CHAPTER III
VISITORS
The room Bobby entered as Dawson unlocked the door was the only one in the house that was “reasonably habitable” as the bureaucrats say. All others presented a variety of gaps in the walls, broken flooring, vanished ceilings, often enough all these together. One side of the house was, indeed, in such danger of collapse that it had been necessary to shore it up with two great beams. Even in this room, Bobby, as he walked across to the window, felt the floor shake, and hoped it would not suddenly collapse under his weight. Broken joists, he guessed.
A chalk outline in the middle of the room showed where the dying and unconscious man had been lying when the police arrived. The furniture was poor and scanty. A small deal table, two wooden chairs, a rubber air-mattress of the type often used in air-raid shelters, that was about all. In one corner stood a small tin trunk which had been opened but found to contain only a few odds and ends of no interest. No toilet articles, no plates or dishes, no cooking utensils, nothing of that kind. A gallon oil-can stood against the wall, and on the table there was a lamp that looked new and of good quality. Probably it had cost more than all else in the room put together. Beside it lay a small dispatch-case. Dawson saw Bobby looking at this, and said:
“Mr Ulyett left that, sir. He is coming back with Sergeant Smith as soon as they’ve checked up on a report that came in about the Wharton jewels. Not likely to be anything in it, Mr Ulyett said, but it had to be seen to.”
“Yes of course,” agreed Bobby, “and it is a bit odd how many hints there seem to be that all this jewellery that’s vanished recently finds its way down here.”
“Near the docks, sir,” Dawson reminded him, “if the stuff’s being smuggled abroad.”
“Yes, there’s that,” agreed Bobby. “Though there does seem to be some idea that it goes to the Channel Islands first. Even the papers have got hold of that. And if so, you would expect Southampton would be used.”
He looked round doubtfully. It did not seem to him that even the closest examination of the room was likely to throw much light on the activities of the late Joseph Parsons. Not, at least, beyond what already could be guessed—that he was connected with one of the criminal gangs infesting London since the conclusion of the war, and that he had lost his life as a consequence of some internal feud. Or possibly as a result of having aroused suspicion of double dealing or treachery. Of course, one could never tell. Closer examination might reveal significant indications and clues of value. But Bobby did not think it very likely. The place gave him the general impression of a hide-out where every possible precaution had been taken against discovery. Well chosen, too, with its double access, either from Emmett Street or across the bombed-out area at the rear. All of which suggested a powerful and well-organized gang. But, then, the skill with which so many highly successful robberies of valuable jewellery had taken place recently had already provided proof of that—proof equally convincing and unpleasant.
“What’s that for?” Bobby asked, nodding towards a kind of screen he noticed standing against the wall.
“Sort of black-out, sir,” Dawson explained. “Covers the window. Wood backed with thick felt. When it’s in place no one could see there was any light in here.”
“No precaution omitted,” Bobby remarked. “It doesn’t look as if any one ever tried to live here. Is the water supply on?”
“No, sir; turned off at the main when the premises were marked ‘dangerous’.”
“Couldn’t even wash or make a cup of tea,” Bobby commented. “Must have been a sort of rendezvous or meeting-place—a kind of general post office, perhaps. It may be that’s where your pretty brunette comes in. On her way with some message or another, and cleared out in a hurry when she heard what had happened. And it might explain, too, the young man who was looking for Angel Alley. Looks to me as if the unlucky Joey Parsons had been sent here on some pretext and found his murderer waiting for him. That same young man, perhaps.”
“Yes, sir, it does look like that, doesn’t it?” agreed Dawson, much impressed; secretly determining to adopt the idea as his own and to mention it to Mr Ulyett if he got the chance.
