They Never Looked Inside

by Michael Gilbert

  “Yes, we knew there was a kid with him. Our informant told us that. Well, it’s a pity, but it can’t be helped. I’m sure you did your best.”

  The Major felt that he was being dismissed. He screwed up a considerable degree of moral courage and said rather abruptly: “Can I help you?”

  “You have helped us,” said Hazlerigg courteously.

  McCann ignored this.

  “I’m at a loose end. I live in London, and I don’t mind work.” He didn’t mind danger, either, but he didn’t say so. If Hazlerigg hadn’t gathered that from a study of his record it wasn’t up to him to say as much.

  “That sergeant you lost,” he went on, “Pollock – that was his name, wasn’t it? – he must have been handicapped from the start by the fact that half the crooks in London knew him.”

  Hazlerigg hesitated. He was captivated for a moment by the sincerity of the offer. The inevitable doubts flooded in.

  What would the Assistant Commissioner in charge of C.I.D. say? What would the Commissioner say? Above all, what would the public say, through its supreme mouthpiece, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Home Affairs; if something should happen to McCann.

  As it certainly would.

  He said rather weakly: “If a situation arises in which we could use your services, I will get in touch with you.”

  McCann saw that he had lost and felt an unreasonable spasm of anger against the man behind the desk and the officialdom which he represented.

  He picked his hat up, ignored Hazlerigg’s placatory handshake, and made his way to the door. He was just grown-up enough not to slam it.

  He lost direction promptly in the maze of branching corridors, and by the time that he had inquired his way out into the open he had cooled down enough to realise that he was behaving rather stupidly.

  Further, he had behaved rather naughtily. By concealing the one real tit-bit of genuine information which had come to him so fortuitously.

  “Curly!”

  When he had asked Andrews, point blank, how he had got into the racket, he had started, “Me and Curly . . .” and had then pulled himself up.

  Curly was Curly White or Blanco White. The man whom Sergeant Dalgetty had told him he had seen in Berkeley Square. Curly was a very rough character indeed. And he had been a great friend of Andrews.

  It was a lead.

  Every particle of common sense which he possessed told him that this lead should be placed in the hands of the police.

  Every ounce of McCann’s Scotch pride said that he was – if he would. They had turned down his proffer of help. Not exactly turned it down, perhaps, but made it quite obvious that they didn’t intend to use it.

  Very well.

  He would follow out this private and exclusive little piece of information himself, and see where it led.

  The day suddenly seemed brighter, the sun shone with a beneficial warmth and Major McCann felt happy for the first time since landing in England.

  As happy as any unworldly little fly, flitting and twirling lightheartedly towards the spider’s carefully camouflaged web.

  He turned into Whitehall.

  He was not even experienced enough to know that he was being followed.

  4

  Beginner’s Luck

  Hazlerigg studied the report which a uniformed constable had just left on his desk. As he read it he pivoted solidly in his chair and the chair squeaked in protest.

  It was a monastic little office for a Chief Inspector. Curtain-less windows let the light on to worn linoleum. A square “partner’s” desk and a swivel chair. The only notable feature of the desk was that it had three telephones on it. One on the public line, one on the house line, one on the special line.

  In the corner of the office stood a camp bed. Hazlerigg had slept there every night since Folder 26 had opened. Folder 26 was the Yard’s unromantic name for the series of happenings, some of which Major McCann had just learned of.

  In so far as the folder had any exact location in space it was represented by the set of filing cabinets standing behind the Inspector’s desk. These were of a pattern peculiar to Scotland Yard, being small models in facsimile of the big cabinets in the basement which housed the millions of entries in the Records Department. The cards were identically slotted. So that if, for instance, one of Hazlerigg’s suspects left a fingerprint behind him the card on which it was filed could be put through the selector; and in an astonishingly small number of minutes a name would be put to its owner; provided of course that the owner was a previous customer.

