The Otterbury Incident

by C. Day Lewis

  ‘Here it is, Toppy!’

  He pulled out a wooden box, exactly the same size as the one which had been stolen from him.

  ‘Yes, that’s it! Look for the mark! … Oh, hell!’

  It wasn’t the box. There was no cross scratched on the bottom of it.

  ‘We’ll take this with us, anyway,’ said Toppy. ‘It proves they made the box here.’

  ‘We’ve got to find our one, though!’

  ‘But Skinner may be back any minute.’

  ‘We’ll hear a scout whistling, if he does come. Let’s get cracking. Search the rest of the building.’

  They ran to the door, and found a narrow, steep wooden staircase which brought them down to the ground floor. Here there were a number of empty wooden packing-cases ranged against the wall, and a few odd bits of furniture. Otherwise, in the murky light that came through the cobwebbed windows, the place seemed empty.

  After giving this warehouse the once-over, Ted began, rather despondently, to open the drawers of an old dressing-table which stood, with several other pieces of furniture, near the outer door of the warehouse. One drawer stuck, after he had opened it, and in trying to force it shut again, he pushed the whole rickety dressing-table a little way back.

  Where it had stood, there was a big trap-door in the stone floor!

  Wild with excitement now, they pushed the dressing-table further back, so that the whole trap-door was clear; then laid hold of its iron ring and pulled. It came up easily, revealing, not, as they might have expected, a black hole beneath or a ladder, but a metal chute; the sort of thing you slid down on mats at a fun-fair, only considerably broader. And the lifting of the wooden trap must have automatically thrown an electric switch, for the vaults to which the chute descended were brightly lit up.

  Toppy and Ted looked at each other, speechless for a moment.

  ‘This is it,’ whispered Ted at last.

  ‘Yes, but what?’

  ‘You game to try? I’ll bet there’s something shady goes on down there.’

  For the time being, they had both forgotten the real object of their raid, the wooden box.

  ‘OK. Try anything once,’ said Toppy, and getting on to the chute, he slid gracefully down it on his bum, with Ted close behind.

  The descent into enemy territory

  ‘The drop successfully accomplished, the airborne troops rapidly moved deeper into enemy territory.’ Toppy was talkative, as he always is when he’s trying to conceal nervousness. ‘I say, it’s an absolute robbers’ cave, Ted.’

  The vault, whitewashed, and lit by several unshaded electric bulbs, seemed cavernous, a whited sepulchre: its dimensions corresponded with those of the warehouse above. Like the warehouse, it contained an array of packing-cases; but these were not empty, and there were far more of them, ranged against the walls. The air was dry down here, not dank and cold as it generally is in cellars. The pair moved over to a row of packing-cases. Toppy was still carrying the wooden box he had taken from the workshop.

  ‘I say, Ted, do you notice anything peculiar about these packing-cases?’

  ‘Yes, the labels have been torn off them all.’

  ‘I call it jolly sinister. I’m going to open one.’ And before Ted could say a word, Toppy was swarming up the chute on all fours. While he was gone, his companion cast round the vault. Near one corner he found a door. Opening this, he saw a dark passage in front of him. He went a few paces down this passage: by the light which came in from the vault, he saw a small wooden door on his left, in the passage wall. He tried this door, but it was locked.

  The next moment, he heard a slithering sound behind him. Toppy was coming down the chute, holding a hammer and a big cold chisel he had borrowed from the workshop above. He advanced upon one of the packing-cases, and began to open it.

  ‘I say, it’s not ours, you know,’ muttered Ted.

  ‘I bet it’s not Skinner’s either,’ said Toppy, levering vigorously away at the lid.

  There was a squeaking, rending noise as the nails gave way. Toppy took off some wrapping.

  ‘What did I tell you? Skinner doesn’t need these for the building trade.’

  The case was full of neatly packed cigarette cartons.

  ‘Crikey! The Black Market!’ exclaimed Ted.

  ‘What, no fags? Now we’ve got ’em!’

  ‘We’ve got Skinner. But we haven’t any evidence against Johnny Sharp except that we’ve seen him hanging about here. And we haven’t got the box.’

  ‘Who cares about the box now?’ said Toppy.

  ‘I do. Nick still has the window to pay for. And there’s his puppy –’

  ‘Well, the box just isn’t here.’

