The Doors Open

by Michael Gilbert

  “Certainly,” said Mr Hyde.

  “Then I’m sure we understand each other.”

  “You don’t want anything in the papers about that case this morning?”

  “That’s right. I happened to notice you were the only representative of the Press in court. And I may say I was considerably relieved. You see I knew we could rely on you.”

  “Of course,” said Mr Hyde.

  Nevertheless he left the Court a badly puzzled man. For he was an experienced newspaperman and he knew enough about the workings of the Metropolitan Police to realize that it could hardly be an ordinary case which brought the head of the Special Branch down to a magistrate’s court.

  He went back to his office in Fleet Street and sat for ten minutes scribbling on his blotting-pad and thinking furiously. Then he unhooked the telephone receiver and asked for an outside line. And talked long and earnestly.

  A week later he sat in the same court. But if he had expected fireworks he was disappointed.

  Mr Blinkhorn addressed the Lion in his usual urbane and conversational way.

  “At the previous hearing,” he said, “we listened to a list of your army convictions. I do not propose to go into the question – the rather vexed question – of whether these should be admissible against you as evidence in a criminal court. To my mind the question does not arise. Not that I approve of the line of conduct you appear to have adopted in the army. It reflects, if I may say so, little credit either on your character or your patriotism. But that is as may be. When I examine the charge which is at present being brought against you, I observe that it is one of obstructing the traffic. Now I cannot see that this has any possible connection with assault, violence and sedition – which were the charges made against you by the military authorities. If the charge on which you are in front of me had been one of assault, I might have thought differently. As it is I shall find you guilty as charged and fine you forty shillings. Do you understand?”

  The prisoner appeared to have grasped the basic point.

  “You mean I can go for two pund?”

  “Yes,” said Mr Blinkhorn. “That is exactly what I mean.”

  “How can I pay two pund,” enquired the prisoner, “when all my money has been snatched by the polis?”

  “They will now give it back to you,” said Mr Blinkhorn patiently. “How much had he on him when you arrested him!”

  “Three pounds sixteen and fourpence, sir.”

  “Very well. Give him the balance. I take it you elect to pay? Yes. Well don’t let me see you here again, Mr Watson. Good morning.”

  If Mr Watson thought it was a good morning he refrained from saying so.

  Thereafter, with the most curious consistency, the Lion seemed to encounter trouble.

  At first it was no more than ordinary heckling – with which he was competent to deal. But as time went on it seemed to become both more personal and more organized. Had such an outrageous thought been possible, it might even have been supposed that the police had taken to heart the remarks made by Mr Blinkhorn in his summing up and were determined that the next time that James Watson was arrested it should be for assault.

  (That is to say, in any less well regulated country than England, the thought might have occurred.)

  Be that as it may, there is a limit to everything – even to the patience of a Lion.

  It was again in Lincoln’s Inn Fields that the unfortunate incident took place. It was difficult, even in the light of after-knowledge, to sort out exactly what happened. Everyone is agreed that the Lion stepped down from his platform to reason with a heckler. Then someone pushed someone else, someone else hit someone, and bingo! Before anyone knew quite what was happening a fight had started.

  Police Constable Burt blew his whistle, and went in resignedly to break it up.

  Which was how James Watson again came to face Mr Blinkhorn.

  Mr Blinkhorn was not amused.

  “Twice in three weeks,” he observed. “You know, you’re becoming a bit of a nuisance. Not guilty, I suppose. Quite so. Let’s hear the witnesses.”

  Once again, more in sorrow than in anger, Police Constable Burt gave his evidence. It seemed that James Watson, not content with haranguing his audience, had on this occasion resorted to more direct arguments and had struck one of His Majesty’s lieges, William Bird, causing him bodily harm. To whit a black eye. William Bird was present and would both testify to the facts and exhibit the damage to the court.

  “All right,” said Mr Blinkhorn. “One thing at a time.”

  He turned to the prisoner and asked him if he would like to question Police Constable Burt.

