by John Creasey
“Just heard that they seem to be heading for the old Dockside Club and the Red Lion Gymnasium,” said Hemmingway, “and if they do we can seal them off, let them fight it out, then nab them for breach of the peace as they come out.”
Gideon didn’t speak.
“Gone deaf?” asked Hemmingway.
“You did say this was the Melky gang and the Wideboys, didn’t you?’
“Yes,.”
“Shouldn’t have thought they would hand themselves to you on a plate,” mused Gideon. “You know them better than I do, though.”
“When they want to cut one another’s throats they forget every bit of common sense they ever had, and it never was very much,” said Hemmingway. “There’ve been rumours of trouble for a long time. The Wide boys have been working the Melky gang’s race tracks. When it’s like that, it’s just a gang war, and all they want is to fight it out. They get like your Soho boys, George!”
“How do my Soho boys get?” asked Gideon dryly.
“So that they almost forget the police exist,” said Hemmingway with a chuckle. “They think they can do what they like and get away with it. Take it from me, this is just between the gangs. Okay! I’ll put Lemaitre in the front line but distrust his judgment for the night, that about it?”
“Right on the nail,” said Gideon.
He put down the receiver, then slowly rounded his desk. He sat for a few seconds staring at the window, where the mist was swirling; it looked as if a wind was moving it. Then he turned back to the desk. There were notes about worried Mrs. Penn, who still hadn’t called him again, and there was a note: “Jennifer Lewis - dead?” He’d know soon enough, and if she died it would put the Prowler right at the top of the Yard’s list of jobs that must be done quickly. As it was, the morning newspapers would be pretty rough, unless the Prowler was caught during the night. There would be the usual questions loaded with innuendo - why hadn’t the Prowler been caught long ago, he’d been active quite long enough, and so on. One or two of the newspapers would probably add that it was a scandal that the police were so far below strength, and imply that those who were on the strength weren’t up to standard. So far as the Prowler was concerned, there was cause for prodding - he ought to be safe in jail. Was there any way of making sure they got him tonight? To Gideon, that was the most vital job of all.
7 The Night Warms Up
It wasn’t long since the cordon had been tightened round the Brixton area, but Gideon was already beginning to feel impatient. If they were going to catch the Prowler, it would probably be done quickly. Every minute he stayed free helped him. In an hour’s time, they might as well call the whole thing off. An hour? It was nearly half past eleven and he didn’t need reminding that the night had only just started.
Piper was probably just as anxious as he.
He had another worry in his mind, now - about NE and the two big gangs. Hemmingway knew them so well that he was almost certainly right, but the Divisional man had drawn the picture in overtones. The gangs did not ignore the police, and were usually careful to avoid tangling with them; but it looked almost as if they were ready for a tangle tonight. Perhaps they thought that in the fog they could get to their respective headquarters without the police realizing that it was a gathering of opposing forces. Hemmingway had been reasonably well pleased with the two Squad cars, after all; he had probably planned on the assumption that he would get only half what he asked for.
Gideon grinned.
Appleby came back, his footsteps brisk, his manner lively when he entered the office.
“Everything well in hand,” he said, “and you’ve got the Divisions by the tail all right.” Obviously he enjoyed saying that. ‘They’ll get the Prowler tonight or bust. You know the kind of thing: Scouts’ honour.”
“Yes. Nothing in?”
“So far they’ve questioned about seventy men, none of them with the girl’s hair on his coat, or any indication that he’s used a mask,” said Appleby. “Probably before the night’s out we’ll have twice the average number of false reports that the Prowler’s been seen.” He sat at his desk, a little smug and, for the first time, really irritating Gideon; it seemed clear that for some obscure reason he didn’t really agree with what had been done. Behind any such attitude there might well be a consciousness that he and the usual Night Superintendent had fallen down on the Prowler, and he would be most glad if Gideon had a failure. The human reaction was the same in policemen as in anyone else. “Two warehouse jobs out at Stepney,” he added.
