by John Creasey
Roger said sharply: “What do you know about Ginn?”
“Not very much,” answered Riddle. “But when Gladys was first going with him, I warned her. I saw the man once, and I can tell a bad man, Mr. West, I knew he was one I wouldn’t trust.” He raised his hands expressively. “But you know how it is? Why does a girl like Gladys give herself to such a man? I wish I could tell you. My own sister, Chief Inspector, she married a no good heel, and what has he done for her? Just given her a life of misery, that’s all, worry and misery and unhappiness, and he isn’t even kind to her. Poor Rosie! That is what I always warn Gladys—this man will lead you that kind of life. But you couldn’t do anything about it, Mr. West, she was so stubborn. People in love are stubborn, aren’t they? What trouble has he got her into, Chief Inspector?”
“Did you know his reputation?”
Riddle shrugged gracefully, persuasively.
“Well, yes, you know how it is, Chief Inspector, if a man knows his way about, he gets to know things. This Ginn—why, I knew of him before he went away, good riddance, my old father said, it was a pity he wasn’t hanged. I am honest with you—I knew Ginn just a little when we were both younger. In the old days he was bad, since he returned—” Sol Riddle paused, then spread his hands and shook his head. “Have you seen him, Chief Inspector? He looks bad, now, he even looks as if he is going bad inside, a sick man. Jaundice, I should say, my old father died from it, the years he suffered. But never mind my old father, Chief Inspector. I confess to you, Ginn came and asked me for work. I wouldn’t employ such a man, but it was here he met Gladys. How is it that she fell for him? I don’t know, I really don’t.” He paused again, then added in a flat voice: “Please, tell me what trouble it is?”
“He killed her,” Roger said.
Riddle’s hands, half way to his chest, stopped moving. His body went rigid. A little of the peach like colour faded from his cheeks. Then he let out a long, sad sigh, and very slowly shook his head.
“Poor old Glad,” he said. “It doesn’t help much to know that I warned her. But for me, perhaps they would not have met. I am sorry, Chief Inspector, very sorry; and if I can help, I will.”
No one at the glove maker’s was any help at all.
At a quarter to twelve Roger pulled his car up outside 27 Butt Lane, and looked up at a very different kind of building from the shop in Whitechapel. This was tall, grey, and grimed, with small windows; it had nothing at all to commend it except its position. It was actually half way along Butt Lane, although the last but two of the buildings left in it. The other had been flattened during that Great Fire of 1941. Behind it and beyond it were the flattened ruins or the skeleton walls of what had once been that mass of buildings.
Roger went in. The hall was dark and gloomy, a stone staircase offered an uninviting way up, a lift well, without the lift, was like a prison cell by the side of the stairs. On a wall, dimly illuminated from the doorway, was a panel of names and companies who had offices here. He read:
Mildmay’s, Stationery and Office Furniture, H. J. Netherby, Manager. 4th Floor.
Roger pressed the lift bell; nothing happened. He pressed again, with the same result. Impatiently, he moved towards the stone steps. Each flight was long and the steps were steep, and when he passed the lift descending, at the third floor, he wished he had been more patient.
At each landing a window overlooked the flattened stretch; and from each window he could see St. Paul’s, the police, the cars, the ruins. He didn’t spend much time there, but quickened his pace at the last flight, to prove to himself that he was in perfect condition. At the end of it he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t wait to get his breath back, but tapped sharply on the frosted glass door marked:
Mildmay’s
Stationery—Office Equipment
Head Office and Works: Bridgnorth
Typewriters clicked; that was the only sound. He opened the door, and saw three girls, two of them at typewriters, one at an open ledger; the girl at the ledger looked up, the others gave him a swift, curious glance and went on with their job. There was a way to sense the efficiency at a glimpse; and he saw it here. The office was small and immaculate, as bright as it could be.
It overlooked the rabbit warren of the new catacombs.
The girl at the ledger stood up, and gave him a formal smile.
