Into Battle

by Michael Gilbert

  Basil Home Thomson, old Etonian, son of an archbishop, was a rough-looking character with poached eyes, a drinker’s nose, and an offensive shrubbery of black moustache. He had ruled Dartmoor Prison with a rod of iron for five years and had been rewarded for his efforts with the appointment as assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, in charge of the CID. Although later, their different temperaments were to drive a wedge between them, at the moment he and Kell were on friendly terms and able to work together.

  This was just as well since, with “Blinker” Hall, their hands were on all the principal levers of national security. They were sitting in Kell’s operations room considering the third and the most promising of the messages that young Burnhow had produced for them.

  It had been found in the margin of the latest letter from Zeeman, in answer to one from Goodison. Copies of both of these letters were in front of them.

  The letter to Zeeman was largely devoted to business, containing a listing of various pipes and sanitary fittings that Goodison required and the prices he was prepared to pay for them. It concluded by expressing mounting dread of the Zeppelins, whose visits to East London had left behind a trail of damage and casualties.

  “Only yesterday two bombs were dropped in Plumstead, less than a mile away from us. It would indeed be a crippling blow to our business – no less than to yours – if our premises suffered a direct hit.”

  In his reply, Zeeman had agreed that such a disaster would be calamitous for both of them, but he could do little more than express sympathy and hold out hopes that the worst would not occur.

  The marginal note, in invisible ink, was more specific. A great deal more specific: “The eagles have orders to respect both Tyr and Vulcan. They will in the future avoid SE2.”

  The three men stared at it greedily.

  Hall was the first to speak. He said, “It’s as clear as living daylights. Goodison – Vulcan – is in this business up to the neck. Why, Zeeman is promising him preferential treatment by the Germans! Doesn’t that condemn him out of hand? We should go straight alongside and board him.”

  Basil Thomson shook his head. “He’s a small fish,” he said. “Don’t let’s jerk the hook out of his mouth. If we play him carefully, he’ll lead us to the man we really want.”

  Both looked at Kell, as though for a casting vote.

  “I agree with B.T.,” he said. “We want Wotan.”

  “Come again?” said Thomson.

  “Wotan, or Odin. Call him what you like. The father of the gods. You remember that journalist fellow called himself Loki. Now that we have Vulcan, the god of thunder, and Tyr, the god of war, doesn’t a sort of pattern begin to appear? A neat, tight little group of Teutonic mythmen planning mischief. As I said, the only one missing is Wotan.”

  “Der Vetter,” suggested Thomson.

  “Could be. Yes. Wotan and der Vetter might well be the same man. Lay him by the heels and we’ve a chance of finding out what they’re up to in time to stop it.”

  Hall said, “What I’m afraid of is that they’re arranging another Bulwark explosion, and that’s why I’d like to get my hands on the one character we do know about and shake the teeth out of his head. However, if you can persuade me that we’ve a blind chance of getting through him to the man at the top, I’ll go along with it.”

  Thomson said, “Those three messages, considered together, suggest to me that Goodison, who operates under the name of Vulcan, is really only a middleman—”

  “Hold it,” said Kell. “That reminds me of something. When young Luke was carrying out a piece of mail geometry, based on the previous correspondence”—he explained about this—“I told him that the only result he could hope to get out of it was to locate the middleman. The one person who knew the way down to where der Vetter had buried himself.”

  “I think that’s probably right,” said Thomson. “Let’s take it one step farther. If the ‘suitable supplies’ are to pass to Tyr for treatment and back to Vulcan for use, that suggests to me that Tyr and Vulcan must be situated fairly close to each other.”

  “Confirmed by message number three,” agreed Kell. “Clearly they’re both in SE2. Bostall Wood is in the southwest corner …”

  By this time, a map of the district was spread on Kell’s desk. It was of a scale large enough to show individual streets.

  “Could be worse, I suppose,” said Kell. “Luckily the northern half, up to the river, is Erith Marshes. No buildings there. And a lot of the southern half is Abbey Wood and Bostall Wood. Really there are only three built-up areas: one to the west and one to the north of Bostall Wood, and one to the east of Abbey Wood.”

