They Never Looked Inside

by Michael Gilbert

  “Yes,” said Hazlerigg slowly. “It fits in very nicely; but don’t you see what it means? We knew from Andrews that the Chief could telephone to his subordinates, using a prearranged ‘safe’ telephone number. But this is the first proof we’ve had that members of the gang are able to telephone back to him. Those arrangements must have been made by telephone – there was no time for anything else.”

  “I see.” McCann considered the implications. “That rather knocks some of your earlier theories, doesn’t it? I mean, if ‘A’ – who’s just a listener-on-other-people’s-telephones – can ring up the Big Chief, then ‘A’ knows where the Big Chief lives, or works, or he could very easily find out – and bang goes the whole idea of safety in anonymity.”

  “Not necessarily. I think this is where the private post office system comes in.”

  “You mean—”

  “I mean that all calls for the Chief go first to – I think we may say – Leopold Goffstein. Leopold takes the call and either rings up the head man, or else – and this is a more exciting thought still –he plugs the call straight through to him.”

  “But wouldn’t that mean a private line from Leopold’s office in Flaxman Street to the Chief’s house – or office?”

  “It would.”

  “And if there was such a line, couldn’t we trace it?”

  “That’s as far as I’d got,” said Hazlerigg, “by nine o’clock this morning, and I immediately rang up the G.P.O. and put the idea to them. I’m afraid they were discouraging.”

  “They said that such a private line couldn’t possibly exist?”

  “Far from it. They said it could very easily exist. What they were discouraging about was the possibility of tracing it.”

  “But, good God,” said McCann, “I’d dozens of signallers in my outfit who could trace a telephone line – it’s not a very technical operation.”

  “So you would think – but you’ve no idea –and nor had I until this morning – what a mess there is under this old City of ours. The London telephone system didn’t just happen – it grew; and it’s been growing for a very long time. Old lengths of line fall into disuse and new bits are put in, sections are joined up and other sections are short-circuited. Berkeley Square’s a particularly unfortunate area, owing to the fact that a Very Important Person, with sufficient pull, used to be able to get a private line laid from his house to his office. And as if matters weren’t sufficiently complicated already, we had the Blitz to stir up the mixture a bit further.”

  “Then you think it’s impossible.”

  “Nothing’s impossible,” said Hazlerigg gravely. “If the worst comes to the worst we’ll try, even if it means digging up half Berkeley Square. The point, at the moment, is this. The G.P.O. say that the idea of a private line is feasible, but it would have to be a short one. A line of any length would not only be very liable to detection but it would be almost impossible to maintain.”

  “So if there is such a private line,” said McCann, “and if it runs from Goffstein’s office, then the other end of the line is somewhere quite close.”

  “Sounds a bit theoretical, I know. But we’ve had a lot of pointers to the Mayfair area already – take a look at this folder of reports; you see – Hay Hill, Curzon Street, Berkeley Square, Shepherd’s Market.”

  Again something stirred at the back of McCann’s mind.

  He knew it was important. A half-formed association of ideas. Hay Hill, Curzon Street, Berkeley Square. If only he could put his finger on it. No use trying to force it. He heard Hazlerigg saying something.

  “I beg your pardon—?”

  “I asked,” said Hazlerigg patiently, “if you’d found good lodgings.”

  “Yes, very good, thank you. I’m putting up at the Leopard – the one just off Curzon Street.”

  “Well, that’s fine. You’ll be excellently placed. I want you to keep under cover and scout round. That’s a bit vague, I know. But I’ve great confidence in your powers of extracting trouble. We may have to send you to France soon. Until then I give you a free hand. Ring me up here at ten o’clock every morning.”

  III

  That evening McCann took Miss Carter into his confidence. He had considered the pros and cons carefully and decided that the very slight risks would be outweighed by the help she could give.

  “I’m looking for a gang of crooks,” he said bluntly and without preamble. “I’m helping the police. They think that the gang may have headquarters somewhere in this end of Mayfair.”

