by John Creasey
The message reached all the London Divisions and the City of London police a little after half-past one. By two o’clock there wasn’t a policeman in London not keeping his eyes open for Chief Inspector West. By two o’clock practically every senior policeman knew exactly what this meant; they had already heard rumours of the trouble between West and the new Assistant Commissioner.
At five-past two Sloan lifted his telephone and asked for Cortland, and the moment he was answered, he said: “That Clive Harrison kid left school, just before our man got there this lunch-time, and didn’t turn up again after lunch. He didn’t go home, as far as I can find out. What’ll we do?”
Chapter Fourteen
Out?
Pegg’s warehouse in Henrietta Street was cheek-by-jowl with Covent Garden market. An all-pervasive smell of fruit, vegetables and flowers was strong in Roger’s nostrils as he stepped out of the taxi and studied the front of the premises. In fact, this was a shop, with T. Pegg written in black on green on the fascia board, which needed repainting. Every Kind of Box and Packing Material, the legend ran. There was an open door at one side, and shutters were down in front of the shop itself, suggesting that Theophilus Pegg’s business opened more or less at the same hours as the market, which was half closed by now.
The staircase was narrow.
At the top was a small landing and a door marked: Inquiries. Roger thought he heard a girl say: “Yes, Mr. Pegg?”
He tried the door marked Private; it was locked. So he had no choice but to try Inquiries. A girl was coming out of another room, and she closed the door behind her with a snap. The way she looked at Roger suggested that she knew he had been coming and was wary of him; perhaps he had been spotted from a window above the shop. This girl might have been in any office anywhere in London; youngish, prettyish, neatly dressed, with fair hair which was a little untidy at the ends.
“Good afternoon.”
“I’d like to speak to Mr. Pegg, please.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Pegg is out.”
Roger looked her up and down. The response came too quickly and glibly, and he was almost sure that she had just spoken to Pegg; but girls were used to lying about their bosses being in, and she didn’t turn a hair.
“Do you know when he will be back?” Roger turned on all his charm in a smile.
“He didn’t say.”
“Is he likely to be back this afternoon?”
“Well, he might and he might not.”
It would be easy to lift up the flap in the counter and open the door through which she had just come; but there was the girl as witness, and Roger had no right to force his way in anywhere – and no time to wait too long to see Pegg.
“I’m sorry to be so insistent,” Roger said, “but it is extremely important. Can you ask someone else if they can tell me when he’ll be back?”
The girl hesitated, and then turned away quickly, muttered: “I’ll try,” and went into the other room. The door closed behind her firmly. Roger opened the flap, stepped through, and kept his ear close to the door, but it was more solid than it looked, and almost sound-proof. He could just hear a mutter of voices. He glanced round at piles of small boxes and cartons, and saw many of them addressed on Saxby’s labels to various cities in Africa. There were stacks of a red label saying: “Saxby’s Air Freight Service.”
There were other stationery compartments, holding letterheadings, envelopes and oddments, some in black print, some in red; and there were several different designs of printing. He pulled out a sheet of letter-heading, and read:
Cole & Co.
Modern Fuel for Modern Fires
He felt a quickening of excitement as he looked at others, and then opened some letters and thumbed through them quickly, to check his first discovery.
Pegg had something to do with all the small businesses whose cheques Quist said had been altered, although his name didn’t appear on any. Quist’s memory hadn’t played him false.
Roger closed the books and put them away as he heard someone else coming up the stairs. He moved quickly to the other side of the counter.
The newcomer didn’t come in, but went to the other, locked door. Roger moved again, opened this door a crack, and was in time to see a man stepping into the other room. As he went, the man turned sideways to Roger, without knowing that he was being watched.
It was the man who had been at Mrs. Harrison’s.
“Now I’m quite sure,” Roger thought, with a curious kind of reluctant elation. “If there’s collusion between the witnesses, the case against Quist can be broken wide open. He got on to something all right.”
He closed the door.
The girl came out.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but no one knows whether Mr. Pegg will be back today; he’s not expected until sometime tomorrow.”
