“Suppose the agent is
not
in the town?”
Major Middleton flushed a little as the implication came home to him.
“You mean that the receiver may be in the camp – on my staff?”
“I am only trying to be logical,” said M. Bren practically. “You yourself have told us that all returning leave men come to the camp for checking. That must take a little time – an hour or more?”
“Yes, at least. They usually have a meal, too.”
“That is what I mean. Whilst they are being ‘checked’, as you say, they do not remain seated in an orderly manner in their automobiles—?”
Major Middleton laughed.
“I’m sorry, Monsieur,” he said, “but it shows how little you know about the British other rank, if you imagine that he is capable of remaining seated in an orderly manner for even five minutes. No – they swarm all over the camp – try to scrounge a second issue of N.A.A.F.I., look for friends, and so on.”
“Exactly,” said M. Bren. “And that, I suggest, is the moment when the ‘exports’ reach the receiver.”
“It’s logical, you know,” said McCann.
“H’m. It’s a startling idea. One of the permanent staff. And yet – how long has this business been going on?”
“At least eight months.”
“Yes. Well, that simplifies things in a way.” Major Middleton rang the electric bell and said to the office orderly: “Ask Captain Featherstone to come in.”
“That’s my adjutant,” he went on. “Oh, David, sit down a moment. Have some tea—No? I don’t blame you. Look here, can you tell me off-hand how many of the permanent staff have been here eight months?”
“None, sir,” said Captain Featherstone promptly. “The first batch all went home four months ago. You remember – when group thirty-eight came out. We had a complete changeover. No, I’m wrong. There is one.”
“Sergeant Golightly?”
“Exactly, sir.”
“And he’s the only one?”
“I’m sure of that, sir – after all, you won’t find many chaps deferring their release to serve – saving your presence – in a dump like this.”
“No—all right, David. Thank you very much.”
“Sergeant Golightly,” said McCann thoughtfully.
“I remember his case very well,” said Major Middleton. “He’s the Sergeant-cook, you know. A very capable fellow at his job – those are some of his cakes that you’ve just been eating. We were all surprised when he deferred – I don’t say we weren’t relieved, too, for good cooks don’t grow on gooseberry bushes. I’m afraid I thought the worst – there was a girl in the offing.”
“I see.”
“You know how these stories get round the camp. Everyone seemed to know that Sergeant Golightly used to visit a French girl in the rue
Gamboge
. There may have been no more truth in it than any other camp rumour. He certainly spends most of his off-time in the town. I’ve often given him a lift up the hill on his way back to the camp.”
M. Bren said: “I will make some inquiries in the town. You,
mon gars
,
if I might suggest, should make the acquaintance of this enterprising
cuisinier
.”
Late the following afternoon Sergeant Golightly set out from the camp for an evening in town. The storm was still troubling the waters of the English Channel, and throwing occasional capfuls of rain, hail, and spray at the drenched grey port. He had therefore wrapped his rotund figure in a cape and encased his short legs in heavy rubber knee boots (both items of equipment had been designed originally by a thoughtful Government department for protection of troops in chemical warfare).
Despite the early hour, most of the cafés were packed; for the storm had trebled the population of the camp and the men had money saved for their precious home-leave.
Ignoring the better-known places, Sergeant Golightly waddled steadily eastwards towards the port. In a side street, he found the little Estaminet de la Couronne as neat, narrow and unpretentious as half a dozen others in the same thoroughfare.
Here the Sergeant was evidently known and appreciated. Though all six of the little tables were occupied, Madame found room for him in the place of honour beside the bar by the simple expedient of ejecting the young couple already in possession. As an even further mark of esteem she sat down beside him and disposed herself to talk.
“You have neglected us of late,” she complained.
“Too much work,” said the Sergeant. “The camp’s very full now—
Beaucoup de soldats—comprenez
?”
“But perfectly,” said Madame in her best English. “It is this—storm.”
“That’s it,” said the Sergeant. “Real grasp of the mother tongue, you’ve got, haven’t you? I’m afraid there’s not much doing today. What with one thing and another we’re a bit short of grub—
Manque de manger—comprenez
?”