  “The prisoner is represented,” said a voice genially, but firmly, from the solicitors’ bench.

  Mr Blinkhorn looked, for a moment, like a pedestrian, who, proceeding along a pavement in the dark, impales himself on an unsuspected scaffolding pole.

  Recovering, he said, “Certainly, I’m sorry, Mr Rubinstein. I didn’t know that you were in this case–”

  Mr Rubinstein smiled genially. He was the most experienced criminal lawyer in London, and Mr Blinkhorn knew it, and Police Constable Burt knew it, and Mr Rubinstein sometimes even suspected it himself.

  “Now, constable,” he said briskly, “I should just like to take you over your statement once more. You say that you actually saw the prisoner strike Mr Bird.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I feel it is only fair to warn you that I am calling a number of witnesses – people of unimpeachable veracity who were actually in the crowd – who will state quite unequivocally that the prisoner was not the man who struck Mr Bird–”

  “Well, sir, I can only say what I saw–”

  “Quite so. Or what you imagined you saw, eh? Now how near were you standing?”

  And so on, and so on.

  It was really child’s play for Mr Rubinstein who had done it all hundreds of times before.

  In five minutes Constable Burt was not quite sure what he had seen himself and in ten minutes no one believed he had seen anything.

  Thirty minutes later James Watson was leaving the Court without a stain on his character.

  He seemed slightly dazed.

  In the foyer he overtook Mr Rubinstein and stopped him. The Lawyer was obviously in a hurry, but he inclined his head courteously and listened whilst his humble client expressed his thanks.

  “No trouble,” he said. “No trouble at all. I enjoyed it. Now I really must be off–”

  “But who–” said Mr Watson. “I mean. It was very good of you. But I didn’t–”

  “Quite so,” said Mr Rubinstein. “You want to know who instructed me on your behalf. It was a friend of yours. A close friend. A Mr Jones. I really must be going now. Conference in chambers. I’m sure you understand.”

  An impartial observer would have doubted the truth of these last words. As the busy lawyer pattered away a look of the deepest puzzlement overspread Mr Watson’s face.

  And as Mr Watson went on his way towards his little bed sitting-room in Acton, this puzzlement seemed to grow.

  Mr Watson, in fact, had the look of a man who is in the toils.

  He seemed to be the sport of contending powers, powerful but unseen; like the royal baby in the fairy story, round whose christening there circled a potent host of fairy godmothers bringing unpredictable gifts of good and evil.

  Or possibly it was simpler than that. He may merely have been wondering who the hell Mr Jones was.

  When he reached his house he let himself in and set the table for lunch. He spread a clean sheet of newspaper on the table, turned up the gas ring under the kettle, cut some bread and margarine and brought out some slices of cold sausage from a paper bag in the corner cupboard. A jar of pickles and a small and rather stale square of cheese completed the repast. When the kettle was boiling he made tea, straight into a big mug, using an infuser.

  Brown sugar and condensed milk went into the tea.

  The meal seemed to revive Mr Wat
son. When the last flake of cheese had been washed down with the third mug of tea he took out a cigarette, belched comfortably, and sat down with his feet on the guard in front of the hob.

  An occasional coal dropped in the grate, the old alarm clock ticked on the mantelpiece and outside in the street the cries of the children and the bells of the errand boys’ bicycles sounded faintly through the tightly closed window.

  Mr Watson might well have dropped off to sleep, but it is a fact that he did not. As the room grew darker the fire flickered up and its light was reflected from his open brown eyes. He looked like a man who is waiting for something to happen, without being very sure what it may be.

  A double knock on the outside door and the flip of the letter box announced the arrival of the evening post and brought the landlady down into the hall. Evidently one of the letters was for him, for with a perfunctory knock she came in, apologizing when she saw him in the room.”

  “One for you, Mr Watson,” she said. “A twopenny-half-penny.”

  “Indeed,” said Mr Watson gravely.

  He waited until she had gone and then opened the envelope neatly with his cheese knife. It was typescript, as was the letter inside.

