Inspector West At Home

by John Creasey

  “I’ll give you two minutes,” Malone said.

  From outside there came a shrill whistle, similar to the one that Roger had heard at Mrs Cartier’s flat and that Mark had heard in the ‘Saucy Sue’. Malone stiffened and half turned his head. Roger kicked at him, aiming for his groin. He caught the man’s thigh and Malone lost his balance, just as two of the gang came into the room.

  They ignored him as Malone, recovering his balance, said : “Who is it?”

  “Lessing,” a rat-faced man said. “And the yob with the curly hair.”

  Malone’s eyes narrowed. “Tennant, Huh? I’ve been wanting to talk to him. How far away?”

  “The end of the street.”

  “Walking?”

  “Yeah.”

  Roger wondered : “Why have they come so soon?”

  Malone did not look at Roger, but one of his companions stayed close. He had a knuckle-duster in his hand, an ugly, spiked weapon which would tear a man’s face to pieces.

  “Don’t even squeak,” Malone flung at Roger, savagely.

  Footsteps sounded on the pavement and then the gravel drive. There was a pause and a heavy knock at the front door. Malone did not move except to put out a hand towards the light switch as if he were going to plunge the room in darkness. If he did—

  The man with the knuckle-duster moved swiftly, caught Roger’s right wrist, and twisted his arm behind his back. Whoever was outside knocked again; then Mark called :

  “Anyone at home ?” There was a pause before a key scraped in the lock — Mark had a key to the house.

  Malone flicked his finger; the light went out.

  “What the—” began Mark, as if startled by the darkness. Actually it was broken by light streaming in from the open front door. “Roger !” Mark called. “Are you in?”

  The pressure at Roger’s wrist increased and he felt the scraping of the knuckle-duster on his cheek. The veins swelled up in his neck and on his forehead, his breathing was heavy. He knew exactly what would happen if he called out. Damn it, he must call! He opened his lips.

  Malone switched on the light. Mark gasped. Roger saw two men standing in the hall and guessed that one of them was showing a gun. Malone stepped into the hall with the sliding, swaggering gait which characterised him.

  “Come right in, Lessing,” he said. “You’re very welcome.” He grinned. “Where’s Tennant?”

  “Here’s Tennant!” a man called. It was Tennant himself. There was a flurry of movement, a gasp and a shadow which loomed in the hall. It happened so suddenly that Roger felt his captor relax. He took the opportunity and wrenched his wrist away, back-heeled and caught the man’s shin. Two men crashed down in the hall, carried to the floor by Bill Tennant, who had leapt past Mark and sailed through the air. He landed on his feet, crouching, and looked at Malone and the other man. Malone held a knife now. There was a split second of silence, a hush while the two men weighed each other up. Malone was crouching now, and Tennant standing upright with his hands a little way in front of him. The men on the floor began to move.

  Roger took a step forward.

  Tennant jumped, feet foremost. His heels landed on Malone’s stomach, and Malone’s hand, holding the knife, swept round aimlessly. There was a squelching sound as Tennant’s feet sank into him and he fell backward, cracking his head against the floor. The man whom Roger had kicked drew back his fist with the knuckle-duster ready, but Tennant came on, keeping his balance by some miracle. He gripped the wrist which held the knuckle-duster, and Malone’s man gasped and was thrown against the wall with a thud which shook the house. Malone, scrambling to his feet and with no fight left in him, shouted for help, but no one came.

  Tennant turned on him and laughed into his face.

  “This is what you hand out, Malone,” he said. He struck the man with great power and Malone toppled backwards. “That,” Tennant said, “is for Lois. That is for Mrs Cartier.” He bent down and yanked Malone to his feet.

  There were men’s voices, heavy footsteps and the sound of scuffling in the kitchen. Roger wondered who else had come. Mark was standing just in sight, with a gun in his hand; the two men whom Tennant had first attacked were backing towards the stairs. A familiar voice called :

  “Is West all right, Lessing?” It was Cornish!

  “Yes,” Mark called.

  “Mister Malone,” said Tennant, softly, “I never did like you.” The gangster was helpless, hardly able to stand on his feet, but Tennant lifted him by the waist and flung him against the wall.