“I see; thanks,” Roger said. “May I leave a message?”
“Oh, sure.”
“Tell him that Chief Inspector West of Scotland Yard will call on him at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“All right,” she said.
She wasn’t surprised by his name and rank, which meant she had been warned; almost certainly Pegg had seen him come in. Now Roger went out. He listened at the door marked Private, and could just hear a mutter of voices, that was all. The door was locked again. He went quickly down the stairs, making plenty of noise, but hesitated at the front, because he caught a glimpse of a uniformed police sergeant standing at a corner and talking to two market porters. As he waited, he faced up to several things. It wouldn’t be long before he would be compelled to report to the Yard, and it might be wise to go now that he had reasonable evidence of collusion. He doubted if it was strong enough yet, though; and before he did anything else, he wanted to eat; he was famished.
He wanted time to think, too. As far as he could judge, five people were concerned in the collusion.
He made a mental note of them.
Mrs. Kimmeridge.
Clive Harrison.
Mrs. Harrison.
Theophilus Pegg.
The man from Mrs. Harrison, who was now upstairs.
“Once we work on Mrs. Harrison, she’ll start to crack,” he told himself.
The police sergeant cycled off. Roger went out, feeling uneasily that it would be impossible to play this hide-and-seek business much longer. He couldn’t see Pegg without spending a lot of time here, but might have a chance to see Mrs. Kimmeridge again – the first possibly false witness. He stepped into the taxi, aware of a rather long, testing stare from Nobb. Was he beginning to suspect that something was wrong? In a flash of time Roger was filled with depression. He was only on the fringe of this affair; he believed that five people at least were lying, five people were prepared to see an innocent man condemned; but it was only guesswork. It didn’t even amount to a theory he would have taken to Chatworth had Chatworth been in his sunniest mood.
Chatworth, Cortland, Colonel Jay – these and any of his superiors would want to know a lot more before they attempted to take any action.
Why should so many people lie?
Why should they gang up on Michael Quist?
Had Quist’s arrival at Page Street at that particular time been really coincidental? Could Henry and his daughter have conspired to send him there?
Was he, Roger, justified in wanting to believe Quist, and assuming therefore that all the others were liars? He knew that it was more than assuming; he had seen the effect on Mrs. Harrison and on Charles Henry when they had been challenged, but that was all he had – and impressions weren’t evidence. Impressions could get him off to a good start, that was all.
They hadn’t started to move.
He hadn’t told Nobb where to go.
“Staying here all night?” Nobb asked. “Or are you going home to dinner?”
Roger found a grin.
“You hungry, too?”
“Famished. I was on duty at seven this morning.”
“We’ll have a quick
lunch at a market café,” Roger said. “You probably know the best one.”
“Okay, I’ll take you there.” Nobb let in his clutch and started off. Roger leaned back – and then, almost as an afterthought, looked out of the small rear window. He saw a man on a motor-cycle start off from the kerb outside the little warehouse, and he hadn’t been there when Roger had come away. He didn’t recognise the man, a youngster, who wore goggles and a crash helmet; not only good for safety, but good for concealment. The motor-cycle came on, close behind. It wasn’t surprising that it stayed behind for some time, for they crawled behind a huge lorry laden with boxes marked: Produce of South Africa. When they turned a corner and stopped outside a small café, with a board outside saying: 3 Course Meal, 3/- the motorcycle passed.
It would be wise to keep his eyes open for it.
The café was hot and steamy, few people were in it. A tired-looking woman came up almost as soon as he and Nobb had sat down, with a steaming bowl of soup. The taxi-driver decided that this was the time to study racing form, and took a folded newspaper out of his pocket; he ate noisily as he read. Outside there was a rumble of heavy market traffic, that was all.
But the motor-cyclist kept the café in sight.
A little while earlier, Theophilus Pegg put down the telephone in his office overlooking Henrietta Street, and pinched his plump jowl while scowling at the window. Then he edged his chair a little nearer the window, so that he could see into the street. He saw the taxi draw up, saw West get out, and immediately telephoned the receptionist.
