Beware of Johnny Washington

by Francis Durbridge

  ‘No, no,’ interposed Hargreaves anxiously. ‘You’ve been a tremendous help, Washington; we simply must continue to work together.’

  ‘O.K.’ nodded Johnny, lighting a cigarette. ‘We’ve got to work fast, too.’

  ‘You mean you’ve some idea as to who Grey Moose is?’

  ‘By this time tomorrow night, I hope to have a pretty good idea.’

  ‘You know where he’ll be, then?’ inquired Sir Robert, leaning forward eagerly in his chair, and bending his paper-knife with nervous fingers.

  ‘He’ll be in the club-room at the Kingfisher soon after ten. And I reckon we ought to look in on that meeting.’

  ‘We’ll certainly be there,’ promised Sir Robert grimly. ‘How did you know about this?’

  ‘I overheard it through the panel last night. They’re fixing up another big job; it’s so important that Big Chief will be there in person.’

  ‘You’re absolutely certain about this—the time and place I mean?’

  ‘Miss Glyn heard it as well. You can check with her at her office if you like.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Sir Robert quickly. ‘That won’t be necessary.’ He picked up the telephone and asked to be put through to one of the Flying Squad inspectors.

  ‘Maxwell? I shall want a couple of cars and—let me see—half a dozen men for nine sharp tomorrow night. We may pick up one or two extras locally … yes, it’s near Sevenoaks … come round to my office when you’ve a minute and I’ll give you the details.’ He slammed down the receiver and turned to Johnny.

  ‘We’ve got to handle this carefully,’ he meditated. ‘This time he mustn’t slip through our fingers …’

  ‘You’ve got to keep your men out of sight,’ said Johnny. ‘They’ll have to pick up anyone who leaves … and you must have a couple at least watching the White Lodge. At ten o’clock they must force an entrance and come right down the underground tunnel to the Kingfisher.’

  ‘H’m, that seems pretty fool-proof. In the meantime, we close in on the pub and prevent anyone from leaving.’

  ‘You’ll have to draw a pretty tight net,’ nodded Johnny. ‘There may be still more ways out of that pub than we know of. Look at the way Slim Copley vanished that day when one of your men caught sight of him in there. The main thing is to take them completely by surprise before they have time to organize any escape.’

  ‘They may have some escape plan already organized for just such an emergency,’ said Hargreaves.

  ‘In that case, we have to beat ’em to it. And if they get wind of this raid beforehand …’ He hesitated.

  ‘Eh? What’s that?’ said the assistant commissioner.

  ‘If they get the low-down on our plans this time, Chief, well, I’ll be the only man outside the Yard who’s in the secret.’

  ‘H’m …’ murmured Hargreaves, ‘I see what you mean.’

  CHAPTER XIX

  A CASE OF ABDUCTION?

  As he had not seen Verity all day, Johnny telephoned her in the evening to make sure she had received no more unwelcome attentions from Grey Moose. But he said nothing about the raid on the Kingfisher, even when she tried to inquire about his future plans. She seemed quite cheerful, which she told him was largely due to an interesting day at the office and a particularly appetizing supper devised by Mrs Todd.

  ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘I quite forgot to tell you that I had a letter this morning from your friend Mr Quince.’

  ‘Quince? I didn’t know you’d met him.’

  ‘He wrote to me in my official capacity,’ she said. ‘He told me he was one of my regular readers and wondered if I could give him a little information.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘He’s very anxious to trace a book published about fifty years ago.’

  ‘What sort of book?’

  ‘It’s called Hideholes and Hidden Passages, and he wanted me to print a request to readers to let him know of the whereabouts of a copy. Of course, I had to reply that it was against the policy of the feature. But it made me wonder if he’s discovered that tunnel from the inn.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about that if I were you,’ said Johnny. ‘I’ve arranged for that passage to be watched pretty carefully.’

  ‘In what way?’ she asked quickly.

  ‘Never mind that, honey,’ he replied evasively. ‘If old Quince is mixed up with that crowd, I guess we’ll find out pretty soon.’

  ‘Johnny, you’re holding out on me,’ she said reproachfully.