  Miss Carter accepted this change of role from Secret Service ace to private investigator with so little surprise that McCann was momentarily disquieted, until he reflected that women were mostly the same in this respect. Try to deceive them about the quality of their butter ration or half an ounce of knitting wool and they would be on to you like a knife, but a whopping fundamental lie would almost always go over big.

  “What do you want me to do?” said Miss Carter. They were sitting in her private living-eating-office room, and she looked very domestic and practical as she drove her needle through a much patched silk stocking.

  The fantasy of the situation struck the Major very forcibly. Here was one of the most efficient police forces in the world, using all its resources, doing a job of work with a picked team directed by one of the most able practical intelligences he had ever met – and there, on the other hand, was a retired army Major (really only a Substantive Lieutenant, he reminded himself) and Miss Carter, a publican and the daughter of a publican.

  Talk about the mouse and the lion!

  He realised that his hostess’s question still wanted answering.

  “You and Glasgow,” he said, “have lived in this little corner of London for a great number of years and, between you, you must know a great number of people in it. I want to know anything about this area which strikes you as mysterious or inexplicable or even novel. Anybody who’s come here in the last few years who seems to be doing anything they shouldn’t. You know how people talk. That Mr. Jones, who has a lovely office but no one knows quite what his business can be. And that Mrs. Robinson who has a flower shop, but sells a great deal more than flowers, dear me, yes.”

  “I see,” said Miss Carter, she traced a complicated demilune with her needle. “It’s going to be a big job, isn’t it?”

  IV

  Next morning the Major paid a little call in the Paddington area. He was following out an idea which had been at the back of his mind for some time. The house for which he was making was in no way distinguishable from fifty others in the solidly middle-class street, except that it was a corner house, and therefore slightly bigger than its fellows, and there was a suggestion of an annexe or out-building in the rear. A card in the first floor window bore a picture of a pink and white youth tenuously dressed in tight black-and-scarlet chequered drawers with the legend:

  PROFESSOR TRUMAN’S WEST END ACADEMY BOXING AND DANCING

  The Major went up the short front path and gave the bell-pull a jerk.

  A voice from the depths roared: “Come in—and stop ringing the bloody bell.”

  McCann grinned and obeyed. He seemed to be on familiar ground, for without further ado he mounted the narrow front stairs and, selecting the centre of three doors on the first landing, opened it and went in.

  An old man was sitting in a wicker chair, beside a large table which was covered to a depth of about six inches with a miscellaneous jetsam composed of papers, post cards, dumb-bells, boxing gloves, press cuttings (in and out of press-cutting albums), signed photographs, bicep-extenders, strips of leather, the bladders of two punch-balls, the portions of several tyre mending outfits, and the remains of that morning’s breakfast.

  The old man, who was patching a punch-ball cover, looked up sharply. It was the face of a battered, weather-beaten, but still very human gargoyle, crowned with a diadem of closely cropped white hair.

  “Good morning, Professor,” said McCann, “how are you keeping?”

  The o
ld man peered at him and then his face broke into a broad smile, revealing the glory of perfect, gleaming dentures.

  “It’s Mr. McCann – or will you have got some military handle to your name?”

  “Never mind that,” said McCann, “and what’s wrong with Angus? It used to be ‘Keep your left hand up, Angus. Lead with the right, Angus. Hit him, Angus, you clumsy lout, don’t tickle him’.”

  “Ar, you was never a boxer, Angus,” said the old man complacently. “Now, I’ve got some good boys here right now. Would you care to step along and see them? Real good boys—”

  Taking his consent for granted, the professor was already leading the way, along a sloping gangway, into the little gym. Two men were skipping with serious intentness, a third was beating the heavy punching sack and sucking the air noisily between a pair of rubber gum protectors.

  McCann watched them, fascinated, drinking in the old familiar smell of leather, resin and sweat.

