by J F Straker
He shut the front door and went back to the sitting room. ‘Well, that’s that,’ he said. ‘I just hope you don’t regret it.’
‘Don’t be such a pessimist,’ Miss Frazer said.
Johnny suspected her apparent confidence was more for her parents’ benefit than for real. But it didn’t do much for her mother. ‘Do you think they’ll come back, Mr Inch?’ she asked nervously.
‘Depends on how badly they want that letter, and on how convincing he found our pantomime,’ Johnny said.
‘And on how much he heard beforehand,’ Miss Frazer added.
Mrs Frazer looked puzzled. ‘How about a cup of tea, dear?’ her husband said. ‘I expect we could all do with one.’
Still looking puzzled, Mrs Frazer went to make it. Johnny said, ‘This letter, now. When do I get to see it?’
The girl clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘Now look, Johnny. I told you —’
‘No,’ he said. ‘You look. And it’s me telling you. Either you show me that letter, or I quit. I’m not working in the dark. Not any more.’
She hesitated. Then, ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But not tonight. It’s late. I’ll ring you tomorrow.’
3
Johnny was late again the next morning. He was also in an irritable mood. The bruised arm had hindered sleep, and on the journey home from Balham the previous evening he had had the uneasy feeling that he was being followed. He had told himself that this was nonsense, that one pair of headlights in the driving mirror was indistinguishable from another. Besides, even if one or both of the thugs had hung around until he left the house, why would they bother to follow? It was Obi Bullock’s letter, not Johnny Inch, in which they were interested. Yet wakefulness had allowed suspicion to fester, and on the bus that morning he had studied his fellow passengers closely. One or two had seemed to have a sinister look, but none, he was sure, had tailed him to Penbury House.
Jasmine was alone in the office. She ceased typing at his entry. ‘Mr Nicodemus had to go to Liverpool,’ she said. ‘He couldn’t wait to see you. He said to ring him this evening if there’s anything. He’s staying at the Adelphi. Back tomorrow, he said.’
‘The Adelphi, eh? I hope the client can afford it.’ Johnny ignored the hint of reproach in her voice. ‘Any calls for me?’
‘Miss Frazer rang. She said for you to meet her. Midday, at the cricket.’ Jasmine frowned. ‘I think she said the cricket. Only — well, they don’t play cricket in October, do they?’
‘Ah! You’ve noticed that.’ He patted her head. ‘Clever girl.’
With two hours to kill he decided to check with Obi Bullock’s referee. The Corner Club was on the fringe of Soho and not, as he had supposed, on a corner. It was a large ground-floor room, with a small stage at one end and a bar at the other, and between them an area for dancing surrounded by a horseshoe of tables. Johnny had expected something sleazy and shabby. The Corner Club was neither. Even at that hour of the day, with chairs piled on tables and a woman busy with a vacuum cleaner, it looked respectable and reasonably prosperous. The decor shrieked too loudly even for Johnny’s rather flamboyant taste, but he supposed it was good of its kind.
A shirt-sleeved youth was busy behind the bar. Johnny asked if the manager was available. Potter, was it? Porter, the youth said, pointing to a door. ‘Help yourself, mister.’
Johnny helped himself.
Mr Porter was a large man approaching middle age, with hair receding well back from his forehead. Clean shaven, with puffy eyes and prominent ears and a squashed nose, he wore a blue turtle-neck sweater and tight-fitting check trousers. Johnny thought he looked flabby, like a prizefighter gone to seed. He sat behind a wide, flat-topped desk, on which a silver blonde was perched cross-legged, showing a lot of thigh. The blonde smiled at Johnny, and Johnny smiled back. She was quite a dish.
‘Inch?’ Porter’s grip was clammy and insecure. ‘Not a member, are you?’
Johnny explained his business. Porter frowned and shook his head. Obi hadn’t been a regular member of the staff, he said, just a casual who had filled in when someone was sick or on holiday. Sure, he had given him a reference; Obi wouldn’t have got the job without it, would he? And why not? There’d never been any trouble. ‘Mind you, I’m not surprised he quit,’ Porter said. ‘Obi’s a floater. A few months in a job, and he’s had it. He likes variety.’
