Give a Man a Gun

by John Creasey

  Roger was telling himself that he didn’t like the indications at all. Seven guns could make seven youths deadly, could make seven murderers. Prescott appeared to have worked on his own this morning, but here were the indications that he was one of a gang – at least, that he supplied others with weapons. There was too much shooting; too many deadly youths. “Nice lot of pretties,” said Raiment, looking at some framed photographs on a table. “Aren’t they?” Roger agreed, and then concentrated on one photograph in an expensive gilt frame. It was of Ruth Linder, looking at her loveliest.

  Chapter Five

  Death In Hospital

  Roger sat back in his car as Peel drove away from Pole Street. By then a crowd of several hundred had gathered, and there was a ragged, sardonic cheer as the car turned the corner.

  Raiment and the local men had been left behind. Everything that had been found at the flat and was of interest to the police had been packed in a box and was already on its way to the Yard.

  All the money taken from the bank at Putney had been recovered.

  In the crate were the photographs, including that of Ruth Linder. Nothing else had been found to indicate that Prescott knew her. No diary, no records of any kind had been kept at the little house. Before being sent off in the ambulance, Prescott had been searched, and nothing had been found that incriminated him. The other couple, still being questioned, swore that they had not suspected that Prescott was a criminal. He had convinced them that he was in a dance band.

  Sloan had gone with Prescott to the hospital: and Sloan was in Roger’s office when Roger reached the Yard. It was then nearly one o’clock.

  “How is he?” Roger asked.

  “They had to operate on the wrist, he won’t be out of the anaesthetic until late this afternoon,” the Detective Inspector said. “Not well enough for us to question him, anyhow. But there’s enough to work on with the crate.”

  That had already arrived, and Sloan had started to empty it. The photographs were lying face downwards on one of the five desks in the office, which housed five Chief Inspectors. Sloan stood one photograph up, and looked at Roger deliberately, knowing what Roger thought about Ruth Linder.

  “Going to talk to her?” Sloan asked.

  “Not yet,” Roger said, “but we can start working on her. Find out if Prescott’s known at the Mile End Road shop or at the flat where she now lives. I don’t feel like losing any time on this job.” He lit a cigarette, and drew at it deeply; savagely. “I ought to be on top of the world, and I’m as dejected as I would be if I’d lost a fortune.” He ran his fingers through his corn-coloured hair. “Then we’ll try to make Prescott talk, but I don’t think he will. He’s tough.” Roger’s lips curled. “Like a lot of them.”

  “If only we used the cat—” Sloan began.

  “Look, let’s keep out of that argument,” Roger said, and went across to the crate.” We want to identify all the women, and identify all the jewels. If we can find out what jobs Prescott did before this one, it would help. If we can find out where he sells his stuff it would help more.” He glanced at Ruth’s photograph, and spoke to it. “I told you I’d get you if you carried on with the old man’s business, didn’t I?”

  “Roger,” Sloan said, “remember all those kids she goes around with. She doesn’t have a steady, but is always out with a different kind. Kid’s the word. How old would you say Prescott is?”

  “Twenty-two or three.”

  “Younger than Ruth Linder?”

  “Yes. Same age as Neil Harrock,” Roger said. “He was hanged, too. Prescott will be hanged. But Ruth’s settling down, isn’t she? She spends a lot of time with Hann-Gorley.”

  “She still sees the others.”

  Roger grunted.

  “Bill,” he said, “I don’t like this at all. This isn’t an isolated case of robbery with violence. Prescott did the bank job brilliantly, and knew exactly how to do it. He had nitroglycerine which went off before he’d got behind the safe for cover, and that’s what led us to him—but he’s an expert. A killer thief with a private arsenal and access to nitroglycerine. The most important thing is to find his friends, and the only way I can see is through the girlfriends. Don’t lose any time on that.”

  “Not a minute,” Sloan promised. He picked up the telephone.

  “Isn’t anyone around here hungry yet?” Peel asked.