Gideon said abruptly, “Stepney?’
“Yep.”
“Where about?’
“Near the river.”
“Close to the QR and NE Divisional lines,” remarked Gideon. “Big jobs?”
“One lorry load of cigarettes which should have been out of the warehouse at five in the morning, one lorry load of scrap metal.”
“They get away?’
“Yep.”
“Charley, you have a look at this,” said Gideon, and got up and went across to Appleby’s desk. They stood together, looking at Gideon’s notes. “Hemmingway reports that Melky and the Wide boys gangs are on the move, heading for their headquarters, and I’ve sent him a couple of Squad cars - Lemaitre wanted something to do, too, so he’s gone over. Now we get two warehouse jobs, right on the border of the Division, and we know that one of the favourite jobs of these gangs is shifting lorry loads of stuff that they can sell easily.”
“It smells,” said Appleby.
“Hemmingway didn’t think so.”
“Everything over there smells, so he wouldn’t notice a little stinkeroo like this,” said Appleby, his eyes brightening. “Want me to talk to the other Divisions bordering Hemmingway’s, and find out what’s on?”
“Yes.”
“Right,” said Appleby, and if there had been any resentment, even subconscious, it appeared to have faded completely.
Gideon went back to his own desk, pondered for a few minutes, then picked up the telephone. He noticed that Appleby was watching him, almost covertly, as if Appleby meant to study how he worked. Gideon was not conscious of any difference in his approach tonight, but possibly he was more on edge than usual because of .the baby kidnappings and the failure to find the kidnapper. The Prowler job wasn’t in the same street, was much more of a challenge to the Yard’s pride than the baby snatching, but in terms of human misery the baby job won easily.
“Get me AB Division,” he told the operator.
“Yes, sir. Just a moment, sir! The Division’s on the line now, if you’ll hold on a moment.”
“I’ll hold on.”
The wait was longer than Gideon had expected, but that gave him time to think. He was going to tell AB to send a man to see Mrs. Penn, and he couldn’t really explain why he felt that was so important. At least it wouldn’t do any harm. He knew exactly what it meant, though. He was going to give an order in the guise of a request, and soon a man would leave Divisional HQ for half an hour or so, and go back and make his report - as hundreds of detective officers and higher ranks were doing at this moment. If you took the short view, there were plenty of police, thousands of them, all out tonight, each one watching, waiting and ready - and much more on their toes than usual because he had prodded them.
It was easy to forget the uniformed men and the detective officers, the men who did the chores.
“You’re through, sir.”
“That you, Ridge?” asked Gideon.
“Hello, George,” said Jacob Ridgway, of the AB Division. “Just been talking to the back room about that baby job; wanted to know what you were giving the press.”
“Everything.”
“That’s what they said. No luck yet?”
“No.”
“Only child of the people here,” said Ridgeway abruptly. “Middle-aged couple, too. Wanted a kid all their lives and now they’ve got to order the funeral. Get him, George.”
Funny, how even the most case-hardened copper could get soft and almost se
ntimental over a baby job, Gideon reflected.
“We’ll try. Ridge, what do you know about that Mrs.Penn and her missing-husband worry?”
“Nothing, except that she’s been round here once or twice by day.”
“Can you send a man round to Horley Street to have a word with her? She rang me, but didn’t wait to say anything.”
“Using your sixth sense?” asked Ridgway and it was almost a jeer. “Okay, I’ll send a chap round to talk to her, and if there seems to be anything to worry about I’ll call you back. That all?”
“For now, thanks.”
“Okay,” said Ridgway.
That was about the time that Piper and the Yard specialists reached 51 Middleton Street. Divisional men had already marked off the area and prepared the ground, and had even thought to bring the injured girl’s clothes back from the hospital. The parents and a brother were at the hospital and the police had the run of the house.
In ten minutes, Piper was on the radio telephone to Gideon.
