“Luciano is proprietor of the Mogador. He owns it and runs it, and turns a respectable, if grimy, penny by doing so. I mean, it’s one of the better known Soho restaurants and a very large number of extremely respectable people use it every night, and neither know nor care that its proprietor is a gangster. There’s nothing surprising in that, of course. A lot of middle-class Chicago families used to stay at the Lexington when the fourth floor was the headquarters of Al Capone. One of the happy results, from his point of view, is that Luciano is able to keep all his boys together under one roof – and there’s no difficulty about their rations and so on.”
“Administrative difficulties of a gang leader,” said Nap. “What a fascinating thought. It never struck me before that housewives and gangsters might have problems in common.”
“This is just to put you both in the picture,” went on Hazlerigg. “You’ve got to understand that we should have been looking after Luciano anyway. It was when he started getting mixed up with that cashier fellow – Brandison, and his insurance company, that it ceased to be a routine job and began to have the smell of a case. And that’s where you people started to feature with what I might call almost monotonous regularity. First there was the assistant cashier who fell into the Thames–”
“Primed,” agreed Paddy, “with drinks purchased by me.”
“Then there was the rough-house which didn’t quite come off, at the Mogador, on the night of Brandison’s visit. You were involved in that–” Hazlerigg turned to Nap.
“I certainly was,” said Nap. “If it hadn’t been for some extraordinarily smart work by Major McCann I should probably now be adorning your Black Museum, catalogued as the corpse of an incautious diner in Soho.”
“I don’t think they meant to kill you,” said Hazlerigg. “But that’s a point I’m coming to in a moment. Next there was the affair of the Underground station–”
“Featuring Yeatman-Carter, in his well-known knockabout act.”
“Quite so,” agreed Hazlerigg, “And lastly there’s the death of Doctor Potts. The body was hardly cold before one of you – it was you, I think, Mr Carter – was on the spot. I may as well tell you straight away that I don’t think either of you had anything to do with that – not directly.”
“Well, thank goodness you don’t,” said Nap. “Because as a matter of fact we didn’t.”
“But that’s not to say that you didn’t have an indirect connection with it. Otherwise, to put it at its lowest, how did you manage to get on the scene so quickly?”
Paddy looked at Nap and Nap looked at Paddy and said, “Clean breast, I think.”
So they told Hazlerigg everything. It took quite a long time.
When it was all over the Chief Inspector said, “Yes. I should like to meet Lord Cedarbrook. I’ve heard of him, of course. But never having been attached to our Special Branch I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him officially.”
Both his hearers looked surprised, and Hazlerigg said, “Didn’t you know he worked for MI5 during the war?”
“I knew that he was an expert on Russia,” said Nap. “I didn’t know that he worked for the Department.”
“Where is he now?”
“Honestly I don’t know,” said Nap. “He went off at the beginning of the week. He didn’t say anything to either of us. Cluttersley may know where he is, but he won’t say. He’s a confounded graven image.”
“Well, I’d certainly like a word with him when he does show up–” The Chief Inspector was silent for a moment and then he added, “Have you ever done any surveying?”
“In a rough sort of way, when we were training in France – ” said Nap.
“Orienting the map, and that sort of nonsense,” suggested Paddy.
“That’s the idea. I’m not an expert on it myself, but you remember the principle of locating an unknown point on the map. It was a particularly useful method when it was a point you couldn’t actually get to – in front of your own front line for instance–”
“Yes,” said Nap. “I think so. By intersection of rays.”
“Quite so. You took a bearing from some spot you could locate – the spot you were standing on, for instance. Then you moved to another spot as far to a flank as possible and took a second bearing. Where those two lines crossed on the map gave you some idea of the rough location of the place. There was a considerable margin of error of course.”
“As far as I can remember,” said Nap, “if you could, you checked up with a third bearing from a third point.”
“Exactly,” said Hazlerigg. “You take the words out of my mouth.”
“You’re thinking of Legate, I take it.”
“I’m thinking of Legate. He’s up to something or other. We haven’t much to go on, you know. Even with what you’ve given us we haven’t got within a mile of the point where we could make a charge against him. But one or two things are beginning to emerge. He’s got a lot of ready money behind him. And he’s prepared to use it. His particular instruments are Luciano and company. He may have others, of course. If we knew what he was trying to do, we might try to stop it. If we even knew how he was setting about it, that’d be a help.”
“You say that, so far, our story has given you two lines on him,” said Nap. “That, I take it, is what you mean by two intersecting rays.”
“Two pointers, yes. The first, of course, was Mr Britten. Rather an intriguing figure, don’t you think? A junior cashier at the Stalagmite Insurance Corporation, who got the sack for making a mistake over some insurance policies. And threw himself into the river. Now is that the truth? Or is there more to it than that?”
“Then Doctor Potts–?”
“Yes. Doctor Potts. A voice out of the past. If Mr Britten was the guilty present, then I have a feeling that Doctor Potts must have been the guilty past. He knew something about Legate or Legate thought he knew something. Either way it proved equally fatal. But there’s a much more interesting thing about Doctor Potts and I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice.”