  “We’ll go and have some food soon,” Roger said, and lit a cigarette.

  He looked at Ruth Linder’s photograph again. She was very beautiful. She had been with a millionaire at the Majestic – a millionaire who was also a politician and a believer in severe – harsh – punishment for violent criminals. She also knew Prescott – if that photograph meant anything, it meant that. She hated the police, and had inherited a business of buying and selling stolen jewels.

  Roger thought about her a lot that day.

  Other thoughts tugged at his mind.

  The greatest worry was the seven .32 automatics. There were known to be a lot of service revolvers about, but automatic pistols weren’t so freely available on any market.

  Allenby had been killed with a .32.

  So had at least one other policeman, on a case he had investigated himself.

  He rang Records.

  “We’ve had several attacks on policemen this year, Records; can you tell me what guns were used each time?”

  “Half a mo’.” Roger held on; it proved to be for two or three minutes. “You there, Handsome? Point 32’s, all five of ’em.”

  “Thanks,” said Roger heavily.

  He stared at a report in front of him, without reading it, then drew a slip of paper towards him and scribbled: Have all gunsmiths warned to take special precautions against robbery and burglary – check any losses they’ve had – where considered necessary by local police, have special watch.

  He pushed the paper aside.

  Thought of Ruth Linder came into his mind again.

  He could not find any evidence that she knew Prescott, apart from the photograph.

  Otherwise, the routine investigations went well. Three of Prescott’s girlfriends were found; each swore that she knew nothing about Prescott being a thief; each wore jewellery that looked expensive. Each was watched. No male friends of the injured prisoner were found that night. Some of the jewellery found at Pole Street was identified as part of hauls made in the central London area.

  Roger and Sloan checked the case history of the robberies concerned and the tallies of the stolen jewels.

  “If Prescott took it all,” Roger said when they had finished, “he’s disposed of three parts of it. Bill, I think we’ll raid the tinders’ shop in the Mile End Road. We can find some excuse. The Divisional men can do it, then no one will think we’re behind the raid.”

  “I’ll fix it,” Sloan said.

  “Who’s managing it for Ruth Linder now?”

  “The same fellow who took over when she moved up in the world,” Sloan said. “Sol Klein. Do you know, Sol reminds me of Old Benny. He’s got the same manner, the same smoothness. Unctuous. It won’t do any harm to give him a shock.”

  Roger nodded.

  “Think you’ll be able to talk to Prescott tonight?” asked Sloan.

  Roger shrugged.

  By five o’clock he knew that the doctors would allow him to talk to the prisoner later in the evening. That gave him a few hours to spare. He handed everything over to a night-duty Inspector, and was driving towards his Chelsea home by half past five.

  He turned into Bell Street, a wide road with small, detached suburban houses on either side. It was pleasant and friendly; practically everyone in the street knew him; he nodded and waved to several neighbours as he drove along. He had hardly stopped outside his house when the front door opened and his two sons came tearing towards him, Martin – sometimes called Scoopy – the elder boy, some way ahead. Martin, who was nearly ten, and could have passed for thirteen, had a grin as wide as a Cheshire cat’s.

  “Hallo, p
op; jolly glad you’re home!”

  “I’ll pop you, you young—”

  “Hallo, Father,” greeted Richard. He was a head shorter than Martin, nothing like so massive, and had a smaller face which could become impudent at a moment’s notice. He had sky-blue eyes, and ears which stuck out almost at right angles. “How’s the crime business today?” he inquired.

  Roger found himself laughing.

  Janet, his wife, came hurrying down the stairs. She was dark-haired, lovely to him and attractive to any man, delighted that he was home earlier than she had expected.

  He felt that warm satisfaction which came from home life. The murder of Allenby, the shooting at Pole Street, the viciousness of Prescott, all seemed to fade. That was a different world, a different life.

  By half past eight the boys were on their way to bed.

  “We could leave them for an hour,” Roger said, “and you could come along with me to the hospital, where I have to talk to a bad man.”

