by John Creasey
“Fascinating!” Roger exclaimed and his high spirits bounded back. “I’m going straight to Frank Caldicott’s flat. I take it that’s still being watched?”
“Closely,” answered Venables. “The man on duty has just been changed, and the report from the night man says that everything was normal during the night. In fact, Caldicott didn’t go out at all. Will you come straight back here from the visit, sir?”
“Yes,” said Roger, and got out of bed as he put down the receiver. Already he was phrasing questions for Caldicott and another cable for Goodison in New York.
10
Nice Chap
Caldicott opened the door.
Something about him reminded Roger of a bulldog; he must have had animal faces on his mind, for he had a sudden mental picture of Tom Batten. Despite the resemblance, or because of it, there was something pleasant in the face: a solid, good-humoured dependability seemed to emanate from this man.
Caldicott frowned. “Good morning. Who—Oh!” He stood to one side, smiling, and huge dimples appeared in his cheeks as his mouth stretched wide. His teeth were big, uneven, very white. “It’s Superintendent West, isn’t it? All alone?”
“Yes,” answered Roger.
“Come in,” Caldicott said hospitably. “I’m just having breakfast. I suppose you’ve been up for hours, but if you’d like to join me—” He led the way to a door on the right which opened into a large, very modern kitchen; on an imitation wooden bar stood bacon and eggs, a frying pan with more bacon in it, and an aroma of frying bacon which almost made Roger’s nose twitch. A coffee percolator bubbled. “Take a stool,” said Caldicott. “Everything’s hot, I could serve bacon and eggs in a jiffy.” When Roger hesitated for a split second before saying “no,” the other man lifted two eggs from a moulded carton, pushed the frying pan back onto the gas ring, and cracked the eggs as the fat began to sizzle. “We’ll have to share the bacon. I cooked all there was. Too much for me to tell the truth.” He took a large plate from a rack over the gas stove and placed it on the bar with a knife and fork. Finally, as if with sleight of hand, he took the coffee off the ring and poured two cups. “As my father used to say, you couldn’t be served quicker in a cook shop!”
“I certainly couldn’t,” Roger said, adding in the same breath: “Has Stephenson telephoned you this morning?”
Caldicott held a slicer with which he was going to lift the eggs, and stared at Roger as if in astonishment.
“Good Lord, no! What made you think he might?”
Roger looked at him, smiling, still in a very good humour, and replied: “He called you once the night before last, and once the day before yesterday. The Bath police checked the calls from his hotel.”
“Oh,” Caldicott said ruefully. “Police dig deep. The trouble with digging deep is that you can never be sure what you’re going to unearth. Do you like your eggs lightly or well-done?”
“Well, please.”
Caldicott began to scoop bubbling fat over the two eggs, pushing the bacon to one side mechanically. He pursed his rubbery lips, then shot Roger a wry glance from under his brows.
“Truth will out,” he said. “Neil didn’t call me, his wife did. In fact he didn’t want to admit I existed after the fiasco at Salisbury. I’d told him he might pick up some Old Masters for a song, instead of which there were so many dealers that he would have had to bid against the big boys in the business. I am not in favour with Neil Stephenson. I would be even less in favour if he knew—” Caldicott finished basting the eggs and then turned out the gas, held the frying pan in one hand and the slicer in the other; for a flash it seemed as if the eggs, bacon, and fat would hurtle into Roger’s face. “Oh, hell! I’ve fallen for his wife.”
Roger stared blankly, half-believing.
