"Yeh."
"There's only one thing we can do," Freddy Tisdale said, "we can try, can't we? I wouldn't like to be the guy who meets me and recognizes me. No, sir!"
He laughed on a high-pitched note.
Then: "We could stop for some fags," he said. "And I wouldn't mind a cuppa."
"We go on until we're ready to ditch this car," said Benson, emphatically. "We want to be within walking distance of a town when we do that, too."
"We want to be in a town," Freddy said, very thoughtfully. "We want to leave this wagon in a car park or some place where no one will think it looks funny. We aren't so far from Stoke. That be okay?"
"That'll be okay," Benson said.
That was at a quarter past one.
At a quarter past two, held up by traffic and by some roads partly blocked by snow, they reached Stoke. They left the car in a crowded car park, shared the money, and walked off together; no one took any notice of them. They had ham sandwiches at a snack bar, keeping their hats on like several of the other people, and finished up with sweet, strong tea. They bought cigarettes and chocolates, and then went out of the café. Walking about in the town, among people dressed in ordinary clothes, was like a dream. They kept together, didn't talk much, and looked like two reasonably prosperous businessmen. Benson's shoes began to pinch, but he didn't complain.
At half past three, he went into a telephone booth, and Freddy watched him from the outside. He put a call through to a Mile End number, then waited, leaning against the side of the booth and watching Freddy and the passersby.
A man came up and obviously wanted to use the telephone. He hung about.
Noises on the line.
A girl operator's sharp voice: "You're through, caller."
Benson said, "That you, Charlie?" He paused just long enough for the man to say yes, and then went on: "Listen, Charlie, I'm coming down to see you, be there in a couple days. Had an unexpected holiday, see. Bit o' luck, wasn't it?"
Charlie said with a gasp, "Yes, yes—it—listen. Be—"
"It's okay," Benson said, "I'm going to be careful. But do something for me, Charlie. I want to see my kid. You know. The boyo. They're keeping a pretty sharp eye on him, aren't they?"
"You couldn't say a truer word," Charlie told him, and then waited, breathing noisily into the telephone.
"Well, get him away from them," Benson said. "He'll be anxious to see his dad, won't he?" Even Freddy, watching his companion's face, realized that Benson's smile was as evil as a smile could be. "Just have him there for me, Charlie, and don't go making any mistakes, you know what could happen if I were to open my trap. Oh, and Charlie?"
"What?"
"Don't forget what I could tell the world about you," Benson said. "Expect me when you see me, old cock. So long."
He rang off.
The man who had waited to use the telephone was staring impatiently. Benson kept his face covered, and the man went straight into the telephone booth and dropped pennies into the box. Benson and Freddy walked off briskly, with danger forever on their heels.
"We going to knock off another car?" Freddy asked.
Benson said, "I don't want to play my luck too far. We want a car that no one will miss until morning, and the way to fix that is lay up in a house until after dark, then take a car out of a garage. Say we pick another empty house, and keep an eye on our neighbors. That okay?"
"Sure," said Freddy.
Twenty minutes later, they found the house they were looking for. They also saw the house, across the road, from which they could probably take a car. At the moment the car wasn't there; but the garage was standing empty, doors wide open. A young woman, quite something to look at, could be seen moving about inside the house, often a silhouette against the light which she had put on early.
Freddy Tisdale couldn't keep his eyes off her.
Soon, it was dark.
The husband came home in a small car, which he drove straight into the garage. The young woman hurried out, and neither man nor wife realized that they were being watched.
"They haven't been married long," Benson said, grinning. "Looks okay."
"Looks wonderful to me," Freddy said. "Maybe I'll give her a nice surprise, and stay the night."
For Gideon, the rest of that day was wholly unsatisfactory. Days came like it every week, sometimes two or three times a week, but there was seldom the degree of urgency and gravity which he sensed now. There was no news at all about the six men from Millways, except the reports, which were coming from a wider area than ever, that one or the other of them had been seen. The Yard, the London Divisions, the Home Counties, the Midlands and the North country police stations were swamped with such reports, and dozens of men were being interviewed; none was really like any one of the wanted men.
