Beware of Johnny Washington

by Francis Durbridge

  ‘He said he was mainly interested in English inns, though he’s lately been dabbling in Roman villas,’ grinned the inspector. ‘I think he’s a pretty harmless old bird myself.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have been reading Good-bye Mr Chips just lately?’ queried Johnny, with the merest twitch of his expressive mouth, and Verity caught his eye and smiled. ‘You’ve got to admit that it’s queer the old boy should be on the spot the night of that murder. They don’t get a guest at the Kingfisher once in three months, except right in the middle of the summer, so the locals tell me,’ continued Johnny, signalling the barman to bring another round of drinks. ‘I guess we’ve got to think twice before we write off the old boy as harmless.’

  Dovey stubbed out his cigarette.

  ‘Have it your own way, Johnny,’ he grunted. ‘I’ll have the boys keep an eye on him. We can’t afford to leave anything to chance. All the same, if that old bird’s a master criminal, I’ll pack up and go and lecture at Hendon!’

  Johnny laughed.

  ‘I guess things aren’t quite as bad as that, Inspector. But I’d like to know what’s been going on at Brighton this afternoon. Sir Robert wouldn’t say much on the phone.’

  ‘It’s in the stop press of most of the evening papers,’ said Dovey. ‘Though they haven’t got the full story by any means. Seems the gang decided to try their hand at a daylight job for a change, and they got away with it very nicely. It must have been pretty thoroughly planned, right down to the last detail.’

  ‘Any idea how much stuff was there?’

  Dovey looked round cautiously, then dropped his voice. ‘Getting on for fifty thousand pounds, Sir Robert said when he phoned me. It was Dollands, the jewellers, and they were carrying a much bigger stock than usual. They’ve had several apparently genuine inquiries during the past week for expensive rings and necklaces, so naturally they got the stuff down on approval from Town. It was all worked out very neatly, including a lorry crashing into the shop next door to cover the noise when they blew the safe.’

  ‘Pretty smart,’ commented Johnny, taking a gulp at his whisky.

  ‘And it seems they even had time to plant one of your cards before they made a getaway.’

  ‘Not one of my cards,’ Johnny corrected him. ‘A card with my name on it that I didn’t pay for. And you needn’t give me that funny look, Inspector, because I can quite easily prove that I was at home all afternoon.’

  ‘Glad to hear it, old man,’ said Dovey, though there was a trace of false heartiness in his voice.

  ‘I’m getting a little tired,’ went on Johnny, ‘of having to establish alibis like this. Maybe there’ll come a day when they’ll pull one of these jobs when I spent the whole day by myself fishing. Then I’ll be in a spot. This business is getting on my nerves, and I object to anything that gets on my nerves. I’m kind of touchy about little things like that.’

  He lit another cigarette and thoughtfully watched a large cloud of tobacco smoke rise towards the ceiling.

  ‘Inspector,’ Verity said suddenly, ‘what’s happened to the driver of that lorry that smashed into the shop?’

  Johnny came back to earth abruptly.

  ‘Yes, Inspector, what’s happened to that driver?’

  ‘Sir Robert said he’d got away when the police were coping with the crowd. They got his name and address—’

  ‘That’ll be phoney,’ said Johnny quickly. ‘Come on, Inspector, we’d better get round to the Yard. There’s no time to be lost.’

  The inspector looked puzzled and said: ‘What are you up to, Johnny?’

  ‘It stands out like Cleopatra’s needle,’ said Johnny Washington. ‘Come on, Inspector—I think a special “all stations” call seems to be indicated.’

  ‘An “all stations” call?’ repeated Dovey, obviously bewildered.

  ‘Sure, Inspector—for a guy named Slim Copley.’

  CHAPTER X

  RENDEZVOUS

  WITHOUT any further delay, Dovey led his visitors through the front hall of New Scotland Yard, and along various corridors past the famous Information Room, with its three brilliantly lighted sections, to a room where a battery of teleprinters was busily clicking. Dovey phoned Brighton to check Slim Copley’s description and a few minutes later they were sending it out to over a hundred principal stations.

