“Are you sure it’s necessary to get rid of him?”
Mr. Henderson rubbed a long finger down the side of his face. “I agree with you that we may be wasting a good man. But I have made it a rule in life that when I am in doubt I always take the safer course.”
“When you say, get rid of him—”
“Set your mind at rest. I was not contemplating violence. We will, as so often, allow the law to assist us. I was recently asked to handle a set of eight cameos in their original frames. The frames are, as I think you will agree”—Mr. Henderson got up and went across to his wall safe—“almost more beautiful than the paintings. They are said to be the work of Cellini, the Florentine goldsmith. They are far too well-known to be disposed of either here or in the European markets. I convinced the gentleman who stole them on that point and he finally sold them to me for a very modest sum. They will have to be sacrificed for the general good.”
Arnold Rowe said, “I don’t quite follow you—”
“Take them and have them placed in the concealed pocket of Mercer’s car. Bobby has the spare set of keys, so it should not be difficult. Then inform Superintendent Browning, who will be delighted to pursue the matter.”
It was three days later, when Mercer was driving down to the Surrey Docks, that he was stopped. He drove up to the dock gates and sounded his horn for the pole to be raised. The gateman came out, examined the number on Mercer’s car, and went back into his hut. The pole remained in place. Mercer got out of his car. A police car had driven up behind him, blocking the exit. Superintendent Browning got out, accompanied by a sergeant in uniform and Detective Sergeant Russ.
Browning said, “I have no search warrant, but I take it you have no objection to my making a search of your car.”
“You don’t need a warrant to search a car,” said Mercer coldly. “All you need is reasonable suspicion that it is being used for some illegal purpose.”
“I’d forgotten you were once a policeman yourself,” said Browning equally coldly. “Well, what about it?”
“No objection,” said Mercer. “Should we move it to somewhere where it’s not blocking the traffic?” Mercer got back into the car. The sergeant climbed in beside him. The pole was lifted and Mercer drove on a few yards, pulled into the side, and stopped.
“Would you like me to open the door locker for you?” said Mercer. “The catch is a bit tricky until you get the hang of it.”
“We can manage,” said Browning. “You get out.”
They spent an hour over their search while Mercer sat on an up-turned crate smoking and watching them.
But the secret locker and the rest of the car were empty of anything except the sort of things which should have been there.
It was six o’clock that evening when Mercer rang the bell of the house in Wilfred Street. He realised that he was being studied through the tiny glass optic which was set in the centre of the door. He seemed to be relaxed and at ease and was whistling gently between two broken front teeth.
After a full minute the door was opened by Bobby, who said, “Hullo,” with an emphasis on the second syllable which turned it into a question.
“Hullo, Bobby,” said Mercer. “Mr. Henderson here?”
“He’s here, but I don’t know whether he’s free to talk to you.”
“Ask him nicely and I’m sure he will,” said Mercer. “He’d do anything for you, I’m certain.”
Bobby grinned, showing a set of sharp white teeth. “You’ve got a nerve. I’ll say that for you. Come in and wait.”
Mercer sat on one of the four chairs which were positioned, two on either side, in the hall. They looked as if they might have come from a museum.
There was a murmur of voices from the room at the back and then Bobby reappeared, still with a smile on his face, and said, “In you go, Daniel. The lions are ready.”
Mr. Henderson was sitting in his chair behind the table. There were two men with him, both standing. Mercer recognised them. One was called Banks. He had a heavy white face, scarred with the relics of youthful acne, and the shoulders of a weight lifter. The other was Manton, thinner, longer, and with a darkness of hair and complexion which suggested a native strain not far back in his pedigree. Mercer knew him as the more dangerous man.
Mr. Henderson said, “You wanted to speak to me?”
Mercer said, “Yes. I could talk more freely if we were alone.”