He slid his hand under his gas cape and passed across to Madame what looked remarkably like a couple of tins of bully-beef.
Madame received them discreetly and swept them into her capacious reticule with neat sleight of hand.
“But perfectly,” she said, “when food is short, all must suffer together. To drink?”
“The usual,” said Sergeant Golightly.
An hour later, during which period he had said “The usual” six times. Sergeant Golightly drew out a massive watch (G.S. Signallers for the use of). Since “the usual” had been, on each occasion, a generous Pernod, he found a momentary difficulty in focusing, but at length decided that the time was eight o’clock.
Good – at least another half-hour before he had to move.
He splashed out some soda-water, a good deal of which went into his glass, and settling back in his seat became aware, for the first time, that his table was being shared by a stranger.
“
B’n soir, Monsieur le Sergeant
,” said the stranger affably.
“
Bon soir
to you, and see how you like it then,” replied Sergeant Golightly wittily.
“I do no understand. You say—?”
“What you don’t understand, cock, won’t embarrass you.”
“You are philosophe?”
“Oo are you callin’ soft? Are you aware that you ‘ave the singul-i-ar honour of speaking to the leading light-heavy- medium-bantam-feather-weight champion of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?”
“Indeed?”
“Joke,” said Sergeant Golightly. “I’m not a boxer. Not really.”
“That I can well believe,” said the Frenchman. “Will you do me the honour of joining me in a drink?”
“That,” replied Sergeant Golightly handsomely, “is an honour I’ll do to any man. Be he black, be he white, so long as his money’s all right.”
“You are poetic,” said the Frenchman, and poured out a “fine” for himself and a quadruple Pernod for the Sergeant.
Some time passed and Sergeant Golightly again inspected his watch and discovered with considerable alarm that it was five past two.
“Try looking at it the right way up,” suggested the Frenchman, whose grasp of colloquial English was improving as the evening went on.
An inspection on this basis showed the Sergeant that the time was twenty-five to nine.
It was high time to be moving.
Being a very experienced drinker he knew that the great thing was to do nothing rashly. He summoned Madame and demanded his “little bit of blotting paper”. Madame appeared to understand perfectly and produced a very large double slice of dark bread with a generous piece of rather soapy-looking cheese in the middle.
After disposing of this the Sergeant felt more in control of the situation.
Obviously the first thing to do was to get rid of the Frog. He spent a moment or two formulating the sentence which would achieve this in the most tactful manner, and turning back to the table he had kicked-off ambitiously with “
Mille mercis, Monsieur
—” when he realised that he was alone.
The Frog had hopped it.
The Sergeant got cautiously to his feet, and found to his satisfaction that he still had an adequate control of his limbs.
The café appeared to be more crowded than ever, the lights brighter, the noises louder and more cheerful.
The contrast outside was almost theatrical. The wind had increased in strength without losing its playfulness, and it alternately screamed in dry rage and threw capfuls of frozen sleet horizontally down the street.
Sergeant Golightly turned up his coat collar and faced the elements unwillingly.
Nevertheless, the shock of the cold and the sting of the rain had the effect of restoring him to a more cautious frame of mind. He was making for the district which lay behind the old port, and at every turn and corner in the road he stopped for a moment to look back.
He might have spared his pains.
He
was
being followed – by the most skilful trackers alive; men trained to an unbelievable pitch of efficiency by four years of street work in the French Resistance.
As he neared his destination the Sergeant dropped any pretence of secrecy. He was numbed by the vicious assaults of the weather, and he was late for his appointment.
The district which he had reached was sordid even by the limited standards of the neighbourhood. His footsteps had ceased to ring on the cobbles and were now padding and slipping over a thick moss of fish-scales, seaweed, and unimaginable debris. The walls were dripping with filth, and bare except for the occasional ghostly tatters of a poster which had been new when the Germans had entered the town in 1940.
The Sergeant stopped at last in a tiny “impasse”, the seaward side of which was taken up by the premises of Messieurs Branchet and Colporteur, a ramshackle building whose long doors, cranes and derricks showed it to be a warehouse on the ground floor level. A line of shuttered windows above might have indicated offices or a dwelling-place.