“Couldn’t help myself,” Caldicott went on. “Love at first glimpse, as it were. Nothing’s happened yet, and probably never will, but she responds at least by telephone. I never was lucky with women. Now! Two well-done eggs and two rashers of overcooked bacon coming up. Call me a bloody fool, if you like. I am constantly calling myself one. No one with any sense would ever aim for the moon. I am a confirmed bachelor of modest means and Stephenson is a millionaire at least. However, human beings are human beings, cats may look at queens, idiots can hope for miracles, five minutes’ holding hands with Sarah is far better, for me, than bed with any other woman. And I am not exactly celibate.” As he talked he sat at the bar and attacked his breakfast with gusto. “Salt? Toast? Forgive me if in the masculine manner I am crying on your shoulder. It may be hard to understand, but there are times when having no one to talk to can be purgatory.” He gave one of his broad, lugubrious yet happy-looking smiles. “You didn’t know you were coming to rescue a man from purgatory, did you?”
Roger, eating with relish, answered: “No.”
“My best thanks.”
“My pleasure. Exactly what business do you have with Stephenson?”
“May I ask, why all these questions?”
“Do you need to?” asked Roger, sharper than he had yet been.
“Shouldn’t I?” As Caldicott buttered a corner of toast, his eyes rounded. “Oh. The missing policewoman.”
“Yes.”
“Surely you don’t think—”
“I think someone who saw her at the Leech Gallery might know what happened to her.”
“Oh,” Caldicott said. “I see. Damned funny, how the mind works. I saw the show on television last night and someone said something about the gallery, but I was at the time busy with, no doubt, lustful fancies. I’m sorry. You can’t think Stephenson—” He forked toast, bacon, and eggs, and popped the load into his mouth. “Or perhaps me?” he suggested. “Whether you can is academic, whether you do is all that matters. I saw this Prell girl of course – rather coltish, I thought, and very proud of her locket camera.” So he had noticed that. “She really shouldn’t have been let loose among such a crowd, Mr. West. Are you going to ask me questions or shall I make a statement?”
“Both,” Roger said. “And we shall ask everyone who was in that gallery to do the same. Did you see Miss Prell leave the gallery?”
“On reflection – yes.”
“What time?”
“Half-past ten or so, I suppose.”
“Did you see her at any time after that?”
“No.”
“What did you do afterwards?”
“Ambled about Salisbury, spent an hour in the cathedral, had lunch at a pub called the Haunch of Venison, walked to the station, and caught the next train back to London. That was two-thirty, more or less.”
“Did you see the Stephensons again?”
“No.”
“When did they talk to you?”
“It was Sarah who telephoned.”
“I don’t mean from Bath. I mean when did Stephenson first talk to you about paintings – or business?”
Caldicott considered for a few moments before answering.
“Thursday. And he telephoned me again last Saturday. Yes, Saturday. He caught me just before I left for the Yorkshire match – I live here mostly because I’m within walking distance of Lord’s and a bus ride from Hampstead Heath, my favourite place for constitutionals. Saturday, then. He gave the name of a mutual friend in New York as introduction, and asked me whether I knew where he might buy some good Victorian or earlier period pictures at a modest price. There’s a run on the unknown Victorians in the States at the moment. All you have to do is to prove the date: the artist doesn’t matter. So I told him about Salisbury, and he asked me if I would meet him at this preview. He was touring in a drive-yourself hired car, and I went down by train. You know what happened from then on.”
“Yes,” Roger said, and placed his knife and fork neatly together on his empty plate. “That was very good indeed, thanks. Who was t
he mutual friend?”
“Tito, of Madison Avenue.”
“Tito!”
“Not the great Yugoslav leader,” Caldicott said, grimacing. “There’s no copyright in names. Coffee?” He poured out while talking; he seemed never to stop talking. “I don’t know whether you have a file on me at Scotland Yard, Mr. West, and whether you have or not I can, no doubt, fill in some gaps. I am a runner in high-class art circles. Cursed with laziness, blessed with modest tastes, possessed of a good public-school education and a love of paintings and the visual arts generally, I can indulge most of my tastes by this running. I am a very good judge of paintings but haven’t the possessive streak which makes some men want to own as many as they can get their hands on. However, I love travel and enjoy nothing more than going from antique shop to gallery. When I see anything that a particular gallery or a certain individual wants, I report it, and buy, if necessary, on commission. Am I boring you?”