Bobby went back to the window and stood there, looking out thoughtfully. He was not too well satisfied with the theory he had just put forward. Too much unaccounted for. Besides, if a well-organized, well-led gang wished to get rid of a hanger-on suspected of treachery, why choose for the deed what was clearly a general centre of activity, well guarded and carefully selected and concealed? Why not some spot as far distant as possible from any connection with gang activities? There was that pretty brunette, too, Dawson had talked about. Bobby suspected she had made a deeper impression on Dawson than Dawson was prepared to admit. But where did she come in? And the well-dressed, tall young man whose appearance had also been noticed. His mind played fancifully with the idea that there might be some connection between them. Both young, both well dressed, both strangers to the district, both apparently of a higher social class than most of its denizens. And was there not a theory that a tall man was often attracted by a small woman, and a tall girl by a small man? A case of extremes meeting. He said over his shoulder as he stood there by the window.
“Looks like some one coming this way across that bombed-out space.”
“Short cut, sir, from the High Street,” Dawson explained. “It’s often used. All right by day, but tricky at night. There’ve been one or two accidents.”
“Three or four of them,” Bobby said after a minute or two. It seemed to him that there was a certain furtiveness in the manner of their approach, an apparent desire to avoid attracting attention. He said, “Do you know, I think it might be as well to prepare to receive visitors.”
“Shall I go downstairs and let ’em see we’re still here?” Dawson asked.
“Oh, Lord, no!” Bobby exclaimed. “All visitors welcome. What we want, and the more the better.” He moved away from the window. “If I’m right, and they are coming here,” he remarked, “we mustn’t let them see us too soon.” He walked slowly away, across the room, noticing uneasily how the flooring shook again beneath his weight. He looked at the chalk lines which showed where Joey Parsons had been found, unconscious and dying. Taking a direction from it, he went to examine the wall opposite, and soon found what he was searching for.
“Looks like a bullet-hole,” he remarked. “See? When Mr Ulyett gets here, you had better show him and see what he thinks.”
“That’s a bullet-hole all right enough,” declared Dawson, confirming with excitement what was in fact sufficiently plain, though Bobby had thought it tactful to appear to rely on Ulyett’s opinion, “I don’t know how they came to miss that,” he said, shaking his head gravely and ignoring the fact that he had missed it himself.
“No reason to look for it,” Bobby remarked. “Doesn’t mean much, anyhow—unless it turns out to be a different calibre from the one found in the body, and that’s not likely. I expect the bullet will be too flattened by impact on the brick to be much good for identification purposes. Still, don’t forget to tell Mr Ulyett.”
“No, sir,” answered Dawson, wondering now if he could manage to let it be thought that the discovery was all his own. Might do him a bit of good if he could put that one over. Mr Owen must have sharp eyes, though; and odd the way he had gone straight to that part of the wall where the bullet had struck. Nor did Bobby explain he had acted on the hint given him when in the mortuary Stokes pointed out where a bullet seemed to have grazed the dead man’s head just above one ear. In Bobby’s experience, explanations were not only tedious but very apt to give rise to more misunderstandings than they cleared up. Dawson turned sharply from his close examination of the bullet-hole. Both he and Bobby had heard sounds below.
“Some one there, sir,” Dawson said.
Bobby nodded, at the same time lifting a warning finger for silence. Some one there beyond a doubt. He listened intently. Visitors certainly. Who and for what purpose? Nothing apparent in here
that could interest any one. Or was there? Bobby glanced at that tin trunk standing in one corner. Was that the objective? Could it contain incriminating papers, or possibly some of the recently stolen jewellery—not only the Wharton jewellery, but the product perhaps of some or all of the other successful robberies that had lately occupied so much space in the press, and worried so much the police all over the country? True, the tin trunk had been searched and its contents examined. But there are, for example, such things as false bottoms and other devices that might escape any but careful and expert examination.
All these thoughts flashed rapidly through Bobby’s mind, and then he thought that it might well be that he was letting his imagination run away with him. It was still raining, and now more heavily. Perhaps people innocently making use of the short cut across the bombed-out area were merely taking shelter in the entrance passage below. But he didn’t much believe it. There was something ominous about the quiet and cautious sounds coming from below, as there had been something furtive and secret in the manner of approach.