The way the manager of the Saladin had put it, Obi hadn’t quit, he’d been fired. But that, Johnny decided, was not for broadcasting. ‘Any idea where I might get in touch with him?’ he asked.
‘Sorry.’
The girl jumped down from the desk. Bouncing breasts suggested she wasn’t wearing a bra. ‘He can’t be in Town,’ she said, ‘or he’d have looked in.’ She had a squeaky voice, with just the hint of a lisp. ‘And he hasn’t, has he, Bill?’
‘No,’ Porter said. ‘Not since he went to the Saladin.’
‘Why don’t you look in yourself one evening, Mr Inch?’ she said. ‘On pleasure, of course, not business. Just to see how you like it.’ She stretched provocatively. ‘There’s a super floor show, and we’ve got some of the prettiest girls in show business. You’d really dig them.’
‘I usually do,’ Johnny said.
‘If you care to join you’d be welcome,’ Porter said. ‘Oh! This is Jill, my wife.’
Johnny said he would consider it, and knew he wouldn’t. Night-clubs were places he could not afford and so far had not missed.
Porter showed him to the door. ‘Like Jill said, Obi isn’t likely to be in Town,’ he said. ‘But if he is I’ll get to hear. Want me to give you a ring?’
Johnny thanked him, and left the firm’s telephone number. In the foyer he stopped to examine the colourful portraits. Definitely a groovy lot of crumpet, he decided. But digging them would come expensive. Their favours wouldn’t be for free.
Polly Frazer was punctual. She was also complimentary. Her parents, she said, had asked her to thank him for coming to their rescue. Apart from her father’s sore head they were none the worse for the night’s adventure.
Johnny grinned. ‘I can’t say the same for you. That’s a beautiful shiner you’ve got, but it isn’t quite you. The colour’s wrong.’
‘It’s damned sore,’ she said, fingering it. ‘I meant to buy an eye patch, but I’ve been too busy. It’s been quite a talking point in the shop. How’s the arm?’
‘Improving.’ He ordered drinks. ‘You’ve brought the letter?’
‘Yes. But must you read it, Johnny? I mean — well, it’s confidential. Wouldn’t it do if I told you what it’s about?’
‘What’s it about, then?’
A fortune, she said, with directions for Obi to get a share in it. ‘I opened it because — well, because I was curious, I suppose. I mean, he’d never had a letter before. And I couldn’t forward it.’ She looked at him over the rim of the glass. There was a hint of froth on her lips. ‘When I first read it I thought it was a hoax. But the man was dying — or that’s what he said — and it didn’t seem natural for a dying man to play tricks. Anyway, I decided Obi ought to have his chance.’ She sighed. ‘So I came to you.’
Johnny nodded. Not in acceptance of her explanation, but at the insight it provided. He should have recognized it before, he thought. Considered it, anyway. He had had the two events in mind. Why hadn’t he connected them?
‘The man who wrote the letter,’ he said. ‘It was Martin Slade, wasn’t it?’
Her glass came down a tilt, splashing beer. ‘You know? But that’s impossible! I mean — well, how could you?’
Johnny grinned, enjoying his triumph. ‘I’m a detective — remember? What’s more, I can tell you the fortune Obi Bullock is supposed to share. It’s in gold bullion, isn’t it?’ Her good eye widened. The other tried and failed. ‘So, seeing I know it all already, how about showing me the letter?’
She took an envelope from her bag and placed it on the table. ‘Go on, then. Read it.’
Johnny drew out the letter.
The handwriting was neat, the characters well rounded, as though they had been formed slowly and laboriously.
‘Dear Obi,’ he read. ‘While I was inside I kept thinking about how it was you put me there, and how I’d wring your bleeding neck when I came out. I would have done, too, if I’d had the chance, but I’ve been so long in hospital now I don’t seem to care any more. I still hate your guts, Obi, for what you did to me and Joe, but I suppose if we hadn’t double-crossed you you wouldn’t have done it. Well, the gold is still there, and if you want your share now you can have it. I’m dying, so it’s no use to me, and I don’t want the scoffers to get it. I’m not handing you the lot, though. There’s others. And so none of you won’t get too greedy I’m splitting up the directions and sending a bit to each. Later I’ll have someone tell you all where to meet. Then you can put the bits together and get on with it.
