by John Creasey
Chang’s smile became broader, perhaps grew a little tense.
“It is a pity,” he said carefully. “I have always liked to be friends with the police. And I shall always be ready to be friends, Mr. Superintendent, but now you talk in hostile mysteries. How can I help?”
“You can’t help yourself or us,” Gideon declared flatly. “You’ve gone too far.” He got up and moved toward the door, wondering whether to use his only bullet or whether to keep it. He used it: “Who was that woman in here just now?”
“My visitor?” Chang was not even slightly perturbed. “A charming lady, one Mrs. Addinson. She is a painter who would have liked to paint the walls of the club but” – he gave a charming little shrug – “she would also like too much money.” He moved toward Gideon, finger tips touching. “So nice to have seen you again, Mr. Superintendent. I hope soon we shall be friends once more.”
The smell of paint was almost overpowering on the landing. The lanky painter had lit a fresh cigarette, and seemed to be pouring thinners into a tin of paint. The Pole was slapping distemper onto the ceiling, standing on a square packing case in order to reach up. Gideon didn’t look at Chang again, but went deliberately downstairs, glanced into the kitchen, was escorted to the street door by the grinning youth, whose hands still hid themselves beneath the snow-white apron.
Gideon walked back to his car. The policeman was at hand eager to be of help.
“Have you seen Birdy Merrick about today?” asked Gideon.
“No, sir, haven’t set eyes on him.”
“Well, if you do, tell him to keep out of Chang’s reach for a bit,” said Gideon. “Noticed anything unusual at Chang’s today?”
“Well—in a way, sir.”
“What way?”
“He had a visitor – a nice-looking young lady, sir. He often has visitors, but not that kind and they don’t usually come in the morning, they’re night birds. Saw her at his window. She’s left now, sir.”
“Hmm. Thanks. Anything else?”
“No, sir, but then I’ve been on my rounds most of the time.”
“Any friends round here who might know what’s going on at Chang’s?”
“I think I could get someone to tell us, sir.”
“Get them to, will you? Who left Chang’s place this morning after eleven o’clock, say. Especially anyone with a tough reputation. Chang knows plenty of them.”
The constable said worriedly: “They usually come at night, sir. It’s not easy to recognize them.”
“We’re looking for the exception,” said Gideon, and smiled to encourage. “Always worth trying. G’by.”
He got in his car, but didn’t drive off immediately. Instead, he picked up the radiotelephone, flicked it on, waited for the humming sound to tell him it was alive, then called the Yard. The man who answered from the Information Room knew his voice.
“Yes, sir, two messages for you. One of the three men who tried to rob a mail van at Liverpool Street Station this morning is under charge, being brought to the Yard now, sir, should be here in ten minutes or so. The child found dead in Hatherley Court, London, W.1 was murdered – strangled and interfered with, sir. Chief Inspector Suter has gone over there, and will report as soon as he’s had a look around. That’s all, sir.”
‘’Hmm,” said Gideon. His nose was wrinkled, his mouth turned down at the corners. Most men had a secret horror, his was of men who could first ravage and then kill a child. Nothing, not even the Changs with their dope and devilry, could make him see red so quickly, and as always, he distrusted himself when he saw red. “All right, I’ll come straight back.”
“Very good, sir.”
Gideon started off. At the corners, men and women loitered. The first of the pros were beginning their ambling, more people were in the shops, a brewer’s dray with a big engine instead of the horses of yesteryear stood outside a pub while barrels were dropped down the chute into the cellar. A normal enough scene.
Gideon began to feel angry about that child and sour because he couldn’t go straight to see Florence Foster. She had to be told about her brother, the job would be left to the Yard, and he couldn’t see anyone else doing it willingly. He found himself thinking again that if he hadn’t torn Foster to shreds in the office, it might not have happened. It was that blurry hunch – the kind of thing he’d dress Lemaitre down for, but there it was. The Square Mile was his beat, and some pulsating sixth sense told him that this wasn’t the time to go for Chang, but the time to start’ squeezing. When you squeezed a slug, it was surprising what oozed out. Chang with his diffident smile, his charm, his courtesy and his grace, with as foul a mind—
Gideon slid through the traffic and began to argue with himself.
