Gideon at work; three complete novels: Gideon's day, Gideon's week, Gideon's night

by Marric, J. J. , 1908-1973

  Gideon drew up.

  "Anyone hurt badly?" he asked sharply.

  Trabert, the Yard man who had summoned him, and the Divisional C.I., named Wilson, turned round at the sound of his voice.

  "Hallo, George," the Yard man greeted. "Sorry we didn't call you earlier, didn't think they'd be such fools. It depends what you call badly—one chap's got a knife wound in his shoulder and another a cracked skull. Nice lot, those Millways chaps."

  "Seen 'em?"

  "No. They're in that corner over there." Trabert, a thinnish, graying man whose overcoat looked too large for him, pointed to a corner. "There's a laboratory up there, with steel doors, and they've closed the doors. Only way we can get at them is through the window. They've got enough nitroglycerin to blow the place sky-high, and they could start a fire that would burn out half London. Been talking to the chief chemist, and he says the stuff's there all right." Trabert had always a reputation for being picturesque, and for exaggeration. "I've talked to the pair on the radio with a loud-speaker, and they've got a megaphone up there."

  Gideon looked at the window.

  "Any of our chaps inside?"

  "I ordered them out. If the place does go up, I'd rather we didn't have a lot of casualties."

  "Wouldn't be a bad idea if you moved back a bit yourself," said Gideon. He looked at the dim light, and he tried to picture the two men inside. Jingo Smith was as hard as they were made; a good second to Benson. The man with him, Matt Owens, had no record of violence; but probably he knew that if he were caught his sentence would be so long that it was worth making desperate efforts to stay free.

  At heart, each man must know that he hadn't really a chance.

  But they could do a lot of damage before giving in.

  "Don't mind admitting it was my own fault," said Wilson. The Divisional man had a gruff, whispering voice. "I had a flash from one of our chaps, saying they were here, and thought I'd be clever. Didn't realize that Smith and Owens knew they'd been seen, so I thought I'd pull them in, and make you a present. I ought to be hamstrung."

  Gideon said, "Who doesn't make a boner, some time or other?" It was the only thing he could say, although inwardly he felt the welling up of bitterness against a responsible officer who had taken risks simply to cover himself, or his Division, with glory. Some men didn't seem to grow up. "Well, we'd better call the A.C. and let him have a word with a big shot at the Home Office."

  Wilson said, "Listen, George, let me go and have a try to reason with them."

  "In a minute," Gideon said. "Anyone here from the warehouse, to tell us how to get inside from the roof or the back?"

  "George," said Trabert, quietly, "there's only one way in now—through that window. We can't break down a steel door, armor plating couldn't be tougher. If you and anyone else try heroics, you'll be crazy. We could try to hose them out, but if we do they might toss some nitroglycerin down. If it comes to that, we might knock a tube of the damned stuff off a bench, and start the blow-up that way. There isn't any way of getting into that laboratory. We'll have to starve them out."

  He stopped.

  Then a loud voice sounded from the direction of the window. Gideon and every other man stared toward it and the ladder which leaned against the wall near it. No one appeared; but Gideon saw the round mouth of a megaphone, like those used on the docks when foremen dockers needed to make themselves heard above a din.

  "Hi there, Gee-Gee!" That was Jingo Smith. "Didn't think it would be long before they got you out of bed. How do you like it?"

  Gideon—George Gideon made Gee-Gee inevitable, and he was often surprised that it wasn't used more—put his great hands to his mouth and called back in a voice which was almost as powerful as Jingo Smith's when amplified by the megaphone. At least fifty people were standing, watching and listening; and more were arriving every minute.

  "I don't like it at all, Jingo," Gideon called. "I never like to see a man make a fool of himself."

  "I'm no fool," Jingo called back. His weakness, the weakness of so many of them, was vanity. Now he was the center of attraction, and having a wonderful time. It was at least possible that he had managed to get drunk, if only on methylated spirits from the laboratory. There would probably be pure alcohol there, too, and he wouldn't lose any time finding out. "They told you what I'm going to do?"

  "No, what's it to be?"