  So far none of them had been, which didn’t make life any easier. In fact, life was far from easy, just at the moment. Hazlerigg had seen the Commissioner that morning. The Commissioner had been both kind and, considering all things, appreciative. He was known as a man who backed his heads of department to the limit. And he had the very rare and very great attribute of accepting responsibility without underwriting his risks.

  That morning he had calmly doubled the stakes. He had left Hazlerigg in no doubt as to the seriousness of the situation. And he had offered him commensurate powers. What he had given him was the nearest thing to a carte blanche since the British fifth column had been liquidated in the autumn of 1938. Which made it all very nice for Hazlerigg – if he succeeded. He turned again to the paper in front of him. It was a typed transcript of Major McCann’s interview with Gunner Andrews, duly taken down in the next room as it came over the tannoy speaker connected to the microphones under the wainscoting of that functional apartment.

  He was puzzled about Curly. It was possible, of course, that McCann had not noticed the slip, and in that case his failure to mention it was venial. It was equally possible that McCann had noticed it, and deliberately kept the information to himself. In order not to incriminate another of his men? Possibly. Or in order to follow the line himself. That was a more likely solution.

  The thought made Hazlerigg shudder.

  He had taken the precaution of putting a man on to the Major’s tail, but this did not really solve the problem. To shadow a suspect successfully twenty-four hours of the day, day after day, needed a minimum of six trained operatives. Even with his new powers he couldn’t throw men about on that scale.

  It was perfectly possible, for instance, that even if McCann meditated independent action he might not put his plans into operation immediately. He might wait for a week. He might take a month’s holiday in the country first. “Take someone to help you,” he had said to Crabbe, “and watch him for the rest of the day. If he seems to be doing anything in the least bit odd, phone me straight away, and I’ll think about making a permanent job out of it.”

  II

  McCann had lunch at the Corner House and then walked home across Regents Park. He found that thinking was easier if he kept moving. The first thing, of course, was to get hold of Sergeant Dalgetty. He would write to him. Meanwhile he would formulate a plan of campaign. Several ideas, remarkable equally for their audacity and impracticability, were considered and discarded before the simple solution forced itself on him. He quickened his pace, causing Sergeant Crabbe acute distress, and arrived home with a splendid appetite for tea.

  After tea it struck him that Sergeant Dalgetty might have a telephone and he tried out the idea on Directory Inquiries; without any success, however; so he wrote a post card suggesting a rendezvous in Shepherd’s Market on the evening of the day after next, borrowed a stamp from his sister, posted the card (as duly observed by Detective Walkinshaw) and went to the local cinema. None of this seemed very suspicious to Sergeant Crabbe and his assistant, nor (when reported by him) to Hazlerigg, who duly called them off, which, of course, was the biggest mistake he had made so far.

  Two days later McCann had met Sergeant Dalgetty in the bar of one of the many pleasant Shepherd’s Market hostelries. He wished that he could take the Sergeant into his confidence but felt unable to abuse the trust which Inspector Hazlerigg had placed in him.

  Clearly no middle course was possi
ble. Either he handed over his information to the police or he acted on it by himself.

  Sergeant Dalgetty had been obliging enough to walk part of the way home with him and point out the doorway into which he had seen Curly White disappear. They hadn’t lingered to inspect it. It was the north-west corner of the Square, where Flaxman Street ran into it, opposite the triangular corner formed by the 1940 Blitz and enlarged by a V2 in the last week of the war.

  Next morning McCann walked past the house again, and stopped this time to light his pipe – sheltering in the porch as he did so. It was an Early-Georgian affair. Obviously it had once been a gentleman’s residence and it still retained a frontage of some taste and elegance. But equally obviously it had come down in the world, and was now tenanted by no less than five firms who were willing to pay twice the normal rent in order to put Berkeley Square on their notepaper.

  The Major scanned the indicator board rapidly. Starting from the third floor he had his choice of Saxifrage Lamps (London Agency); Leopold Goffstein, furrier; The Cherubim Employment and Domestic Agency; and on the ground floor, visible from where he stood, the offices of Messrs. Knacker & Bullem, Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths. The basement was given over to the Winsome Press (“Books of Curious and Artistic Interest”).

