by J. J Marric
Gideon's smile had become very set.
"Who are the 'them'?" he asked.
"Our lords and masters, who pay us and treat us like puppets. Come under the Home Office, don't we?"
"Hm," said Gideon, and stopped smiling altogether. "Well, you're honest about it, if nothing else."
"But you don't agree with me."
"I think you've got the wrong approach entirely, and I think you're wrong about the number of men who agree with you," argued Gideon, "but that's something else I'm going to find out. I take it you don't like the pressure in this office?"
"It just about drives me up the wall!"
"We can soon stop that," said Gideon. "Get everything on your desk tidied up, with notes about any matters pending, and then go down to Bournsea and help Hill. He need as much help as he can get."
"Now, Gee-Gee—"
"And don't Gee-Gee me!" Gideon roared and was astonished at the harshness in his own voice. "I'm Commander to you in future, and don't you forget it. You blurry fool, if you talked like this in the Army, they'd shoot you."
Riddell said, "Very good, sir," in an icy voice.
Was the problem getting under his skin? Gideon asked himself later in the afternoon, when Riddell had packed his things and gone, and a detective sergeant was at the aide's desk, doing little more than taking and sending out messages. Was he expecting too much not only of Riddell, but all the others? Had he grown so used to extreme pressure on himself that he took it for granted that others ought to feel in the same way? Was he asking more than anyone could possibly expect? Was the best way to get what he wanted—more money for the staff—to allow things to become slack?
Was it really worth fighting?
Scott-Marie had warned him that the best he could reasonably hope for was the status quo.
How typical was Riddell of the status quo? How far out of touch was he, Gideon, with his men? Were there only a few like Bell, Syd Taylor and Hopkinson?
Hopkinson had said that he could get dozens of volunteers to go down below on the van Doorn.
Could he?
"We want someone to go down that gangway," Hopkinson was saying to a group of men not far from the gangway which led to the main deck of the van Doorn. "There's a fireman on the way, you'll have fireproof suits if the Slob does get up to his tricks. Single men only."
Seven men said promptly, "I'll go down."
Hopkinson surveyed them and experienced a bad moment: the moment when he knew that he would have to make a decision as to who should go. There was a sound chance that Micky the Slob would be caught without serious trouble, but the ghost of Syd Taylor seemed to be standing by the side of each of these men. Had there been two, he could have said "Toss for it" and got away with that, but now he could not evade the responsibility. One was a detective officer of thirty-odd, a man he knew well, who had no relations and had been widowed for three years; not a daredevil, but an officer who would take considered chances all his life.
"Okay, Forbes," he said.
"Thanks," said Forbes, as if he meant it.
The sun was shimmering on the Thames, where the launches and the small boats were keeping up their constant patrol. Not far away, ships were being worked, and the whirr of derricks and cranes made a constant background of sound. A fire-fighting trailer had arrived, and Forbes went to join the chief officer.
Forbes, who had his hair clipped in an American crew cut, and was a bony man who seldom smiled, was briefed for a few minutes, and then helped into the fireproof suit; he felt as if he was getting ready for deep-sea diving. Then he and the fireman went to the gangway. Movement was surprisingly easy, and he could see the whole scene through the fireproof goggles that covered his eyes. He saw Hopkinson wave, and waved back from the deck of the ship. One dock policeman and a member of the crew were at the top of the hatch leading to the gangway and the cabin where Micky the Slob was now hiding.
There was a small public-address system controlled from the wheelhouse on the bridge, with loud-speakers at various key points. Suddenly Hopkinson's voice came over clearly:
"Micky, we're coming for you if you're not out in five minutes. Don't make things worse than they are."
There was no answer.
"Just drop everything, open the cabin door, and come out," Hopkinson called.
Forbes waited, only two treads behind the fireman.
Up on the bridge of the boat, with the master by his side, Hopkinson could see the whole of the dock area. There was a little confusion at the nearest gate; a woman was there, apparently arguing with the men who were on duty, stopping anyone from coming in or going out. Hopkinson saw this as he saw so many things: almost casually.