  ‘I want to try one more place.’ Ted led Toppy through the door into the passage, and pointed at the smaller door on their left. ‘Can you force that open with your cold chisel? It’s locked.’

  Toppy set to work on it, hammering the chisel in near the lock and levering hard at it. Presently there was a splintering noise. The door sagged open …

  The main party was growing impatient. Toppy and Ted seemed to have been gone for ages, though in fact it was little more than half an hour. Discipline was relaxed: heads poked up from behind cover: one or two weaker spirits announced their intention of going home to supper if something didn’t happen soon. I was just wondering if we oughtn’t to send in some reinforcements to help with the search, when a distant throbbing came to my ears, then a frenzied series of whistle blasts from the end of the lane on our left; and a moment later Skinner’s lorry hove in sight.

  We only just had time to get our heads down, when it was upon us. Peering round the corner of my rubble-heap, I saw that Skinner himself was driving, and Johnny Sharp sitting beside him. The lorry drew up just beyond the yard doors. The Wart and an unshaven type leapt out from the back, unlocked a side door, went in and quickly threw the main doors open. As quickly, the lorry was backed in and the doors slammed shut again.

  Ted and Toppy were trapped …

  ‘What the blue blazes is all this?’ exclaimed Toppy, when they had found an electric switch inside the broken door.

  They peered round the room in which they found themselves. It seemed to be fitted out as a laboratory. There was a bench; a table with Bunsen burners on it; a sink; shelves with bottles of chemicals and various apparatus; a furnace; and, against the far wall, a large, complicated-looking metal press. But what struck them as eeriest of all was that everything was covered thick with dust and cobwebs.

  ‘Miss Havisham’s wedding-cake!’ whispered Ted.

  ‘Miss Havisham my foot!’ Ted had opened a drawer in the table, and taken out a wooden tray. The tray was full of half-crowns. He bounced one on the table, then bit it. ‘Gosh, Ted, this is where the Wart’s half-crown came from! Look, it’s soft, it’s snide metal, just like I said it was when the Prune gave it us, only I was joking.fn1 This is a coiner’s den.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ted said excitedly. ‘And, judging by the cobwebs, they haven’t done any coining for some time. I expect they couldn’t get them right, make them hard enough –’

  ‘More likely they found the Black Market more paying. Come on, Ted, this is where we exit pursued by a bear –’

  ‘Pursued by a flying column of spiders, you mean –’

  ‘We’ll not need the box now. One of these half-crowns’ll do the trick … Stop! D’you hear anything?’

  It wasn’t the sentry’s whistle they heard. They were too deep underground for this to have penetrated. What they heard was the roar of the lorry being backed up against the warehouse door overhead.

  ‘The trap-door. Quick!’ said Toppy.

  They tore up the chute. But, as they reached the top, they saw the big warehouse door beginning to open. Toppy, who was ahead, managed to scramble through the trap; he flitted like a bat towards the staircase that led up to the workshop. In the mad sauve-qui-peut, his foot had accidently thrust against Ted, who slid a little way down the chute. By the time he had scrambled
up to the trap-door again, the Wart and Johnny Sharp, their backs turned to him, were in the warehouse, only six yards away. Frantically, Ted tugged at the trap-door. It would be fatal if the men found it open. It slid back silently over his head. This was a respite at any rate. He careered down the chute, through the vault, into the passage beyond, bumping and bruising himself against the edge of a packing-case, for the sliding to of the trap had automatically switched off the electric lights in the vault. He paused a moment by the door of the coiner’s den. There seemed to be no sounds of pursuit. Perhaps the roar of the lorry’s engine had covered up the noise he made on the chute. He remembered he’d brought a pocket-torch. Switching it on, he turned off the light in the den, closed the splintered door, and crept off along the passage away from the vaults.

  The passage took him about twenty paces. Then there was a flight of stone steps. Climbing up these, he found a blank wall, a grating set high up in it, and a small door. Desperately he tugged at its handle. The door was locked.

  Ted knew it was only a matter of minutes before the gang realized something was wrong. The dressing-table moved out of position in the warehouse; the packing-case Toppy had opened; the splintered door of the coiner’s den – there were too many signs betraying him. He sat down on the stone steps, his head in his hands, trying to steady his nerve. There was only one hope – that the gang would go upstairs first, find the scout-rope dangling from the workshop skylight, and assume that their birds had flown. But would Toppy have the sense to leave the rope there? Wouldn’t his instinct be to remove this indication of their presence?