Half the trouble with men like Chang, whether they were Chinese, English or American – it didn’t matter what nationality they were – was that they had no sense of doing wrong. They were as the slave traders had been a century ago, as the white slavers of North Africa were today. To them, nothing was sacred, nothing inviolate. He knew of a dozen men, respected, wealthy, perfectly honest by overt legal standards, who rejected all moral values.
Foster had said the thing all these would say: if girls didn’t get dope from Chang, they would get it from someone else. So it was no crime to make money out of giving it to them. Orientals especially seemed to lack a sense of morality, but hell, some of them were pretty strict in applying moral rules to their own families. That wasn’t the point. The point, Gideon decided as he turned carefully into the gateway of Scotland Yard, was that most Eastern countries bred a lot of callousness; the people were fatalists, and if they came to England and turned against the law they were deadly because usually they had good minds and no scruples.
“Something,” Gideon said suddenly and aloud, “in a Christian civilization.” And then he scowled. “Still, what about Foster?”
He parked the car with more room to spare, and went up the steps. If he cared to count the number of times a week he went up those steps, he would be astounded. Some Superintendents spent most of their time at the desk; some people said he didn’t spend enough. He didn’t trouble about the lift, but went up the stairs two at a time, nodding at the many who passed him. His own office was empty, a disappointment. Before he sat down, he pressed a bell for a sergeant. Then he dropped heavily into his chair, and squinted down at a pencilled note Lemaitre had left:
“Mail job man’s talking, main waiting room. Lem.”
There was a tap at the door and a sergeant in plain clothes came in, absurdly young in Gideon’s eyes.
“Yes, sir?”
“Get the Secretary’s file on Detective Sergeant Foster, will you? Put it on my desk. Check whether his sister Florence still lives with him. Lived. If she has a place of her own, find out where it is, find out where she worked, what she does. Don’t take too much time about it. See if you can pick up anything from the other sergeants in Foster’s office.”
“I could put up a bit myself, sir.”
Gideon, looking through other messages as he talked, glanced up into grey, eager eyes.
“All right, Miller, what?”
“Still lives – lived – with his sister, sir. I was on a job with him two days ago, he was moan—he was saying that he would have to get a place of his own; his sister didn’t like his off-duty hours. He was a bit tetchy. I gathered he’d had a row with her.”
“Hmm. Anything else?”
“They live Chelsea way.”
“Yes. Check everything you can, thanks, Miller. If I’m wanted I’ll be in the waiting room with that mail-van chap.” Gideon nodded and hurried out, thinking of the Fosters quarrelling and Flo Foster’s (Addinson’s) surprise, and a man who’d tried to rob a mail van being in a talkative mood.
The main waiting room was on the floor below. Gideon was there in thirty seconds, and opened the door briskly. He heard the words of a man speaking in a cultured voice: “… I tell you that’s all I know!”
The speaker was youn
g, probably in his late teens. Take away his thin mouth, and he would be a nice-looking lad, with fair, curly hair, cornflower blue eyes, a look of innocence; full of a kind of charm, like Chang. As he stared at the door, he looked scared, and caught his breath sharply at sight of Gideon’s burly figure. Lemaitre and two sergeants were in the room with the youth; one was from Liverpool Street, the other a Yard man taking notes. The youth was neatly dressed, well groomed.
“Anything?” asked Gideon.
“Nothing that won’t bear repeating,” Lemaitre said, “and I should say he’s conveniently forgetting a hell of a lot.”
“That’s a lie!” the youth burst out.
“All right, calm down,” said Gideon. He looked at the prisoner’s fingers, stained dark with nicotine, then at the thin, unsteady mouth, and wondered when Lemaitre was going to grow up. He took out a fat, old-fashioned silver cigarette case and proffered it; the youth grabbed, as some kids would grab a reefer. He snatched a lighter out of his pocket.