Gideon knew nothing of the body under the car in the car park.
He knew nothing of the furnished house or the burgled grocery shop.
He knew nothing about the two men in the empty house opposite No. 24 Wittering Street, Stoke-on-Trent.
The police just weren't getting the breaks. The evening newspapers were adopting a sharper note, there were two editorials about slackness at Millways jail, and with six prisoners still at liberty there was likely to be a lot of public anxiety. Gideon knew how often these things ran in cycles. Once a moan started, there would be the risk of a barrage of complaints, and with the perverseness of fate, or whatever directed the affairs of men, there would probably be a run of poor results. Already, there was Edmundsun's suicide in the remand cell at Brixton to make ammunition for the critics.
It was all very well to shrug one's shoulders and pretend to ignore or be indifferent to these periodic attempts to ginger-up the Force, but they got under one's skin, and could make the difference between doing a good job and a bad one. Gideon wasn't absolutely proof against them, Lemaitre certainly wasn't, and young chaps like Abbott probably keyed themselves up until they were almost nervous. People too easily forgot that policemen were human.
Edmundsun had died without making a statement. He had probably had accomplices in the embezzlement of nearly forty thousand pounds from a big commercial banking house; and for Cummings and the Fraud Squad there was likely to be week after week of slow, laborious research to try to recover the missing money and to find out who had conspired with the dead man.
The evening papers headlined the suicide and the fact that the six escaped prisoners were still at large. Two of them came out with stories about Ruby Benson's fear, and of the police watch on her and the children.
Gideon had at least made sure that everything was moving as it should. In a quiet way, the Yard had geared itself to exceptional efforts, since five of the six men still at liberty were Londoners. Their wives, their homes, their friends, their children, were all kept under surveillance. There was no way to hide the fact that this was being done; and Gideon had the sinking feeling that Benson, at least, would be smart enough not to come home. But one couldn't tell. He might act on the belief that Muskett Street would be the last place the police would expect him to go. Or he might be driven by desperation, hunger, and cold. These factors were more likely to lead to the recapture of the men than anything else.
The police could usually sit back and wait.
They couldn't afford to, with men like Benson and the others.
It was nearly seven o'clock when Gideon checked everything, yawned, saw patient, gray-haired Jefferson making out reports, and then stood up, fastening his collar and tie as he did so.
"I'm off, Jeff."
"Good night, sir."
"Call me if there's anything worth while; I'll be home all the evening."
"I'll try not to worry you, sir."
"I'll be in the sergeants' room for the next ten minutes," said Gideon. He put on his big hat and went out, letting the door close behind him on its hissing hydraulic fixture. The rubber tips at his heels made little sound as he moved along the bare, brightly lit corridors. Two or three junior me
n passed him. He went up one flight of stairs, and then into the big room where he expected to find Abbott and probably Cummings. Yes, they were there, sitting together at a table, probably exchanging notes.
They stood up at Gideon's approach.
"Sit down," he said, and ignored the other sergeants in the room. "Thought I'd catch you here. How'd things go, Abbott?"
"Absolutely uneventful, sir," said Abbott. "I had a word with the Divisional Inspector who came round just before I was off duty. He says there's nothing at all to report, none of Benson's known friends have heard from him."
"Known friends" was good.
"It's the beggars we don't know about that we're after," Gideon said. "Anything else?"
"Benson's wife looks pretty worried, sir, and there's the man Small—he went to her home tonight. I gather he's going to stay there until it's all over. He looks a bit edgy, too."
"Who wouldn't? The children?"
"The girl clings to her mother. As for that boy—well, sir," said Abbott, with obvious feeling, "I don't know him well enough to be sure, but he looks as if he could turn out to be a nasty customer. He didn't actually say anything to me, but . . ."
