by John Creasey
He made notes in other files; recommendations for briefing which Hobbs normally did. That set him thinking about Hobbs again, and the parks case in general.
There was one thing he could and should do: see Lady Carradine again, and confront her with this annotated list. The truth was, he didn’t trust himself to talk with her.
He could, later.
He was tempted to telephone Kate, but resisted that also. He had never felt so lonely or so helpless. If only he, George Gideon, could take an active part; could go in person to confront the devils who —
He caught his breath, and after a moment said aloud but in an almost inaudible voice: “Well, why not?” He moved to his chair behind the desk and dropped into it, saying in a voice that was even more still and small: “Yes, why not?” He began to think constructively, beyond the impulsive thought, and something akin to excitement stirred in him. What would happen if he, George Gideon, Commander of the C.I.D. and Hobbs’s superior, went to that house in Cricklewood, by himself? Well, what would happen? Wasn’t there at least a chance that the men holding Alec would want to hear what he had to say? It would be useless to go in unprepared, of course; he would need something with him. Tear gas? What was he talking about? Was there the slightest chance of getting results if he went? Wouldn’t it be a vainglorious effort, carried out mainly to soothe his tortured, emotional self?
He tried to shut the idea away, but it would not go.
Supposing he took high explosive? Nitro-glycerine, or something safer to carry but equally effective. Why not? Years, many years ago, he had taken as big a chance simply to capture a man wanted for murder and to save the life of a girl he didn’t know. The man’s name came back to him: Micky the Slob. So did the circumstances: he could have been blown to pieces together with the ship the man was on.
If he talked about this to anyone they would shout him down.
Scott-Marie would simply forbid it. Other senior officers would almost certainly get word to the Commissioner in order to prevent it.
He must keep it to himself.
As he worked during the afternoon he felt calmer than at any time since realising that Hobbs had been abducted. He put Bruce in charge of an Operations Room, here at the Yard, to work in close co-operation with Information. Every arrest would be recorded, as well as everything that was found. He fully realised that there was no certainty that jewels would be brought out of the parks, but he did not think there was any serious doubt.
He would drive himself to Cricklewood.
At five o’clock, he went along to the Operations Room, two rooms in one, where Bruce was already briefing the men who had worked with him all day. Bruce sprang up and began to show Gideon exactly what he planned. Gideon showed a proper interest, and then said: “Exactly where is this Cricklewood house?”
“Just here, sir.” Bruce had maps on the walls showing the parks and open spaces in green, railways in red: Gideon had seen all this at Hampstead; what he had not studied was the position of the house in relation to the main road. Bruce knew it to a square foot!
“The watch is still being kept there, isn’t it?”
Bruce looked at him oddly.
“Naturally, sir – we aren’t taking any chances. I was talking to Superintendent Sharp only half an hour ago, and he said no one had come in or out this afternoon.”
“I’m going out to Hampstead,” Gideon said. “I’ll keep in touch.”
“I’ll look after things, sir!”
Gideon went out and up the stairs to Ballistics, where all kinds of explosives were kept for record and experiment. A small, bald-headed man was in charge there.
“Good-evening, Commander.”
“Hallo, Wilf,” Gideon said, and forced a smile. “I’m having some difficulty keeping my mind occupied tonight.”
“I don’t wonder, sir.”
“I want to refresh my mind about the different kinds of incendiary bombs recently used in demonstrations,” Gideon told him.
“No trouble about that, sir.” Chief Inspector Wilfred Kippen was highly gratified by Gideon’s use of his first name; as gratified that Gideon should have come here to kill time. He showed specimens of the incendiary bombs Gideon had mentioned, not noticing his underlying interest in the nests of small drawers marked “explosives”.
“Good thing they haven’t used high explosives,” Gideon said casually.
“Some of the stuff they use these days would make a hole almost as big as Hyde Park!” Kippen joked. “Now take that stuff, for instance …”
By then, the first people were being stopped and questioned outside the parks.
Most were young, many were lovers, all were scared. Half were unmarried; many were married and, on that night, unfaithful. A few were defiant and even bold, and P.C. Arthur Simpson, on duty near South Park, in Fulham, had one of these to cope with. The man, carrying a parcel, objected to being taken into the mobile police station, objected to being searched.
Arthur Simpson, still flushed with this week’s triumph, was in no mood to stand nonsense; and when the man refused to take off his jacket, Simpson spun him round and began to pull at one of the sleeves.
The man back-heeled so viciously that Simpson cried out in pain; only iron heel-tips could have caused such an injury. As Simpson reeled back, the man darted for the door, and leapt out, sending the one policeman on guard flying with a kick in the chest. Running at great speed, the fugitive turned a corner, and raced to Wandsworth Bridge Road.
The police did not see him again.
“Won’t do Simpson any harm,” a colleague said, unsympathetically. “If he’d found sparklers in that man’s pockets he would have been unbearable.”
Simpson, blood pouring from his leg, did not hear this. He only knew that he felt as if his leg was broken.
“It’s not broken,” a doctor at St. Stephen’s Hospital told him. “But you won’t be able to walk on that for a week.”