“You are fascinating me.”
“Then I’ve done my good deed for the day! In the course of these activities which I indulge whenever it takes my fancy, I meet some odd characters. Dishonest dealers, for instance. It is distressing how often I tell someone of a rare opportunity and instead of doing an honest deal as a result, they steal the goods or have them stolen. And friends recommend me, my judgement being impeccable as near as damn it. I’ve been questioned often enough by you chaps to realise that I am suspected of being on the fringe of crime. Your man Kempton once warned me that one day I would find myself tipped over onto the wrong side of the law, but —well, I never help criminals knowing they are criminals. And I never work knowingly with ex-criminals, old lags, or known fences. So, I’ll take my chance!”
He drained his third mug of coffee, put it down on the bar, and sat back, one elbow on the bar, big face a-smile. Not a bulldog, Roger thought, rather more like the caricature of a cow which had once been on all the hoardings in Paris; the cow that laughed.
He stopped smiling and showed no sign of being amused when he asked: “You won’t let me down over Stephenson’s Sarah, will you? Apart from not wanting to get hurt, I don’t want to create any problems for her. I can rely on your discretion, can’t I?”
After a very short pause, Roger answered “Yes.”
“Thank you,” said Caldicott simply. He shrugged, and looked crestfallen. “I know it will probably come to nothing, but they’re coming back to London for the weekend and at least I’ll be able to see her. Now! Enough of my bleeding heart. Is there any way in which I can help you?”
“Yes,” Roger answered again. “Write down everything you can remember at the gallery, everything you recall of Police Constable Linda Prell, the names of people you saw, anything which may suggest that any one of the people at the gallery took special notice of the police officer. Sign this statement and I’ll have it collected this afternoon. If you’d like one I’ll have a photocopy made and sent round to you.”
“Oh, I’ll need one,” said Caldicott feelingly. “Do you realise that this will entail more writing than I normally do in a couple of months?” He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot! I’m not complaining.”
A few minutes later, Roger said: “I must be off.”
“Spare a few minutes to see my den,” Caldicott urged.
He took Roger into the room beyond the kitchen. Here the walls were crowded with prints, some bookcases, some small pieces of antique furniture, and some big leather armchairs. The carpet was threadbare. The room had both a comfortable and homey look, the abode of a bachelor with rare taste and discernment.
“If I weren’t so lazy I would be a rich man,” Caldicott said as they shook hands.
Roger walked away from the Regency house, one of a white-painted terrace which had been converted into flats, and saw the Yard man sitting in a car at the far end of the terrace. He did not acknowledge the man but immediately flicked on his own radio-telephone and talked to Information.
“Superintendent West speaking . . . I want the man watching Frank Caldicott in Whiteside Court moved and a less obvious replacement sent . . . Yes, closely watched . . . Telephone Salisbury H.Q., Chief Inspector Kempton if he’s there, if not Mr. Isherwood or Mr. Batten, to say I will be delayed but should be with them at about two o’clock . . . Tell Detective Sergeant Venables that I’ll be at my office in about half an hour.”
He rang off and concentrated on driving; the high wall of Lord’s, which was smoke-grimed and out of place with the game played by “flannelled fools” made him smile, but his smile was crooked as he thought of Caldicott. He reached the Yard in twenty minutes, and saw several newspapermen outside. Cameras flashed and men called out, all their questions virtually the same: “Is there any news of the missing policewoman?”
“None at all,” Roger answered.
“Are you here to follow a London angle, Superintendent?”
“I’m here to confer,” Roger answered, and went inside the Broadway entrance and up the central lifts. He met no one from the C.I.D. until he entered the main hall. The doors of the Conference Room were open and beyond he saw most of the top brass of the Metropolitan Force standing about, smoking, drinking coffee. One or two caught his eye; he wondered if they had been discussing him, hoped they wouldn’t send for him this morning, and hurried along to his office. Venables came lumbering in when he rang.