Gideon smiled. "Looks could kill, eh? Yes, he might be strongly pro-Dad. Watch him closely."
"I will, sir!"
Gideon concealed his smile, then; the eagerness of a new man always struck him as amusing; pleasing, too. He turned to Cummings, who wasn't so young—in the middle thirties, in fact. It was a pity how Cummings ran to fat; he looked flabby and startlingly pale against Abbott's healthy tan. His gray eyes always had a rather tired look, in spite of his needle-sharp mind. It was hard to believe that he had a genius for figures and could find his way through involved books of accounts which were Greek to Gideon.
"No luck at all with Edmundsun, eh?" Gideon said.
"I was by his side from the minute I reached the hospital, but couldn't get a word," said Cummings. "Just muttered his wife's name once or twice before he died, that's all."
"Any ideas who did the job with him?"
Cummings didn't speak.
"Well?"
"Don't like guessing," said Cummings, winning Gideon's silent applause, "but you know that Mr. Harrison and I were always worried about the chief prosecution witness—the manager of Edmundsun's department, furniture and household hire purchase. Now I come to think of it, it wouldn't surprise me if the manager isn't deliberately being obscure. He's no fool. Used to be a solicitor, and he knows a lot of the tricks. If he worked on the job with Edmundsun, he may have planned to give his evidence so as to get Edmundsun off. It's only a guess, sir, but it could be worth following up."
"What do you think of the chap? Man named Elliott, isn't it?"
"Yes. And he's all right as a person, sir, affable as they come. But that's nothing to go by."
"No, it isn't," Gideon agreed. "Well, I'm going to arrange for you and probably a couple of others to concentrate on the job; I don't like the idea that anyone might get away with forty thousand quid." He scratched his chin, and the stubble rasped. "Edmundsun kept calling his wife, you say. She get there in time?"
"Ten minutes late."
"How'd she take it?"
"Well, pretty calm, as a matter of fact."
"Know what I'd do," said Gideon, thoughtfully; "I'd have a word with her as soon as possible. Don't put anything into plain language; but just make it clear you're sure that someone else was on this job with her husband, and that, if it wasn't for them, he'd be alive today. If she knows anything, that might persuade her to talk. Worth trying, anyhow."
"I'll fix it first thing in the morning," Cummings promised. Gideon knew that he would.
There was no garage at Gideon's house, and he left his car at a garage nearby, then strolled toward his house, along the dimly lit street. The weather had changed with a vengeance, and he was almost too warm with his heavy topcoat and his woolen waistcoat. As he neared the house, he thought he saw someone lurking in the shadows of the doorway, and, with a caution learned over the years, he slowed down and approached carefully.
Then he grinned.
They were lurking figures all right, boy and girl. Prudence and a lad. Kissing. Gideon coughed loudly, saw them spring apart, saw Prudence look at him in confusion, and the youngster stand stiffly, almost to attention.
"Mind you two don't catch cold," Gideon said. "Hallo, Pru. Hallo, young man."
"Good evening, sir!"
"Oh, Dad, this is Raymond . . ."
Kate was alone in the kitchen; one of the boys still living at home was out, one upstairs in the attic playing with his electric train set. The two younger girls were out, too, one of them at night school, one with friends. Kate, in a royal blue dress, looked fresh and handsome and obviously pleased to see him. That did him a lot of good. Funny, to find the old affection warming up again. They weren't demonstrative and didn't kiss.
"Did you know about Raymond?" asked Gideon.
Kate smiled. "They don't stay young forever," she said, "and now Pru's finished her exams she'll have more time for boys." Then, obviously because she thought of the Primrose Girl and the boy in the police station cell, her smile faded. "Any news?" she asked.
"No change," said Gideon.
That was at half past eight.
Just after nine, the telephone bell rang; and Priscilla, the middle daughter, as fair as Prudence was dark, went hurrying to answer it. Gideon caught Kate's eyes, and realized what she was hinting: that Priscilla was showing remarkable eagerness to answer the telephone.