  ‘Only for your own good,’ he assured her. ‘This is a full-sized man’s job. Somebody’s liable to get hurt.’

  ‘Oh, dear! Johnny, you will be careful, won’t you?’ There was no mistaking the note of anxiety in her tone.

  ‘I said somebody’s liable to get hurt,’ he repeated with a grin. ‘I guess I’ll be behind the door if there’s any rough stuff.’

  He paused for a moment, then went on in a much more serious tone. ‘Verity, there’s something else I want to tell you. I had a chat with Sir Robert about you today; I thought he should be told about that business of the gramophone record.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘We agreed that someone should keep an eye on you.’

  ‘What does that mean exactly?’

  ‘He’s going to put a plain-clothes man on to tailing you. Now, there’s no need to get alarmed; it’s just a precautionary measure. In fact, I was against telling you myself, but he thought you might get scared if you saw a strange man hanging around.’

  ‘There’s something in that,’ she conceded. ‘What am I expected to do about all this?’

  ‘You just relax and pay no attention whatever. In fact, I doubt if you’ll notice this guy unless you particularly look out for him.’ Again there was a pause. Then she said:

  ‘Well, thanks for telling me. I’ll try not to panic.’

  ‘Atta girl!’ laughed Johnny. ‘And I’ll call you on Sunday morning if that’s O.K?’

  ‘Anything you say,’ she murmured, burlesquing his intonation.

  ‘Maybe I’ll have some news then. And by the way, if you get any more parcels, don’t open ’em.’

  ‘I’ll remember,’ she promised.

  After he had replaced the receiver, Johnny lay back in his arm-chair and speculated for some minutes as to whether he had done the right thing in telling Verity that she was to be kept under observation. He told himself that he hadn’t really had very much experience of her type of woman; she was something special and you never knew quite how she was going to take things. For instance, she’d gone through that underground tunnel without hardly turning a hair, just as if it had merely been another newspaper assignment. He had come across one or two ‘sob sisters’ as they called them during his brief newspaper days, but none of them had remotely resembled Verity Glyn.

  When the assistant commissioner and Inspector Kennard called for him the following evening, Johnny insisted on their having a double whisky while they ran through a brief outline of the plan for the raid on the Kingfisher. Kennard produced a rough plan of the inn and its surroundings and they discussed the disposition of their men.

  ‘By the way,’ said Johnny, ‘I take it they’ll be armed.’

  ‘They are,’ replied Sir Robert promptly. ‘These men we’re dealing with are dangerous, and we must leave nothing to chance. Don’t you agree, Washington?’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ murmured Johnny, fingering his own automatic in his coat pocket, and hoping that the English police were not quite so ready to draw and not quite so erratic in their marksmanship as some Chicago cops of his acquaintance.

  He turned to Kennard, who was due at White Lodge, and gave him precise instructions as to the whereabouts of the statue and how it worked. He was to take four men with him down the tunnel, leaving two behind to deal with any sudden emergency that might arise. Johnny could not help admiring the brisk, unemotional manner in which Kennard disposed of all the details and settled any minor problems.

  ‘You have your search war
rant, Kennard?’ queried Hargreaves.

  Kennard patted his breast pocket reassuringly.

  ‘I’ve got the warrants for both places,’ he replied.

  ‘Good!’ nodded Hargreaves. ‘Well, take care in that passage—better move in single file, with a distance of two or three yards between you. And don’t take any unnecessary chances. We’ve got enough men surrounding the inn to deal with a gang twice their size.’

  ‘We don’t really know their strength, Sir Robert,’ Johnny reminded him.

  ‘We’ve no reason to expect more than half a dozen at the outside,’ replied Sir Robert. ‘But it isn’t very important if one or two of the lesser lights escape, as long as we get Grey Moose.’

  ‘I quite understand, sir,’ nodded Kennard, preparing to take his leave.

  ‘He seems a very efficient type,’ commented Johnny casually, after the chief inspector had gone.

  ‘A bit reserved,’ commented Sir Robert, ‘but a wonderful organizer. He’s only been at the Yard just over a year, but I don’t mind admitting I should miss him.’ He drained his glass and refused another drink.