  "They didn't tell you? What's the matter, they gone deaf? This is what it will be, Gee-Gee! I've got a tube of nitro in my pocket, and I'm going to bring it out with me. Anyone who tries to stop me will get it—and that goes for anyone within a fifty-foot radius, too. Any copper want to come to hell with me? Why don't you come, Gee-Gee?"

  "Give it a rest," Gideon called. "You can't get away, and you know it. Better have a few more years up at Millways than blow yourself to pieces."

  "Gee-Gee," bawled Jingo Smith, "we're coming out in ten minutes; and if anyone gets near us, up will go the balloon."

  Gideon didn't speak for at least a minute; everyone within earshot was waiting for him; the tension in the street was like an electric current. Then, just as Smith was going to speak again—they actually heard him clear his throat—Gideon tossed back his great head and bellowed:

  "Owens, do you want to be blown to Kingdom Come? Hit him over the head, and knock some sense into him! You'll get off lightly if you do."

  Silence.

  Would Matt Owens have the nerve . . .

  Then: "No, you don't!" screamed Jingo Smith. "I'll smash your face . . ."

  His voice fell to a whisper as he dropped the megaphone. Gideon didn't need to speak, but led the rush toward the ladder—Trabert, Wilson and two other men following at speed. They heard the scuffling inside. Behind them there was an awful silence; one which might be broken by a blast which could kill the men in the room and the policemen who were so near. Gideon reached the ladder and climbed up it as fast as any fireman. He heard the gasping and the scuffling. He reached the top of the ladder and could see inside the laboratory as he flashed his flashlight beam into the room.

  Jingo Smith and Matt Owens were on the floor, rolling over and over. The megaphone lay near them. The light of the torch flashed on the glass of beakers, burettes, glass tubes, bottles, on Bunsen burners, on all the paraphernalia of the laboratory. A dim electric light burned in a corner, near the men.

  Gideon thrust the window up.

  He heard bottles rattling. He saw a dozen tubes on one of the benches, shaking when the fighting men rolled against it. He didn't know, and couldn't tell for certain, whether there was nitroglycerin in one of those tubes; he only knew that if there was, and it fell, he wouldn't have anything more to worry about.

  He slid into the room.

  Jingo Smith brought a bottle down on Owens' head, and as Owens went still, jumped toward the bench with his hand outstretched. There was no doubt that he wanted the small, metal tube which stood there, rocking gently, halfway between the convict and Gideon.

  15. Hero

  Gideon knew exactly what he had to do, exactly what the risk was. It was easy, now, to be heroic, for he had no choice. He had to bring Jingo Smith down, and had to stop him from jolting the laboratory bench. The tube was within a yard of Smith's outstretched hands; and he was looking toward it, lips distended, eyes shimmering. Matt Owens lay on the floor, writhing, yet staring at the tube with the fear of death in his eyes.

  Gideon thrust out his right leg, huge foot plumb on Smith's stomach, and shoved with all his massive strength. Smith gave a thin squeal of sound and, his fingers only inches from the tube, staggered away from it. He looked like a man who was staggering away from salvation.

  He wasn't finished.

  He grabbed at a beaker on the bench, trying to slide it along the bench toward the tube. Gideon saw it, grabbed, and snatched up the beaker. Smith, still staggering, went closer to Owens. Owens shot out a hand and grabbed his ankle; and Smith pitched forward, arms waving wildly, and the tube still within his reach.

&nb
sp; Gideon got between him and the bench. Smith fell heavily. Gideon, breathing very hard, went down, heaved the man over onto his stomach, and then chopped with the side of the hand at the nape of his neck. Smith lost consciousness as swiftly as a doused light goes out. The only sound was Owen's gasping breath, Gideon's hissing, and a clattering noise as someone else climbed in at the window. Gideon looked round to see Wilson, who was also gasping, and Trabert on the ladder just behind him.

  Gideon looked at the tube of nitroglycerin.