  It took the Major several minutes to get his pipe going to his satisfaction, and during that time no one came or went in the quiet passage. Messrs. Knacker & Bullem’s Inquiry door remained unopened. No prospective employers plodded up the narrow steps leading to the first floor offices of the Cherubim Employment and Domestic Agency. (They had probably all given up trying long ago.)

  McCann rapidly jotted the names down in his notebook, against future reference, and passed on.

  He was on his way to visit his old friend Glasgow, at the Leopard, but a thought now occurred to him, and he directed his steps westward, and half an hour later was entering the doors of the Law Society, an august and sociable body which not only possesses one of the finest reference libraries in London, but is not unduly particular as to who makes use of it.

  He located Messrs. Knacker & Bullem in the Law List and ascertained, amongst other items of information, that the existing partners were a Mr. Browne, a Mr. Greene and a Mr. White. Leopold Goffstein was featured in the Directory of Directors. He appeared to have controlling interests in several Fur Firms and was on the board of three Turning and Pressing businesses and Megalosaurus Milk Bars Ltd. Saxifrage Lamps were a Birmingham firm and looked solid. The Authors’ and Artists’ Year Book dealt with the Winsome Press, but in a somewhat reserved way. It gave a list of their publications for the year, consisting mainly of translations from the Silvery Latinists and illustrated versions of French writers who, until the directors of the Winsome Press selected them for the English speaking public, had lingered in a well-deserved obscurity. Of the Cherubim Domestic and Employment Agency he could find no written trace.

  It is interesting to compare, in the light of after events, the results obtained by systematic police work and the fruits of beginner’s luck and to reflect that McCann’s notebook contained at that moment more accurate and relevant information on the activities of Folder 26 than all of Inspector Hazlerigg’s filing cabinets.

  III

  Glasgow breathed affectionately into a glass which had contained a half-and-half of gin and grapefruit essence, and said: “But why do you want to follow this man, dearie?”

  Miss Carter nodded in vigorous agreement. The three were seated in the cheerful chintzy living room at the Leopard.

  “Secret Service,” said McCann promptly.

  He had made his mind up on this a few minutes before. It was true that his knowledge of Secret Service men was limited. On one occasion, previous to the Sicily Landing, he and other officers in his Battalion had listened to a security lecture from a stout Major from M.I.5. He had been very impressed by the lecturer’s manner, and had surmised that his rather stupid façade must conceal a brilliant and ruthless intellect. Later, on the same day, in Mess, he had played poker with the gentleman in question, and doubts had crept in.

  However, his present audience were not critical.

  “Coo!” said Glasgow. “Secret Service, eh. That’s the stuff.”

  “Show us once again where the house is,” said Miss Carter, poring over a street map.

  “It’s the corner one, in that block, between the Square, Flaxman Street, and Flaxman Mews.”

  “I see—and that block opposite is the one where the V2 landed.”

  “That’s it—now I thought that between you—well—dash it, you know almost everybody round here.”

  The two ladies looked at each other speculatively. What Major McCann was seeking was an observation post. He had argued, and rightly, that loitering in the street was out of the question. And there were no public houses, restaurants, or shops within a hundred yards of the place he wanted to watch.

  “Miss Plant,” said Miss Carter.

  “Lulu, eh? Yes, she might do it.”

  They again looked thoughtfully at each other and back at the Major.

  “What’s Lulu got that would interest me?” he asked.

  The two ladies appeared to find this remark highly diverting.

  “You say,” went on the Major, “that she’s got a room which overlooks this corner. But do you think she’d fancy the idea of me sitting about her flat all day? It would be embarrassing for both of us.”

  The ladies regarded him with unconcealed scorn. They considered, their looks said, that he ought to put his duty to his country before his personal feelings in a matter of this sort.

  “If Lulu doesn’t mind, I can’t see what you’ve got to beef about,” said Miss Carter frankly.