  “And,” said Thomson coldly, “with thirty or so little streets in each – with an average of, say, twenty houses in each – okay. I have a sizable force of detectives available, but if you think they’re going to search nearly two thousand houses, I’m afraid you’ll have to think again.” He added, “Once, when I was doing some exploring in the forests of New Guinea, I got properly lost. My guide wasn’t worried. He said, ‘Go back to the last place you recognise and use your magic box.’ He meant my compass. ‘It will soon take us where we want to go.’”

  “If you mean by that,” said Hall, “that we start at Goodison’s place in Bostall Wood and move out on a succession of bearings through the built-up areas, it would take a long time and might not get us anywhere in the end. Now, when you were lost at sea – which happens more often than you might suppose – what you did was go forward on a known line and keep your eyes open for a cross-bearing.”

  “Speaking as neither an explorer nor a sailor,” said Kell, “my views are simpler. What I think we want is one further stroke of luck. Talking of which, a kind friend has sent me a bottle of Highland malt whiskey. I was wondering whether either of you would care to sample it.”

  He was not kept wondering for long.

  Chapter Twelve

  It might, in fact, be counted a stroke of luck that Luke should have spotted the story in the East London Gazette. It was a paper he read only occasionally, when nothing more exciting was available, and it was tucked away on the back page amid much war news.

  “End of a reign” was the headline.

  It recounted that an uncrowned king of the district, one Tim Brady, having consumed a quantity of liquor at Benbow Tavern, was making his way back to his house on Arthur Street. He seemed to have been taking a shortcut, across the triangle of little-used railway lines on the west side of the Timber Yard, to have missed his way, and slipped into one of the two dry docks, offshoots of Royal Albert Dock. He must have hit his head as he fell, and when he was found, by men going to work the next morning, he had clearly been dead for some hours. The author concluded this ten-line account by saying, in the sanctimonious tone commonly adopted by the press, that even though Brady was trespassing on private property, he was surely entitled to expect some sort of barrier around these death traps.

  The copy of the Gazette was dated April 20, and it appeared that the accident had taken place three days before. Luke, who read the report late at night, showed it to Kell first thing the next morning.

  Kell said, “You don’t like it. Why? People do drink too much and fall into pits.”

  “I don’t believe it was an accident. It was much too convenient. Those Irish dockies survive only because no one will testify against them.”

  “And you think they were afraid that Brady might be planning to turn King’s evidence?”

  “Maybe not. But could they be sure? He could identify them. And he’d seen them getting ready to throw Hubert into the river in a weighted sack. Attempted murder. A very long sentence. They daren’t risk it.”

  “So you think they laid for him when he came out of the pub? Knocked him on the head and left him in the dock?”

  “I think it’s very possible.”

  “And you think it’s important to us to find out?”

  “Yes, sir. I do. If it was that gang of Irishmen, I think the sooner th
ey’re dealt with the better. They near as a whisker cost us Hubert. And the fact that they’re on the loose is obstructing our work in that area.”

  “Then certainly see if you can put them away. Have a word with that policeman – Horniman, was it? – and take Dr. Spilsbury with you. He’s a very busy man just now, but he’ll oblige me if I ask him. He’ll clear up the two points that seem to matter: was Brady in fact as intoxicated as the paper makes out? And was the blow on his head one that he could have suffered from a fall, or must it have been delivered manually? He’s very good on points like that.”

  Bernard Spilsbury was busy. He was the principal medical witness in the King against George Joseph Smith, christened by the papers “The Brides in the Bath Case.” But he cancelled some minor engagements and made himself available two days later for a visit to the Albert Docks Police Station.

  Chief Inspector Horniman received him respectfully and introduced him to the coroner’s officer, Sergeant Michaels, previously a member of his own force. Horniman said, “We’d like to know the truth as much as you do, but I’m afraid it’s too late. Even Dr. Spilsbury, whose name and fame are well-known to us, won’t be able to make any useful deductions from a pile of ashes.”