  This was on glossy paper, with a black and expensive looking heading “A and D Jones. Theatrical and Literary Agents, 105 Henrietta Street.”

  The note was short, and indicated that Mr Jones (or possibly both Mr Joneses) would be very grateful if Mr Watson could see his way to calling on them at two o’clock on the next day.

  The offices of A and D Jones, as viewed by Mr Watson from the outside, on the following afternoon, hardly lived up to their notepaper.

  Number 105 was a moderate-sized block of what might once, a very long time ago, have been respectable shop premises. A wooden indicator board inside the front door showed that it was now given over to a surprising number of professional and commercial enterprises. Messrs A and D Jones occupied two rooms at the back of the third floor: the principal drawback to which, as rooms, seemed to be the fact that they possessed no outside windows at all. The outer one was occupied by a pale young man, who received Mr Watson without interest and asked him to sit down.

  Mr Watson sat patiently on the edge of a chair.

  Presently a buzzer sounded and the pale youth climbed to his feet and opened an inner door. Evidently his reception was encouraging, for he looked back at Mr Watson and said, “He’ll see yer now.”

  Mr Watson said nothing, but got up heavily and moved through the door which the youth held open just sufficiently for him to insert his bulk. A paunchy-looking man rose to greet him. His wavy black hair was so thickly greased that it had something of the solidity of marble – but, quite frankly, this was the only thing about Mr Jones which in any way suggested a classical stature.

  As he extended a plump hand Mr Watson was able to count five gold rings glittering thereon – two on the index finger and one each on the other three. No doubt had he been able to find one big enough, he would have worn one on the thumb as well. He said, “Glad you were able to get here, Mr Watson.”

  “Look here,” said Mr Watson directly, “What’s it all about?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean?”

  “You know fine what I mean,” said Mr Watson. “Why did you write to me? Who told you where I was living? And that felly at the polis court–”

  “Mr Rubinstein. Yes? A very good lawyer, I’m told. A little expensive perhaps. But you always have to pay for competence.”

  “Aye – but who paid?” said Mr Watson, going, as usual, straight to the point.

  “Well,” said Mr Jones, “I don’t know that I’m bound to account to you for all my good deeds – but as a matter of fact I don’t mind telling you. It’s a little organization of which I have the honour to be the representative. A philanthropical organization, one of whose objects is to help those who are in trouble–”

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “My friend,” said Mr Jones, “You certainly are. You’re in trouble with the police. You’re in trouble with the Special Branch. You’re in trouble with the War Office. In fact, I’ve rarely met anyone who was in more trouble–”

  “What for would they want to trouble with me,” asked Mr Watson slowly.

  “That’s what I want to find out. To start with, perhaps you’ll excuse a personal question–”

  “Perhaps,” said Mr Watson in an unpromising sort of voice.

  “Is your real name Watson?”

  “No – it isn’t.”

  “Would it perhaps be – Wilson?”

  “It might be.”

  “Any relation to Angus Wilson – who got into such trouble last year, owing to the stupid suspicions of the security police at the Government Research Station in Bedfordshire?”

  “Angus was my brother,” admitted Mr Wilson, alias Watson.

  “I see – I thought I recognized a slight resemblance from the photographs – he was younger than you, of course.”

  “Angus is my youngest brother. There’s no harm in him at all. He was framed–”

  “Of course,” said Mr Jones. “Of course. Just as they are trying to frame you.”

  Mr Wilson looked so genuinely surprised at this that Mr Jones almost permitted himself a smile, at any rate, he parted his lips a fraction and two or three gold teeth glittered genially in the light of the lamp.

  “Do you mean to say,” he said, “that you didn’t realize that. Really, Mr Wilson, such simplicity is refreshing. That little man with the large moustache at your meeting three weeks ago – he’s a police agent – and all those gentlemen who have been patiently following you about ever since – did it never strike you that their efforts were directed – rather crudely directed, I might say, into getting you into trouble?”

