Young Petrella (12 page)

Piggott Street? Parrot Street? Perrin Street?

Not street, hill.

Pearson Hill – Pearlyman Hill – Purton Hill. That was it!

At this point Petrella, who had had a long day, most of it on his feet in the open air, fell fast asleep.

When he woke he found himself looking at a face. Bearded and strong and lit from behind by a glow of light. Even as he fumbled for his glasses, it faded.

Petrella shook himself.

“Now did I dream that?” he said. Outside the window everything was dark and quiet. There was a faint flicker of lights from the High Street as a car ran past the corner. He looked at his watch. A quarter to one. And getting cold. He moved across to the bedroom, pulled the patchwork quilt off the bed, and swathed it round him. There was no question now of going to sleep. He had rarely felt more wakeful.

Ten minutes. A quarter of an hour.

Another car – it sounded like a homing taxi – came slowly past the end of Matrix Street, hesitated, then dipped down Purton Hill.

Suddenly the face was there again.

Petrella snatched up his glasses, focused them, steadied them, saw nothing but blackness.

When he lowered them the face was gone.

Speed was going to be essential. If I knew when it was going to happen, he thought, I could be ready with the glasses actually up. Otherwise I don’t know how I’m going to catch it. On–off, on–off, like a blessed magic lantern.

At three o’clock he suspended his vigil. The face had appeared no more. He got stiffly to his feet and went home to snatch a few hours’ sleep.

The following day, after turning matters over in his mind, he telephoned Nicholas Freeman. It took him four shots to mark him to earth for Nicky was a bird of passage, a young man of a type now almost extinct, who did nothing and did it beautifully.

“Will I do
what
?”
said Nicky.

“I don’t think I can explain over the telephone,” said Petrella. “Meet me at the Crown and Anchor, on Highside, in half an hour.”

“Highside?”

“It’ll broaden your mind,” said Petrella. “Jump to it.”

Half an hour later they were sampling the excellent mild beer of the Crown and Anchor and Petrella was drawing a little sketch for Nicky.

“You’d better have a girl with you. Can you manage that?”

“Leave it to me,” said Nicky, stroking his small moustache.

“Then you drive twice down this street. Once, at a normal pace. Don’t stop. The next time, go slowly, as if you were looking for somewhere to park. Stop at the bottom of the slope – spend about five minutes.”

“You can leave that bit to me,” said Nicky. “What happens next? Is it Jack the Ripper? Does some character jump out of the shadows and cosh us?”

“If I knew exactly what was going to happen,” said Petrella, “I wouldn’t be bothering you. Now be a good chap, and don’t ask questions.”

At eleven o’clock that night he again let himself into Miss Flint’s house. The eight-day clock had run down, otherwise everything seemed much the same.

At one minute to midnight he heard the unmistakable exhaust of Nicky’s car and gave that gilded young man full marks for punctuality. It turned the corner, passed the end of Matrix Street and headed for Purton Hill. Petrella had his glasses up to his eyes and practice enabled him to focus them on roughly the right spot.

There was no doubt about it.

A window, a pane of glass; a somewhat dusty pane of glass which reflected back the light of a torch and showed up the face of the man holding it. On, for a count of just three seconds. Then off.

Petrella lowered the glasses and looked again at his watch. He had some time to wait for the more serious part of the performance.

Punctually at half past twelve he heard the car once more. It was idling this time. Very slowly it approached the top of Purton Hill. Then it changed gear, rolled down, and stopped.

“That’s shaken him,” said Petrella with satisfaction. This time the torch in the window was performing a fandango of dots and dashes. “They don’t like that. I only hope they don’t assault Nicky.”

All was now dark and quiet. Four minutes later Petrella breathed a sigh of relief as he heard the car start, and glimpsed its lights as it swept away. He put back his glasses, and went downstairs, and home to bed.

“It was a swindle,” said Nicky, indignantly, the next morning. “Nothing happened. Except to the girl.”

“On the contrary,” said Petrella. “It went excellently. You were an important part of an experiment. A most successful experiment.”

“What d’you mean? Nothing happened at all. And I’d promised the girl there’d be some excitement.”

“What sort of excitement?”