  ‘How much time have we got before we move off?’ he inquired. Johnny glanced at his wrist-watch.

  ‘Another ten minutes yet, Sir Robert. You said you’d have about nine or ten men surrounding the Kingfisher?’

  ‘Yes, they should be there any minute now.’

  ‘What about the cars?’

  ‘One will stop a little way down the road; the other near at hand.’

  Johnny was just lighting a cigarette when the telephone rang; he heard Winwood answering it in the hall outside. Presently, the butler came in and announced in dignified tones:

  ‘There is a Scottish lady for you on the telephone, sir—a Mrs Todd. She says it is extremely urgent.’

  ‘Mrs Todd?’ repeated Johnny, with some misgiving. ‘Put it through, will you, Winwood?’

  He went over and picked up the receiver from the instrument on the bureau.

  ‘Is that you, Mr Washington?’ came the familiar voice of Verity’s housekeeper.

  ‘Sure it’s me, Mrs Todd. Is anything wrong?’

  ‘Yes, sir … it’s about Miss Glyn.’

  ‘Miss Glyn?’

  Sir Robert, who had been standing with his back to the fire, looked up quickly as Johnny repeated the name.

  ‘Yes, sir, she isn’t with you, by any chance, is she?’

  ‘No, Mrs Todd. I haven’t seen her today. What time did she go out?’

  ‘She had a phone call soon after ten this morning, while I was in the kitchen seeing about lunch. She seemed a wee bit flustered when she came in, and said they wanted her round at the office right away, but she’d be back in time for lunch. Since then, I hav’na’ heard a word from her.’

  ‘I wish you’d phoned before,’ muttered Johnny.

  ‘Och, I thought nothing of it at the time. She often misses a meal and sometimes forgets to phone and say she won’t be in. I had to go out myself this afternoon to see my sister at Muswell Hill, and when I got back and there was no sign of Miss Verity, I got worried and phoned the newspaper office. They said she’d been there this morning and left before lunch. That’s all they knew—there was no message or anything.’

  ‘I see,’ said Johnny, plainly taken aback.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, sir,’ continued the agitated voice, ‘but Miss Verity said I was to phone ye if I thought anything was wrong.’

  ‘That’s O.K., Mrs Todd. You did quite right. Leave this to me, and I’ll call you back.’

  He slammed down the telephone and said quickly: ‘Verity Glyn has disappeared. What about the man who was tailing her?’

  Sir Robert glanced at his watch. They still had over five minutes. He went across and picked up the telephone and asked to be connected to New Scotland Yard. When he had obtained the office he required, he said curtly: ‘Any report from Jackson?’

  There was a pause, then a brief reply from the other end.

  ‘Humph! Well, tell Jackson right away she isn’t inside that building. He’d better get busy.’ Sir Robert put down the receiver and said:

  ‘Jackson followed her to the office all right, but he hasn’t seen her since she went in. Come on, Washington, we’d better get moving or we’ll be late.’

  CHAPTER XX

  EXIT VERITY GLYN?

  THEY collected their coats in the hall and went out through the front door, where there was a Flying Squad car waiting for them. Sir Robert issued a curt direction to the driver, and they set off in the direction of the inn, keeping well within the thirty m.p.h. limit, for they were anxious not to attract undue attention.

  Inside the car, neither man spoke for a minute or so; they were obviously very busy weighing up this new complication that had arisen. At last Sir Robert muttered:

  ‘D’you think they’ve got her, Washington?’

  Johnny gazed moodily out of the window.

  ‘I guess there’s something mighty peculiar going on, Sir Robert,’ he said at last.

  ‘If they have kidnapped her, they might have brought her down here.’

  ‘Not too easy in broad daylight, Sir Robert,’ Johnny reminded him.

  ‘These devils seem to get away with anything,’ murmured Hargreaves gloomily.

  ‘Maybe we should concentrate on the job in hand,’ said Johnny with a certain reluctance. ‘It may lead us to Verity in the end.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ nodded Hargreaves, though he did not sound particularly confident. At that moment, the car drove round the side of the inn and backed into position in the car park so that it could make an instant getaway. Almost at once, a figure loomed up from behind a nearby hawthorn hedge.