  None of them took the slightest notice of the intruders or deviated for a moment from his solemn ritual.

  “Lovely,” said McCann at last. “It makes me wish I was ten years younger.”

  “Ar,” said the professor, “you was never a boxer. Just a fighter. Mind that left, Albert. Let the bag rest on it till you feel the weight.”

  Back in the sanctum McCann broached the object of his visit. He cut out any elaborate explanation – to which, in any case, the professor would not have listened – and said:

  “Didn’t Franky Cusins do his training here – Lefty’s big brother?”

  “That’s right, he did.”

  “Well, it’s a long shot, I know, but I’m trying to trace a chap. All I know about him is that once upon a time he was glove boy to Franky.”

  The professor looked thoughtful.

  “That’s not easy,” he said at last. “Franky liked a big crowd round him all the time. Glove boys! He must have had a dozen. You know how it is. Kids of all ages! When a man’s winning they cluster round him. It’s the glamour that gets ‘em.”

  “I suppose you don’t keep a record of sparring partners and that sort of thing,” said McCann, looking rather hopelessly at the chaotic mass of paper on the table.

  “Records!” The old man chuckled. “Why, I don’t even keep a record of the boxers who box here, let alone the fancy boys they bring with ‘em. Wait a minute though—I’ve thought of something.”

  He opened a corner cupboard and almost disappeared head first, like some aged terrier, as he burrowed into the piled confusion of papers, boxing magazines, fight programmes and news clippings.

  After a minute he emerged triumphant and McCann saw that he held an old photograph.

  This had clearly been taken to celebrate a victory. Franky Cusins was seated in the middle, his gloved arms round the necks of two bashful seconds. Standing behind were what looked like three sparring partners – one of whom McCann recognised as Lefty Cusins, the boxer’s brother and late a member of his own regiment. Seated on the ground were three youngsters.

  “That’s my boy standing on the left,” said the professor, “seconded him for the title fight – and Lefty in the top row with Spider and Jim Crow.”

  McCann carried the picture to the light. It wasn’t a good photograph and the lighting, such as it was, had naturally been concentrated on the hero in the middle; but the more he looked at it the more he felt certain he had seen that sharp, white tough face of the youngster sitting on the left.

  The professor was unhelpful.

  “Them kids,” he said, “I wouldn’t know any of them. Come to think of it, I don’t suppose I ever heard ‘em given a handle. Just ‘Hi, you, fetch them gloves – and look slippy with that sponge, you little basket.’ Why don’t you ask Franky? He’s out of the game now. Manages a pub – wait a minute – he wrote me the other day.”

  The professor dived once more into his remarkable filing system. “’The Glossop Arms’ – it’s behind Victoria. Yes – keep the photograph by all means. I’d like it back when you’ve done with it, though.”

  V

  “I think Franky was trying to be helpful,” said McCann, telling Miss Carter about it the following evening, “but he just didn’t know. He remembered the boy in a vague way – it was eight years ago, after all. He said he remembered him because he was so young – he thought he couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve and he wondered how he’d squared his school. So far as he could remember they just called him Nipper. Anyway, I’m sending the photo to the Yard.”

  “It’s a very ordinary face,” said Miss Carter.

  “That’s just it. His face is his fortune. It’s so ordinary that it’s almost impossible to identify. I’m far from sure that this is him – and I’m one of the few people who’ve seen him at very close quarters, remember. Tell me what you’ve been up to—”

  Miss Carter considered for a moment, inserted a further stiffener into the heel of her long-suffering stocking, and said: “I suppose that all this is on the level?”

  “What do you mean?” asked McCann, considerably startled.

  “I mean,” said Miss Carter, “I suppose you are working for the police. That Secret Service yarn – that was just hokum, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, it was; how did you know?”

  “I asked Sergeant Dalgetty last night. He said that if you were in the Secret Service you’d been so jolly secret about it that he hadn’t known of it, and you hadn’t hardly been out of each other’s sight for the last six years.”