  Then Cornish and two or three plainclothes men came in with a rush. Tennant drew back. Roger could not look at Cornish, only at Tennant, to see the way he relaxed, the sudden fading of the glitter in his eyes, and the half-ashamed smile which curved his lips.

  “It looks as if I lost me temper,” he said.

  “Temper!” gasped Cornish.

  Roger drew a deep breath. “What brought you?” he demanded.

  Mark sauntered into the room, looking pleased with himself.

  “Malone sent one of his men to see Oliphant,” he said. “I recognised him from the ‘Saucy Sue’, and we had a little talk with him on the Embankment — Tennant didn’t take long to make him open his mouth! He said Malone was waiting here -for you or Janet so I phoned the Yard.”

  “You see, it was simple,” said Tennant. He looked into Malone’s face. “I hope I haven’t killed him,” he said. “I’ve been giving unarmed combat lessons for two years and as I haven’t fought in earnest yet, I thought Malone would do for some real practice!” He put his hands into his pockets and then, for the first time, seemed to notice the chaos of the room. “By George!” he exclaimed. “What a mess!” His eyes widened and he stared at Roger. “What have you done to your face ?”

  Roger fingered his slashed cheek, surprised to find blood on his fingers.

  “I’d better wash this off,” he said, and went to the bathroom. As he dabbed at his cheek, which kept bleeding, and while Mark began to dress the cut, things began to take on a proper perspective. ‘Simple’ was the operative word. He remembered seeing the vaguely familiar man near the Em-bankment and remembered that he had been at the Carders’ flat, but for once Mark had had the better memory for faces. By sending Mark and Tennant to Oliphant he had done the right thing, after all. No one at the Yard would have recognised the messenger.

  “Feeling better?” Mark asked, when sticking plaster was in position.

  “I’m all right,” Roger said. “So we’ve got Malone.”

  “And most of his men,” Mark said. “But — what utter swine! I — what’s the matter? Roger, what—”

  “The other rooms !” snapped Roger.

  Two minutes later, he had been in every room in the house and felt better, for only the lounge had been touched. He even found himself wondering whether it would be possible to make Janet come in the back way so that she would not get the full force of the shock that the lounge would be bound to give her. He looked at Mark, and explained what had suddenly preoccupied him; at that moment a Black Maria drew up outside. There was a crowd of people waiting and staring, a few dogs at the heels of the crowd, some schoolboys and two or three uniformed men. Masher Malone’s party was taken to the van, handcuffed together in twos. Malone, only just able to stagger, went last. Two plainclothes men climbed in, the driver started the engine and the van moved off.

  “Any more for any more ?” boomed Tennant.

  “You’ve had enough for one day,” Mark assured him. “Don’t ever take a dislike to me, will you?”

  “That depends,” grinned Tennant. “Well, what are you going to do next, Roger?”

  “Who did you leave to watch Oliphant?” Roger demanded.

  “Now come off it,” said Mark. “We had our work cut out to rescue you from a dreadful fate, we had to take a chance somewhere. Shall we go back there?”

  Roger said : “No.” He looked at the silent, rather subdued Cornish and there was a faint smile on his face. Cornish probably
felt grieved because he had missed the fight. “It’s time I remembered I’m a policeman and worked by regulation.”

  “You mean, interview Oliphant yourself?” Mark asked.

  “Yes. I’d better have a word with Abbott first,” said Roger. “Mark, will you stay up until Janet arrives?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thanks,” said Roger. “I think I’ll get the car out,” he went on. “You’d better stay around for a bit, Corny.”

  “All right,” said Cornish.

  Roger went out by the back door. The police had forced a window but Cornish had entered using the back door key which had been replaced in the tool-shed by Morgan’s man. There were signs of the struggle when the police had first entered but the kitchen looked in perfect order compared with the lounge. Roger scowled as he took out his keys, yet realised he had a great deal to be thankful for; when he thought of Malone he touched his cheek.

  A single slip had finished Malone. It was difficult to believe that the man was on his way to the police-cells, that the striking arm of the Pickerell-Oliphant organisation had been paralysed. The quicker he interviewed Malone the better; not that he expected the man to squeal, although probably some of his gang would. Roger forgot his anxieties and the disappointment awaiting Janet in a sudden burst of confidence. If anything puzzled him at the moment he opened the doors of the garage, it was that Tennant had behaved in a peculiar way, to say the least.