  "What did we bring the fire unit for?" he asked. "We can do it just as well ourselves. Don't start rocking the boat, or we'll all go under." He picked up the tube, looked round, and saw a small safe with a steel door standing open. Inside it were other tubes like this, as well as containers which held many things he didn't recognize. Without appearing to take exceptional care, he carried the tube to the safe and saw that inside, on the bottom, there were a number of holes into which tubes like this could be placed so that there was no risk of knocking them down. "Funny thing," he said heavily, "people live every day doing a job which would blow them to Kingdom Come if anything went wrong."

  Other police were climbing in.

  Matt Owens was getting to his feet, and a hefty D.I. grabbed his arm.

  "Take it easy with Matt," Gideon said; "if it hadn't been for him we'd all be bits and pieces. Matt, if you go on being sensible, we'll get you off serious punishment for the break. If you take my advice you'll see your sentence out quietly and give yourself a chance of getting along afterward; we'll help you all we can after this. Had any food lately?"

  Owens looked desperately tired.

  "Hardly a bite since we got away," he said hoarsely; "squeezed into a freight train, been halfway round the ruddy country." He was shivering, only partly with cold, for he wore an old, tattered coat and beneath it what looked like a new pair of flannel trousers. "Jingo was drunk, Mr. Gideon; he put down half a pint of meth and then he found some alcohol in that bottle. He wouldn't have been so crazy if he hadn't been drunk."

  "It's a good thing you kept sober," Gideon said with feeling. "We'll get you a square meal before we send you home. Take him across to the café at the end of the road," he added to two D.I.s. "Keep him away from the newspapermen if you can."

  "They don't want Owens," Trabert said, grinning and showing very big, shiny teeth. "They want you. Didn't you know you're a hero?"

  There he was, too.

  Every late edition of the morning newspaper, carried a photograph of Gideon, C.I.D. There were flamboyant accounts of what he had done during the night, as well as what he had done in the past. The headlines about Edmundsun and the prison escapes miraculously vanished. The Daily Globe spread itself with a leader on the daily dangers which faced the police, and cited the Gideon capture of Jingo Smith, the policeman who had stopped the New Bond Street raiders, and the Putney policeman who had rescued the woman and her child. It was enough to make Gideon purr; enough to make everyone at the Yard go about grinning, as if a big load had been lifted from everyone's mind. To help, the weather turned not only warm but fine. May had come some weeks ahead of itself.

  That day, the fifth since the escape of the men from Millways, was one of the best Gideon had known for a long time. Small things went right. There were seven cases up for trial at the Old Bailey, with three of them doubtful in the outcome; the police knew they had the right man but weren't sure they had a strong enough case. Each went smoothly, each man was found guilty. Birdy, the judge in Number One Court at the Old Bailey, must have read the newspapers; he included a few sentences of congratulation to the police at the end of the case which he'd been hearing for a week. Cummings alone was less happy: he felt more sure than ever that Elliott, Edmundsun's manager, had also been Edmundsun's accomplice, but seemed less confident that he would ever be able to prove it.

  About noon, on that fifth day, he came in to see Gideon.

  "Don't really know that I ought to say this to you, sir," he said, "but I get a nasty feeling about the whole job. A smell, if you know what I mean. As if Elliott's covered up a cesspit and I can't make him take the cover off. When are you seeing Mrs. Edmundsun, sir?"

  "Why?"

  "I don't know that I should leave it too long, they might get at her."

  Gideon said very slowly: "You serious?"

  "All I know, sir," said Cummings, looking more flabby and pale and ill-at-ease than usual, "is that I'm not happy about it. I know it's a bit tough trying to make her talk, with her husband only just buried, but if Elliott or anyone else is going to get at her, they won't let sentiment stand in the way."

  "I'll go and see her now," Gideon promised.

  That was easy. The Edmundsuns had lived in a block of flats in Bayswater, comfortable but not luxurious. Gideon went right away, on his own. A maid opened the door and let him in; he waited in a room which overlooked a garden, vivid green grass and wintry-looking trees, until Mrs. Edmundsun came in. He had only seen her from her photographs, and wasn't really surprised that she looked not only different but much more attractive. She wasn't exactly a beauty, but had a figure that didn't come very often, and she had beautiful gray eyes.