“Thanks.” He drew fiercely.
“That’s all right,” said Gideon, “no need to get steamed up, it won’t make any difference, and if you play your cards right you’ll probably get off more lightly than you deserve. Mind telling me all about it again?”
In the pause which followed, he glanced at the sergeant’s notebook, and read the name: Lionel Tenby.
“Well, Tenby,” he went on, in an almost comforting way. “What about it?”
“I’ve told them!” The words came with a rush, a spate followed. “I don’t know the names of the others, it was all laid on by telephone. They knew I could drive a damned sight better than most chaps, so they paid me twenty-five quid to do this job for them. All I had to do was to drive up in front of the van and wait until they told me to get a move on.”
“Payment in advance?” asked Gideon.
“Yes.” Tenby’s gaze flickered toward a table where oddments lay in neat array: a pocket watch, a comb, wallet, keys, silver coins, copper coins and a small wad of one-pound notes.
Gideon’s hopes began to fade; this wasn’t the first time they’d caught a very small sprat.
“And you didn’t know them?”
“No.”
“Pity. What else?”
“I asked them how they knew it would be worth doing, and they said that someone had tipped them the wink,” Tenby declared. The cigarette was nearly finished, and he seemed to look at it anxiously, as if nervous of what he would feel like when he had to stub it out.
“Tip from where?” asked Gideon.
“How the devil should I know?”
“Hmm,” said Gideon. Yes, it was disappointing; if things went on like this, it was going to be an unsatisfactory day. “All right, get that statement typed out, sergeant. Have Tenby read it and if he agrees that it’s what he said, have him sign it.” He looked at Tenby patiently. “But don’t sign it and then start squealing to the magistrate that it isn’t what you said. If you’re not satisfied, write it out yourself in longhand.”
Tenby winced, because the cigarette, now burned very low, stung his fingers.
Gideon gave him another.
“Throw the stub in the fireplace,” he said. “You can have some cigarettes; it’ll be deducted from any money belonging to you. Fix it, sergeant.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anyone you want to know about this?” Gideon asked sharply.
Tenby’s eyes glistened; he was very young and he wasn’t one of the bad ones – just a young fool.
“No.”
“Girl friend? Parents?”
“No!”
“Been in before on a charge?”
“No, I—I wish to God I’d never listened to those swine! I’d dropped a bit on the gees, and—” he broke off, biting his lips. Bring his mother into the room at this moment, and he would burst into tears, Gideon surmised.
“Well, listen,” Gideon said, “your relations have got to know, and it’s better from us than from the press; you won’t get much change out of the press. Let us tell your parents or the girl friend, and have them—”
“I said no!”
“All right. Let him suffer. Come on, Lem,” Gideon said, and led the way out. “Not much there,” he added almost absently, “the story we’ve had a dozen times before. The P.O. people pick their drivers well. Like to know if it’s directed by one man or not, there’s a lot of similarity. When he’s calmed down a bit, get repeat descriptions of the two men. Play him soft, though. Get hold of his people, if you can, and let them come and see him here. Mother, preferably. Blurry young fool.” He changed the subject but didn’t alter his tone of voice. “Hear about the Mayfair flat job?”
“Nine-year-old kid,” said Lemaitre. “I could tell you what I’d do to them if I had my way.”
“Thing that worries me with those jobs is the risk of another,” Gideon said. “We really want to bring the house down after the chap.”
“I’ll say!”
“I’d better go along to the Back Room,” Gideon said, as if he wasn’t quite sure. “The press will be on their toes. If they play up the child murder and the frustrated mail-van robbery, they won’t have much room for anything else.” They were at a corner, where they would go different ways. “Saw Chang, by the way. Smooth as ever, denies everything.” He didn’t say anything about Flo Foster (Addinson), “And the clubroom there is being redecorated. The smell of paint and distemper makes sure that no one with a sensitive nose could ever pick out the marijuana they’ve been smoking.”