Suddenly a light went up in one of the windows.
The Sergeant cowered in the deep doorway and waited.
Ten seconds later a second light appeared.
The Sergeant felt behind him, and the tiny
porte cochère
yielded to his touch. He stepped through it into the grateful shelter of the warehouse, and, guiding himself by a thread of light, made his way up the shallow wooden steps to the landing, and pushed open, the door under which the yellow light was streaming.
It was an ordinary commercial office and appeared to be the first of a chain of similar rooms each opening into the other. The only occupant of the room was a small man who looked up as Golightly came in.
“You are late,” he said, in fair English.
“Yus,” said the Sergeant. “It was this—storm.”
“You’ve got the stuff?”
“As per usual—” He felt inside the front of his battle-dress blouse and produced a package about the size of an ordinary box of dominoes. “Carter Paterson, that’s me. Always prompt, always cheerful.”
Beyond a quick scrutiny of the seals, the dwarf did not trouble to examine the box. He produced a packet of notes and said: “You are prompt, we are prompt also. That is how business should be done.” He was counting out the notes as he spoke. “Five thousand francs, as agreed. We add twenty per cent for this consignment. This makes a further thousand francs.”
“And ten per cent for the tronc,” suggested a polite voice from the doorway.
McCann, who viewed the events of the next few minutes from the passage outside the half-open door, was compelled to admit that he had rarely seen anyone move as quickly as the dwarf.
A second before he had had nothing in his hands but the sheaf of bank notes; now his left hand had swept the box off the table into his pocket and his right hand held an automatic pistol.
“Who are you?” he screamed. “Thieves, murderers . . .”
“Now then, little horror,” said one of the men in raincoats. “Put down that gun. We are the police—”
“Police,” spat the dwarf. “You are not police. The police I know. I do not recognise you. You are bandits . . .”
As he spoke he was backing towards the door behind him.
For a moment the situation looked awkward. McCann was unarmed. The detectives carried guns, but they were in their pockets. The resistance was unexpected.
The creature reached the door and flung it open.
He got no further. M. Bren stood there, his bulk filling the aperture.
He advanced on the dwarf, who seemed to be paralysed. “So,” he said, “you do not recognise the
agents de police, crapaud
. But you recognise me,
hein
! You know Ulysse, little toad? We have met before,
hein
? Two years ago, in Paris, yes? But on that occasion you hop-hop-hopped away and I was too occupied to run after you. But now it is a different history, yes? Also, you should not play with toys like this.” He removed the automatic, as he spoke, and dropped it into his pocket. “When handled by the inexperienced, they explode, causing great mortification. The package also, please. Thank you.”
The room had been steadily filling with men as he spoke, and the uniforms and dripping capes of two
agents de ville
now appeared in the doorway.
“We will commit it to you,” said M. Bren. “Remove it.”
He turned to another of the silent figures. “Take six men and search the building. I think it is empty. But detain anyone you find.”
The prime cause of all this, Sergeant Golightly, appeared to have been forgotten. He was standing, in apparent stupor, in the corner. His relief at discovering a compatriot in McCann was most affecting.
“Are you an English officer, sir? Thank God for that. You’ll look after me, won’t you?”
“Yes,” said McCann grimly, “I’ll look after you. What’s in this packet ?”
“On my perishing life and soul,” said Golightly, “I’ve carried nearly fifty of them, but I’ve never once looked inside.”
Illogically, McCann believed him.
Under the paper wrapping was a neatly-made white wood box. M. Bren prised open the lid with his knife.
Inside, there lay, gleaming, mint-new and tightly packed, two hundred golden sovereigns.
“I’ve had a talk with Golightly,” said McCann to Major Middleton next morning, “and I believe that he has told me the simple truth. Incredible as it may seem, he just
did not know
what he was carrying. The routine was simplicity itself. A soldier on the returning draft would approach him in the cookhouse and say: ‘You’re the chap who knows the ropes here, aren’t you?’ Golightly would answer: ‘Yes, I’ve been here a long time,’ and the chap thereupon handed him a package.”