  "I'd hoped that the police wouldn't find it necessary to worry me again, Mr. Gideon," she said, turning his card over in her fingers; and she left it at that, as if defying him to be brute enough to question a poor, defenseless woman.

  "We want to help," Gideon said easily, "and one of the ways would be to clear your husband's name, Mrs. Edmundsun. All through the investigation, he declared that he was innocent—"

  "And I'm sure he was."

  "Well, there's one way to establish it," said Gideon, "and that's by finding the people who are responsible. For the money is missing, you know, it was paid out on dummy hire-purchase agreements. Did he ever—"

  "I've told the police everything I can," said Mrs. Edmundsun, firmly. "And if you aren't satisfied, Mr. Gideon, then I really ought to consult my solicitor. As if it isn't bad enough to have lost. . ."

  Her eyes began to fill with tears.

  A woman in black, with a figure which the mourning dress wasn't designed to disguise, and with those beautiful eyes and that soft voice, could be as unyielding as a brick wall. Gideon sensed it, and knew at once what was worrying Cummings. This woman was supposed to have been desperately in love with her husband; all the reports which had followed the news of his death suggested that; yet here she was as cool as if the tragedy had been a year ago, not a few days.

  What had caused the change?

  Gideon left her, in a non-committal way, with just enough on her mind to make her wonder whether he or another police officer would soon be back. As he reached the square, and the warm sunshine fell upon him, he thought less about her than about Cummings. A man's appearance could count heavily against him, and Cummings had that paunch, that flabby double chin, the pasty face, and those rather vague-looking eyes. Yet he had "smelt" something. Gideon knew, and everyone with a flair for C.I.D. work realized it, that once in a while a man arrived with that "sense of smell"—someone who was sure a thing was wrong but couldn't get his hands on the evidence. Cummings seemed to have it; and if he did, then his appearance mustn't stand against him.

  "I'll give him a few weeks on this job," Gideon said to himself; "if he can get anything out of it, he'll be set fair."

  When Gideon reached the Yard, Smedd was waiting in his office, shoulders square, ginger hair bright in the sun, freckles showing up more noticeably than ever, brisk and decisive as he would always be. This was the way of it: not one but several major jobs to think about at the same time, everything to be noted and neatly pigeon-holed, ready to be brought out again when necessary.

  Gideon shook hands with Smedd, and didn't show the hope that he suddenly felt. Would Smedd come in person, leaving his precious Division, unless he had news that worried him?

  "Sit down, and have a cigarette," Gideon said. He wanted the man friendly, and felt better disposed toward him than he had at
the beginning of the week: Smedd had finally confirmed that he was really thorough.

  "Thanks," he said, and drew a little quickly, almost nervously, at his cigarette; a kind of mannerism. "I thought I'd have a word with you about this development personally, as I know of your interest."

  "Good of you," murmured Gideon.

  "I've got a witness who can help us about the cinema," Smedd said. "Young chap, about Rose's age, who went to that same performance. I've had a man at the cinema with the box-office girl, she recognized this boy as a regular twice-a-weeker."

  "Yes?"

  "He said he saw Mary Rose by herself," said Smedd, deliberately. "He swears black's blue that she didn't have anyone with her. Noticed her because he knows her slightly, in fact; I think he's got one of those I-love-you-from-afar crushes." That phrase sounded odd, in the brisk, clipped way in which Smedd spoke. "That's all we want to clinch things, I think. I've asked everyone about that knife, and Rose didn't say anything about it being lost. Can't trace anyone who's actually seen him with it since he's supposed to have lost it," Smedd went on candidly, "but that's not evidence."

  Yes, he was thorough.

  "Thing I wanted to check with you. Commander: shall I try to break the girl down now, get her to admit she was lying, or shall I wait until later? Rose is up for the second hearing on Tuesday; he'll be committed for trial, of course."

  Gideon said slowly, "I think the best thing is to make sure your new witness is absolutely reliable, and then save him for the trial. We'll look for others, too—and mustn't forget that the defense is going to search high and low for someone who saw them both, or for anyone who was told that knife was lost."