“Don’t be coarse,” said Nicky. “I thought someone was supposed to jump out and cosh us. I had a loaded revolver ready under the dashboard, but I never had a chance of using it.”

“Thank goodness for small mercies,” said Petrella.

Later that morning he paid an unostentatious visit to the office block in whose window he had seen the torch. It fronted the High Street, and was an ambitious building, with a reception hall, a glass-fronted board of tenants’ names, and, more unusual in that part of London, a commissionaire.

He knew Petrella, and invited him into his sanctum.

“No trouble, I hope.”

“Not for you,” said Petrella. “Just some information. Which offices would it be that possess a window on the third floor, six from the left-hand corner as you look at it from the back?”

The commissionaire consulted the letting plan and did some calculations on his fingers. “That’s Solly Moss, the turf accountant. No. As you were. Six from the
left
.
That’s a new crowd. Novelty Projects.”

“What do they do?”

The commissionaire scratched his head. “I don’t rightly know,” he admitted. “They took two rooms – let me see – three weeks ago. But they haven’t started up yet.”

“But they’ve got the keys.”

Yes. They had the keys. And a key of the front door. That was the right of all tenants, since the commissionaire went off duty at six. The last man out locked up. They’d never had any trouble yet. Had someone been complaining?

“No one’s complained yet,” said Petrella. He discovered that the commissionaire had never actually seen any of the members of Novelty Projects and jotted down the name and address of the letting agents.

Midday found him strolling down Purton Hill. It was a curious little street. First came the blind side of the corner house of Matrix Street, then a high blank wall, which no doubt marked the garden of this property. Thereafter the road curved slightly, before running down to the railway arch, and at this point there was a building, fronting on the road and backing on the railway. It had the look of a disused warehouse. A stubby crane projected at first-floor level, and three low, arched openings, heavily barred, at pavement level suggested the presence of a considerable cellar.

Instinct told Petrella that he had found what he was looking for, and it also warned him not to stop. He walked past without a further glance. It could have been an indiscretion to walk down Purton Hill at all. He only hoped it had not been a fatal one.

His next call was on Messrs. Ryan & Gosport who managed most of the worthwhile property in Highside. Old Mr. Ryan greeted him with an enthusiasm which suggested a guilty conscience, but which was actually nothing but good nature.

“The warehouse in Purton Hill,” he said. “Now that is odd. It really is odd. Fancy you mentioning that. A month ago you could have had it for the asking. A white elephant. No market for it. Now I’ve let it.”

“Not by any chance,” said Petrella, “to a firm called Novelty Projects?”

“That’s them. Nothing wrong with them I hope?”

“Nothing that I can prove,” said Petrella, cautiously. “Who actually did the negotiations?”

“A most respectable-looking man. With a beard. I’ve got his name somewhere here. Henniker.”

Petrella made a note of the name and the address, but without much hope. It had the look of an accommodation address. As he turned to go he said, “What was so special about these premises? Why were they so difficult to get rid of?”

“They were put up fifty years ago,” said Mr. Ryan, sadly, “by a wine firm. Lovely cellars. Just the thing for storing wine. Then the railway came. Too much vibration. Spoilt the wine. No one else wanted them.”

“And those are the cellars you look into, at pavement level? I see. Yes. Thank you very much.”

He spent a busy afternoon in the Criminal Records Office, and then sought out his ally, Sergeant Gwilliam, who had a shrewd Welsh head on top of his vast bulk.

He told him all he knew, from beginning to end, including the rescue of Miss Flint, at which the Sergeant laughed immoderately, but when Petrella had finished he scratched his head and said, “It certainly sounds like something, but
what
?”

Petrella said, “The CRO are inclined to think that my friend with the beard, Mr. Henniker, may be none other than ‘Artful’ Andrews. He’s out of nick just now. And he works with a little mob.”

“Andrews,” said Gwilliam, thoughtfully. “Shop robbery?”

“Specialising in small jewellers’ shops and pawnbrokers.”

“Yes,” said the Sergeant. “You might have something there. I think we’ll bring the Inspector in on this.”

So Petrella told his story all over again.

“And your idea is—?” said Chief Inspector Haxtell.