“Good morning. Can I help you?”
“Is Mr. Netherby in?”
“Have you an appointment, sir?”
“No.” He slid out his card. “Ask him to see me, will you?”
The girl looked at the card, then glanced at him sharply; and what she felt somehow conveyed itself to the typists; there was a momentary pause in the startlingly swift tapping of the keys. One of the typists was a beauty in her way; with fluffy fair hair, china blue eyes, a white silk blouse which was meant to draw the male eye.
“I won’t keep you a moment,” the first girl said.
The china blue eyes were turned away.
Although there was only one door beyond the counter, it had the name H. J. Netherby, London Manager, on it. The girl disappeared, the door closed silently, and shut out all but a murmur of sound. In a moment the girl came back; all her movements had that brisk efficiency that the typists showed; and they were still working at furious speed.
“Mr. Netherby will be glad to see you, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Netherby was getting up from behind a large, flat topped desk. He sat with his back to the window, and to St. Paul’s. In spite of that, his fresh complexion reminded Roger of Sol Riddle, but nothing else did. This man was red and round faced, small, unsmiling; he wasn’t ugly, but he certainly wasn’t handsome. He had the high colour, which looked almost fiery, of some florid man. He made no oiler to shake hands, but indicated a chair with his left hand.
Roger didn’t notice anything odd, then.
“Thank you,” he said. “Sorry to worry you, Mr. Netherby, but I’ve urgent and confidential business.”
“I shall be glad to help,” Netherby said, in a precise voice; he gave the impression of being a man who rehearsed everything carefully; who seldom acted without giving thought to what he was going to do and what its likely consequences would be. “Not that I can understand how I can be of assistance, Chief Inspector” – he glanced down at the card – “West.”
“You employ a Mr. Michael Mallow, I believe.”
In anyone else, the reaction might have been much more marked. In this man it was little more than a lift of very fair eyebrows, and a momentary gleam, perhaps of surprise, in the pale eyes.
“He is employed by my company, Mr. West. I simply take care of the London and southern business of the company. I might say, more exactly, that I supervise the orders which are obtained by our London and southern representatives. Mr. Michael Mallow represents us in a section of the south of England marked—if you will be good enough to turn your head—with the letter D.”
Roger turned his head.
A map of the southern half of England was spread over much of the wall behind him. It was divided into about a dozen sections, each pastel washed a different colour, each with a large letter superimposed on it. That marked D was inside a segment starting from Croydon and widening as it reached the coast; Hoole was about the middle of the coastline it covered.
“In what way does Mr. Mallow interest Scotland Yard?” asked Netherby.
His expression and his tone were completely without emotion, almost without interest. In a curious way, his movements seemed laboured and stiff. Now Roger saw something which had missed him before.
Netherby’s gloved right hand was resting on the desk, the fingers and thumb were crooked; the left was out of sight. The pose was so realistic that it deceived Roger at the first glance. The glove was of shiny black leather, without a wrinkle.
“You’ll understand if I don’t answer that directly,” Roger said; he felt and sounded formal. Netherby probably had a machine like efficiency, but wasn’t likely ev
er to become a man to know and to like. “I’ll be grateful if you will tell me whether you know if Mr. Mallow has had any particular anxiety lately.”
Netherby said: “I know of no personal trouble, unless you mean financial.”
“I mean anything that affects him personally.”
“Very well,” said Netherby. “In that case, yes, I can give you a little confidential information.” He paused. “I had asked Mr. Mallow to come and see me this morning, so as to give him an opportunity to explain certain peculiarities in his financial transactions with the company. He has chosen to ignore the invitation. It must be understood, of course, that anything I tell you is in complete confidence, and should not be regarded as in the nature of a formal charge until further information is forthcoming and the instructions of my Head Office have been received.”
“That’s understood.”
