi lurched out of Grosvenor Street behind him.

McCann raised his arm. The man he was following half turned on the pavement and waved his stick. The taxi driver apparently made a snap decision and went for the better dressed customer.

With the bitterness of death in his heart McCann watched his quarry climb into the taxi and drive away.

A horn sounded plaintively behind him and he realised that he was standing in the middle of the road.

Spinning round, he saw a taxi radiator six inches from the small of his back.

Miraculously the flag was up.

“Are you for hire?”

“I’m for sale,” said the driver, “if only you’ll get out of the middle of the (minutely described) road.”

“Then follow that other taxi,” said McCann. “I’m a police officer.”

“Where’s y’ card?”

Happily Hazlerigg had supplied McCann with a piece of Scotland Yard’s best headed notepaper “Requesting and requiring . . . all whom it might concern . . . to aid and assist Major A. McCann . . .”

“No offence, Major,” said the driver, a spry middle-aged cockney. “I’ve got my licence to be careful about, y’see. ‘Op in.”

The other taxi had disappeared.

“S’ll right,” said the driver, “I know where he’ll be going—jest hold on tight and don’t worry.”

He executed a left and a right, crossed Oxford Street optimistically on an amber traffic light, and sped up James Street. Sure enough, the other taxi was there ahead of them, going fast, heading due north, in the direction of Regent’s Park.

When they were halfway round the Outer Circle the next piece fell into place. He thought—

I suppose that Mrs. Purcell – so called – might be his wife – just the sort of mousey little wife a man like that would have. No wonder he thought the Atomic was a safe place to hide his office.

Haverstock Hill. Parkhill Road. Mansfield Road.

McCann caught sight of a railway station and read the name as they flashed past. “Gospel Oak.” Of course! That was where Polly had had her little adventure. They must be getting close now.

He felt for his notebook and wrote as well as the jolting of the taxi would permit.

“Chief Inspector Hazlerigg, New Scotland Yard. Come to this rendezvous with all the help you can get. Sally – with knobs on.”

Parliament Hill Fields, past the bus terminus and up West Hill.

The taxi ahead took a right turn and disappeared. His own taxi overshot the turning and pulled up.

“It’s a dead-end, that is,” said the driver. “You don’t wanner go down there, Major. He can’t get away now.”

“Good,” said McCann. “What happens down there?” A bend in the drive cut off his view.

“Two or three houses,” said the driver. “Ritzy types. Big gardens—and a bit of wood.”

McCann took the note he had written and a pound note – his last one.

“I’m going to take a look round,” he said. “Will you drive back to that telephone kiosk – the one we passed at the foot of the hill – and get through to Scotland Yard – dial O and ask for that code number. I’ve written it down. Give Chief Inspector Hazlerigg this message. Explain exactly where you left me—and hurry.”

“Okay,” said the driver. “Bring ‘em back alive, Major.” He turned his cab in the customary double-jointed manner and disappeared.

McCann advanced cautiously up the drive and peered round the corner.

As the taxi-man had said, there were three houses, disposed round the semi-circle of gravel which formed the terminus of the private roadway. They were all big houses, just sufficiently different in style and detail to suggest that they had probably been designed by the same architect, and all fronted by high hedges of laurel. The three of them shared perhaps two acres of garden.

In front of the left hand one, and possibly the most secluded of the three, stood the taxi he had been following. As he watched, the driver came out of the gate and climbed up, swung his cab in a half-circle, and chugged away.

McCann watched him going with mixed feelings.

There was no sign of life from any of the houses, not even a plume of smoke from a chimney. The whole place was quiet and in a curious way lifeless. Highgate West Hill is not a busy thoroughfare at the best of times, and the strip of wood effectively cut off all noises from the outer world.

After a little deliberation McCann climbed the low garden wall and pushed forward cautiously into the laurel thicket, which was head high at this point.

Soon he reached the position he was seeking.

He was still just in sight of the roadway along which Hazlerigg must come and he commanded a fair view of the front and side of the house. One curious thing he noticed. Two of the upper windows were shuttered, and his sharp eyes told him that the shutters were steel.

Five minutes passed.

McCann started to do sums. The taxi driver would take two minutes to reach the telephone – he might have to wait for it – then Hazlerigg would need a few minutes to organise his force and about ten minutes to reach the spot.

Say fifteen minutes in all. Possibly less. McCann had great faith in the Chief Inspector’s ability to move quickly.

Footsteps sounded on the pavement behind him, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the bulk of a man climbing the wall.

“Where’s Hazlerigg?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” said the man, who was now standing close behind him.

McCann looked up.

It was one of the largest, nastiest, toughest-looking Jews he had ever seen in his life.

“We’re going to play this quiet, see,” said the Jew.

He raised his right hand and stroked McCann gently from the hip down to the knee. The sharp blade in his fingers parted the cloth and barely broke the skin underneath.

“Next time I’ll lean on it,” said the Jew.

McCann stood very still, feeling slightly ridiculous, and extremely frightened.

“Walk forward now, mister. Quiet and friendly. I’ll do the talking.”

The Jew was standing on his right and McCann could feel the steel of the razor against the bare skin of his side. They crossed the lawn.

The front door was opened when they reached it and they walked in.

Inside the long front room were four people. Sitting on the sofa, smoking, was a dark-haired Latin type – undoubtedly the “dago” of whom Andrews had spoken. With his back propped against one of the bookcases was another man whom McCann had never seen before; though his sister would have recognised him, a large and unlovely creature, referred to by the others as Jock. In the corner he was surprised to see the Demon Child.

His attention, however, was focused on the man who stood in front of the fire. Viewing him for the first time with the eye of knowledge, McCann saw the qualities which he had overlooked before. The shrewd eyes, the masterful jowl, the betraying lips.

No one spoke.

The dago continued polishing his shoes with a silk handkerchief, the Child lit a fresh cigarette, Jock coughed, started to spit and thought better of it. The Jew was helping himself to a drink.

I suppose this silence is part of the technique, thought McCann. Well, that’s all right by me. In fact, the longer they keep it up the better. If only Hazlerigg would hurry.

“You’re Major McCann?”

“That’s right,” said McCann. “Whom have I the pleasure of addressing?”

The man considered, and then said: “Brown’s the name.”

“Well, Mr. Brown”—McCann tried to infuse a little righteous indignation into his tone—”perhaps you can tell me who’s going to pay for my trousers, and what is the meaning of all this?”

“Why were you following me?” asked Mr. Brown.

He asked the question flatly.

McCann opened his mouth, closed it again, and ended by saying nothing at all.

A crippling blow from behind caught him under the ribs and across the kidney. Looking up from the floor, through the waving mist of pain, he saw the Jew standing over him. Saw the bright glint of steel from the knuckles of his right hand.

Hands picked him up and pushed him into a chair.

“When I ask a question,” said Mr. Brown amiably, “I like to have it answered at once. It’s one of our rules, you understand.”