  The garage doors were wide open when he looked inside. His car was there, bonnet towards him. Sitting at the wheel, eyas wide open and mouth hidden by a scarf tied very tightly, sat a man with a peaked cap pushed to the back of his head, and with his hands tied to the steering wheel.

  CHAPTER 22

  Interview With Chatworth

  IT WAS Dixon, the missing taxi-driver.

  He could not speak even when Roger removed the scarf, and his mouth would hardly close; great red ridges showed on either side. His hands were so stiff that Roger had to prise them from the steering wheel. He had called for help, and Mark and Cornish, Tennant and two other policemen were outside the garage.

  Roger helped the man from the car. They carried him into the house, put him on a settee, then began to massage his lips and legs and wrists. Mark laced strong tea with brandy and spoon-fed the man. The tension, which had relaxed after the disappearance of the Black Maria, was more acute than ever. Roger was desperately anxious to find out what had happened to Dixon, and who had brought the man here.

  It was half an hour before the man could speak, and then only in a voice a little above a whisper.

  Dixon had followed the Daimler to Bonnock House. Soon after he had parked his cab at the end of the road, another had arrived, bearing Mrs Sylvester Cartier. With her had been a man whom the taxi-driver knew by sight because he had worked a great deal in the East End and had often been to the Old Bailey for a free entertainment. The man’s name, he said, was Oliphant.

  “Oliphant!” Roger exclaimed.

  “Sure — and the lady.” Dixon moistened his lips. “Maybe I got too curious, mister. I went too close. I was hanging around and Malone arrived — you know Malone? He’s poison, he—”

  “He’s at Cannon Row,” Roger said.

  Dixon’s eyes glittered. “I wish I could have had a go at ‘im first. Well, I just stayed around. Malone was watching. The toff who had been with the lady came out and got into the Daimler again and I started to follow but before I got far Malone came on the running board. Know Hampstead Heath, mister? Well, it’s lonely enough an’ I couldn’t do a thing about it. There was four of them. They — they” — his voice was hoarse with anger — “they tied me up an’ put me at the back of me own cab an’ drove it ‘ere!”

  Roger said : “Have you been here ever since?”

  “Every ruddy minnit,” said Dixon. “They never even give me a drink o’ water. They tied me ‘ere an’ told me I’d be lucky if anyone came before I was stiff.” He gulped. “I couldn’t move me ‘ead, Guv’nor. Wouldn’t I like—”

  “Did they talk much?”

  “Talk — they never did nothing else!” said Dixon. “They arst me ‘ow long I’d been a squealer, me — me, a perishing nose! They wanted to know if I’d been told to watch the lady, an’ whether you had said anything about her. I said you said I was to watch the toff, Guv’nor. I didn’t see no sense in giving them what they perishin’ well wanted!”

  “Good man,” said Roger.

  “That tickled Malone,” Dixon said. “He laughed as if it was the best joke in the world, Guv’nor — but I had the laugh on him, because he didn’t know you was really after the dame.”

  “And is that the lot?” asked Roger.

  “Seems plenty to me,” said Dixon. “If I don’t get some shut-eye soon I. shall drop dead, that’s what I shall do.”

  “We’ll get you home,” Roger said.

  “Guv’nor, if you’ve got a bed here, I’ll be asleep in a couple of jiffs.”

  “Yes, of course.” Roger left Mark and Tennant to put the man to bed, smiled at the thought of Janet’s homecoming, then drove in his own car to the Yard. There seemed nothing to do but detain Mrs Cartier and Oliphant and hope that one or the other would make a true statement. The woman might break down. Some things continued to puzzle him. If Malone had known that the woman was implicated when Dixon had arrived, he must have known later that evening, yet there had been nothing phoney about the way he had assaulted her.

  “To make me jump to the wrong conclusion,” Roger mused. “It couldn’t mean anything else.”