What was coming next, Roger wondered. A serious charge, or a trifle? Netherby gave the impression that he would be as greatly concerned with an offence against the letter of the law as with a major crime. He had Mallow all sewn up and ready, and although he pretended to a certain reluctance, he probably derived an almost sadistic pleasure.
“Thank you. The matter is of some gravity, Mr. West. Certain inconsistencies in Mr. Mallow’s order book have come to light. It is the custom of my company to assist its employees in every way possible. Some weeks ago Mr. Mallow asked for and obtained a substantial cash advance on commission due to him for sales made for future delivery during the past three months. Normally the commission would be paid quarterly; on this occasion the sum of a hundred and three pounds nine shillings was paid against commission supposedly due on fictitious—in fact, forged—orders.”
Netherby paused, and moved his left hand an inch or two, almost as if it were feeling stiff.
“I had occasion to discuss the delivery of the order of one company, Morris & Son of Hoole, and discovered that the size of the order had been grossly exaggerated.” Netherby gave a thin smile. “I use that word advisedly. The original order was for seventy five pounds worth of goods, the presented order was for one hundred and seventy five pounds worth. Having found proof of the one discrepancy, I checked on others, and have reason to suspect that there have been several. I have little doubt that evidence will be forthcoming. I imagine that a prosecution will be made, although, of course, I cannot prophesy the attitude of my company.”
He stopped, still quite expressionless.
“How far back is the first alleged fraud?” Roger asked.
“Eighteen months, just prior to Christmas the year before last,” said Netherby promptly.
“May I see the altered orders?”
“You may,” said Netherby. “I have them in my drawer, under my personal supervision.”
He leaned back, and so brought his other hand into view. He used it, working the finger and the thumb with slow, fascinating deliberation.
He handled a fat manila folder of papers without dexterity, but not clumsily; it was like watching a mechanical claw in action at the end of a man’s arm.
Roger looked out of the window.
It was odd that he should be within sight of the searching police. It was somehow dispiriting to know that Mallow was now known to have been cheating his employers, although this was further evidence of Mallow’s desperate financial plight. If Mallow had known of a hoard of stolen money—
“Here you are, Mr. West,” Netherby said.
Roger looked through the orders. Some were probably genuine, others showed clearly, under a magnifying glass, that they had been altered. The Norris of Hoole order was more obvious than any.
“Do you know why the alteration in Norris’s order is so large?” asked Roger. “It could hardly fail to be noticed.”
Netherby showed his milk white teeth.
“It is not my duty to guess, Mr. West, but it may have something to do with the fact that Mallow is a friend of Norris, and may expect to be able to persuade him to keep quiet,” Netherby said. “Are you satisfied now?”
“For the time being, yes.” Roger stood up. “Thank you. May I take these orders?”
Netherby put a hand on the folder slowly, closed it, and said deliberately: “If you produce a written request from the proper authority, yes, Mr. West. Failing that, I must keep them at the disposal of my company.”
Roger couldn’t argue; and it really didn’t matter whether he liked Netherby or not.
“I’ll arrange the authority,” he said.
He was already planning to go deeper into Mallow’s defalcations here; a job for subordinates. Yet it all seemed unimportant, almost unreal. The urgent thing was to find Daphne Mallow—
To tell her what a rogue she’d married.
The police were working slowly out there among the ruins, giving no sign that they’d had results.
Chapter Seventeen
The Trail Of Michael Mallow
Roger West pulled up on one of the small plots of level ground, near the new catacombs, and got out; Wortleberry squeezed himself out on the other side. He looked hot; thick grey Harris tweeds weren’t right for the day. He kept wiping his forehead, too, and then looked up at St. Paul’s as if he couldn’t believe that he was actually standing within a stone’s throw of it.
Roger left his radio switched on, and a man near it. They walked precariously towards the spot where a group of police were searching. There were more than the previous night; firemen were helping, too. No one knew that the spot they sought was a hundred yards from the nearer group; a spot in the shadow of a wall which they might reach today if they kept going at the same pace.