Mr. Henderson looked at him thoughtfully, came to some conclusion, and made a gesture with one of his hands. Banks and Manton went out of a door in the far side of the room. Mercer made two guesses, both of which were probably correct. The first was that they had not gone very far from the door. The second was that Mr. Henderson’s hand was not far from the bell which would recall them.
He moved away from the table and slouched down in the chair he had occupied when he had visited the house before. He said, “I had a turnup with the police. They seemed to think I might be carrying stolen goods in my car.”
“Yes?”
“They didn’t find anything. Being cautious by nature, I’d put a marker on the door locker, so I knew it had been opened. I found a very fine set of eight framed cameos inside. I recognised them, of course. It was headline news some months ago when they were lifted from Apsley House.”
Again Mr. Henderson said, “Yes?” There was no more than polite interest in his voice.
“My first idea was to throw them into the river. But, really, I hadn’t the heart to waste them. So I had a better idea. I got in touch with the small private insurance company which had covered them.”
Again Mr. Henderson said, “Yes?” For the first time there was an undercurrent of real interest in his voice.
“You didn’t know, perhaps, that they had been insured for £80,000. For some reason the fact was not publicised. I was working at third hand, through the friend of a friend. He found out that the insurers were prepared to pay £10,000 to get them back, no questions asked.”
Mercer put one hand into his inside pocket. Mr. Henderson’s hand shifted slightly behind the desk. Mercer pulled out a thick envelope.
“I thought, seeing the goods had come from you, we ought to split the proceeds. Even-steven. There’s five thousand in there, all in nice old tens. No history to any of them.” Without moving from his chair he tossed the envelope onto the table.
Mr. Henderson made no move to touch it. He said, “What exactly did you mean, seeing that the goods had come from me?”
“It was a fair guess,” said Mercer mildly. “In view of the fact that the police seemed to know all about the locker. Also, I imagined that you would have kept a spare set of the car keys.”
Mr. Henderson stretched out one hand, drew the envelope towards him, opened it, and examined the contents.
Then he said, “Perhaps I was wrong about you.”
“Wrong?”
“I thought you had plenty of muscle, but no brains. I’ve been looking for someone like you for a long time. I think we might deal very well together.”
“Do you know,” said Mercer, “the same thought had occurred to me.”
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, April 1979.
THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE
“IF YOU TRY THAT AGAIN,” said Mercer, “I’ll break your arm.”
“I tell you, I wish to speak to Mr. Rowe.”
“And I tell you that he does not wish to speak to you.”
“You treat us like children,” said Bapu Ram. He was a tall Pakistani with a Groucho Marx moustache.
“If you behave like children,” said Mercer reasonably, “you must expect to be treated like children.”
Bapu Ram paused at the doorway of Mercer’s office and said, “You may discover, Mr. Mercer, that children possess sometimes the facility to surprise those who consider themselves to be their elders and betters.”
Mercer grinned and said, “You ought to set that to music. Don’t slam the door, I’ve got a nasty headache.”
He set to work
again on a chart which he was compiling. It had the names of six ships written down the left-hand side – the Tamar, the Dart, the Exe, the Teign, the Taw, and the Torridge. Vertical columns to the right were headed: Cabin Stores, Crew Stores, Engine Room, and General Stores. Mercer was using four different coloured pencils and was achieving rather an agreeable colour scheme.
The inner door opened and Arnold Rowe came out. Although it was only ten o’clock in the morning he was halfway through his second cigar of the day.
He said, “You having some trouble?”
“It was Bapu Ram.”
“That bolshy blighter. What did he want?”
“He wanted to know why we were switching him from the Tamar to the Dart. He said all his friends were on the Tamar.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“Since I didn’t know myself, the only thing I could tell him was to do what he was told and be thankful he had a job at all, with one and a half million unemployed. As a matter of fact, it did seem a bit odd.”
“Ours not to reason why,” said Rowe. “I have my instructions from Mr. Henderson, just as you have yours from me. You’re doing an excellent job, my boy.” He seemed to be about to pat Mercer on the shoulder, then thought better of it.