He wondered what they were waiting for. Laying plans? Did they know or suspect there was a police constable on duty? Well, they would have a surprise when they found not one, but two. Two men are much more than twice as difficult to deal with than is one by himself. Bobby glanced at Dawson, and was not altogether satisfied. Dawson was looking rather too nervous and excited, and Bobby felt that if a rough house did develop, he would prefer a companion in better physical condition. All recruits, of course, pass a medical test, but recently the standard has been drastically lowered. Bobby told himself that Dawson must have scraped through by the narrowest of margins and the favour of a doctor who knew how badly the Force needed men. Not of course that you can always judge strength by appearance. Strength is largely a matter of a muscular interaction, which it is not always possible to estimate accurately. Who could have guessed, for example, that the little wisp of a man known as Jimmy Wilde could hit with such devastating effect?
Down below all sounds had ceased. Bobby began to wonder if whoever had been there had slipped away again, unheard. He fancied the same idea had occurred to Dawson, whose air of tension had been succeeded by a certain manner of relief. But now there came the sound of careful, cautious steps upon the stairs. Bobby stepped across to stand near the door where he would not be seen at once. He signed to Dawson to have his truncheon ready. The steps on the stairs ceased. There must be three or four of them out there on the landing, Bobby thought, and if there were four—well, two to one are long odds all the world over. But prestige counts, and all the underworld knows well that injury to one of the Force does add very considerable zest and vigour to the subsequent hunt.
What were they waiting for, Bobby wondered, huddled there outside the door? He was waiting himself, every muscle tense, every nerve a coiled spring quivering with the expectation of release. He gave Dawson a reassuring nod and smile. He felt that Dawson looked very much as if he might lose his head if trouble developed, and in a fight it is often the use of the head rather than of either fist or weapon that gives the victory.
CHAPTER IV
MASKED MEN
Even at this moment, as he stood close back by the wall near the door, a part of Bobby’s mind was busy with the puzzle of what this incursion meant and what was behind it. As a rule the merest glimpse of a policeman’s helmet is enough to make every rogue depart at speed elsewhere. Not so apparently with these men, now, as it seemed, whispering and consulting on the other side of the door. Something here there must be, or so Bobby was thinking, of such desperate and urgent import, of such great value, that every risk was to be run in order to secure possession. Yet what could be in this bare room to have escaped the search already made? Was it perhaps something that implicated these men in the murder of the dead Joey Parsons? If so, was it not uncomfortably probable that they might be ready to commit a second to cover up the first?
Such were the thoughts that raced through Bobby’s mind as he stood there, back against the wall, listening.
The door was opening now, slowly at first, as it were reluctantly, for since the bombing it moved but uneasily upon its hinges, then violently, as greater force was applied. A masked face appeared. An arm was thrust forward. It held a small automatic, small and deadly, of the kind that can be carried comfortably in a coat pocket. A voice said: “Hands up.” Dawson gaped, taken by surprise, for this was a command he had read about but had never expected to hear, and he felt bewildered and at a loss. The masked intruder had concentrated all his attention on Dawson, the man in uniform, whom alone he had expected to find here, and Bobby was as yet unseen and unnoticed. Bobby lifted his right hand and brought it down, forcefully, edgeways, like an axe, upon the outheld wrist of the hand grasping the automatic. The weapon clattered to the floor. Its former holder yelped in surprise and pain. With the extreme, startling rapidity he could and did show when need was, Bobby swooped on the fallen automatic, seized it, and with almost the same movement snatched the mask from its wearer’s face.