“You know what you’ve done, don’t you?” Lemaitre said, with a sniff.
“What?”
“Driven Chang somewhere else. It won’t stop the kids from getting the weed, and—”
“Nearest thing I know to a certainty is that Chang won’t do anything he shouldn’t for some time,”
Gideon asserted, marvelling that Lemaitre should think anything different. What limitations even able men had! “We could draw all our dogs off him and he’d still behave like a learner priest, what-do-you-call-’em? Acolyte, isn’t it? It’s beginning to look as if he did hear from Foster, and got a move on. Might have had a row with Foster, though, and so made Foster walk across the road in a rage, not looking. Nobody ever thinks they could be knocked down in a street accident.”
“The car didn’t stop,” Lemaitre insisted. “Don’t you want to believe that—”
Gideon was suddenly sharp; almost harsh.
“No,” he said bluntly. “No, I don’t want to believe that Chang had Foster killed. I don’t want to think that Foster knew so much about Chang that it was worth killing him. But that’s probably what happened, and if it is we’ll get the killer and we’ll get Chang!” He switched abruptly. “Any news in?”
“We’ve picked up a girl typist who was looking out of the window and says she saw it happen. She was on her own, her boss was out, and when she saw someone come along the street to Foster’s help, she just sat back.”
Gideon flashed: “Any squeal of brakes?”
“Eh?”
“Did she hear—never mind, where is she?”
“On her way here.”
“Oh, good,” said Gideon, “that’s fine. By the way, there’s a painter chap at Chang’s, very thin, six feet one or two, thin, big Adam’s apple, watery eyes, probably blind or half blind in the right, it’s hazed over. Flat-footed, and pretty sly. I’d like his name and address and anything we can find out about him There’s a copper on duty over there, P.C. 10952; he seemed to have his head screwed on the right way and he’s finding out if anything worth knowing happened at Chang’s this morning. Send someone out to have a word with him about this painter.”
“Okay,” said Lemaitre.
They were outside the office. Lemaitre opened the door and Gideon went inside, looking at the carpet and wearing a half frown, one more of preoccupation than of annoyance or worry.
“Well, we didn’t get much out of the mail-van chap,” Lemaitre said. “Nearly always the s
ame; if we do pick anyone up, it’s a young fool who doesn’t know anything. But there was a tip-off again. That’; the worrying thing, George, isn’t it?”
“Hm?”
“A tip-off from the post office?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen one of these days,” said Lemaitre. “They’re going to kill a copper or someone who tries to stop them and then our noses are going to be rubbed right in the dirt.” His own thin nose wrinkled disgustedly. “Anything goes wrong, they blame us, but whose fault are these mail van jobs? We’re understaffed, could do with dozens more at every station in London, the P.O. don’t use half enough detectives, seem to think that every van is protected by some spirit.”
“Okay, Lem,” Gideon-said, “it’s everybody’s fault but ours, and we’ve got the job of stopping it.”
He sat down at his desk, grunting.
On it was a note – a pencilled report on an official buff form.
Telephone message received from 7Q Division 12:55 P.M.
Killer of nine-year-old Jennifer Gay Lee at Hatherley Court believed to be Arthur Sayer of 15, Warrender Street, Ealing. Ealing Division has been telephoned, general call asked for Sayer, description and photograph on way to us by special messenger.
Lemaitre was standing by the desk, looking down.
“What’s this?”
“Old Tucker at 7Q thinks he can name the swine who killed that kid,” said Gideon. “As soon as the photograph and description arrive, put out a general call, ports, airfields, everything, just for safety’s sake. I wish …”
The telephone bell rang.
“Gideon,” he grunted into it, and then brightened. “That’s good. Keep her down there, the small waiting room; I’ll come and see her at once.” He put the receiver down. “It’s that typist who saw Foster knocked down. If she heard a squeal of brakes the driver tried to stop; if she didn’t there’s the evidence you’ve been looking for.” He gave Lemaitre a quick but rather tired grin, and went out.