“All the same,” said Mercer, “we might be in for trouble.”
“Trouble?” Rowe looked up sharply. His large and generously contoured face had lost some of its colour. “What sort of trouble?”
“Union trouble,” said Mercer. “And if anyone does start anything in that line I don’t mind betting it’ll be Bapu Ram. He’s a born shop steward, that boy.”
“Oh. Union trouble,” said Rowe. “We can deal with that.” The colour had come back into his face. “We have so many staunch friends to help us inside and outside our organisation.”
“I’ve got to see a solicitor.”
Rowe looked at him in some surprise.
“You reminded me. Talking about trouble and friends who could help us. I’m having trouble. With my landlady.”
Rowe laughed, swallowed some cigar smoke, coughed, and laughed again.
“You are an extraordinary chap,” he said. “I’ve noticed it before. When you seem to be talking about one thing, I find you are talking about something quite different.”
“I’ve got a devious mind,” agreed Mercer. “I noticed a board up in the High Street. S. Klerk and Company. They’re solicitors, aren’t they?”
“They are indeed. And if Syd Klerk can’t find a way through the law, he’ll find a way round it. What sort of trouble are you having?”
“Our landlady is trying to turn us out. She’s a highly moral woman. She suspects that Shallini and I are not man and wife.”
“That’s surely no reason for terminating your tenancy?”
“Ah,” said Mercer, “you say that because you live north of the river. Up there anything goes. The permissive society hasn’t got down to these parts yet.
It was more than a mile from the offices and store of Arnold Rowe and Company (Ships’ Chandlers & Marine Contractors) on Lower Creek Street to Mercer’s flat in Lower Greenwich. He usually kept his car in a lean-to in the yard behind the store and made the journeys to and fro on foot. A cheerful June sun was warming the streets, with their summer smell of tar and exhaust fumes, mixed with a salty tang from the river. In the ten months he had been there, Mercer had become an accepted figure in the community. He did his evening drinking at the China Clipper or the Duke of Albemarle and took his midday meal at the café at the corner of Lower Creek Street, where he was on nodding terms with most of the Indians and Pakistanis who had turned it into an unofficial club.
A sound obtruded itself. In the street ahead someone was playing, and playing well, on a cornet. As he turned the corner a big drum took up the rhythm and there was a scatter of applause.
Mercer saw a little group in Salvation Army uniforms clustered round the cornet player, a huge man with a long black beard. He wondered how he kept it from getting entangled with the stops. It was a meeting rather than a service. A young man in glasses was handing round leaflets and he was followed by a girl with a collecting box.
Most of the spectators put something in. As the girl came up to Mercer he felt in his pocket for a coin. He was aware of the work which the dedicated, cheerful men and women in their curious Victorian uniforms carried out among the dwellers in that part of London.
He put a 50p piece into the box and was rewarded with a smile. He thought that she was an unusually pretty girl. Hardly a girl. In the second half of her twenties, perhaps. And come to think of it, pretty was the wrong word. She had cool and unfussy good looks.
He smiled back at her.
When he got home he found Shallini setting out the supper things. He put one arm round her waist, lifted her an inch clear of the ground, and kissed her.
“Great brute,” she said. “Leave me alone. I will drop this plate.”
“Get another one,” said Mercer, and kissed her again.
“What has made you so happy?”
“I’ve been listening to a concert. In the street.”
“The Salvation Army, you mean? Yes, they are good people.”
“Has the old battleaxe been at us again?”
“Mrs. Mainprice. Yes. She stopped me on the stairs this afternoon and asked me when we were leaving. I said we were not leaving and would have the law on her.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Mercer.
Later, over supper, he said, “You have a lot of friends in these parts, Shallini. Quite a few of them work for Rowe, or have been found jobs by the employment agency next door which he operates. Have you heard any talk of trouble?”
