“So he was Urgent now, was he?” thought McCann, as he finished scribbling out a note for his sister. “Urgent – Handle with Care – Fragile.”
Down at the Yard there was a sort of family reunion in progress. Besides Hazlerigg, Monsieur Bren was there. He looked a little tired – as in fact he was, since he had been travelling for the last forty-eight hours, most of the time on his feet. In the visitor’s chair there was seated a full colonel of the British Army, wearing staff tabs and the ribbon of the Distinguished Service Order. Hazlerigg effected the introductions.
“Major McCann – this is Colonel Hunt, from the War Office. He’s got a job for you.”
“Good God,” said McCann, “has war broken out again?”
The Colonel displayed his white teeth in two inches of regulation military smile and said: “Not quite.”
He was, in fact, one of those excellent staff officers produced by this war: brave, capable of working indefinitely for eighteen hours a day, and fortunate in being completely devoid of any sense of humour.
“I have at last been able to regularise your position,” said Hazlerigg, and the relief in his voice was apparent. The Colonel looked up and nodded his approval of the sentiment. As an army man he sympathised with Hazlerigg. He himself had spent some of his worst moments of the war trying to regularise the position of numbers of unpredictable territorial officers.
“Monsieur Bren,” went on Hazlerigg, “has succeeded in establishing, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the proceeds of these robberies have left England by military routes – unknown of course to the military authorities.”
The Colonel nodded again.
“We are not yet quite certain in what form the stuff leaves the country – but it reaches France and Italy in the possession of soldiers returning from leave in this country. Foreign valuables from those two countries are probably coming in on the same route.”
“That I have not established,” said M. Bren.
“It’s a fair presumption,” said Hazlerigg, “but we’ll let it go for the moment. The point is this. In the near future we shall have to investigate the whole Medloc Leave Line from Milan until it touches England – in particular the Medloc Camps at Dieppe and Ostend. To do this properly we shall need army co-operation.”
The Colonel nodded once more.
“In short,” said Hazlerigg, “we’ve asked for a liaison officer – and you’re it.”
“But,” said McCann, “I mean—I’d love to do it, but I’m not in the army any longer—even my demob, leave’s over. It ended last month—I’m right out now.”
Colonel Hunt smiled the tolerant smile of the expert.
“You’re forgetting,” he said, “that you hold a Territorial Commission, not an Emergency one.”
“Good God,” said McCann. “So I do—but I imagined it had ceased to function.”
“His Majesty’s Commission,” said the Colonel, a thought severely, “never ceases to function. You will naturally have to revert to your substantive rank of lieutenant. You will receive pay and allowances directly from us – you have permission to wear civilian clothes – you will act entirely under Chief Inspector Hazlerigg’s orders. If any technical questions arise, you can refer them direct to me. I think that’s all – goodbye, Inspector. I can find my own way out, thank you. Goodbye, McCann.”
“Goodbye,” said Lieutenant McCann dazedly.
There was a period of silence whilst the vacuum, caused by the Colonel’s departure, filled in slowly.
“Well, Chief,” said McCann at last, “what’s the next move?”
“My first tentative suggestion is that you find yourself a new lodging. Your present one is a little too popular for our purposes. But, of course, there’s your sister to think of. If you go, I suppose she’ll hardly like to live in the flat alone. Hasn’t she some relations she could stay with?”
“That shows how little you know about my sister,” said McCann. “Hitler, Hell and High-water have failed to move her – she won’t be likely to shift for a mere gangster. Seriously, though, if I go, I take it there’s no reason to suppose that they’ll worry her. The point of this afternoon’s business is now pretty clear. They just wanted her out of the way whilst they searched the flat.”
“All right,” said the Inspector. “I expect you’re right. Any idea where you are going to stay yourself?”
“Yes,” said McCann, “I think I have.”
When McCann reported for duty at the Yard the next day, he was experiencing a feeling of well-being and tightness with the world not entirely attributable to the fine spring morning.
Possibly it arose from the comforting fact that he was once more on His Majesty’s payroll.
The evening before he had “fixed” his sister, who, as he had predicted, had entirely refused to budge. “I’ve got a special job with the police,” he explained, “and I’m afraid it will mean moving into lodgings down somewhere nearer to the centre of London.”