‘Your bit is the fourth, Obi. It says “Go down this track, crossing another after two hundred yards, and then for another two hundred yards until you can line up three trees on your left. Two are close together, about forty yards away, and the other’s a sapling near the track. Dig.” This letter won’t be posted till I’m dead. I’ll want the stuff myself if the quacks are wrong.’
The letter was signed ‘Martin Slade’. Johnny knew it could be a hoax, perhaps a forgery; Slade’s handwriting and signature were foreign to him. But the envelope bore the Westleigh postmark, and was date-stamped after Slade’s death. If the letter were genuine someone at the hospital must have posted it. That could be checked.
‘Well?’ Polly asked. ‘What do you think?’
Johnny shrugged, hiding his rising excitement. The excitement was for himself, not for the girl.
‘It could be genuine.’ He told her briefly of the bullion robbery, and of Obi’s part in it. ‘The gold was never recovered. But then that’s fairly common knowledge. It doesn’t confirm that Slade wrote the letter. Incidentally, why didn’t you want me to see it?’
‘I thought you might inform the police. You were a policeman yourself once. That would have ruined it for Obi.’
‘And why not? It’s stolen property, Polly, and Obi helped to steal it. If it’s recovered it should be returned to the rightful owner.’
‘Rubbish! Don’t be so bloody pompous. The Slades paid for it, didn’t they? Twice over, from what you’ve just said. And if Slade wanted to give some of it to Obi — well, why shouldn’t he? Anyway, who is the rightful owner? The goldsmith? The Bank of England? The insurance company?’
‘The latter, I imagine.’
‘Well, then!’
‘How do you mean, “Well then!”?’
‘It’s peanuts to them, isn’t it? And they’ll have written it off years ago.’ She drained her glass. ‘Anyway, the point is, what do you intend to do now?’
He knew what he ought to do: he ought to take the letter to the police. Yet even if it were genuine — and that had first to be established — it was meaningless out of context; and since the other recipients of Slade’s misplaced generosity were not known, the obvious course would be to await the arrival of the final instructions, and then move in on the rendezvous. If these instructions came by post they would come care of the Frazers, which seemed to make Obi redundant. They could open the letter and act without him. But Slade might have directed that the time and place of the rendezvous be transmitted in person. They would need Obi then. No doubt Obi would be reluctant to reveal the information, but if he couldn’t be persuaded he could always be tailed.
‘Find Obi,’ Johnny said. ‘What else? Now, how about the other half?’
He realized that with their greater resources the police could find Obi quicker than he could, but he persuaded himself that there was no immediate urgency to consult them. They would certainly be necessary when it came to the showdown; if the rest of Slade’s beneficiaries were, like Obi, members or ex-members of the criminal fraternity, he wasn’t tackling them single-handed. But to bring the police in now might be to lose the reward. As a copper he couldn’t have accepted it. Now he could. And ten per cent of thirty thousand pounds — more now, perhaps — was a tidy sum. It would bring those new premises considerably nearer.
He decided not to mention the reward to the girl. She might get the wrong impression. ‘This letter,’ he said. ‘Better let me keep it. We don’t want a repeat of last night.’ She shook her head. ‘All right, then. Burn it. It spells trouble.’
No, she said firmly; the letter was Obi’s, not hers, and she was handing it to no-one but Obi. Nor would she burn it. Johnny could make a copy if he wished, but she was keeping the original; it would be safe enough at the shop. She had sufficient intelligence, she hoped, to realize that last night’s unpleasant visitors must have had a letter similar to Obi’s, and had hoped that with Obi’s excerpt added to theirs they would have sufficient information to locate the bullion prior to the final instructions. They were after the lot, not just a share. Perhaps they were in association with the nice, polite gentleman who had visited her mother earlier in the day. ‘Whether or not I have the letter is immaterial,’ she said. ‘It’s what they believe that matters. If we didn’t fool those two men last night — well, you’re right, they’ll probably be back. But I’m hoping we did.’ The bruised eye had drawn the skin, making her smile lop-sided. ‘I’m an optimist, you see.’
Johnny shrugged. ‘Well, it’s your house. And your parents.’
The smile vanished. ‘Exactly,’ she said curtly.
