Black Eye
A Johnny Black Mystery
Neville Steed
© Neville Steed 1989
Neville Steed has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1989 by George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Limited.
This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
To Lily with love
Table of Contents
Introduction
John Black, né Smith
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Introduction
Around two years ago, a considerable collection of old, hand-written manuscripts were discovered hidden in the attic of a most attractive thatched house situated near the small village of Staverton in South Devon.
On inspection, these papers were seen to be the intriguing personal record of a certain John Black, né Smith, who in 1937 had started a small detective agency in the fashionable resort of Torquay on Britain’s Riviera coast.
The papers had been neatly divided into sections, boxed and labelled. Each box contained John Black’s personal account of a particular case his detective agency, called, aptly enough, Black Eye, had undertaken. The following memoir details the first of many involved and very often dangerous assignments undertaken by this extraordinary man, who went to such pains to record his own feats and feelings, yet, seemingly, had no intention of releasing his dramatic and absorbing record to the outside world. Or, maybe, as has happened to others, successive British governments have actively prevented publication for reasons of their own.
Despite extensive enquiries, it has proved impossible to trace John Black’s whereabouts or history after October 1950, when he apparently left South Devon suddenly and without explanation. It was assumed then that he went to live abroad. However, there is considerable speculation that he could be the John Smith whose knighthood was announced in the 1955 New Year’s Honours List. The citation at the time ran, ‘For distinguished service on behalf of Her Majesty’s Foreign Office’, which some commentators have since read as a useful cover for secret service activities on behalf of M15 or M16.
However, no known public record reveals Mr Smith having actually received his knighthood at the hands of the Queen. For, as already stated, all positive records of John Black/Smith seem to have terminated abruptly in the autumn of 1950. Where he might be now, whether he is still alive, whether he was, for reasons only perhaps to be found in the most holy of files of Britain’s secret services, forced to adopt a whole new identity, will probably never be known.
John Black, né Smith
Only known facts
Born John Smith, 1910, in Croydon, Surrey. Middle-class, suburban background. His father was an assistant secretary in the Board of Education and his mother, according to some letters from one who knew her, ‘was a colossal snob’ and ‘affected a lifestyle way above her husband’s means’. Prep school education, followed by minor public school.
Father was knocked down and killed by a get-away car driven by robbers raiding the Croydon branch of Barclays Bank. The tragedy seems to have been one of the triggers for John Smith’s interest in crime detection. A subsequent flying friend of his has described how John Smith was an avid reader of all crime fiction, from Hammett and Chandler to Christie, Sayers, Conan-Doyle, A.E.W. Mason, et al. Also great fan of private eye films in the cinema.
It would seem that lack of money on his father’s death forced John to leave school at just seventeen. His mother arranged for him to be articled to her brother, who was an accountant in Torquay, Devon. But he quit after only eighteen months, hating the dreariness of the world of accountancy, but loving the countryside of Devon.
His mother then despatched him to her late husband’s brother in Kenya, where one who remembers his four years there recounts he discovered girls and flying, but developed a strong dislike for the colonial way of life.
Then twenty-two, John Smith returned to England a qualified pilot. He became a flying instructor at Denham, but sometime later he was badly injured in a plane crash caused by a careless student. Inevitably, his injuries caused him to lose his pilot’s licence and for the next three years, he seems to have tried his hand at a variety of jobs. These range from flying club administration, to helping out an old school friend, the Hon. Peter Courtenay, who raced at Brooklands, to playing odd roles on the provincial stage, and acting as an extra in several Korda films being made at Denham.
Ultimately, he seems at the age of twenty-seven to have changed both his name and his lifestyle. With some money he had won on the Grand National, he moved back to Devon, became John Black (according to one source, it was originally Black-Smith, but he soon dropped the Smith), bought a dilapidated cottage in Dartington, and set up a modest detective agency called Black Eye in Torquay.
The fortunes and misfortunes of this agency form the substance of the many manuscripts discovered in the attic in Staverton, and cover the ten years 1937 — 1947.
One
May 1937
I heard it coming even above the rattle, tinkle and phut of my Austin Seven. And, hell’s bells, it was low. The black shadow of its tapering wings licked across my hands on the steering wheel, as if asking why I wasn’t up there, at the controls of a sleek DH96, instead of a battered Austin Chummy.
I cocked a covetous eye at its biplane beauty, as it winged its way on towards its undoubted destination — Plymouth. At the head-skimming height the Railway Air Services airliner was flying, it must have made a request stop at Haldon; quite a common occurrence these days on its regular route from the North via Cardiff. I guess there will come a time when British airlines will get so big, they just won’t bother to make request stops any more. They will get like the railways who own them — as cold and impersonal as the steel rails on which their stock runs. Roll back the day.