"Four minutes," he called, and knew that the warning could be heard in the cabin where the murderer waited; he tried to think of everything he knew about Micky the Slob, to decide whether Micky would really make a fight of it, or try to. If he decided to fight, what would he fight with?
Just the petrol?
Hopkinson saw two men coming at the double, with a woman between them. The sun shone on her dark hair, even on her red lips. She was a dumpy little piece, and as she drew nearer he could see that for her height she had an enormous bosom. She had short legs, too, and a very pale face. One of the men with her was calling out.
Hopkinson said to a detective sergeant with him:
"Go and see what she wants."
"She answers the description of the girl who tricked Syd Taylor," the sergeant told him.
"That's right. Get going."
The sergeant went hurrying to the side of the deck, and the girl disappeared from sight, hidden by the deck itself. Hopkinson had never been more wary. The sergeant was right about her but he could not think of any way in which she could hope to fool them now. She could fool one man, but not fifty.
The sergeant was shouting.
The girl's voice sounded in reply, but Hopkinson could not hear what he said. All about him the small ships were moving, the men were massed and waiting—and there was that shrill voice warning him.
The sergeant swung round, cupped his hands, and roared:
"She says he's got nitroglycerine, sir!"
"He has," the girl gasped. She was breathless with running from the dock gates, and the words came out gaspingly. "He said he'd never be caught alive and he'd take as many police as he could with him. He said he'd got petrol for a fire, but he's got nitro."
"Nitro!" roared the sergeant.
Hopkinson clapped a hand over the loud-speaker and called down clearly: "Go and get those men back!"
He took his hand away from the microphone and spoke again to Micky the Slob. "Don't let's have trouble for the sake of it, Micky. We'll give you a fair deal. I'll give you another five minutes to think about it."
There was no possibility of an answer; no way of finding out what the trapped man was likely to do. There was not even any certainty that the girl was telling the truth; this might be a kind of trick which Hopkinson had not anticipated. If she had come to help the Slob, how did she expect to do it?
The sergeant had disappeared down the hatch.
There was no sound.
"Micky," called Hopkinson into the silence, "don't make us come down and get you."
If he had nitroglycerine, when would he use it?
The girl was climbing from the gangway now, and at closer quarters Hopkinson saw what a good complexion she had, and her bold good looks; had she not been so dumpy and fat, she would have been remarkably attractive. She was being brought to the bridge.
Then he saw Forbes and the fireman, still in their fireproof clothes, come through from the gangway, and felt a deep sense of relief. The girl—in fact she was thirty or more—came stumbling toward him, still gasping for breath.
"I mean it, he really has got nitro," she told him, and seemed desperately afraid that he would not believe her. "He told me he would never be caught alive, and he'd take as many cops as he could with him."
"When did he tell
you this?" Hopkinson asked.
"Before he came aboard. I came with him from Pitt Street, see, when he escaped."
"You the girl who trapped Taylor?"
"Yes," she answered tensely; her eyes were bold and bright with fear which Hopkinson could not quite understand; but he found himself believing that she wanted to help the police now. "Yes, I did it. I didn't think they'd kill him! I couldn't sleep all last night thinking about it, that's God's truth. I hoped Micky would get away, but when I heard you'd trapped him here I knew what he'd do, and I couldn't have any more lives on my conscience. For God's sake don't break into that cabin, he'll blow the ship up."
Hopkinson believed her now.
He wondered gloomily about the next step. As far as he could tell, they would have to play the game patiently and hope to wear Micky down, but that would tie up dozens of men for hours, perhaps for days. More, it would be rated as a defeat. The public always sympathized with the man who defied the weight of the law like this, and if they could not get Micky alive, the police would be the laughingstock of every criminal in London.
That wouldn't last for long but it might last long enough to do a great deal of damage.
He thought: "I'd better check with Gideon."