  ‘That’s that,’ declared Dovey with a sigh of relief. ‘Now we’ll go upstairs and see Sir Robert.’

  The assistant commissioner was alone in his office engaged on what appeared an important telephone conversation and he motioned to them to be seated. When he eventually replaced the receiver, Dovey introduced him to Verity and gave him a brief account of her connection with the case. As soon as he heard that she was Locksley’s sister, Sir Robert leaned forward in his chair and listened with keen interest. Presently, he opened a drawer and produced a silver cigarette box, which he handed round, and two minutes later Verity told her story for the third time.

  Sir Robert made a note or two and asked her an occasional question. Once or twice he prompted her on minor matters, but for the main part she spoke without interruption. Towards the end, the assistant commissioner opened a file and cross-checked several facts she had mentioned, nodding quietly as he did so.

  ‘That’s very interesting, Miss Glyn … very interesting,’ he murmured, as she came to the end of her story and stubbed out her cigarette with a hand that shook slightly. There had been traces of emotion in her voice when she spoke of her brother, and it was obvious to Hargreaves that she was completely sincere. He looked at her shrewdly for a few seconds, then said:

  ‘You seem quite certain that from the very beginning your brother was under the impression that the brains behind these robberies was this man Max Fulton?’

  ‘Quite sure, Sir Robert,’ she replied with quiet emphasis.

  He stroked his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘I admit that Locksley seemed very positive about this being an elaborate criminal organization, but he never said anything about Max Fulton.’

  ‘He wanted to be quite certain first,’ she answered. ‘You see, he had no evidence against Fulton … not even a photograph. He knew what a devil the man is, and he had to go very carefully.’

  There was silence for a moment, then the assistant commissioner swung round in his seat.

  ‘What do you make of all this, Mr Washington?’ he asked. ‘Have you ever come across Max Fulton in your wide and varied experience?’

  Johnny grinned and shook his head.

  ‘No, sir, but I heard quite a bit about him in the States. I guess he gave the F.B.I. boys a few headaches before he cleaned up fifty thousand dollars in some big Wall Street affair and vanished the next day. Yes, Maxie is quite a character.’

  ‘That doesn’t necessarily mean that he is running this organization.’

  ‘That’s quite true,’ said Johnny. ‘But it looks mighty like it to me. Locksley was convinced about it in his own mind, and Locksley was murdered all right.’

  Sir Robert looked up sharply.

  ‘What makes you so certain about that?’

  Johnny said: ‘Locksley was holding the revolver in his left hand, but he had been shot through the opposite side of his head. Locksley was left-handed all right, but I wouldn’t say he was a contortionist into the bargain.’

  ‘True enough,’ agreed the assistant commissioner at once. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about that doctor fellow who gave evidence, Washington. Is he a neighbour of yours?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ replied Johnny. ‘He was dining with me that evening.’

  ‘You know him well?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘H’m … well I’ve looked into the Medical Directory, and there doesn’t seem to be any trace of him there.’

  ‘I believe he took his degrees somewhere abroad,’ said Johnny. ‘He tells me he spent a lot of time on the Gold Coast.’

  ‘Humph! Well, he certainly seems to have made a mess of this job. Any damned fool could see
with half an eye that it wasn’t suicide. There wasn’t even a trace of a burn near the wound.’

  ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t say this,’ began Johnny, ‘but the doc had been drinking pretty heavily that night—and he had one or two more at the Kingfisher. He was certainly mellow.’

  ‘Oh, well, perhaps that explains it,’ shrugged Sir Robert. ‘All the same, it was most unfortunate.’

  Johnny smiled lazily.

  ‘Maybe it’ll work out better than we thought, Sir Robert.’

  ‘Meaning what, exactly?’ demanded Hargreaves.

  ‘Well, if the gang take it for granted the police have accepted that suicide verdict, they’re liable to relax their defences … and nobody in their position can afford to relax.’

  The assistant commissioner nodded approvingly.

  ‘Yes, you’re right there, Washington. I don’t propose to reopen the case of Locksley’s death until we’ve got the man who killed him. You agree with that, Miss Glyn?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Sir Robert.’

  ‘When did you last see your brother?’