  Then Ted caught at another straw of hope. Up above, in a cubby-hole off the workshop, there was a telephone. Perhaps Toppy had had time and sense enough to ring up the police before making his escape. If the gang found him, Ted determined that he would play this card, even though it might only be a bluff.

  Even as he made this decision, he heard footsteps approaching along the passage, and a voice – the soft, cold voice of Johnny Sharp – saying ‘Come out! Come on out! And no tricks.’

  10. Grand Assault

  ‘So it’s you again,’ said Johnny Sharp, pushing Ted by the scruff of the neck into the vault. Skinner, the Wart, and the fourth man were there, glowering at him.

  ‘And what the hell are you doing on my premises?’ thundered Skinner. His great shadow on the white-washed wall behind him seemed to swell and swell, like a blood-sucking spider’s.

  ‘I came to get back a box which these two stole from us.’

  Skinner moved ponderously up to Ted, and slapped him very hard across the face, twice. Ted’s nose began to bleed.

  ‘You keep a civil tongue in your head,’ said Skinner. ‘Better not start saying things about my friends. It ain’t healthy, see?’

  ‘It’s not so healthy for you, either, having tons of stolen cigarettes down there.’

  Ted was like that. Once you got his blood up, he’d face a charging rhinoceros. Skinner’s huge red face darkened; his piggy eyes were suffused with rage: he raised his fist as if to bash Ted through the stone floor.

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Johnny Sharp, stepping between them. ‘Take it easy. Let me just ask Mister Marshall a question or two.’ His voice went smooth as melting butter. ‘You opened that case, did you?’

  Ted nodded, white as death now. He feared this foxy creature a hundred times worse than Skinner.

  ‘And was it by any chance you who broke into that room down the passage?’

  Ted nodded again, holding his handkerchief to his bleeding nose.

  ‘Had a good look round, eh?’ pursued Johnny Sharp, in the same caressing voice.

  ‘What’s all this about a box?’ asked the fourth man. ‘What’s the kid talking about?’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Johnny Sharp, without looking round at the man. ‘Now then, young Ted, did you crack this joint solo?’

  ‘Crack the joint solo? What’s that?’ Ted looked as stupid as he knew how. He was playing for time, thinking faster than he’d ever thought in his young life.

  ‘Did you break in here alone,’ explained Johnny Sharp, in a put-on la-di-dah voice, ‘or were you accompanied by some other young gentlemen?’

  Ted Marshall is introduced to the Slasher

  ‘’Course he was alone,’ put in the Wart, ‘there’s no one else here.’

  ‘I’m asking Mister Marshall.’

  Ted was silent. He’d made a heroic decision to alter his plan entirely. Obviously they’d not caught Toppy, nor could they have any proof that Ted had been accompanied in his raid. If he said that Toppy had been with him, had telephoned the police, he himself would probably be safe, but the gang would make a bolt for it at once and very possibly get away. If he said he’d broken in alone, they would have no reason to hurry, and Toppy might be able to get the police along in time to catch them.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ said Johnny Sharp.

  Ted remained silent. Don’t tell your lie too quickly, or they’ll suspect it’s a lie, a voice seemed to say: let them drag it out of you. Johnny Sharp reached into his right-hand pocket, took out his razor, opened it, and made a few delicate passes in the air near Ted’s face. A thin, high-shouldered shadow flickered grotesquely on the wall behind him.

  ‘Little Slasher here always knows when little boys are telling the truth: little Slasher doesn’t like being told lies. Come on, out with it! Were you alone?’

  Ted nodded dumbly. He didn’t have to act terror.

  ‘Reckon this kid knows a bit too much,’ growled Skinner.

  ‘I’m inclined to agree with our rough friend here,’ said Johnny Sharp, smiling at Ted and showing his discoloured teeth. ‘How lucky that nobody else knows you’re here.’

  ‘No! You can’t do that, Johnny,’ the Wart exclaimed. ‘He’s only a kid.’

  Johnny Sharp, with finicky movements, closed the razor and replaced it in his pocket.