"We want to find a way of getting near enough to that cabin to pump tear gas in," Gideon said.
"It won't do, George."
"Why not?"
"He's only got to drop that nitro, and it'll blow up."
"If our chaps are outside the door, they won't get badly hurt. They'd only get hurt if they had the door open. Try it, Hoppy."
"All right," said Hopkinson, without enthusiasm.
"How many volunteers did you get?" Gideon asked, and could not quite make the question sound casual.
"Seven," answered Hopkinson, and wondered why it mattered. He rang off, turned to the Dutch master, who was in the wheelhouse, and unrolled a plan of the van Doorn, on which the barricaded cabin was already marked in red. "What we really need is an engineer who can find a way to get round this way." He traced lines with his finger.
"Without noise?" The master's voice was very hard. "With noise, he blow up my ship. Without noise, can you do it?"
One man, shutting himself away, could defy a small army of police.
One man, serving behind the counter of a grocer's shop, looking and smiling at three small children who had come in with their mother, was being sought by another army of police.
And in the flat overlooking Hyde Park, Keith Ryman and Rab Stone were arguing about the best way of doing what they had set out to do.
Chapter 10
THE PLOTTERS
Ryman was lying on a luxurious couch placed by the window overlooking Hyde Park, and his feet were up at one end. Stone sat on the arm of an easy chair, close to him. Both had glasses in their hands; only Stone was smoking. There was uneasiness in his manner, as well as a kind of tension. Ryman was looking out onto the beautiful green of early summer, but from his position could see only the tops of the trees; no buildings and no people. .
"I wouldn't be any use to you if I didn't tell you what I think, Stone said uncertainly.
Ryman didn't answer.
"It's one thing to fix the coppers," went on Stone, with an obvious effort. "You don't have anything to worry about then, it can be done in a jiffy. Run over 'em, for instance, or shoot 'em, or—"
"Shut up," Ryman said.
"I'm only giving you the benefit of my advice."
"Shut up."
Stone got up and went to the bar on the other side of the room, poured himself out more whisky, added a splash of soda, and stared at Ryman's eyes, anxiety showing very clearly in his own. The sun was shining on Ryman's feet. He had kicked off his shoes, and showed thin blue socks with a red pattern. The button of his coat was undone, and his tie was a little loose at the neck. He kept swinging his glass round, very slowly. The sound of traffic from Park Lane floated clearly through the window, but it was muted, and did not distract.
They were silent for five minutes.
"What I want to make clear is that I'm all for the principle of the thing. I think you're absolutely right about the way snatching a couple of kids would draw the police off; nothing would do it so well," Stone said. "But that's not the only thing to consider, Keith. You may think I'm solid from the neck up, but—"
Ryman looked across at him.
"I do," he said. He swung his feet off the end of the couch and grinned; it was astonishing to see the change in Stone's expression, reflecting the extent of his relief. "You're as solid as a lump of granite, but a little light penetrates at times. Okay, I agree with you, it would be risky to snatch a couple of kids. I'm echoing you, too: they would need hiding out somewhere, someone would have to look after them, you'd need top men to do the job, and if you had top men, you'd need to offer a lot of money. Also, two kids kidnaped on the same day are odorously fishy. So, we stick to cops—mainly."
"I knew you'd see it my way." Stone tossed his drink down. "Want another?"
"No. Two coppers," Ryman went on dreamily, "and one kid."
Stone stopped, with a hand actually on the neck of the whisky bottle.
"Just one kid," repeated Ryman, and smiled lazily at some fluffy white clouds drifting across the sky. "Somebody's little angel. Just one will be enough, provided the dear devoted dad is rich enough."
Stone, who had opened his mouth to speak, did not say a word, but a new expression showed in his eyes.
"Interest you?" asked Ryman, in the same smooth voice. "I thought it would. What you have to do is think, Rabby my boy; it's no use jumping your fences. We want some honest-to-goodness distractions, but there's no reason why we shouldn't make a good thing out of one of them. No one could ever make a good thing out of a copper, but a child with a millionaire father and loving momma—how about that?"