  ‘Anything to report, Chambers?’ asked Hargreaves.

  ‘No, sir. It seems very quiet. Not a soul about, in fact. We haven’t seen anybody go in the pub since we got here.’

  ‘It’s not a very popular pub,’ explained Johnny. ‘Shall we go in now, Sir Robert?’

  ‘All right,’ nodded the assistant commissioner. ‘Stand by, Chambers. Bring the men as close in as possible.’

  ‘They’re moving in now, sir.’

  The moon had drifted sullenly beyond a bank of heavy cloud and there was a slight breeze stirring the nearby trees as Sir Robert Hargreaves and Johnny Washington walked almost leisurely towards the front door of the inn. It was open, and Johnny led the way into the bar.

  It was quite empty.

  ‘What’s that door on the opposite side of the passage?’ whispered Sir Robert.

  ‘It’s the other bar. We’d better just look inside.’

  That too was deserted: so was the back sitting-room.

  ‘Looks like a wild goose-chase,’ grunted Sir Robert.

  ‘There’s something sinister about it,’ said Johnny. ‘Somebody should be on the premises.’

  ‘What’s that door?’

  ‘It leads out to the back—a little courtyard and strip of garden. Nothing much there except pigeon-cotes.’

  ‘It looks to me as if we were expected.’

  They went back to the larger bar and Johnny indicated the door of the club-room.

  ‘Is that the room?’ whispered Sir Robert.

  Johnny nodded.

  Sir Robert walked up to it and tapped lightly.

  ‘Anybody in there?’ he called.

  They stood in silence for ten seconds, waiting for an answer. Then Sir Robert nodded to Johnny to stand clear and turned the knob of the door. To their surprise, it opened quite readily. In the light reflected from the bar, they could see nothing but a couple of card tables and a few chairs. Johnny found the switch and in a moment the club-room was a blaze of light. But it was still as silent as the rest of the house.

  ‘There’s something damned mysterious about this,’ mused Sir Robert, walking slowly round the room, very much on the alert and in a much nervier state than he would have been if he had encountered some signs of life.

  ‘Whereabouts is this panel l
eading to the secret passage?’ he asked, and Johnny indicated the long cupboard against the far wall. Sir Robert went over to it and was just about to open the door when there was a gentle rumbling sound as the panel slid back.

  ‘That’ll be Kennard,’ said Johnny.

  Sir Robert opened the cupboard door wide and called out in a low, distinct tone: ‘That you, Kennard?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ came the reply, somewhat muffled by the robes in the cupboard.

  ‘He hasn’t wasted much time,’ commented Johnny.

  But Sir Robert was still taking no chances, and he stood back and waited until Kennard stepped into the room.

  ‘How does that panel work?’ inquired Johnny curiously.

  ‘It’s quite simple,’ replied Kennard. ‘There’s a little knob on the framework that releases a spring when you press it down.’

  Kennard’s men emerged from the panel cautiously, one by one, as if they expected a hostile reception.

  ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone here, Kennard,’ said the assistant commissioner. ‘What about White Lodge? Any trouble there?’

  ‘No, sir. The place was deserted. But I found this on the table in the hall.’

  He handed his chief a plain gilt-edged postcard, on which was typed: ‘Enter Scotland Yard—exit Verity Glyn.’

  Sir Robert passed it over to Johnny, who read it without any comment and gave it back to him.

  ‘We’d better search the place thoroughly while we’re about it,’ decided Hargreaves. ‘Take your men upstairs, Kennard, and report at once if you find anything.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ The inspector was about to move off, when he suddenly stood quite still.

  ‘I think I can hear somebody at the back, sir,’ he whispered.

  Johnny, who had also heard the footsteps, had already moved over to the door and was back in the bar just in time to see Inspector Dovey appear in the doorway.

  ‘Good lord, Sir Robert!’ exclaimed Dovey, seeing his chief come up behind Johnny. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘Evening, Dovey,’ said Sir Robert. ‘What brings you down here?’