  “Lulu’s a high-class girl,” said Glasgow. “Works in a milk bar. Quite the lady too. She always coughs before coming in the door.”

  “It’s not myself I’m thinking about,” said the Major weakly. “I’m considering Miss Plant’s feelings. She won’t want me sitting round in her room all day.”

  “Lulu’s patriotic,” said Glasgow. “She’ll do her duty.”

  IV

  Actually the transaction caused surprisingly little embarrassment to either party. That evening, by appointment, McCann went to the Leopard and met Miss Plant, a coruscating brunette of the Bacall school; she shot him the stock look which brunettes usually shoot at prominent members of the British Secret Service, and then became severely practical. She presented him with a key of the front door, of which she appeared to have quite a number – and a key of her room, with careful directions as to how he was to reach it; gave him instructions for dealing with the landlady, should she appear on the scene, and a number of tips concerning the functioning of the electric kettle and the whereabouts of various small stocks of tea and sugar.

  Accordingly, ten o’clock the next morning found McCann propped up in an easy chair at a window overlooking the corner of Flaxman Street. The back of his chair tilted conveniently against the wall, a steaming cup of tea on the what-not beside him, his binoculars handy on the window ledge and a pile of Blackwood’s magazines on the floor.

  He was wondering where the catch came in. From his knowledge of detective stories and films he had understood that the watching of suspects was habitually done by stern men in trilby hats who stood in doorways in the pouring rain (usually at an interesting camera angle). The great thing, of course, being that they never had to wait more than thirty-five seconds for the object of their attentions to appear.

  The Major waited for a week.

  Every night at six o’clock, having watched the last of the inhabitants of 63 Flaxman Street depart, he would tilt his chair to the ground, wash out the tea cup, pack his few belongings tidily away, and depart to play squash with the professional at the Lansdowne Club over the way.

  He was a man who did not mind waiting if there was a prospect of something to wait for, as many of his late opponents in Africa and Northern Europe could have testified.

 
On the sixth evening, something rather unexpected happened.

  It was already quite dark. The reason for the Major’s staying so late was an obstinate light in the Cherubim Employment Agency. Being on the first floor their windows were conveniently at eye level and much of his leisure had been beguiled in watching, through his glasses, the remarkably pretty girl who reigned in their outer office. In his mind he had already christened all the inhabitants of the building, and she was Laura. Laura had gone home at six o’clock sharp. Mrs. Mop had come and gone. Maida Grannit, however, executive chief of the Agency, seemed to be making a night of it. She had come out of her sanctum, into the outer office, and had spent almost an hour searching through the drawers and pigeon-holes of Laura’s desk. Now she was telephoning.

  At that moment a car turned into Flaxman Street from the intersection at the further end. Its headlamps were on, but dimmed.

  Quite unexpectedly, and possibly by accident, the driver touched off his off-side spotlight. It went out as swiftly as it had come on. The car gathered speed, turned into Berkeley Square, and disappeared.

  The effect had been as if a searchlight had been flicked for a moment into the dark recess of the court opposite No. 63.

  In that brief second it had illuminated a man, standing in the recess.

  And McCann had recognised him.

  His mind flicked back over the months. It was the hot August of 1944, and the German Armies were falling back sullenly from Paris. The pace was still quick, but the first mad rush was over. The — Armoured Division was heading for Belgium, with its Reconnaissance Regiment in the lead. In front of the Reconnaissance Regiment, for reasons quite unconnected with this story, was Major McCann in a Sherman tank. The drivers of the tank were both bad types from the — Commando, and the turret gunner was a Canadian Brigadier. They were approaching the township of Marevilly-sur-Issy. Both on the map and from the lie of the ground it was perfectly evident that German opposition, when it next hardened, must centre round Marevilly. The town dominated the Issy Route (known inevitably to the soldiers as the Easy Route) into Belgium. The only practicable road cut sharply into the embanked hillside, before turning under the lee of the hill shoulder. It was a defensive “natural”, probably first used by Caesar when he troubled the Gauls, and subsequently improved on both by nature and man.