“One,” Roger said. “Have a messenger call on Caldicott for a signed statement by between three and half-past, and send a photocopy back to Caldicott. Two, check that the next watch on Caldicott doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Three, cable New York and ask them if they’ve anything on Mrs. Stephenson, Christian name Sarah, and don’t forget to thank Captain Goodison for the cable we had this morning. Four, have a dozen photocopies of that cable made. I want some for Salisbury. Five—”
“I’ve had some cable copies done, sir,” Venables reported.
“Good. Five, have Bath—” Roger broke off, frowning, and then said in a gusty voice: “No, I’ll talk to Bath. We want the Stephensons trailed, want to know where they go and whom they see. Oh, six—how would you like a job for the weekend?”
“Out on the prowl, sir?” Venables’ face lit up.
“Watching the Stephensons, particularly the woman.”
“I’d love it, sir!”
“They’re coming back to town, and it may be to the hotel where they were last time—”
“The Rubens in Knightsbridge.”
“Check with the Rubens. And remember I don’t want the Stephensons to know why they’re being watched. I do want to know how they’re going back to America – by sea or air, which sailing or flight, everything possible, so that if necessary I can alert New York.”
“I understand, sir,” the younger man assured him.
Roger had every confidence that he did. As the other went into the smaller office, Roger put in a call to the superintendent of the Somerset police in Bath. Sometimes one seemed to behave in a cavalier fashion with provincial forces, or one took them for granted. This had very nearly happened with Bath, this time, and he wasn’t sure that the mood would be amiable. Soon, a Superintendent Soames was on the line.
“Superintendent, I know we’ve been taking you for granted—” Roger began.
“If you’re worried about ruffling our feathers you needn’t be,” the other man interrupted. “I had your message and I know what you’ve got on your hands. We’ll help where and how we can.” Before Roger could respond, he went on: “So forget it. We’ve been watching your pair, and they’re booked in at the Pump Hotel again tonight. At the moment they’re on their way to Bristol, and the Bristol police will pick up their trail. Don’t worry about anything this end, Mr. West. All we hope is that you soon catch the baskets.” He paused for a moment and then added: “Found her yet?”
“No,” Roger answered,
and this time he was able to get a word in. “And when we do it will be because you chaps freed our hands. Thanks. Goodbye.”
He rang off, and sat back, but had no time to think clearly before the interoffice telephone bell rang, and when he answered it, Coppell said: “I want to see you for five minutes, Handsome. Stay in your office, will you?”
11
Liaison
A minute could be a long time.
Roger simply waited for two or three to pass, then picked up his case and took out notes he had made since the Salisbury affair had begun. He made such notes whenever he needed to refresh his memory about incidents or aspects of a case, and they not only kept him in tune but they formed a basis for the official report he would have to make. Now he scanned them closely, made a few extra notes mainly about Caldicott, with another covering the cooperation of the Bath police. He had nearly finished when there was a perfunctory knock at the door, and Coppell came in. The commander was in a new, dark-brown suit and wearing his Metropolitan Police Force tie; obviously he had dressed in his best for the meeting of V.I.P.s.
“Don’t get up,” he said, as Roger started to rise. “Mustn’t stay, I’ve got to take a message back to the others.” He stared levelly at Roger, who began to suspect there was something wrong, before asking abruptly: “Does it matter where you go? On business, I mean.”
Roger said, slowly: “Well, no. Why should it?”
“Your wife has been known to protest if you’re away too much.”
“Oh,” Roger said, heavily. “Yes, she has. But I think we’re over the hill where that’s concerned.”
“Thinking won’t help. Do you know? Because this appointment might take you away from London a lot.”
“I’ll go wherever the job takes me,” Roger assured him.
“Right!” Coppell was obviously pleased and actually clapped his hands resonantly. “There will be some delay, a few weeks or even months, but it’s in the bag.” He started for the door, only to spin round again and to throw words out. “How’s the Salisbury job shaping up?”