Two or three boys were climbing over the walls in the distance, kicking up dust, standing every now and again and watching the police. They were scornfully oblivious of the danger sign. One of them started to throw stones at a little remnant of a wall which stuck up like a stump of a tooth in an octogenarian’s mouth. The rattling sound as the stones pitched came clearly. The police took no notice, except at a distance, and the boys didn’t venture too close.
Newspaper men did; there were half a dozen of them, and they came hurrying when they spotted Roger.
“’Morning, Handsome.”
“Got anything for us?”
“That true, Mallow’s been released?”
“Seriously think his wife’s here, Handsome?”
Roger seized on that one.
“We know she was here last night, she hasn’t been seen to leave, and we’re not taking any chances. But we know Ginn’s dangerous, too. He might have had a chance to get away before all the publicity, but now he knows he hasn’t.”
“He’s the type who’ll die fighting in a corner, isn’t he?” a man asked.
“Could be.”
“Can we quote you?”
“No.”
“You don’t think he’ll get away?”
“He can’t get away. All the ports, airfields, and stations are being watched. Every police station and every newspaper in the country will have a copy of his photograph before the day’s out. His will be on television tonight; so will Mrs. Mallow’s. We’re using everything we’ve got to find Mrs. Mallow.”
“Think he’ll do her more harm?”
“It’s an obvious risk.”
“Think she’s dead?”
“I just hope not.”
“Pretty free with your spiel this morning, Handsome, aren’t you?” one of the men asked, grinning.
“When publicity will help, I’m all for publicity!” Roger grinned back. He looked better, because he was active again; and Wortleberry had helped. Mallow’s release was another cause for hope; and the chief one was that he would find Mrs. Mallow alive. “Here’s something off the record,” he added, and didn’t trouble to emphasise that it was “off ”; they would respect it. “Superintendent Wortleberry of the Hoole Constabulary found the rock with which a man at Hoole was probably battered to death.”
Six pairs of eyes switched to Wortleberry.
> Roger was half sorry he’d said it, but then had a surprise. Wortleberry positively glowed. He was good with the Press, too; mild, almost benign, friendly. What was more, he enjoyed his impromptu Press conference.
Roger stifled a laugh.
The man by his car signalled.
He left Wortleberry to the Fleet Street men, and hurried back.
“Radio for you, sir.”
“Thanks.” There was always the hope that it would be really big news. He grabbed the receiver. “West speaking.”
“Two flashes, Mr. West,” said a man in the Information Room at the Yard. “First, a message from Bradding, down at Hoole. He’s found several reddish human hairs on the corner of an oak beam at Reedon’s cottage—a beam at the half landing, the report says. They’re longish hairs, four or five inches, and curly. A man’s, almost for certain, very coarse.”
“Red hair,” Roger echoed. “Good, thanks. What’s next?”
“Report from Appleby, sir, who’s following Michael Mallow. When Mallow turned into Parliament Street, a newsboy—middle aged chap, sir—got up and followed him to Trafalgar Square. Then Mallow went to a telephone. So did the other man. Both made calls, one from a public box, one from a tobacconist’s. The newsboy’s still following Mallow, sir. Appleby is following both, and Oddy’s covering. Oddy passed this on through a man on the beat, sir.”
“Fine. Which way are they heading?”
“For the City, sir.”
“Could be the East End,” Roger remarked. “Walking, or by bus?”
“Walking, sir.”
“Thanks,” Roger said, and rang off.
He felt a simmering of excitement based on new hope. Why had Mallow telephoned anyone so quickly – and who? He must know that he was being watched; and Ginn would realise that he would be, too.
That drove Roger back to the basic question: why had Ginn been so anxious to have Mallow free? Which really meant, why was Ginn so sure that Mallow had the stolen money?
Roger went over Mallow’s story item by item; then over the known facts, including the fifty one pounds which had been sent to Daphne Mallow anonymously, and in an envelope with that unidentified man’s finger prints.