Stone said slowly, "It's a new angle, anyway."
"It's as old as any angle in the game; the new thing will be the motive behind it. Heads we win, tails we lose! If we can pick up a large piece of money for the little angel, that will be fine, but the main job will still be the appropriating of a certain large sum of used banknotes, the only kind of boodle that it's really safe to use and store away. We happen to know that the Mid-London Bank in Leadenhall Street has a large sum ready and available from time to time, and we have a contact who will tell us the right day to raid it. The boodle will be loaded into an armored car. We shall have the driver of the armored car on our side. Don't interrupt, and don't tell me it's an old trick. There's nothing new under the sun." He glanced across at Stone. "If I'm repeating myself, don't stop me. Beneath this brilliant flow of badinage there is an astute mind ticking away like a calculating machine. The end of the month is the best time for Mid-London, according to my information, and that should suit us nicely. It's the tenth today. How long will it take you to get two coppers lined up?"
"I can do it this week," Stone said.
"Get information about the two most likely to suit our purpose," ordered Ryman. "We want two coppers whom someone hates enough to kill. Let me know by the end of the week certain, and I'll tackle my Mid-London Bank friend. How about that, Rabby, old boy? Sound better?"
"Which kid are you going to snatch?" asked Stone, obviously still a little uneasy.
"I shall make a survey of the field, and advise you in due course," Ryman promised him airily. "Have no fears, it shall be done."
"Keith—"
"Now cut out the arguing," said Ryman sharply. "You've got to lay on the men for those coppers and you've got to get a good driver ready for the banknote snatch. I'll go into that, too. Better lay on two drivers; we'll want to switch cars as soon as we can. That's the important thing about a bank-van snatch, to leave the van stranded as soon as you can. You're a practical man; you work out what we'll need in addition to two fast drivers. Allow for enough men to empty that van in five minutes, too. Got it?"
"Yes."
"And leave the snatch and the worr
ying to me," said Ryman. "I shan't leave it to you, believe me. I'll handle the snatch myself, because I won't want anybody with unsteady nerves to be involved. I'll fix that, then; you get plans out for the rest."
"Okay, Keith."
"And look happy about it!"
"Keith," said Stone, with a stubbornness which did not come easily, "I'm still not happy about snatching children. I just don't like it. But you know the risks, so okay. Will Helen be in this?"
"You bet Helen will be in this," Ryman replied softly. "She wouldn't be sentimental, like some people I know; didn't I tell you that her heart was made of diamonds?"
"Well, it's up to you," Stone conceded. "Got any preference about the policemen? Are they to be plain-clothes yobs or uniformed men?"
"Don't see that it matters," said Ryman, and grinned suddenly. "Why not one of each? All you have to make sure is that someone hates them enough to put them away with a bit of prompting. Should be easy enough, shouldn't it?"
"It'll be easy," Stone assured him. "In fact I think I could name them this very minute. I was talking with Si last night."
"Who are they?" Ryman asked sharply.
"A flat foot named Maybell—"
"What's that?"
Stone grinned.
"You heard me—Maybell, Horace Maybell. He's a sergeant at Hammersmith, been there for donkeys' years. He put Charlie Daw away for ten years—if it hadn't been for Maybell, Daw would have got away with it. Copped him climbing out of a window. Daw always said he'd get Maybell the minute he came out, and he was released a month ago. Stony broke, too. For a couple of hundred nicker he'd slit anyone's throat. It needs laying on carefully, but Si'll see to that. Couple of hundred okay to promise?"
"Yes, but don't specify who the victim's to be, yet. Next?"
"Don't tell me you've got a bad memory," Stone said, half sneering. "You haven't forgotten Archer the He-ro. He's the brand-new detective officer out at NE Division—just been transferred from uniform to plain clothes because of the great courage he showed in stopping a smash-and-grab car from running away. Jumped on the running board, and had a fight with the driver—"