  Mr Wilson seemed to be taking this in rather slowly. But again he went to the heart of the matter.

  “What for would they want to get me into trouble,” he said.

  “Well,” said Mr Jones reasonably, “in one way and another you have caused them quite a lot of trouble in the past few years, haven’t you?”

  “I have spoken as the spirit moved me,” admitted Mr Wilson.

  “I’ll say you have. And that brings me to the point. This organization for which I work can use a man like you, Mr Wilson. So far your efforts have been uncoordinated and, if I may say so, unrewarded. We can change all that–”

  He leaned forward confidentially and talked.

  There was no doubt of Mr Wilson’s interest. Indeed, as he listened with his mouth open, he seemed to be following every word with desperate concentration. But at one point his attention was diverted. He had a very keen sense of smell, and it was not difficult to detect that a cigarette of a particular and expensive Mid-European blend had been smoked in the room and smoked quite recently. Mr Jones did not look at all like the sort of man who smoked expensive Mid-European cigarettes. Nor was there an ashtray on his desk.

  But there was a curtain in the corner, and Mr Wilson surmised that it might cover a door – possible a private exit.

  He brought his mind back to what Mr Jones was saying.

  “And this other felly,” he enquired. “The one you say will be putting up the money. Would you be wishing me to see him.”

  “He’ll certainly want to see you.”

  “Where?”

  “He’s not very certain of his movements in the next few days,” said Mr Jones, “but if you’ll be so good as to call back here tomorrow, I’ll make all the arrangements.”

  As Mr Wilson turned to go a last thought struck him.

  “What’s the felly’s name,” he said, “the one I’ll be seeing tomorrow.”

  “Rose, Mr Bernard Rose.”

  The following day, in the most perfect weather, Mr Wilson accompanied Mr Jones on a short journey. It was one of those unbelievable days that sometimes graces the end of May or the beginning of June, when the sky is blue and the sun warm, but not too warm, and every breeze seems to ha
ve blown straight from the Garden of Paradise.

  Even the prosaic landscape of North London as seen from a tube train seemed to take on its own beauty.

  The Edgware train took the two men sedately out into the open at Finchley, and slid quietly northwards. It was midday, and the carriages were empty, and station after station almost deserted.

  They finally got out at Burnt Oak; and when the automatic door had hissed shut and the train had gone on its way they had the world to themselves.

  “Do we meet him here?” said Mr Wilson in some surprise.

  “Yes.” Mr Jones’ manner had grown appreciably shorter. He seemed almost nervous.

  “It seems an odd sort of place for a meeting,” said Mr Wilson.

  “Why? Can you think of a quieter one.”

  “No. It’s quiet enough. How will he come?”

  “By train. Did you think he was going to–” Whatever Mr Jones had meant to say, he evidently thought better of it. After a minute he went on more amiably.

  “He’ll be arriving in a train from Edgware. We can sit in the waiting-room, if it’s empty. Or if not, then we can walk along the platform. It won’t take long. He just wants to ask you a few questions.”

  “He’s paying the money,” said Mr Wilson agreeably.

  Two trains had come from the direction of Edgware, and passed on their way without incident, before Mr Jones looked at his watch and said “This will be the one. He’ll be in the end carriage. Come on.”

  Both men moved up to the far end of the platform.

  The train slowed, and then stopped. The doors slid open.

  A slim, grey-haired man stepped out.

  For a moment he stared at Mr Wilson, and for a long moment Mr Wilson stared back at him.

  “Stand away,” shouted the guard.

  As if the cry had broken the spell the slim man jumped back. The doors closed. The train gathered speed, rounded the bend of the cutting and disappeared.

  Mr Wilson was breathing as if he had been running. He turned to look at Mr Jones, and it was noticeable that his hand was in his jacket pocket.

  Mr Jones, however, was in no state to contemplate violence. He was clearly frightened out of his wits, and the heat of the sun was insufficient to explain the great beads of perspiration which were standing out on his face.