“What sort of trouble?”
“A strike. Something like that.”
Shallini thought about it. She said, “Mostly they are afraid of Mr. Rowe, but if someone would take the lead – yes, I think they might have trouble.”
“Someone like Bapu Ram?”
“Someone of that sort. Or his brother Khalid.”
Mercer looked at the calendar on the wall. June 6th. He said, “If trouble is coming, I hope it comes quickly.”
His wish was granted. It arrived the very next morning, in the shape of Tom Hobhouse, a square pugnacious Yorkshire terrier. He was shown into Rowe’s office and Mercer, who had rarely set foot in this inner sanctum since he joined the firm, was called in to help in what was clearly going to be an unpleasant encounter.
“Mr. Hobhouse,” said Rowe, indicating him with a sweep of his cigar which left a fragrant trail of smoke behind it, “tells me that he is what is known as a Union Coordinator. I had no idea that such an office existed, but if he says it does, I suppose we must believe him.”
“You’ll find it exists all right,” said Mr. Hobhouse.
“And might I be so bold as to inquire precisely which unions you—er—coordinate?”
“I chair a Joint Committee of the Local Representatives of the Dockers, the Stevedores, and Sailors Unions. We hold a watching brief for the Transport and General and Professional Staff.”
“But since none of my employees, or the men and women for whom I find jobs, are dockers and stevedores or sailors, I fail to see what business they are of yours. You’ll forgive me speaking bluntly, I’m sure.”
“I don’t mind blunt speaking,” said Mr. Hobhouse. “If your people want to join a union I’ll find one to suit ’em quick enough.”
“But suppose they don’t want to?”
“There’s one way of finding out. Ask ’em.”
“Oh, I have. Many times. Have I not, Mr. Mercer?”
Mercer nodded. He had been sitting quietly, withdrawn from the dispute, watching the disputants. Arnold Rowe, large, florid, and loquacious. Tom Hobhouse, chunky and taciturn. He knew which one would back down if it came to a fight.
“When I ask them and explain to them the advantages of unionisation, which seems to comprise paying away part of their salaries in order to support union off
icials – and coordinators – they do not appear to be very interested in the idea.”
“It’s not you who should talk to ’em. It’s me.”
“You mean summon a meeting of all my people for you to address?”
“Yes.”
“I fear I could hardly countenance such an interruption of their working hours. They are all very busy people.”
“Then let me have a list of their names and home addresses so that we can circularise them.”
“It would be a total waste of time. Many of them speak very little English. They could hardly be expected to understand union dialectics.”
“We’ve talked to one or two already. The impression we’ve got is that you’re taking advantage of the fact that they’re foreign to overwork ’em and underpay ’em.”
“Perhaps you could let me know the names of the people you have talked to, who express this opinion?”
“Certainly not.”
“I see. Then all we have to go on is the opinion of witnesses you are not prepared to produce. I don’t think we can take the matter any further, do you?”
Tom Hobhouse said nothing.
“In two of the unions which you—er—coordinate, you have, I am aware, a closed shop; which you have obtained through the servility of a weak-kneed crowd of politicians who ought to be ashamed to call themselves a government. Fortunately, in our case, we have not yet come under that hammer, so—”
Tom Hobhouse rose and stomped out without another word.
“Dear me,” said Rowe. “I seem to have annoyed the gentleman.”
When he got home, Mercer reported this conversation to Shallini who said, “I have been speaking to some of our people. There will certainly be trouble. Bapu, Khalid, and three others are seeing Mr. Rowe this evening. They are demanding the right to join a union.”
“What will Rowe say to that?”
“It is thought he will make it an excuse to dismiss them.”
“He’s stupid enough to do that,” agreed Mercer. “Let’s not worry about him, love. Let’s worry about ourselves. I’m going to see that lawyer first thing tomorrow.”
The Man Who Hated Banks & Other Mysteries Page 15