  ‘Shortly before he visited Mr Washington.’

  ‘Did he seem cheerful and in normal health?’

  ‘Much the same as usual. He was worried about this case, of course, but he didn’t seem depressed at all. We never saw very much of each other, Sir Robert. My work kept me very busy, and he was often in and out of town quite a lot.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Hargreaves made several more notes, then, as he seemed to have completed his questioning, Dovey quietly intervened and told him about the all-stations call for Slim Copley. Sir Robert nodded his approval and began sorting through the contents of his grey folder.

  Johnny looked across at Verity, smiled a trifle uneasily and shuffled his feet uncomfortably.

  ‘Sir Robert,’ he said at last, ‘why did you ask me to come here tonight?’

  The assistant commissioner deliberately closed his folder and placed it on one side.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that, Mr Washington,’ he replied in a pleasant tone. ‘Why do you think I invited you?’

  ‘In the first place,’ hazarded Johnny, ‘I guess you wanted to make sure I had a good alibi for this afternoon. Well, there she is. We’ve spent the entire afternoon together since one-thirty.’ He nodded across at Verity.

  ‘Is that correct, Miss Glyn?’

  ‘Quite correct, Sir Robert. And if you want another witness, there is Mr Washington’s butler.’

  A vestige of a smile flickered across Hargreaves’s deeply lined features.

  ‘So you run to a butler nowadays, Washington?’

  ‘A very respectable butler, Sir Robert,’ replied Johnny imperturbably. ‘He’d be quite horrified if he knew where I was at this minute.’ Sir Robert permitted himself a grim chuckle.

  ‘All right, Washington. I always suspected those cards were deliberately planted. Now, I want to talk to you two in complete confidence. Can you forget about that newspaper of yours for ten minutes, Miss Glyn?’

  ‘I am only interested in seeing my brother’s murderer punished, Sir Robert,’ she solemnly assured him.

  ‘And I’m gunning for the guy who’s trying to roll my name in the mud,’ put in Johnny. ‘“He who steals my purse steals trash, but he who takes my good name” …’

  ‘All right,’ interrupted Hargreaves hastily. ‘Well, I don’t mind admitting to both of you that this case has had us pretty badly rattled. We never know quite where this gang will break out next, and what method they will use. The man—or woman—at the head seems to be able to put his finger on all the weak spots in the police organization. In fact, they’re apparently a couple of moves ahead of us the whole time.’

  He picked up a large briar pipe from his inkstand and began to fill it slowly from a tin which stood on his desk.

  ‘This is only a vague sort of idea of mine, Washington,’ he went on with some hesitation. ‘But I know you’re a pretty unorthodox type, and you’ve a fairly wide knowledge of what the Sunday papers call the underworld. Now, I gather you’re quite keen to help us on this case, and I thought if we gave you a free hand …’ He placed the lid on the tin very carefully.

  ‘How does that strike you?’

  ‘Are you suggesting I should turn into a glorified—er—copper’s nark I think you call it over here?’ queried Johnny.

  ‘I’m prepared to leave the plan of campaign to you. We’ll either work with you or quite independently, whichever suits you better.’

  ‘You embarrass me, Sir Robert,’ said Johnny. ‘I would sure like to help, but I haven’t any plan of campaign right now, except to keep a close watch on the Kingfisher and ask a guy named Slim Copley a few awkward questions as soon as I can lay hands on him.’

  ‘Later, perhaps,’ nodded the Assistant Commissioner. ‘At the moment, I am particularly anxious to discover how the gang gets the stuff out of the country—as they must be doing, because you can take it from me, Washington, that if it were still here, we’d have it back in less than a couple of days. Isn’t that so, Dovey?’

  ‘That’s so, sir,’ the inspector promptly corroborated.

  ‘Now, that’s one direction where you might come in useful, Washington,’ continued the assistant commissioner. ‘You’re pretty used to picking up information about the valuable pieces of jewellery that are floating around the world. There was that affair of the Berkeley rubies, for instance, that very nearly landed you into a pretty mess.’