Two or three other men escaped, but all who carried anything that looked at all suspicious were held.
The police outside the parks were at their busiest when Gideon drove off the main road towards the lonely house in Cricklewood. He knew that he was being watched, that probably word that he was approaching the house was being sent back to Sharp’s headquarters, but it was too late to stop him. The headlights of his car swayed slightly as the car went over bumps in the road. Lights shone at some of the windows of the house, and Gideon thought he saw a shadow pass one of them.
He pulled up at the gate.
He got out and, leaving the headlights on, walked along the driveway. Now, he saw no movement. He reached the porch, waited for a moment, then knocked sharply, a rat-tat-tat, which echoed for a long time. He was aware of movements at one side of the house, and suddenly a man called out: “There’s no one in the car.”
“I am Commander Gideon,” Gideon said in his most authoritative voice, “and I have come alone to discuss the situation with you.”
His voice echoed and re-echoed in the porch; no one replied. It was eerie standing there in the darkness, knowing he could be seen, knowing he could be shot. He stopped thinking; could only feel. Soon, very soon he would know whether their curiosity would get the better of them. He thought he heard a movement inside the house and he was right, for suddenly the door was pulled open and a man rasped: “Make a false move, and I’ll shoot you in the guts.”
Gideon said in the same voice of authority: “I want to talk with whoever is in charge here.” He was sure it was not this man with the automatic pistol; this would be Syd, common-law husband of Clara. He felt a surge of hopelessness; no one of authority would be here—
He did not want anyone in Authority: he wanted to get everyone here together so that he could put the fear of death into them. His mood changed; and almost on that instant, a man called out, apparently f
rom the head of a flight of stairs which Gideon could just see.
“My God!” this man exclaimed. “It is Gideon.”
Gideon felt a sharp stab of excitement, recognising the voice of the man with whom he had talked over the telephone. “Yes. I am Gideon,” Gideon declared. “What the hell do you want?”
“To talk to you,” Gideon said. He moved forward, ignoring the gun, and the man holding it backed away, while the one at the stairs called: “We’ve nothing to talk about.”
“We have a great deal,” Gideon said. “Tell this man to let me in.”
He wondered even then whether the other would obey or whether he would be shot out of hand. He heard the laboured breathing of both men, and kept quite still.
Then the man at the stairs said: “Let him in.”
“It’s a trap, you bloody fool!”
“He’s alone. Let him in,” the other insisted.
Gideon went in, taking four long strides.
The man was now halfway down the stairs, a stocking mask over his face.
A woman and another man appeared at the end of the passage; Clara, of course; Gideon had no idea who the other was. The door closed behind him with a bang. He heard the gunman’s surly voice snarl: “Don’t try any tricks.”
The man on the stairs said thinly: “Well, start talking.”
“This is why I am here,” Gideon said. “In my hand, and in my pocket, I have two small containers of high explosive. Each will explode on contact with anything hard. Each is powerful enough to blow this house to pieces, and everyone in it.”
“You bloody fool!” screeched the man with the gun. “I warned you!”
“You’re lying,” said the man in the mask. “You wouldn’t blow yourself up.”
“I have every intention of doing so,” Gideon asserted calmly, “unless you fetch Mr. Hobbs immediately, and we all leave this place.”
“You’re lying!” gasped the man in the mask.
“You may live just long enough to know that I am not,” Gideon retorted.
Very slowly he opened his left hand, with the tiny container in it. “This is the smaller of the two. Which of you will take it outside and hurl it into the grounds?” He looked coldly round at the man behind him, and said: “The other is precariously balanced. If you shoot me and I fall—”
“Oh, my God!” breathed the man with the gun. “He means it!”
“You’re nearest the door,” Gideon said, thrusting his open hand farther forward.
The only sound was their breathing, until suddenly the woman moved, slowly at first and then briskly, watching Gideon all the time. She drew closer to Gideon, and said in her throaty, Cockney voice: “Open the door, Syd.” The man did not move. “Open the door, you fool!” Slowly, the man opened the door, and then moved away from it fearfully, obviously terrified of setting up a reverberation which might shake the capsule. The woman hesitated, then took the capsule; Gideon noticed that her roughened hand did not shake. She moved to the door, and stepped outside; then walked perhaps twenty feet away. There was enough light to show the movement of her arm as she hurled the capsule away from her, and then turned and raced back towards the house.
Before she reached it there was a blinding flash, a roar, and a blast which knocked her off her feet and slammed the door with a noise which shook the whole house.
When it had quietened, Gideon said: “Now fetch Mr. Hobbs.”
Two of them had to carry Hobbs on the narrow bed, for his right leg was broken; but he was conscious.
The two others followed them, and Gideon brought up the rear. The group was halfway to the gate when the first police cars came tearing along the street, one from each direction. Quietly, Gideon gave instructions to men who did not yet fully comprehend what had happened. Hobbs was driven swiftly to the nearest hospital. The woman prisoner was put in one police car, the three male prisoners, handcuffed to each other, in another; then all four were taken to Hampstead divisional headquarters.
Gideon went with Hobbs, who tried to speak in spite of Gideon’s, “leave it, Alec, leave it.”