The thick Austin Seven wheel shuddered in my hand, as if to jerk my head down out of the clouds and back to reality, which was that I was well and truly pegged to the ground these days. All thanks to a dear pupil of mine who, after only two hours of instruction, had decided that flying was a doddle and the guy in the rear cockpit was only there for ballast. Well, he doddled himself down into an instant grave and me into the lingering death of never again being able to pass a pilot’s medical. For some crazy reason, the quacks didn’t go for a damaged eye, a slightly shortened leg and collapsed lung. And they closed their earth-bound ears to my impassioned pleas that I could still fly an aeroplane with under half the physical equipment the crash had left intact. The dreaded truth is that they would rather pass an A1 twit, who has less feeling for flying than your average mole, than a C3 guy, even though he may have aviation fuel for blood and still be able to fly a Puss Moth between his girlfriend’s legs without either wingtip laddering her stockings. Hey ho.
I corrected the shimmy on the steering and rattled on. The day was hot. Soon my radiator cap started to steam like the Riviera Express and spewed spots of rusty water back onto the windscreen like measles. I calculated that I would just make the car dump before every drop of H20 was red hot dust. I was right.
Bobby Briggs’ head popped up from the greasy entrails of a terminal Ford Model A. From the hiss of steam from my Austin, I guess he must have thought a traction engine had just pulled in.
All he said was, ‘Oh, it’s only you.’
I scissored out of the Chummy without opening the door. The steam was a bad enough advertisement for my car, without the scrap-dealer knowing the body was so rotten that once the door was opened, the rest of the coachwork seemed to want to close over the hole.
Briggs put down his spanner and strode over.
‘That it?’
I nodded. ‘‘29 model.’
A mischievous grin came over his bulldog features, which always looked as if he had just slammed into a wall.
‘Didn’t know they made cars in 1829.’
‘It’s the only one,’ I offered. Well, what else could I say over the hiss of still escaping steam?
He walked right round the car, seemingly in two strides, then kicked a front wheel. It gave some fifteen degrees but I noticed the steering wheel didn’t turn an iota. Needless to say he spotted it too.
‘How many days’ notice d’you ‘ave to give it to change direction?’
‘Depends if it’s raining,’ I said.
He put a greasy bulldog paw on my shoulder and laughed. ‘All right, Johnny. Tell you what, I won’t charge you a penny to take if off you.’
‘Thanks for nothing, Bobby.’ I extended my arm towards the drunkenly leaning stacks of junked and half dismembered cars that stretched almost as far as the eye could see. Whatever you say, my Austin’s better than ninety-nine per cent of the rubbish you’ve got here.’
‘Ah, but you’re forgetting something. Not much pickings on an Austin Seven. Not enough to it.’
He steered me over to the lopsided hulk of a 1932 Humber Snipe that looked as if it had been hit by a train.
‘Now, a nice big car like this, there’s plenty of pickings, ain’t there? Makes me money on the pickings, not on the carcase.’
He dug me in the ribs. ‘Car-case,’ he repeated, his grin displaying his disdain of dentists. ‘Good, that. Car-case — pickings ...’
I forced a grin. I didn’t want to upset Bobby Briggs. And not just because we hadn’t, as yet, clinched any deal. For the good will and knowledge of people like the scrap dealer I recognised might be of untold value in my newly minted profession. But no. That wasn’t really the reason either. I just sort of liked the man, rogue though he might be. I’d liked his blunt manner and even excused his appalling sense of humour, from the very first moment I’d met him via the barman in Torquay’s Imperial Hotel. That’s why I had come all the way over to his yard that morning. Better the devil you know, horns and all.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Forget my Austin for a second and let me see your offering.’
I looked around the chaos of the yard, but could not see anything approaching the streamlined contours of my quest. I looked round at him sharply.
‘You haven’t sold it, have you?’
He patted my back reassuringly. That would be some more grease marks for the cleaners.
‘What d’you think? I’d get Johnny Black out here on a wild goose chase?’ He winked his eye as subtly as he slammed a bonnet and propelled me further into the mangled maze of machines.
‘Wouldn’t dare disappoint you now, Johnny, case I might need your services one day.’ He sniffed and went on, ‘Never know in my business. Get some queer customers sometimes. That’s why I let my dogs loose when I lock up at night. Sometimes I think I need them in the ruddy daytime too.’
I looked round nervously, but to my relief there was no sign of the meanest brace of curs this side of Jack London’s imagination.
But there was still no sign of the voluptuous curves I had come to appraise, though we were now back from the road by at least ten ranks of tangled transport towers. He read my concern.
‘Not far now. Just behind the concertina-ed Airflow and that big Morris on its side. Daren’t have put it in sight of the road. Be ‘alf-inched, even if I had a million dogs.’
He stopped, blocking my path.
‘Looks a million dollars now.’ Smiling gleefully, like a child, he went on, ‘Even got its original whitewalls. Never know it had been out of the showroom, let alone in a pile-up.’
I returned his smile. ‘Going to let me see it now?’
He hesitated, as if he were afraid I might not match his excitement. ‘If you don’t want it, I’ll keep it for myself.’