“There’s a man named West coming up, a policeman in plain clothes. Just tell him I’m not in. Don’t let him guess I’m here.”
He heard West arrive, sat there on edge for a while, and then heard a tap at the locked door which was at the head of the stairs. He opened this cautiously, and stepped outside as the man there started to come in.
“Careful, Syd; he’s in the other office.”
The door closed.
The man named Syd, from Mrs. Harrison’s house, was now wearing a dark blue jacket and a collar and tie. His short hair was smarmed back from his forehead, his bright, very dark eyes had a look of quick intelligence. He turned the key in the lock, and then went across to the other door, and listened.
They heard West go downstairs.
“Chick ready?” Syd asked.
“Should be round the comer by now; I told him to not make it too obvious,” Pegg said. “He’ll be on his motorbike; he’s reliable.”
“He’d better be,” Syd said. He sat on an upright chair, the wrong way round, so that he could lean on the back. He was chewing with slow, slight rhythmic movements, which hadn’t been noticeable at first, and kept showing his strong, white teeth. “West’s been to the school, been to Kate’s – saw him there myself – been to Henry’s, been here. He’s caught on.”
“He’s caught on all right,” Pegg said, and stopped at that. “What did he say to Kate?”
“Said he knew the kid had been lying.”
“Who started him on this track? How—”
“I don’t know, and I don’t see that it makes any difference,” Syd said. “What I want to know is, why did you fix to frame Quist? It was crazy.”
“You seemed to think it was smart at the time,” Pegg said nastily. “You put the kid up to his piece too; that wasn’t exactly a stroke of genius. It was okay while no one knew anything, but now the cops will bust it wide open. I told some of ’em that Henry was at the Rose and Crown a couple of hours from eight-thirty on Monday night, but someone else in the pub might have noticed he stepped out for twenty minutes. Once this job begins to crack—”
“Listen, Theo,” Syd said softly; “you’re the brains behind this outfit; I don’t pretend to be. And you said we had to fix Quist. When I telephoned and told you Quist was in the pub and was going after Henry, you said okay, put Rose away, it was a perfect set-up to frame Quist. So I put her away. Is that right or isn’t it?”
Pegg said quietly. “It looked good, Syd.”
“It looked good to me, but you’re the one who always thinks twice, and sees all the snags. Why didn’t you this time?”
“When I saw I’d gone wrong I tried to have Quist put away, didn’t I? I can have an off day,” Pegg went on, and his eyes looked angry. “We going to fight between ourselves, or are we going to keep ourselves out of trouble?”
“Tell me how,” Syd said gruffly.
“We’ve just got to stall for a day or so,” Pegg said. “We can get clear if we do. All we need is a bit more time.”
Syd’s eyes were narrow as he tipped the chair forward and seemed intent on putting all his weight on one leg.
“Maybe, West’s good, but what I don’t understand is, he’s doing it all on his own.”
“West is?”
“Yep.”
“Got a reputation for that, ain’t he?”
“Maybe,” Syd said, “but I don’t understand it. Going round by taxi, too.”
“That could be to fool us.”
“Could be,” Syd admitted, and scowled. “Haven’t heard that anyone’s been with him at all, but there’s a dick outside Clive’s school. I had to get the kid away quick. If the Yard had had a real go at him before we told him what to say, he might’ve cracked. He’ll be okay now; I’ve talked to him.”
“Where is he?”
“Chick’s place.”
“I’m not sure that was wise,” Pegg said.
“Don’t start blaming me if things go wrong,” Syd said, and his mood was still ugly; his resentment rose quickly to the surface. “I had to make sure that kid knew what to say. What’s surprising if he goes off for a day? He often plays truant, and everyone knows it.”
Pegg didn’t answer.
“Copper outside Kate’s place, too,” Syd went on. “She nearly fell through the floor when West talked to her; it was a good thing I was there. But she won’t make any mistake in future; I told her that if she did she’d end up the way her sister ended up. She’ll keep her trap shut, and there’s no reason why West or anyone else should go for her. They’ll go for the kid.”