“I couldn’t see at first how it worked, sir. But when you walk down Purton Hill it’s obvious. There aren’t any street lamps until you get under the railway arch, and it’s a nasty little slope with a half turn at the bottom. Any car which comes into it would be almost bound to flick on its headlights. And they would shine straight into one or other of the arched openings. They’re at pavement level where the road curves. And I should imagine, though I didn’t stop to look, that they give directly on to the old cellar.”

“I see,” said Haxtell. “So if you happened to be doing a little quiet work in the cellar – after midnight, say – something you couldn’t very well hide, like swinging a pickaxe – you’d be likely to be spotted.”

“That’s just what I thought,” said Petrella. “They could have blocked up the arches – but that would have been even more suspicious. I haven’t quite worked out all the angles, but I should imagine they’d need two guards – one near at hand to warn them about patrolling policemen and pedestrians and so on. And a second one in the office, with a torch, to give them plenty of warning when a car was coming.”

Haxtell had been studying a large-scale street plan and directory.

“I see,” he said, “that Samuelson’s shop is in Comber Street – that backs on to Purton Hill. If it’s a tunnel they’d need to go about forty yards. I wonder how far they’ve got.”

A few days later when, at the consummation of two weeks of hard work, the Andrews mob stepped through a carefully cut hole into the cellar of Mr. Samuelson, the well-known pawnbroker and jeweller, they found an interested reception committee awaiting them. “Artful” Andrews was a professional, and he acknowledged a fair cop.

“I suppose I been shopped,” he said, glaring round at his associates. “Which of you’s the rat?” Petrella, who was present, felt tempted to point out that it was not a rat, but a large tortoiseshell cat, which had been responsible for his downfall. But he refrained. Junior Detectives were not expected to make jokes, even if recommended for promotion.

“Reading aloud,” said Sergeant Gwilliam. “Writing, including handwriting, spelling and punctuation, and the first four rules in arithmetic, including imperial weights and measures and simple fractions.”

“Simple fractions.”

“Right. Vulgar fractions are for inspectors. Also decimals.” The Sergeant contemplated the tattered copy of
Police Regulations
sourly. “You may have wondered why I’m still a sergeant. . .”

“As a matter of fact,” said Petrella, “I had.”

“Vulgar fractions,” said Gwilliam. “Next comes geography. Especially the geography of the British Isles. Most important that. Suppose you’re sent off to arrest someone in Edinburgh. No good saying ‘Where the hell’s that?’ is it?”

The vexed subject of promotion was once again under discussion. Normally, as
Police Regulations
points out, a constable must have completed five years’ service (“the last two being free from punishment other than reprimand or caution”) before he can be considered for the lofty rank of sergeant; and four years before he can even take the exam. But there is a wise proviso. If he manages to “satisfy the Chief Officer of Police” that he is a special case he may be allowed to jump the queue. And in the three months that Petrella had spent at Scotland Yard and the two years he had been at Highside, quite a few Special Reports had found their way on to his superior’s desk.

Chief Inspector Haxtell had even gone so far as to suggest that he might be able to skip the exam. “You’re educated,” he said. “Got School Certificate, or O levels or whatever they call it nowadays, I expect.”

But Petrella was doubtful. He had been comprehensively educated, but on somewhat unorthodox lines.

“I’ve got a Spanish Certificate of Instruction,” he said, “and a pass degree at Beirut University. Also a Certificate of the Elementary Degree of Competence in Viniculture—”

“I think you’d better take the exam,” said Haxtell.

So Petrella borrowed the necessary textbooks and renewed his acquaintance with imperial weights and measures and the geography of the British Isles. He was memorising the rivers of the east coast, when the riot call came through.

“Church Hall,” said the telephone. “And make it snappy.”

Petrella grabbed his hat, and was out of Mrs. Catt’s lodging house and running down the street. He considered, but abandoned, the idea of fetching his bicycle. He would be quicker on his feet. A police tender overtook him, and he jumped on to the running board.

“What’s up?” he asked.

Sergeant Gwilliam, who was sitting beside the driver, said, “A lot of little bastards started roughing up the Church Hall, but they got a bit more’n they bargained for.” Then to the driver, “Stop at the top of the street. We’ll form up and go in together. Use your weight.”