“What they wanted was to know whether there was an annotated copy of the big list,” Hobbs said. “They still don’t know.”
Soon, a single hypo shot put him under almost instantaneously.
Gideon went on to divisional headquarters, where the prisoners were arraigned, the one man still wearing his stocking mask. “Let’s have it off,” Gideon ordered, and a young policeman simply gripped it at the neck, and pulled it upwards. Only when it was off, and he could see the thick, sand-coloured hair, the weathered face, pale now beneath its surface tan, did Gideon know that the man beneath him was Sylvester Bruce, brother of Spruce.
“Penny,” Gideon said into the telephone, “he’ll be all right. He’s been hurt but he’ll be as good as new. He’s on the way to hospital now. I’ll tell you the moment there’s a doctor’s report, but he’ll be all right.”
He rang off, looking up into Sharp’s face, feeling very, very tired.
“What’s the news from the Yard?”
“Seven arrests, and a total of at least a hundred thousand pounds worth of jewels recovered so far,” Sharp reported. “Bruce is dancing like a dervish, they tell me.”
“He won’t be for long,” Gideon said heavily. “Anyone talked, do you know?”
“One of the arrested men says that the jewels were always buried in certain places known only to the thieves themselves, and collected under cover of an Elsie disturbance. He says he doesn’t know the organiser, the work was always delegated, but a pattern will form, George.” Sharp brushed his hand across his forehead; he was quivering. “My God!” he said. “What a thing to do. And I’ll swear I’m more affected by it than you are!”
Chapter Twenty-One
THE PATTERN
Spruce Bruce looked up from the desk at which he was writing, and sprang to his feet. His expression was one of absolute triumph as he rounded the desk, and yet admiration showed through; as it did on the faces of the other men at the office, for the story had spread like wildfire. Not a man whom Gideon had passed on the way here had failed to stop and speak: or try to speak.
“Wonderful, sir!”
“Congratulations, sir.”
“They must give you a George Medal, sir.”
“Magnificent, sir.”
And when Gideon had called Scott-Marie on the telephone, the Commissioner had said: “I don’t know what to say, George. There isn’t a man in the Force who won’t be stirred to the heart by this. Will you come and see me, or shall I—”
“May I have half an hour, sir. I’ve a job to do, then I’ll come.”
“Whenever you like.” Scott-Marie had replied.
That was behind him. Now there was this eager-faced zealot, who lived for his job, sharing in one of the Yard’s greatest triumphs as well as his own.
“Commander,” he said, “that was the bravest act I’ve ever heard of.”
Gideon demurred.
“There have been plenty braver, and more remarkable. Spruce, come along to my office, will you?”
“Of course. Miller—” Bruce looked round. “Just repeat the pattern, and keep the cumulative totals going. Twenty-one arrests, Commander, and I would say that half of the jewellery stolen in the past year has been recovered. They used the parks as a warehouse!”
“So I understand,” Gideon said.
Bruce, for once, fell silent, and they walked along the wide passage in an awkward silence, until Bruce burst out: “How is the Deputy Commander, sir?”
“Not good, but he’ll pull through.”
They reached Gideon’s office and Bruce hurried to open the door and hold it for Gideon to enter. Gideon went first to the window; then he felt too tall to stand over Bruce, and moved to the desk, squatting on a corn
er, while Bruce waited, puzzled, even a little wary; it was almost possible to hear him asking himself what he could have done wrong.
“Spruce,” Gideon said at last. “I don’t like what I have to tell you.” The other man went very still. “I don’t like it at all. You know there must be a ringleader of the jewel thieves, of course.”
“Surely we’ll get him now, sir! I’ve at least six statements from accused men who almost certainly know who he is.”
“We know who he is,” Gideon stated. “He was at the Cricklewood house. And he was responsible for some ugly attempts to make Hobbs give him information.”
“Then who—” began Spruce Bruce, only to break off, and catch his breath.
That must have been the moment when the truth began to dawn on him. He did not move but his features seemed to change and to become set. He was suddenly a helpless and defenceless man on whom a final crushing blow was about to fall.
“He is your brother,” Gideon stated, in a husky voice.
Bruce did not shift his position; did not look away; but he blinked several times, and then closed his eyes. When he opened them again their light was gone. “No—no doubt at all, sir?”
“None at all. I only wish it weren’t so certain.”
There was another pause. Long. Tortured.
“Thank—thank you for telling me yourself, Commander.”
“Can I help,” asked Gideon, awkwardly, “in—in any way at all?”
Bruce’s lips worked, but no words came. He turned round abruptly and took four quick steps to the window, staring out for what seemed an interminable time. He took a folded handkerchief from a side pocket and unfolded it, then blew his nose vigorously. His voice was stronger when he replied: “Yes, sir.”
“Name it.”
“Permit me to carry on, sir,” Bruce said, and then explosively: “Please!”
“Of course you can carry on,” Gideon assured him. “I would only take you off the case if you wanted to be released.”
Slowly, Bruce turned round; his eyes were red, but colour was seeping back into his cheeks, and his shoulders had stiffened.