  ‘It landed the man who stole them into a prettier one,’ Johnny reminded him, ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he went on, ‘but I’m a bit out of touch with such goings-on these days. But I guess I’ll take a look around one of these fine evenings and see what I can pick up.’

  There was a soft buzz and Sir Robert lifted one of the telephone receivers on his desk. He listened for a moment then gave a couple of brisk orders and replaced the instrument. He turned to Johnny and said:

  ‘You wanted a few words with Slim Copley?’

  ‘I’ll say I do!’

  ‘All right, then, be here at ten sharp in the morning. They’ve just picked him up near Purley.’

  With the rest of the evening to themselves, Johnny and Verity summoned a taxi in the Charing Cross Road, having decided that it was rather too late to go to a theatre. Johnny persuaded her to accompany him to a small club near the Marble Arch which he knew well enough to secure admission without any difficulty.

  ‘You may see one or two characters there you could put in your column. I guess they’d be tickled to death!’ he grinned, adding that there was no necessity for either of them to dress for the occasion.

  ‘They’ve got a chef there who really knows his way around,’ he concluded as a final recommendation.

  As its name implied, The Bouquets Club had a late-Victorian atmosphere, with gilt and cupids very much in evidence.

  In a far corner, surrounded by several palms, a trio of demurely dressed young ladies dispensed Victorian melodies on piano, violin and cello.

  ‘There’s somethin’ kinda restful about this place,’ murmured Johnny, as he passed the menu over to Verity. ‘Other folks must find it so as well, because some of the biggest crooked deals of all time have been cooked up here. Mind you, the place is strictly above board; never been raided once, or I wouldn’t have brought you.’

  ‘I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Mr Washington,’ replied Verity in a serious tone, though there was a suspicion of a twinkle in the grey eyes. A waiter came and took their order and Johnny nodded to a couple of people he knew. He began to describe some of the diners to her.

  ‘The blonde dripping with ice over by the door’—he indicated a glittering fair-haired woman laden with jewels on every visible extremity—‘she’s tied up with a nice little racket in black market luxury flats. Started as a typist in an estate office; in next to no time the boss had taken a fancy to her—his wife divorced him—the blonde became more and more expensive—he had to go into the black market
to pay her bills—and now she owns the business. It just shows what a girl can do if she keeps her wits about her!’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Verity. ‘And I get so many letters from typists telling me the boss is in love with them. I’m beginning to wonder if I was right in advising them to look for another job.’

  ‘You bet you were right!’ replied Johnny emphatically, nodding in the blonde’s direction. ‘I wouldn’t have a dog of mine step into her shoes.’

  A stocky young man in a much too tightly fitting suit wandered over to the blonde’s table and seated himself with a possessive air.

  ‘Small-time crook,’ explained Johnny. ‘There’s no depths a woman of that type can’t sink to. And he’s kept her waiting at least twenty minutes.’

  A waiter stepped on to the orchestra’s rostrum and whispered something to the leader. Presently, they burst into a tinkling version of a famous galop.

  ‘That’s one of Tommy Belton’s favourites—he’s a sucker for Offenbach,’ murmured Johnny, turning in his chair to get a glimpse of the man in question, a well-groomed elderly business man in the late fifties. He pointed him out to Verity as he applauded heartily at the end of the piece.

  ‘He looks very respectable,’ she commented.

  ‘He’s never been found out yet,’ was the cryptical reply. ‘Tommy has a very cosy little motor showroom in Great Portland Street, but nobody has ever yet managed to discover how he keeps a luxury flat in Park Lane, a large house near Ascot, a string of racehorses and an equally expensive string of girl friends.’

  ‘Maybe he’s discovered a new way of dodging super-tax,’ suggested Verity.

  ‘Say, I hope you’re not going to print any of this in your column,’ put in Johnny hastily, with vivid recollections of the American yellow press.

  ‘There’s such a thing as a law of libel,’ she reminded him. ‘And in any case, mine is a highly respectable column.’

  ‘I guess I asked for that one,’ he murmured as the waiter placed the celebrated chicken à la king before them. Suddenly, from behind the waiter a figure of an energetic man in the early forties loomed up and tapped Johnny on the shoulder.