I waved my hand. He led on. And there it was. Just like on the silver screen. Only better — it was in full glorious colour. Cream to be exact. A deep, rich cream, which the whitewall tyres only highlighted. Red leather glinted richly through a window. Biplane bumper blades dazzled in the sun. Bullet shaped headlights hugged the slimmest of slim grilles. The only thing missing was William Powell as the Thin Man, suavely at the wheel.
I took a deep breath. I was in love. Madly in love with a lady called La Salle.
*
Briggs waved a current copy of Autocar at me.
‘Look for yourself, Johnny. Going rate for a ’29 Tourer is twelve to fourteen oncers. And that’s in good nick, mind you. One like yours outside can’t fetch more than a tenner of anybody’s ruddy money.’
I looked around his so-called office — a wooden hut nestling amidst the metal mountains — to give me time to think. My recent win on the Grand National, after I had paid the first three months’ rent on my tiny office in Torquay, kitted it out and bought an eighth-hand typewriter, did not really stretch to big American cars, even if they were at knock down prices because they had been insurance write-offs. But I knew, somehow, I just had to have that La Salle, even if I had to give up eating to get it. I turned back to him.
‘Look, Bob, impressive as it looks now, you can’t get away from the fact that the La Salle has made love to a tree on the A303 and nearly killed its Cuban owner. You’ve bent it back into pretty good shape, I’ll admit, but a write-off is still a write-off and not everyone’s idea of motoring heaven.’
He sat back in his seat, that I recognised as from an old Austin 12-4. He steepled his fingers and lifted his small but all-seeing eyes to the ceiling.
‘Knew that before you came, didn’t you, Johnny Boy?’
‘Granted. But I did not know what you’d be asking for it. I too flipped through the pages of Autocar and Motor in Smith’s before I came. Going price for a non-crashed ‘34 La Salle is around £285-£300. So your £250 is a mite steep.’
He leaned forward towards me with a ‘Tell you what’ expression on his face.
‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘I’ll do myself an injury just for you, Johnny. Straight deal. Two hundred nicker, it’s yours. You’d be mad to turn it down. That La Salle will do more for your new private eye business than any ruddy office or eye fluttering secretary. Admit it, Johnny.’34 model it may be, but its lines ...’ His hands outlined the shape, as if he were describing a Hollywood starlet. Why, it still makes other motors look as if Noah ruddy made ‘em. Admit it, Johnny. That La Salle is the next best thing to flying.’
Briggs had tried the sucker punch and struck home. The test run in the La Salle had been almost as smooth as flight and the sense of power ... I did some mental arithmetic yet again. It still came out the same way. I was at least fifty pounds short, even without eating, drinking, switching on a light or wearing shoes.
I sighed a sepulchral sigh.
‘I’ll take it,’ I said, but then added quickly, ‘Hundred down, fifty in a month, ten bob a week for six months.’
He sucked on a greasy knuckle. ‘Still leaves twenty five.’
‘Credit note. A Black Eye credit note for twenty-five-pounds worth of investigative services, that can be taken in dribs and drabs or all at once and, what’s more, credit with no time limit attached.’
He plucked his knuckle from his mouth to point a finger at me.
‘Hundred down, fifty in a month, fifteen bob a week for six months and a tenner’s worth of services.’
I gave his proposition deep thought and it was at least one and a half seconds before I replied.
‘Done,’ I said.
We shook on
it and he held onto my hand, whilst he added, ‘Won’t let me down, will you Johnny?’
I shook my head. Not really in reply, but in desperation. I could hardly afford to run the Austin Seven, let alone an eight-cylinder La Salle coupe the length of a tennis court.
Briggs looked at his watch.
‘Well, I’d better be off,’ he said, ‘seeing as how I need a nice motor for myself now that I’m not keeping that beauty of yours.’
He opened the door of the hut for me. I blinked against the sun.
‘Got one in mind?’
‘Yeah. Nice sporting number. Almost no mileage neither.’
‘MG?’
‘No. Frazer-Nash.’
I raised my eyebrows. Frazer-Nashes were not exactly thick on the ground. In fact, I had only heard of one in the whole area and that one ... I suddenly whirled round to face him.
‘You don’t mean — ?’ I began, but he cut me off.
‘I do, Johnny, I do. Knew he’d be bound to sell it, once the inquest was over. No one likes to keep a car that’s gone and killed a nearest and dearest, now do they?’
Two
A rap at my door startled me. I looked up from my Aeroplane magazine and was about to stow it away in my desk, when I recognised the silhouette behind the glass door. I relaxed.
‘Come in, Babs.’
She came in. Her baby blue eyes shone with excitement.
‘Have you seen what’s outside?’ she breathed, and ran over to the window.
‘Torquay harbour,’ I offered. ‘A Guernsey freighter, two trawlers, twenty-two smaller craft and the tip of a mast sticking out of the water. I’ve counted them three times already.’
She double-took, then her Cupid’s bow mouth untied itself into a grin.
‘No, Johnny, no. I mean, have you seen what’s outside?’
‘Torq —’ I began again, but she cut in.
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