“You’ll be a special constable, then?”
“Something like that,” said McCann.
“It’s cold weather for walking a beat,” said the old lady. The patriotic and romantic impulses of her youngest brother had long since ceased to amaze her. “I expect I’ll be hearing from you from time to time. I doubt you’ll be lucky to find lodgings, though.”
McCann packed a suitcase, selected a handful of his old favourites from the bookcase, and got out his car. After a short drive round the Heath to throw off any possibility of pursuit, he turned his nose towards town. He reached the Leopard at closing time and sought out Miss Carter.
“Why, certainly,” she said. “We’d love to have you here. You can take the back room on the second floor. The gentleman who had it left this morning to get married. One thing, I’m afraid we don’t get up very early here. Breakfast’s never before nine.”
“That’s the time I like my breakfast,” said the Major. One of the minor irritations of living with his sister had arisen from the fact that she was an eight o’clock breakfaster.
His bed, he discovered, was an involute affair of iron and brass with a basis formed of rigid steel diamonds. It appeared to have been made cast in one piece, at about the time of the Great Exhibition.
He slept dreamlessly.
At ten-thirty the next morning, as we have seen, he was in Hazlerigg’s room once again.
He found the Chief Inspector sitting at an otherwise empty desk working on something that looked like an operation order.
“I’m trying,” he said, “to figure out the timetable of what happened yesterday. This is the result so far.”
McCann read:
(1) 2.10 Scotland Yard telephone Major McCann. The call is intercepted by “A”.
(2) ? “A” communicates with his Chief.
(3) ? The Chief communicates with Soapy and tells him to raid McCann’s flat in search of information.
(4) 2.40 An unknown person telephones Miss McCann and induces her to leave the house.
(5) 3.20 Major McCann is telephoned by his sister from Highgate Police Station.
(6) 3.35 (or thereabouts) Major McCann disturbs Soapy at work in his flat. N.B. Pickup says that judging from the papers on the floor and allowing for a short time taken to open the lock, Soapy must have been there at least half an hour.
“Well,” said Hazlerigg, “what do you make of it?”
“Really efficient work, no doubt of it. If Polly hadn’t broken away so smartly and phoned me here, I shouldn’t have left for another half-hour, and even then I shouldn’t have taken a taxi or hurried home. No wonder Soapy was so annoyed when I turned up.”
“It was smart work all right,” said Hazlerigg, “but that wasn’t quite what I meant. Look at the time factor. In particular, what time do you suggest for items (2) and (3) in the schedule?”
“Well, wouldn’t that rather depend on whether it was Soapy himself who intercepted the telephone call or a third party?”
“I don’t think for a moment that it was Soapy. That Greek was their high-class lock expert. I don’t quite see him sitting on a telephone line all day.”
“In that case—well, let’s assume that item (2) took place pretty quickly—say two-fifteen.”
“Yes.”
“Then the Big Boy – though he does seem to be a hustler – would need a little time to think things out and lay on the reception committee for Polly in Gospel Oak. Let’s say he got hold of Soapy at two-thirty. Soapy would start out at two-forty-five—and arrive at my flat at about three o’clock. That fits in all right.”
“Yes,” said Hazlerigg slowly. “It fits in very nicely; but don’t you see what it
means
? We knew from Andrews that the Chief could telephone to his subordinates, using a prearranged ‘safe’ telephone number. But this is the first proof we’ve had
that members of the gang are able to telephone back to him
.
Those arrangements
must
have been made by telephone – there was no time for anything else.”
“I see.” McCann considered the implications. “That rather knocks some of your earlier theories, doesn’t it? I mean, if ‘A’ – who’s just a listener-on-other-people’s-telephones – can ring up the Big Chief, then ‘A’ knows where the Big Chief lives, or works, or he could very easily find out – and bang goes the whole idea of safety in anonymity.”
“Not necessarily. I think this is where the private post office system comes in.”
“You mean—”
“I mean that all calls for the Chief go first to – I think we may say – Leopold Goffstein. Leopold takes the call and either rings up the head man, or else – and this is a more exciting thought still –
he plugs the call straight through to him
.”