  They both stared at him.

  Spilsbury said, “Are you telling us that Brady’s been cremated already?” He sounded incredulous.

  “Yes, sir. Yesterday morning.”

  “That was extraordinarily quick, wasn’t it? Six days after death. Involving cremation. Were the proper formalities observed?”

  “I understand that the matter was in order.”

  “Surely the coroner would hold an inquest—”

  “In this case the coroner apparently decided”—he looked at Sergeant Michaels, who nodded—“that since the facts were so clear, a formal inquest was unnecessary. He was prepared to certify accidental death.”

  “Who is this speed merchant?”

  “He’s only been recently appointed. A Dr. Lightfoot.”

  “Ambrose Lightfoot?”

  “Yes, sir. You know him?”

  “I knew of him when he was in the medical school at St. Mary’s. Even then, he was notorious for skipping over difficulties. The other members called him ‘Fairy Lightfoot’. Not intended as a compliment. But however anxious he may have been to hurry things on, Brady couldn’t have been cremated without the medical referee’s certificate.”

  “Quite so, sir. But as well as being coroner, Dr. Lightfoot is the medical referee. Many of our doctors have joined the army, and it was necessary to combine the two jobs.”

  Spilsbury said, “Oh. I see.” An awkward silence followed.

  Then Horniman said, “Please don’t think I’m offering excuses for what must look like indecent haste, but the fact is that the Coroner’s Department has been rushed off its feet lately with cases resulting from enemy action. We’ve had seven people killed in the streets. In each case, the coroner gave his certificate without formality. He did it, he said, to spare the feelings of the family.”

  “What about Brady’s family?”

  “Inquiries were made, but none could be traced. He seems to have been a lone fighter.”

  “He’s fought his last fight now,” said Spilsbury dryly. “And I’ll tell you what surprises me more than anything else: as you know, the whole idea of cremation was subject at first to public hostility. The Home Office disliked it. The Roman Catholic Church was against it. Even the medical inspector of burials was one of its harshest critics. It only scraped through by agreeing that it should be subject to strict controls, which is why crematoriums are normally anxious that everything should be in apple-pie order. Which one was this?”

  Horniman said, “It was the East Plumstead Crematorium, and when I was having a word with the manager I got the impression that he didn’t like the situation. But faced with those certificates—”

  Speaking for the first time, ex-Sergeant Michaels, who had seemed increasingly unhappy as the conversation continued, said, “If you’ll excuse me interrupting, sir, I got the impression that the coroner may have been put under some sort of pressure.”

  “Explain that,” said Horniman sharply.

  “Well, sir, to speak frankly, Dr. Lightfoot doesn’t give me the impression of being a very courageous man. And you know how people talk. Seems that two of that Irish crowd – the ones they call the Killarney boys – were spotted coming away from his surgery early on the morning after the body was discovered. If they’d said to him, ‘We know you can give the necessary certificates, so don’t hang about. Unless you want to be the next person found in a dry dock—’”

  “If I’d been told about this,” said Horniman, “of course I’d have stopped the cremation.”

  “It only reached me this morning,” said Michaels unhappily.

  Spilsbury, who had looked at his watch more than once, said, “Whether Fairy Lightfoot was being stupid, or whether he was being cowardly, the story ends the same way: in a pile of ashes. Since I can’t help you, I’d better be getting back to some work I can do. Are you ready?”

  Luke said he was ready.

  Spilsbury said, “It certainly wasn’t your fault, Inspector. I’d put in a report if I thought it would do any good.”

  Next morning Luke was sitting writing when Joe looked in. He had discarded his crutches and was relying on a rubber-tipped stick with a horn handle. He seemed to be in high spirits. He spread himself over the desk, knocking over an inkpot that Luke caught deftly, and said, “I’ve had an idea.”

  “Splendid,” said Luke.

  The gloomy tone did nothing to deter Joe. He said, “I’m letting you have it hot off the grill. And I’ll tell you why. Old Kell thinks I’m a halfwit.”