  “I’d love to,” said Janet. “But I don’t like leaving them here alone.”

  “Hang it, Scoop’s ten—”

  “They’re very young,” Janet objected. “And when you read the newspapers, there seems to be nothing but cosh raiders and crimes of violence.”

  “You read the wrong newspapers! See if any of the neighbours can come in for an hour.”

  “You’re not going to be long, are you?”

  “I shouldn’t think so.”

  “I’ll stay here,” Janet decided.

  Roger left the house a little after ten o’clock. Janet was worried, as most people were worried, by the crime wave. It was easy to say, even to think, that it was exaggerated by the popular Press; it remained a fact that there was a hell of a lot too much violence. Roger knew the answer; so did every other man at the Yard – a police force of twice its present strength. That was like asking for the moon. Everything else was simply a palliative.

  He drove up to the front entrance of the hospital, parked the car, and hurried up the steps. He didn’t expect to get anything more out of Prescott, but there was always a hope. He wondered how he could get a line on Ruth Linder.

  He knew the hospital well, and tapped on the Night Sister’s door.

  “Come in,” she called.

  He poked his head inside the room.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Oh, yes; you can go along and see him,” the Sister said. “One of your men’s there; the other’s having a snack.”

  “Nurse trouble?” Roger asked, and grinned.

  The Night Sister laughed.

  Roger walked along slowly. He couldn’t get that picture of Ruth Linder out of his mind; it went with him everywhere. He tried to reason why. He often thought of her a great deal, and finding the photograph had given point to his uneasiness. She was clever, she hated the police, and Roger had no reason to think that she had any moral scruples about crime.

  He reached the door of the ward, which was in a wing of the hospital, on the first floor, and where all injured prisoners were sent from the Yard or the nearby divisions. He didn’t tap, just went in.

  He felt as if he had run into a brick wall.

  Prescott lay on his back in bed, with a wound in his forehead. The man from the Yard was on the floor in front of his chair – and his head lay in a pool of blood.

  The window was smashed.

  The horror clutched Roger, and held him there for several seconds. No one was about. Everything was silent. If it were not for the bullet-hole in his forehead, Prescott would have looked as if he were asleep.

  Roger went forward, slowly, knelt beside the policeman, felt for the pulse, and satisfied himself that the man was dead. He couldn’t have been dead more than ten minutes.

  Footsteps sounded along the passage.

  The other Yard man came hurrying. He turned into the room, and stopped. His mouth opened, but he didn’t utter a sound.

  Roger said: “Stay here. I’ll call the Yard.”

  He called the Yard, then Janet to tell her that he wouldn’t be home until late, then the AZ Division, which covered the Mile End Road. The Linder shop had already been visited. Sol Klein had given them all possible assistance, they had found nothing that was stolen, nothing to suggest that the old business of buying and selling stolen goods was being carried on.

  “Thanks,” said Roger.

  He rang off, and went back to the ward. The hospital staff knew what had happened by then. Doctors and nurses were in the ward, and tension in the air.

  Roger sent for searchlights, had them trained on the window, brought ladders, checked how the murderer had got up to the window. That had been fairly easy. There was a big drainpipe, and many windows with strong stone ledges. Any nimble-footed youth could have climbed up. No one had heard the shooting.

  There were no fingerprints.

  The only clue was a few strands of dark grey woollen cloth which had caught in the joint of the drainpipe. They had been torn from a coat or trousers, and were obviously new. Roger sent them to the Yard, but there was too little for analysis. They could make out the texture of the wool, guess the kind of suit it had come from, but probably never be sure – unless they found the suit within the next day or two, while the little tear in it was fresh.

  By twelve o’clock the routine work was finished.

  By half past Roger was driving along Bell Street again. There was no light on at his house. A car was parked a little way beyond it, with the parking lights on. He saw a tall, shadowy figure moving from this car towards the gate of his house. He felt a sudden tension – the kind which had gripped him when he had seen the two dead men. He hadn’t fully recovered from that shock.