Both Paddy and Nap tried to look intelligent but it was obvious that neither of them knew what was coming.
“Time,” said Hazlerigg. “Seconds, minutes, hours and days. The time factor. Put yourself in the shoes of the other side and think for a moment. At the end of last week you three – by a piece of intensive work and research – for which, by the way, accept my heartiest professional congratulations – discovered the existence of Doctor Potts. Up to that moment there was no reason to suppose that anyone necessarily shared your secret. The various press-cutting agencies you employed couldn’t know yourselves. Very well. On the Monday you enlisted the help of a member of Alberts’ Detective Agency – a very respectable firm, very well known to us – we’ve nothing against them at all. You are attended by a Mr Gould. On Thursday night of that same week a fairly elaborate plan is put into action. I’ll tell you more about it in a minute – but you can take it from me that it’s definitely not the sort of thing that could have been worked out in twenty-four hours. You see what I mean? There are two possibilities – either your Mr Gould was thunderingly indiscreet and the other side got wind of his enquiries – and stepped in first. Or – and it’s a possibility that’s got to be faced – Mr Gould gave you away.”
“Have you met Gould before?” asked Nap.
“I’ve heard of him,” said Hazlerigg. “We meet these fellows in court sometimes as professional witnesses. He’s got the reputation of being clever, but slippery.”
“Do you think the thing is definite enough for you to ask him some questions?”
“Definite or not, I intend to do so,” said Hazlerigg. “We can’t afford to miss any chances when dealing with this crowd. They’re hot stuff. That show on Thursday night was streamlined.”
“I suppose,” said Paddy cautiously, “I suppose it’s just possible that Doctor Potts did commit suicide. His housekeeper said he’d been a bit off-colour, you know. His practice wasn’t a very paying one. I was asking about it afte
rwards. He had a few good patients – old ladies he was looking after – but it can’t have brought in very much money.”
“He might have committed suicide,” said Hazlerigg. “And so might Mr Britten. Both things are equally possible. But do you really believe either of them?”
“That’s all very well,” said Nap, “but the two cases aren’t on the same footing. Britten was drunk and it was a dark night. If Luciano’s boys were following him, I agree, they could have pushed him off the towing-path into the river and no trouble. But Potts was sober and in his own house. If they broke in and forced him into the car and held him down, surely they must have left some signs–”
“They left no signs at all–”
“Well, then–”
“I’ll tell you what I think happened,” said Hazlerigg, “because it’ll show you the sort of people you’re up against. But you must understand that everything I say is pure surmise. I think it happened this way because this is the only way it can have happened. I think that these people knew quite a lot about Doctor Potts and his habits and his practice and his household. I think they must have studied him for some time as a possible subject. But it was only when you three got on to him – got to know of his existence – that he had to be put away.”
“You mean that we killed him,” said Nap.
“Yes,” said Hazlerigg. “I mean just that. Unwittingly, of course. I’m sorry – but you asked for the truth. If it’s any consolation to you, I was equally responsible for his death. I knew enough by late on Thursday afternoon to have moved and I delayed till Friday morning. Now let’s stop blaming ourselves and try to see what happened.
“Two of Luciano’s men drove down to Seaford on Thursday night. They parked the car off the Hindover Road. They went on foot up the lane, and into the garden, keeping to the stone path, and they forced the slip lock of the garage door, and one of them went in – Conlan, I think. The main garage doors were bolted on the inside, but there was the usual little entrance door cut into the big one, as you probably saw, and this was the one they opened. As soon as Conlan was inside the garage, with the doors shut, he switched on the doctor’s car and started the engine. Yes – I know what you’re going to say. But it’s all right. I think he had a mask. Not a gas mask – of course, that wouldn’t have been any use to him at all against carbon monoxide – but an oxygen container mask – the sort they issued to the Tunnelling Companies in the Royal Engineers. That was the mob Conlan was in during the war.
“Inspector Roberts found that when he was in Potts’ bedroom – which was at the top of the house, on the far side, he could just hear the car engine running in the garage if he listened for it. But Potts was an old man, a bit deaf, and either asleep or very sleepy. Anyway, we may suppose he didn’t hear the car running. If he had heard it he’d have come down to investigate and I think he’d have died just the same.
“When Conlan was confident that the level of the carbon monoxide gas in the garage was high enough – a lighted match would have told him – he switched off the car and signalled to the other chap, who went back to the call box outside Dene village and rang up Potts. When Potts answered the phone – which was in his bedroom, by the way – this chap simply announced that he was the gardener or servant or goodness-knows-what from the big house, and old Mrs Trefusis had been taken powerful bad, and would Doctor Potts hurry over please.
“Well, of course he would. Doctor Potts, as you said, relied on a few special patients, and he couldn’t afford to let them down. He got sleepily into his clothes, walked downstairs, and into the garage. Now I don’t know why he got into the car before opening the garage doors. It was a cold night – possibly the ignition or the choke wanted adjusting. It makes very little difference. Once he was in the car he couldn’t get out. So there he died.”