  ‘Do what? I’m doing nothing. But, if a kid wanders in here and locks himself up by accident in one of Mr Skinner’s cellars, and if he happens to starve to death there – it’s not my fault, is it? And who’s to know, anyhow?’

  Ted couldn’t stand any more. He opened his mouth – to yell for help, to cry that the police would be here any minute. At that instant there was a terrific crashing and tinkling from the floor above, as a volley of stones smashed through the warehouse windows …

  The first we knew of what had happened in Skinner’s warehouse was when we saw Toppy sprint out through the side door of the yard, which the Wart had left open. He was wrapping a handkerchief round his wrist; it had been badly grazed while he shinned down the drainpipe.

  ‘They’ve got Ted,’ he gasped, running over to us on the Incident. ‘They must have got him. I only just managed to escape myself.’

  Breathlessly he told us about the crates of Black Market goods and the coiner’s den.

  ‘We must go to the police straight away,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ came a firm voice. ‘We must rescue Ted first. The police might take ages to come.’ It was Nick, spoiling for battle.

  ‘The police’ll come quick enough when they see this counterfeit half-crown,’ said Toppy. ‘Anyway, how can we rescue him? There are four men in there. We can’t fight four men.’

  ‘Windy?’ asked Nick, looking at him fiercely.

  ‘Oh, if you put it like that –’ Toppy’s nerve was visibly returning. ‘OK, we’ll do it.’ He turned to me. ‘George, take a bike and sprint to the police station. Tell the scout to join us here. Take this half-crown and show it to the Inspector. And hurry!’

  I shot off up the lane, half relieved and half ashamed to be missing the battle. I won’t take up much time with my own part of the proceedings at this point, except to say it was darned lucky that Nick did persuade Toppy to launch an attack straight away. If they’d waited for the police, they’d have had to wait nearly twenty minutes, and the gang might have done Ted in. When I got to the police station, first I had to give my message to a duty constabl
e; then I had to wait while it was passed on to the Station Sergeant; then he made me repeat the whole story – he was obviously sceptical to the back teeth, and I had to use all my famous eloquence to convince him this wasn’t some kind of a rag. Luckily, Inspector Brook came in just then. He gave one look at the phoney half-crown, shot some questions at me, fast as machine-gun bullets, pretty well extinguished the Sergeant with a few blistering remarks about not knowing a bonafide story when he heard one, telephoned madly in all directions for a few minutes, ordering roads out of Otterbury to be watched, then scooped up myself and three Bobbies into a police car, and tore off towards Skinner’s yard.

  When we got there – but I’d better return to the grand assault, as it was related to me afterwards by some of the combatants …

  I must say, Toppy laid on a pretty masterly attack, considering he had to do it all on the spur of the moment. His plan was for the main body, under Peter Butts, to rush through the side door and fire a volley of bricks – there was plenty of such ammunition on the Incident – at the warehouse windows. They were to go on blazing away, while he himself got in again by the skylight, to try and rescue Ted while the gang’s attention was diverted by the frontal attack. Nick said he was jolly well going to climb the drainpipe too and help rescue Ted: so that was that. Peter Butts was ordered to hold up the enemy’s retreat, by any means in his power, till the police arrived. But, if he heard a whistle from inside the building, he was to lead the main body in and somehow put the fear of God into J. Sharp & Co.

  An odd thing, worth recording, is that it never occurred to any of them to enlist the aid of one or two grown-ups who came along the lane while they were making their plans. Rickie had to admit, though, when we told him the whole story later, that they were probably right: either these passers-by wouldn’t have believed them, or else they’d have said, ‘Wait for the police,’ grown-ups being a bit windy about winkling out gangs of desperate criminals.

  Well then, to proceed with the battle. Toppy and Nick slid in through the side door. Presently a low call from the roof told Peter Butts that they had reached the skylight and found the road clear – there’d always been a possibility that one of the gang might have removed the rope from the skylight. Peter led his men in a dash over the lane and through the side door. Once in the yard, they sent their first volley through the warehouse windows. Then Peter had a bright idea. Ordering his men to cease fire for a moment, he leapt forward to the lorry which was still backed up against the main warehouse door, opened the bonnet, and tore out the leads to the sparking plugs. The enemy’s transport was thus immobilized.