“I’ve checked the hospital for her fingernail scrapings,” he said. “They shouldn’t be long. Some hair, on her coat. I’m sending that over right away. Wavy and chestnut brown places it.” Piper was forceful and direct, exactly what Gideon wanted then.
“What else?”
“That mask: a good-quality theatrical one. It didn’t come from Woolworth’s after all. It should be a good line for the morning,” said Piper. “After we’ve got the prints photographed.”
“Man’s prints?”
“Yes. Beauties.”
“Anything else?”
Piper seemed exultant with his answer.
“Yes, sir! There’s a little privet hedge between the approaches to Number fifty-one and next door. Number fifty-three, and in the soil where the hedge is planted there’s a heel mark, plain as we could want. Left heel, I think, worn down on the left side with a mark made by a broken heel protector. No doubt about it.”
“You’ll get photos and then casts just as soon as you can, won’t you?” said Gideon.
“You bet I will,” Piper promised.
Within five minutes, the radio had carried the news to the men on the bridges and at stations, and the tempo of the watch seemed to quicken everywhere.
It was not Ridgway’s man on his way to see the persistent Mrs. Penn, or any of the Yard and Divisional men concentrated about the Brixton area in the hunt for the Prowler, who came upon the next thing which reached Gideon’s ear. It was a youthful policeman named Rider, who was on the borders of two of the outer ring divisions, very near the outskirts of the Metropolitan Police district. He was on his own, patrolling a very different kind of beat from anyone in the heart of London, for this was a residential district for the middle-income group. Here, the roads and streets were wide and often winding, the houses were mostly detached and standing in their own small gardens, most of which were beautifully kept. The fog was not very thick, and in some places it was possible to see easily for several hundred yards.
P.C. Rider’s beat was one of the most exclusive. The houses he passed were in the high price range, everyone had a garage, some of the families had two cars. Trees grew along the streets as well as in the gardens. Very few lights were on, for here the local authority economized by keeping only one street lamp in four alight during the night, in spite of protests from those people of the neighbourhood who had been robbed in the past, and in spite of the strong protests of the police.
P.C. Rider walked more quickly than usual, because of the cold, but he did not consciously skimp any part of his job. His torch light flashed on doorways and windows as he looked for anything that was remotely suspicious, and when he even thought anything was unusual he went to try the door and the window, probably unheard by the people sleeping in the room just above his head. As he turned a corner, he heard a rustle of sound - it must be a cat, it could even be a dog although few dogs were nocturnal wanderers, it might be a cuddling couple or it might be -
Anything.
Rider saw nothing.
A cat, then?
Usually, if you scared a cat, it scampered and jumped, and you heard or noticed something else. By doing a lot of night work, you learned how to notice these things, but now all Rider noticed was the silence which had followed the scuffling sound. So, he played cunning. He did not flash his torch about the houses near the corner, but plodded on, and, a little way from the spot where he had heard the sound, stopped and bent his head, as if he was lighting a cigarette. A policeman who stopped on his rounds to light a cigarette seemed to be the most unsuspicious policeman in the world.
There was still no sound.
There were bushes in the garden of the house where Rider had heard the rustle, and he knew that a man could crouch there out of sight. But if he went back, it would warn any such man. So instead he stood and shone his torch at the window nearer him and, as if he had noticed something unusual, he walked toward it and opened the wooden gate, which made no sound at all. He reached the porch and shone the torch on the keyhole of the front door - and, as he did so, the rustle came again, this time much fainter.
He looked round quickly.
In vague silhouette against the corner lamp, a crouching man wheeled a bicycle out of the garden of the corner house.
Rider jumped into action.
He leaped one low wall, swung along a narrow drive, and reached the street simultaneously with the man with the bicycle, who had difficulty in keeping his machine upright and keeping the gate open.
“Stop a minute!” Rider called, and went running. “Here! I want a word with you.”