There was silence for a moment in the room, and then Nap said, “It might have made a difference. I know that carbon monoxide works quickly, and is invisible and odourless and so on. But if he had gone straight across and thrown the doors open, mightn’t he have saved his life? Or if Conlan wanted to keep him in the garage, that would have meant a struggle, which was just what they wanted to avoid.”
“If Potts had gone straight across,” said Hazlerigg, “he wouldn’t have been able to open the door. There were four large sliding bolts and Conlan had wedged all of them with little oblong rubber wedges, cut to fit into the space between the top of the bolt and the back stop. Even if Potts had discovered what was blocking the bolts, he could never have worked them clear in time. One of those wedges was left behind. It was absolutely the only mistake they made.”
“If what you say is right,” said Paddy, “it all seems to have been carefully worked out.”
“That’s just it,” said Hazlerigg. “It’s not the sort of thing that could have been arranged overnight. Those wedges might have been faked up on the spot – but the telephone call wasn’t so simple. They’d have to know the names and habits and certain details about the patients to make that bit sound convincing.”
“And they must have known a good deal about his household,” said Paddy. “That he slept alone, and that his bedroom was on the other side of the house, and that you couldn’t hear the car from his bedroom and so on.”
“What about the telephone call,” said Nap. “Has it been traced?”
“Not a chance,” said Hazlerigg. “Seaford’s a full automatic exchange. That’s a pity, because an operator might easily have remembered a phone call at that time of night.”
“Then you haven’t a great deal of tangible evidence–”
“There isn’t a single shred of positive evidence in the whole thing,” said Hazlerigg. “If we dared put those chaps in the dock, a competent counsel would tear it to pieces. He wouldn’t even trouble to call evidence for the defence. He’d just claim that there was no case to answer. And he’d be right. So that’s how it goes. That’s the record to date. Doctor Potts committed suicide – by gassing himself in his own garage. Mr Britten committed suicide by throwing himself in the river.”
Seeing the looks on his hearers’ faces he added with a smile, “It’s all right. I’m not being a defeatist. We shall get them in the end. But this just isn’t the peg we’re going to hang them on.”
“What’s your idea of the future then,” said Nap.
“That’s very difficult. I’m very tempted to tell you to steer clear and keep clear. But that would sound ungrateful after all the good work you’ve put in. Besides, I no longer think that amateur help means nothing but trouble. If ever I did hold that opinion I was cured of it by an experience I once had with Major McCann. I’ll tell you about it some day. And there is a job for you to do. Whatever game Mr Legate is playing, it’s a financial game. And most financial games get played in or near the City. Now you both work there, I think. You, Mr Rumbold, are a solicitor, and you, Mr Carter, a chartered accountant–”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I’ve left the firm of accountants I used to work for–” said Paddy. “I’m with a newspaper.”
“The Moorgate Press, of Finsbury Square,” said Hazlerigg with a smile. “We’ve been keeping an eye on you, you see. Now you’re both well placed for this job – better placed than I am in some ways. I want you to keep your eyes and ears open for every mention or hint or whisper concerning Legate and the Stalagmite Insurance Corporation. Report anything you hear to me at once – however trivial it seems. I’ll let you have my private office number. There’ll be someone to take a message at whatever time you ring up.”
“There’s just one thing,” said Nap slowly. “How do we know that what we’re looking for has anything to do with the Stalagmite? Even if Legate and Brandison are involved in it. It may be a private swindle, something outside of the Stalagmite altogether.”
“You’re forgetting Britten,” said Hazlerigg. “He practically told us that the answer could be found in the books of the firm. The whole trouble started, you remember, when he saw some book or record he wasn’t
meant to see.”
“Then why not take the bull by the horns,” said Paddy, “and have the books inspected.”
“On what pretext? Do you imagine that the police auditors could find a discrepancy which has escaped the expert eye of Broomfields? I don’t think that this thing is necessarily directly financial at all. Besides, we’ve got to be careful, you know. The Stalagmite are a pretty powerful corporation. Take a look at the names on their board of directors – Lord Stallybrowe, Sir Hubert Fosdick–”
“Nearly seventy and quite gaga,” murmured Nap. “All right – I’m just repeating my fiancée’s opinion of him. He’s her uncle.”
“Very well then – Andrew B Chattell – he mayn’t be in Debrett, but he’s a big name in the insurance world. Charles Bedell Atkinson – he’s on the board of the Home Counties Bank. Sir George Burroughs, the shipping man. Hewson-Collet – he’d have been a KC if he’d stayed on at the Bar. That’s the sort of men you’re up against.”
“I know, I know,” said Nap. “They don’t sound a very likely gang of criminals.”
“Not only don’t they sound like criminals,” said Hazlerigg grimly, “but if we start questioning their business methods and asking for inspection of their books without some very good reason, they’ll sound like trouble. They’ll sound like Questions in Parliament and the Exit of a Chief Inspector.”
“Then we’re back where we started,” said Nap. “The ramp is being worked from the Stalagmite. But that’s not to say the Stalagmite is itself a ramp. What you really want us to do is to see if we can pick up anything discreditable about Legate.”
The Doors Open Page 14