  “I had to tell you something,” said McCann, “and at that time it wasn’t my secret. But it’s all right now – everything above-board and level.”

  “Well, it had better be,” said Miss Carter ominously, “because I’m warning you. When I start to dig, I start to dig.”

  The result of her digging was presented to McCann two days later at the session which took place every evening, now, after closing time.

  “Here’s the list,” said Miss Carter. “And there’s a libel suit in every line.”

  The Major skimmed through it—it was a most intriguing document and contained six neatly ruled sections:

  Mrs. Abrahams – Hat Shop, Granville Street – started in 1943 – Sells 7 and 8 guinea models for 3 and 4 guineas. Has two maids – both South Americans. The shop has a back entrance in Granville Mews. Neighbours say a black saloon Packard often visits the Mews entrance at night.

  “Pastasciutta” Restaurant. Italian style dishes and wines. Elaborate Italian “front”. Waiters and Proprietor all French. Known in neighbourhood as a “rough” house. There have certainly been several fights in the restaurant – which have all been successfully kept from the police. Meals mostly disguised army rations.

  Eustace Orrey – Commission Agent – Office in Smith Street, upper floor front. No one knows what he takes commissions for. G. says certainly not horse racing. The office was opened in 1940 and neighbours can remember a lot of “electrical gadgets” going up. Works very late at night. No housekeeper. Has a wireless but no wireless licence.

  A shop and living rooms in basement of No. 17 Gt. Galley Street. Shop not now used as a shop and the windows have been boarded up. Used intermittently by “two or three men”, all of military age, but none of them in uniform. (D. was told that it was a small factory which made aeroplane parts during the war – now turned over to metal clips and fasteners. No machinery ever heard by other users of building – our informant lives on the floor above – but several times trouble caused by blowing of all house fuses.)

  The “If Winter Comes” Public House in Tovey Street. Proprietor, Albert Smiles. A “Free” house. Present proprietor purchased last year. D. was told by the Manager of The Cock (opposite) that Albert Smiles is a suspicious character, and alleges:

  He is an undischarged bankrupt.

  Caters for private parties after hours.

  Allows prostitutes to solicit in his saloon bar.

  The Atomic Club. Opened six months ago. Managere
ss – Mrs. Purcell. Occupies premises of the old Pegasus. Nothing much known against it except that G. says its head waiter is a man called Samson (known as the Screw) who has had a hand in almost every shady dive in the West End in the past twenty-five years.

  “I suppose,” groaned McCann, “that ‘G.’ is Glasgow’. Who the hell is ‘D.’?”

  “Sergeant Dalgetty, of course,” said Miss Carter, composedly. “He’s been most useful. Have some sense, Angus. I couldn’t go into some of those places myself. I’m sure he’ll be the soul of discretion.”

  VI

  When Hazlerigg read this list at the Yard next morning, he said: “Good God,”which was quite a violent expletive for him, and forwarded a copy to Pickup for his comments. Inspector Pickup read it through and said: “I don’t know why we trouble to finance a Criminal Investigation Department,” and sat down and wrote an urgent reply.

  No. 1. Not known to us – sounds a bit like White Slave Traffic. May be black market in clothing coupons. Will investigate.

  No. 2. This is OKAY The restaurant was used throughout the war as H.Q. of F.F.I. Hence army rations. Will probably be closed shortly.

  No. 3. A crank. Invents things which he tries to sell to the War Office. I’ll tell the Post Office about his wireless licence.

  No. 4. LAY OFF THIS – We know all about them. No connection with present job. Coining and other offences. Will shortly be closed down.

  No. 5. I expect this is a plain case of professional jealousy.

  No. 6. Not known to us – will investigate.

  This reply was read by the committee at the Leopard.

  “I think we might have a look at Number One and Number Six for ourselves,” said McCann. “Why should they have all the fun.”