“But wouldn’t that mean a private line from Leopold’s office in Flaxman Street to the Chief’s house – or office?”
“It would.”
“And if there was such a line, couldn’t we trace it?”
“That’s as far as I’d got,” said Hazlerigg, “by nine o’clock this morning, and I immediately rang up the G.P.O. and put the idea to them. I’m afraid they were discouraging.”
“They said that such a private line couldn’t possibly exist?”
“Far from it. They said it could very easily exist. What they were discouraging about was the possibility of tracing it.”
“But, good God,” said McCann, “I’d dozens of signallers in my outfit who could trace a telephone line – it’s not a very technical operation.”
“So you would think – but you’ve no idea –and nor had I until this morning – what a mess there is under this old City of ours. The London telephone system didn’t just happen – it grew; and it’s been growing for a very long time. Old lengths of line fall into disuse and new bits are put in, sections are joined up and other sections are short-circuited. Berkeley Square’s a particularly unfortunate area, owing to the fact that a Very Important Person, with sufficient pull, used to be able to get a private line laid from his house to his office. And as if matters weren’t sufficiently complicated already, we had the Blitz to stir up the mixture a bit further.”
“Then you think it’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” said Hazlerigg gravely. “If the worst comes to the worst we’ll try, even if it means digging up half Berkeley Square. The point, at the moment, is this. The G.P.O. say that the idea of a private line is feasible, but it would have to be a short one. A line of any length would not only be very liable to detection but it would be almost impossible to maintain.”
“So
if
there is such a private line,” said McCann, “and
if
it runs from Goffstein’s office, then the other end of the line is somewhere quite close.”
“Sounds a bit theoretical, I know. But we’ve had a lot of pointers to the Mayfair area already – take a look at this folder of reports; you see – Hay Hill, Curzon Street, Berkeley Square, Shepherd’s Market.”
Again something stirred at the back of McCann’s mind.
He knew it was important. A half-formed association of ideas. Hay Hill, Curzon Street, Berkeley Square. If only he could put his finger on it. No use trying to force it. He heard Hazlerigg saying something.
“I beg your pardon—?”
“I asked,” said Hazlerigg patiently, “if you’d found good lodgings.”
“Yes, very good, thank you. I’m putting up at the Leopard – the one just off Curzon Street.”
“Well, that’s fine. You’ll be excellently placed. I want you to keep under cover and scout round. That’s a bit vague, I know. But I’ve great confidence in your powers of extracting trouble. We may have to send you to France soon. Until then I give you a free hand. Ring me up here at ten o’clock every morning.”
That evening McCann took Miss Carter into his confidence. He had considered the pros and cons carefully and decided that the very slight risks would be outweighed by the help she could give.
“I’m looking for a gang of crooks,” he said bluntly and without preamble. “I’m helping the police. They think that the gang may have headquarters somewhere in this end of Mayfair.”
Miss Carter accepted this change of role from Secret Service ace to private investigator with so little surprise that McCann was momentarily disquieted, until he reflected that women were mostly the same in this respect. Try to deceive them about the quality of their butter ration or half an ounce of knitting wool and they would be on to you like a knife, but a whopping fundamental lie would almost always go over big.
“What do you want me to do?” said Miss Carter. They were sitting in her private living-eating-office room, and she looked very domestic and practical as she drove her needle through a much patched silk stocking.
The fantasy of the situation struck the Major very forcibly. Here was one of the most efficient police forces in the world, using all its resources, doing a job of work with a picked team directed by one of the most able practical intelligences he had ever met – and there, on the other hand, was a retired army Major (really only a Substantive Lieutenant, he reminded himself) and Miss Carter, a publican and the daughter of a publican.
Talk about the mouse and the lion!
He realised that his hostess’s question still wanted answering.
“You and Glasgow,” he said, “have lived in this little corner of London for a great number of years and, between you, you must know a great number of people in it. I want to know
anything
about this area which strikes you as mysterious or inexplicable or even novel.
Anybody
who’s come here in the last few years who seems to be doing anything they shouldn’t. You know how people talk. That Mr. Jones, who has a lovely office but no one knows quite what his business can be. And that Mrs. Robinson who has a flower shop, but sells a great deal more than flowers, dear me, yes.”