The cyclist pushed the cycle free, then cocked a leg over it - but he didn’t ride off immediately. Rider saw him turn, while on the saddle, and saw his arm drawn back, as if to throw something. Rider ducked. He heard the sound of the missile making a funny little noise in the air, then heard it crash on the ground behind him. It made the noise of stone on stone; if that had hit him, it would have made a mess of his face.
He blew his whistle and pulled out his truncheon in one and the same movement. The man pushed off from the curb, only a few yards ahead, probably more scared because he had missed but pinning his faith on the bicycle. Rider knew that he had too good a start to be caught by anyone on foot. So the policeman stopped short, slipped the strap of the truncheon off his wrist and hurled the truncheon. He aimed just in front of the cyclist, hoping to strike the handlebars or the man’s hands. He didn’t know what he struck, but the cyclist wobbled and, wobbling, swung the wheel so that he was at right angles to the rest of the bicycle.
Now Rider had a chance.
He took three long strides while the cyclist was trying to regain his balance, and was within arm’s reach when the man fell heavily, the bicycle clattering and the bell giving a single clear ring which seemed to echo for ages. Rider reached the man as he struggled to get up, and promptly put a hammer lock on him.
“Now what’s it all about?” he demanded without excitement. “What have you been up to?”
The man didn’t speak, but shivered in the tight painful grasp. Lights appeared at several windows, several men who had heard the police whistle looked out, and one came hurrying from across the road. In less than five minutes Rider found that his captive had two thousand pounds’ worth of jewels, stolen from the corner house, tucked in his pockets.
It was a long time before Rider began to realize what a stroke of luck he’d had, and how much good this might do him.
“Something’s gone right,” Appleby called across to Gideon, less than half an hour after the incident. “They’ve picked up Lefty Winn, out at KI. Redhanded, too, couple of thousand quids’ worth of sparklers in his pocket.”
“Luck’s one word,” Gideon said. “How’d they do it?”
“Copper named Rider kept his eyes and ears open.”
“Must make sure I have a word with him next time I’m out at KI,” said Gideon. He had been along to Fingerprints for a word with the man in charge, for th
e mask had arrived with a dozen strands of Jennifer Lewis’s hair and had only just come back. “Anything new about Jennifer Lewis?”
“No.”
“The babies?”
“No. Here’s what’s come in.” Appleby handed Gideon a sheet of paper on which were several short paragraphs in an immaculate hand. Gideon read:
11:31. Two sailors, ages 19 and 20, attacked and robbed in train at Fenchurch Street, just been paid off, total loss 131 pounds.
11:35. Negative reports from GH and CD on baby hunt.
11:39. Three men sighted breaking into a warehouse in Chelsea, all under charge.
11:41. Negative reports from Information on the Prowler job.
11:49. Smash-and-grab in High Street, Ealing, by two men in an unidentified car. Window smashed, amount of loss not yet known.
11:50. Information Room reports that there have been nineteen reports of the Prowler being seen in eleven different areas.
11:59. Body taken out of the Thames at Rotherhithe by River Police - been immersed several days. Medical report to follow.
12:00. Hit-and-run accident in High Street, Wandsworth, woman of 72 severely injured, now on way to hospital.
Gideon sat back and then heard the booming note of Big Ben. The bell sounded very near, as if it were just outside the window, not a couple of hundred yards away.
“Warming up, eh? Notice anything that isn’t there?”
“Sins of the old omission? No,” said Appleby. He reached out for the list, frowning a little, showing his white teeth in the set kind of smile, as if he must look on the bright side at all costs. “No,” he repeated, “what have you noticed?”
“Almost a complete blank in the East End - no warehouse jobs, no free fights, no drunk beating his wife up. Funny business about the East End tonight; somehow I don’t like it. If we don’t pick up the Prowler soon I’m going to get more men over to Hemmingway. Can’t say he didn’t ask for them. I …”
His telephone rang.
“I’ll get it,” he said, and went across like a great bear, plucking up the receiver and growling, “Gideon.”