  He reached the Yard and immediately gave instructions for Mrs Cartier and Oliphant to be shadowed. He learned from Eddie Day that Abbott had put a man on Oliphant after all; so Abbott was still capable of being two-faced. Until he saw Abbott, he thought that Mrs Cartier had no watcher, but he was wrong. The Superintendent was apologetic; Chatworth had ordered him to have Oliphant watched, as well as Mrs Cartier; the AC had not been prepared to leave it to Roger. And :

  “I think he was right, West.”

  “So do I, by hindsight,” admitted Roger. “Any sign of Pickerell?”

  “No.”

  “Have you heard about Malone?”

  “I’ve just come from him,” said Abbott. “He will not talk — but then, he is hardly in a condition to talk, he will be in hospital for several days. Who dealt with him? Was it Cornish ?”

  Roger smiled. “No. There was a bit of a scrap. I can’t say who hit who.”

  He expected to be pressed on the point, but a buzzer rang on Abbott’s desk and the Superintendent stood up quickly.

  “That will be Sir Guy. I told him you had arrived and he promised to ring for us as soon as he was ready.” Abbott led the way up to Chatworth’s office and they went in immediately.

  “You’re having quite a week, aren’t you, West?” The question was almost aggressive.

  Roger grimaced. “Yes, aren’t I ?”

  “It looks as if the worst is over,” said Chatworth. “Abbott’s told you that we’re watching everyone?” Roger nodded. “All the people whom the Randall girl named have been interviewed except Oliphant,” Chatworth went on. “We’ve been very busy all through the night.”

  Roger smiled with relief. He should have realised that the Yard would act swiftly and thoroughly. He had not yet got it out of his system that he was working this case on his own.

  “And we have a very remarkable story,” Chatworth said. “You haven’t told him, Abbott, have you?”

  “No, sir.”

  Roger stared. “What is it, sir?” he asked.

  “It is a combination of things. First, many of the stolen jewels have not been disposed of. Pickerell sold others to some of the people to whom Miss Randall took the packages — she actually took the stolen goods. The proceeds of many jewel thefts, here and on the Continent, passed through the hands of Pickerell and Lois Randall. Pickerell was the fence, always working from Welbeck Street.”

  “Yes?” said Roger. Chatwo
rth’s manner told him there was more to come.

  Chatworth gave an almost smug smile.

  “And then there was the real purpose of the Society of European Relief, West! Relief!” He threw back his head and uttered a short laugh. “Oh, it had its genuine side, but the chief angle was very clever indeed. Jewels were brought in from the Continent, sometimes by refugees, who owned them, others by thieves posing as refugees, and more — the largest proportion — jewels hidden away during the last war, and discovered. There’s been a lot of smuggling, we’ve known that for some time. Jewels flooded the Society from all sources and they were all handled at Welbeck Street.”

  Roger thought: “Smuggled sparklers, so that’s it.” He felt annoyed with himself for being disappointed.

  “Most of them came from Germany and Italy,” Chatworth said, gently.

  Roger stared : “Germany?”

  “You’ve heard of the fortunes which Goering, Goebbels, Himmler and the rest of them are supposed to have wafted away?” asked Chatworth. “Of course you have! But other well-placed Nazi officials and German business men weren’t able to do it. They wanted to save something from the wreckage, so they put their money in jewels — many of them pillaged from the occupied countries — and they sent them over here. The Society of European Relief became an organization” — Chatworth laboured over the words — “which relieved a great many people of their jewels, took jewels from others for services never fully rendered, and was a gigantic world-wide sales organisation. Some of its members, posing as refugees, travelled abroad and sold stolen jewels. Follow that, West? The Society of European Relief did all that.”

  Roger said gruffly : “So it was as big as that.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Chatworth. “And think how clever it was. They actually had a genuine organisation ready for distributing the jewels, which were never allowed to remain in one country for long. For every genuine applicant for relief there was one who was a party to this scheme. There were people with friends behind the Iron Curtain prepared to help when Mrs Cartier persuaded them — men who wouldn’t touch the jewels for themselves, but were prepared to hold them. I don’t know what precious argument the woman puts up — she probably told a lot of them that they were jewels belonging to refugees from Russia, Poland — all of Eastern Europe. There are some very big names on the list of patrons of the Society — oh, it will prove quite a scandal! Beginning to understand how important it was that you should not connect the murder of the woman Cox with this?”