Annoyed with himself and the girl, he drank quickly. But she was still a client, and clients had to be humoured. She was also, despite the eye, the most attractive client the agency had had. Swallowing his annoyance with the last of the beer, he said, ‘Mind my own business, eh? Stick to finding Obi. O.K., I’ll do that.’ He put down the tankard. ‘Coming?’
‘Yes.’ She picked up her bag. ‘How do you suppose those men knew that Obi had had a letter? I mean, even if they’d had one themselves — well, Obi’s letter didn’t give the names of the other people involved. So why should theirs?’
That was something Johnny also found puzzling. The wording of Slade’s letter suggested an intention that none of the beneficiaries should be able to identify the others until the final rendezvous. If that were so, the assumption must be that Mrs Frazer’s visitor of the previous morning had been guessing, and that something Mrs Frazer had said, or something her manner had suggested, had convinced him he had guessed rightly. Yet that presented another puzzle. What had led the man to suppose that Obi might be one of the chosen? If he knew both Obi and Slade (as presumably he must have done) he would also know that Slade had hated Obi’s guts.
‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘A lucky guess, perhaps.’
They walked down Piccadilly together. When they reached the Circus Polly said, ‘I’ll say goodbye. I’ve some shopping to do. May I have the letter, please?’
‘Eh? Haven’t you got it?’ He fumbled in his pockets. ‘Well, what do you know? I could have sworn I gave it back.’
She took the letter from him. ‘I’m sure you could.’
‘That’s a very acid remark,’ he told her.
Why had Obi Bullock been one of the chosen? he wondered, as he dodged his way back along the crowded Piccadilly pavement. The letter suggested that Slade had wished to make belated amends for having bilked his former accomplice a decade ago. Johnny found that hard to believe. Slade’s attitude had been hard and bitter, there had been no hint of forgiveness or remorse. He had given the impression that the world was his enemy. And the world would certainly include Obi Bullock.
Johnny hopped on a bus. Half-way up the stairs to the top deck he turned, and fought his way down against the tide of mounting passengers. The bus was gathering speed as he dropped off, and momentum carried him on for a few stumbling steps before he could stop to consider the surprising thought that had halted him. Slade had had no friends, only enemies. So he had sent the letters to his former enemies! It seemed crazy — ‘love thine e
nemies’ surely wasn’t for Slade — but it was the only explanation that offered. And if it were right — and who knew what motivated an ex-con on his deathbed? — well, if Slade had hated anyone he had hated his wife Alice. She and Obi would definitely be in the Top Ten; a whore, he had called her, a bleeding whore. Yet he had wanted her address. And that address, Johnny remembered with glee, was right there in his notebook. He had jotted it down preparatory to forwarding it to Slade.
She lived in Finsbury Park, at No. 108, Duxbury Road. It was one of a dozen or so crumbling Victorian buildings still surviving in a street of smaller, more modern houses. The front door was ajar, and Johnny mounted the worn steps and rang the bell. No-one came, and he pushed open the door and stepped into the hall. A narrow strip of drugget led to the back regions and up the stairs, and on the right-hand wall was a pay telephone. There were no other furnishings.
He had to ring twice more before someone answered. Footsteps clattered down the upper staircase, and a woman appeared at the top of the lower flight and peered down at him.
‘Yes?’ she asked.
Johnny stepped further into the hall. ‘I’m looking for Mrs Slade,’ he told her.
‘Alice?’ She descended a few steps, either indifferent or unaware that her dressing gown had opened to reveal black lace panties and bra. Her skin was white, her hair a flaming red. To Johnny she looked a well-preserved forty. ‘Second door on the right, dear. But she’s out.’
‘Oh! Any idea when she’ll be back?’
‘None at all, dear, I’m afraid.’ There was a hint of a foreign accent. ‘If she’s with Jack she’ll probably be late.’
‘Jack?’
‘Her boyfriend. Was she expecting you?’
‘No. We’ve never met. But I was given her address.’
‘Oh! Like that, eh? Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to try elsewhere, dear. If it’s urgent, I mean. And it is sometimes, isn’t it?’ She smiled broadly. ‘I’d ask you up myself, only I’ve a friend with me. Sorry.’