Pegg said: “We’d better make sure that none of our crowd goes to see Kate, or Lucy over at Page Street. Henry’s fixing that cash – he’s got to fix the books first, but he’ll have it done by tonight. When we’ve got the cash we’ll put him away, and then who’ll be able to talk about us? Quist won’t be any danger then. No one will, Syd. We always knew it would be over quick, and we’ve made a nice picking. Today West’s on our tails, but in a day or two we’ll be clear of him. Everything’s laid on.”
Syd’s eyes had not lost their glitter.
“The main thing is, are we okay?”
“Henry’s our weak link, but we can trust him to keep quiet now his neck’s at stake,” Pegg insisted. “You say you’ve fixed Kate, and we know Lucy’ll keep as tight as a drum.”
The telephone rang. He lifted the receiver, said: “Pegg,” and listened. “Okay, watch him,” he said abruptly, and rang off. He was frowning when he looked at Syd.
“That’s Chick,” he announced. “West’s having a meal at Gordie’s Café, with that cabby.” He waved as if at some unimportant interruption. “The main job’s okay, then. We just stick to our stories. The cops can break their necks trying, but they can’t prove anyone’s lying until we’ve got everything sewn up.”
Syd’s jaws still worked on the gum.
“I don’t understand about West,” he said stubbornly. “What else has he got? What’s he on his own for? Why’d he go round the corner to a market café for a meal? That’s what I want to know. Think there’s any way we can get at West?”
Pegg didn’t answer.
“Don’t give me that one about cops being incorruptible,” Syd went on. “They’ll sit up and beg if the price is high enough.”
Pegg was rubbing his hands together, as if nervously.
“We could certainly use some more time; if we could keep West away for a couple of d
ays it would be fine.”
“Who would you work through?”
“Kate,” answered Syd, very slowly and thoughtfully. “She’ll say exactly what we tell her to, and nothing else. She could doll herself up a bit, and then send West a message saying she had something to say to him. That wouldn’t surprise him. Or we could tell him she wants to see him.”
“I don’t know that I like—” Pegg began.
“Listen; we all have to do things we don’t like, sometimes,” Syd said. “I didn’t like croaking Rosie, but we couldn’t afford to let her live, and we can’t afford to let the cops get any one of us, can we? West is on to Clive, so I’ve told the kid what to say if he’s questioned again. If they ask him why he didn’t say Rose was his aunt, he’ll explain that when they questioned him first he thought that his Auntie Rose was in some kind of trouble and he didn’t want to make it any worse. So if we can shake West off, we’ll be on easy street.”
“You mean, if we could get him to compromise himself with Kate. Is that it?”
“That’s it. Remember what happened last night.” Syd allowed himself a thin smile; he could never know how much he looked and behaved like Colonel Jay. “West’s in some kind of trouble already. If we could get him in bed with Kate, and take a picture, that would be really something. You still got some of those knock-out drops we used on Dandy last year? Put him out for a couple of hours, remember?”
Pegg said: “I think I have, but—” He broke off.
“Getting worried, Theo?” Syd asked sneerily.
Pegg thumped his desk with the flat of his hand, in sudden anger.
“Of course I’m getting worried, worried as hell! I don’t like being rushed, I don’t like any of it. But I can’t see any better way than trying to work on West through Katie. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s made a man forget what he went to see her about, and it can’t make things any worse. How are we going to tell West she wants to see him?”
Syd sat chewing.
“I’m Kate’s cousin, and he’ll put two and two together,” Pegg went on tensely. “So I can give him a message. Yes, that’s it; I can give him a message. No reason why I shouldn’t see my own cousin. Maybe I’ll get something out of West about Clive, too.” Pegg stood up, lifting the telephone as he did so, looking very worried and yet somehow compelling attention. “Betty, leave the switchboard for a minute. Go along the road and see if Chick’s still at the end of the street. If he is, go into Gordie’s Café and ask the man West if he’d come along and see me. Say I’ve just got back.”