  “He doesn’t really. It’s just that he can’t appreciate your native cunning.”

  “Exactly. So what I thought was, I’d explain the idea to you and you could pass it on to the skipper as your own. Then he might take it seriously.”

  “And if he thinks it’s stupid, it’s me who gets kicked.”

  “Stupid?” said Joe indignantly. “It isn’t stupid. It’s right on the top line. It came to me when I woke up this morning. That character who calls himself Tyr. I said to myself: why did they call him different things in those two messages? ‘Let 105 know special product on its way to you.’ Then, ‘Tell Tyr he’ll get supplies …’ It must be the same man. Why two names?”

  “When we were dealing with those Russian terrorists – do you remember? Most of them used three or four different aliases. It was meant to confuse everyone.”

  “All right,” said Joe patiently. “But why 105?”

  “The Lord alone knows. Some sort of numerical cypher possibly. What did you make of it?”

  “You know what everyone says. That Fritz is a clever boy nine times out of ten, but the tenth time he makes a real number one balls up. I think that’s what he did here. He called Tyr ‘105’ because that was the number of his house.”

  Luke was saying to himself that if he tried that one on Kell the old man would blow his top. But he was very fond of Joe, and Joe was so pleased with the idea that he had to pretend to take it seriously.

  He said, “We know that Tyr is somewhere in SE2. Right? And if you look at the map you can see that none of the streets in it is long enough to have more than twenty or thirty numbers.”

  “Of course I thought of that,” said Joe smugly. “I’m not stupid. But there are two long streets: Woolwich Road at the bottom and Abbey Wood Road across the top. I tried Woolwich Road as I came along. By the time I got to West Heath the numbers were up to ‘80’ but then it becomes Bostall Hill and the numbers start again. I was going to try Abbey Wood Road next. Would you care to come along?”

  Luke was on the point of saying, “I might as well be doing that as sitting here,” but changed it to the more tactful, “It’s a lovely morning, so why not?”

  Joe picked up the rubber-tipped stick and they set off.

  “What I noticed in
the other road,” said Joe, “most of these little side streets, they like to number the houses on both sides at the end as though they belonged to the main road.”

  “Feeling, no doubt,” said Luke, peering at an undistinguished-looking little house, “that No. 30 Abbey Wood Road was a more imposing address than No. 1 Crumpshall Street.”

  There were so many openings, some genuine streets, some merely courtyards, that the numbering was up to 80 before they reached the bend in the road from which they could see the spire of St. Augustine’s Church. According to Luke’s map, this marked the point where Abbey Wood Road became Picardy Street.

  “Not many more houses now,” said Luke. They could see a cluster of half a dozen buildings on the right of the road, but that was all.

  Then they spotted the Crescent.

  This was a new construction, a half moon of street leading off Abbey Wood Road and rejoining it a hundred yards along. The houses in the Crescent were markedly superior to any of the others they had passed.

  “Getting into posh company now,” said Joe. “Upper-class twits, no doubt. Shuvvers and ‘ousemaids.”

  Luke was not interested in the owners of the houses. His eyes were glued to the gateposts. “They’ve carried on with the numbering,” he said, trying to conceal his excitement. The last house on the main road had been 90. From where they were standing, they could see that the five houses on the left of the Crescent started with 91 and, presumably, reached 99. After that, there was a gap. Then another five houses before the Crescent rejoined the main road.

  “Odd numbers on the left,” he said. “Which means that 105 must be the third house after the gap. Right?”

  “Bang on,” said Joe. “Diddun I tell you? Come on. Don’t let’s hang about.”

  For Luke had come to a halt.

  He said, “If that house is the one that Tyr – whoever he may turn out to be – is using, the last thing we want to do is rush up and stare at it. What we’ve got to do is stroll past it, keeping our eyes to the front and talking hard.”

  “Fair enough,” said Joe. “What’d you like to talk about? I heard a good story the other day about a sailor who was getting married. His intended was a black girl—”