“Well, well,” Bobby said amiably, “if it isn’t Pitcher Barnes. Who would have thought we should meet again so soon?” This was a reference to a recent interview when it had been Bobby’s task to interrogate Pitcher about certain jewel robberies, though nothing much had resulted, beyond the fact that Pitcher had received a note or communication of some sort outside a fashionable restaurant from a smartly dressed woman who had then entered the restaurant but had not been identified. Pitcher’s own version was that the lady had done no more than give him a shilling for opening her car door, that he had no previous knowledge of her, and not even the remotest idea of her identity. Nor had the note been found in his possession. In the end it had been necessary to release him. But Bobby’s interrogation had been searching and prolonged, and now, as Bobby beamed upon him in the friendliest manner possible, Pitcher looked back steadily and sullenly. “Who are your friends, Pitcher?” Bobby asked; and still Pitcher did not answer, nor did any of his companions, crowding in the door behind him, either move or speak.
Pitcher himself was a man of middle age and height, powerfully built, a deep chest, long arms ending in enormous hands, broad shoulders. The makings of a magnificent athlete, but now one somewhat run to seed. At one time he had been a professional boxer, and it had seemed likely he might develop into a really first-class man—a potential middle-weight world champion even. But the flattery of admiring friends, a fundamental lack of self-control and unwillingness to submit to the severe discipline of training, had before very long relegated him to the ‘has-been’ class. Finally he had drifted into criminal courses, and he had served more than one term of imprisonment. A truculent ruffian, in short; and now he stood and stared at Bobby and at the mask Bobby had taken and thrown down upon the floor.
From behind, one of Pitcher’s companions coughed softly. As though this were a signal, Pitcher stretched out a foot and pushed softly at the mask where it lay. In almost a meditative, oddly reluctant voice, he said:
“You didn’t ought to have gone for to do that, Mr Owen, sir. So you didn’t.”
Bobby was standing now in the middle of the room, drawing back a little from where he had stooped to pick up the automatic he held, not without finding it a comfortable thing to have in hand. For he was beginning to scent danger in the air. As he stepped back Pitcher lurched forward. Behind his great lumbering body three other men filed silently and softly into the room. They were all masked. It was probably in order to adjust their masks that they had lingered so long on the other side of the door. About two of them there was nothing remarkable. They were of average height and size. The third man—he sidled in after the other two—was small and wiry and bald, and there was something purposeful about his air and movements that made Bobby look at him more closely, so as to notice that his rather prominent ears showed the peculiarity of a lobe attached to the flesh of the cheek. That, Bobby remembered, was a peculiarity of a man named Cyrus King. King had the reputation of being dang
erous, intelligent, and reckless, with a readiness to use a knife not characteristic of the ordinary criminal in this country. He was known to have boasted more than once that he would kill any cop any day rather than run any chance of being ‘sent up’—a fate he had so far managed to avoid. He was beginning now to sidle along the wall, slowly, unobtrusively. Bobby noticed the movement. He said sharply:
“You there, stop that.”
The other obeyed. He and Bobby looked at each other, the gangster’s eyes sharp and intent through the holes in the mask. He was still silent. Every one was watching him, as if all realized that in him lay the crisis. Lifting the automatic he had picked up, Bobby said:
“My turn now, I think, to say ‘hands up’.”
“It isn’t loaded,” Pitcher mumbled. “I never hold with them things. They go off when you don’t mean it. Noisy. And miss as often as not. A straight left don’t.”
“A knife doesn’t either,” said the man Bobby thought might be Cyrus King. “Three inches where it’ll do most good. That’s enough.” He spoke in a high cracked voice, obviously disguised, and now a knife gleamed in his hand, thin and fierce. “Sure and silent,” he said. “That’s this.”
Bobby pulled the trigger of the automatic, pointing the weapon out of the window as he did so. There was no response. He moved back the slide. The magazine was empty. He sent the useless weapon flying through the window to fall with a tinkle of broken glass in the roadway outside.
“Very sensible, Pitcher,” he said approvingly. “Any judge would be sure to take that into consideration. Might get you off a year or two. Well, perhaps you would like to explain what you and your anonymous friends want. A man was murdered here yesterday. I expect you’ve heard. Name of Joey Parsons. Any of you know him?”
They did not answer. The man with the knife was beginning again his slow and crab-like progress along the wall. Bobby said to him:
The House of Godwinsson: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 3