  He put his hand to his pocket, snatched it away, and then swung the car into the drive, switching on his headlights. They shone on a familiar face – Brammer’s of the Courier.

  Roger felt the keen sharpness of relief, and that told him how keyed up he was.

  Janet had left the garage doors open. Roger drove straight in, then switched off the headlights. Brammer sauntered up the drive, and stood and waited as Roger turned the key in the garage door.

  “Now what?”

  Roger asked mildly.

  “Stand me a whisky, and I’ll tell you something you don’t know about Prescott,” Brammer said.

  Chapter Six

  Ruth Again

  Roger opened the street door, and stood aside for Brammer to enter. As he followed the newspaperman, Janet called out from upstairs: “Is that you, Roger?”

  “Won’t be long, darling.”

  “Don’t stay down there,” pleaded Janet.

  “I’ve someone with me, but I won’t be long.”

  “All right.” Janet didn’t sound pleased.

  Roger switched on the hall light, and then that of the front room. Here the furniture was exactly the same as when he and Janet had married, except for one or two new oddments. It had the slightly worn, comfortable look. His armchair had its back to the window, with the radio beside it. Janet had left whisky and soda out for him, on a table by the chair.

  “Sit down,” Roger said, and proffered cigarettes, then poured out.

  “Thanks.” Brammer’s hooked nose and thin lips gave the reporter the old, familiar sardonic look. He was good at his job; in fact he was brilliant. There were those who thought that he had a chip on his shoulder – just as Ruth Linder had a chip. His heavily lidded eyes were dark and very bright. “Just a splash of soda,” he added, and grinned as he sat down and stretched out his long legs.

  Roger handed him his glass, and raised his own.

  “Cheers.”

  “May the hangman never run short of rope,” Brammer said.

  “What’s this you know about Prescott?”

  “He’s a boyfriend of Ruth Linder.”

  Roger sipped his drink again.

  “Sure?”

  “I’m quite sure.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve seen him wit
h her,” Brammer said. “He’s a natty dancer, and she likes to dance. She’s always dancing with nice-looking boys, well-educated boys from good class families, too. She didn’t do much dancing before her uncle Benny died, though. I suppose you knew something about all this?”

  Roger nodded.

  “Sorry if I’ve wasted your time,” Brammer said. If you’re sure about Ruth Linder and Prescott, you haven’t wasted any time. Can you prove you’re right?”

  “You just have to take my word. Has Prescott talked?”

  Roger said: “No.” He looked at the reporter closely. Brammer was good; and might be expected to know what had happened at the hospital. Fleet Street knew by now.

  But was there any reason why Brammer should pretend that he didn’t? “He won’t, either,” Roger added.

  “Say, what’s this?” Brammer asked sharply.

  “He was shot, as well as one of my men. The killer climbed the wall of the hospital.”

  Brammer hadn’t known; his eyes showed both the surprise and the shock. He sat very still, with the glass in one hand and the cigarette in the other. Then he said quietly but clearly: “Handsome, how many policemen have been shot this year?”

  That was easy to answer.

  “Five, before Allenby and my man tonight.”

  “And how many coshed? Or attacked with some weapon or other?”

  “Probably another five or more.”

  “There’s been nine,” said Brammer. “Making sixteen in all. Three have been for no reason at all—they didn’t start anything, were attacked out of the blue. Handsome, you know that the Courier’s, been going all out in the crime-wave business and is campaigning for harsher punishment, don’t you?”

  “I’d have a job not to!”

  “It’s going to start running another angle,” Brammer said. “It’s an angle I’ve put up to the Boss. I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

  Roger didn’t speak.

  “It’s going to draw attention to the similarity of the attacks on the police,” Brammer went on. “It’s going to show that at least half of them, and probably more, have been made by youths. It’s going to show you that every bullet taken out of a policeman this year had come from the same sized gun—a .32 automatic pistol. Weren’t they all .32’s at Pole Street?”