He raised his hands, helplessly.
"They grow up too fast for me," he said ruefully, and looked round at the door which Priscilla had left open. He heard her eager voice, and then the flat disappointment which came into it.
"Yes, he's in," she said, and called: "Dad! It's Sergeant Jefferson, wants to speak to you."
Gideon, coat off, collar and tie loose and shoelaces undone, got out of his big armchair reluctantly, and strolled toward the little room where the telephone was.
"Hallo, Jeff," he said.
"Thought you'd want to know this, sir," said Jefferson. "Two more of the Millways chaps caught—Alderman and Hooky Jenkins. They were in a Manchester railway yard, they'd traveled on a freight train. Almost certain that they killed that railwayman. Manchester rang through to say they'll do everything they can to find out if this pair knows which way the others went, sir."
"That's fine," said Gideon, quietly. "Thanks for calling, Jeff."
Now there were four, including the worst of them.
He wondered where Benson was.
Soon afterward, Gideon went to bed. That coincided, although he could not have the faintest idea of the coincidence, with the first offensive move of that persistent thief, Lefty Bligh, and a younger man whom he was training in the gentle art of cracking a crib without making too much noise. Lefty used an oxy-acetylene cutter of a special miniature design. They went across to the bookmaker's door, with a fortune inside waiting for the taking.
His companion watched and marveled at the ease with which Lefty got the door open, dismantled the burglar alarm, and made the whole process look child's play. Both Lefty and his apprentice went boldly inside.
A light came on.
"Hallo, Lefty," a Yard detective-sergeant greeted. "Want something?"
Lefty was one of those criminals who did not believe in violence. He looked as if he could cry. His apprentice made a run for it, but was met at the lift by another Yard man, and prompdy gave up trying.
12. Farther South
About that time, too, Benson was staring across at the house where the young couple lived.
He was sitting on a box close to the window of the house where he and Tisdale had taken refuge. It wasn't furnished, and there was no comfort, but the night was much warmer, and they weren't really cold. They'd eaten two hours before, and had enough food left for another day. They'd sat here, watching the couple sitting by the side of a fire in the house opposite,
eating supper from a tray. The more they saw, the more they realized that these were newlyweds; the man couldn't leave the girl alone, and she didn't exactly look as if she resented it. They'd gone toward the door, about twenty minutes ago, their arms round each other; then they'd put out the downstairs light. Now, there was a light on in the upstairs front room, and Freddy was actually licking his lips.
The girl appeared near the window.
"What the butler saw," Freddy muttered; "what wouldn't I give for a chance to change places with him?" Freddy sounded as if he wasn't feeling so good. "How about it?"
Benson said, "You've waited three years, you can wait another few days. We stay here until they're asleep, and then we go and get the car. We push it out of the garage and down the road."
"Okay," Freddy said. "I hope we don't disturb their dreams."
Soon, the girl came and stood at the window, with her face in shadow. The man joined her. Suddenly, the girl stretched up and drew the curtains; she made quite a picture. Freddy swore beneath his breath, and watched shadows.
It was twenty minutes before the light went out.
It was another half hour, and nearly half past eleven, when Benson and Freddy left the empty house. They crept into the deserted street. Except for the odd late bird, no one was likely to be about tonight; everyone who had been to the pictures was home. Only two windows in the whole street showed a light, and there was no parked car.
They crossed the road to the silent house.
The drive, made of smooth cement, sloped slightly upward toward the garage. They made no sound as they reached it. Freddy examined the lock and saw that it was just a padlock with a hasp; elementary. He took out a small screwdriver which he had brought from the furnished house, and set to work on it.
Benson watched the upstairs window and the street.
There was no sound.
Only a few street lamps, at intervals of fifty yards or more, gave any light, and suddenly these began to go out, one by one. The sound of metal on metal sounded very loud. Then, the padlock opened and Freddy whispered, "We're okay."
Gideon at work; three complete novels: Gideon's day, Gideon's week, Gideon's night Page 10
