Chapter Thirteen

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MACDONALD WAS joined by Reeves, and they drove back to Scotland Yard together after what Reeves called “the omnibus consultation.” Jenkins, with kindly, old-fashioned courtesy, had asked Sally if he might have “the honour of driving her home,” and she had gone off in Jenkins’s car with Brian Salcombe in the back. Reeves had been much pleased with this arrangement.

“Nice kids, both of them,” he said to Macdonald. “It will do them good to chat away without all you solemn-faced blokes doing the heavy-handed. It doesn’t seem fair to show pictures of stiffs to a bit of a girl like that.”

“No, it doesn’t---but the young of today have marvellous resilience,” said Macdonald. “Sally Dillon was nearly in tears just now, but what d’you bet me she’ll ask Brian Salcombe in for a drink when she gets home and open a tin for supper after that?”

“Of course she will,” agreed Reeves, “and for all you know they’ll think up something useful between them over the imported ham or what-have-you. From what you’ve told me I’d say Sally Dillon’s a pretty bright child. What was it that Garstang was asking you just before you left?”

“He wants to go to Cologne and try to find out if Richard Greville was there as a child and who his people were,” said Macdonald.

Reeves gave a long whistle. “Well . . . he’s an optimist---you’re not risking it, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” replied Macdonald, “not at this stage, anyhow. But it’s a job that’s got to be tackled. I think one of the M.I.5. chaps could follow that one up---they’ve got several fellows who not only speak German like their mother tongue, but who’ve got the topography and one-time residents of Cologne pretty well taped. They had to have, when they sorted out the war-crime fugitives.”

“Get James to take it on. It’ll be a nice change for him: he’s fed to the back of his uppers with his 1941 Yank. And James could go a bit further in checking the dope on Garstang, both from their own records and reports inside Germany. Rather him than me: I believe their records compare favourably with the British Museum Library so far as volume’s concerned.”

“I wish I could do it myself. I haven’t been to Germany since pre-Hitler,” said Macdonald, “but I’ve forgotten all the German I ever knew---which was never very much.”

Reeves fell silent for a while, until Macdonald turned his car into the Yard gates in Cannon Row.

“D’you reckon the German angle’s at the bottom of the doings, Jock?”

“I’ve got a hunch that way, but there isn’t a spot of evidence to back it.”

“Oh yes, there is,” argued Reeves. “There’s Garstang. He says he wants to go to Germany.”

“Yes, there’s Garstang, and your types who frequented the Whistling Pig and are now decorating mortuary slabs, and there’s Wally Burrow, who’s got quite a substantial motive. There’s over a thousand sheep on the Moorcock grazing land, as well as the farm. I’m expecting another report from Fordworthy. He’s full of zeal.”

“I see the motive, all right . . . but how does Wally Burrow link up with Lewis . . . or does Wally patronise the dogs?” mused Reeves. “I know these dog-racing types get around, but Plymouth’s a bit off the beat.”

“As you say,” agreed Macdonald, “but we’ve got to get Wally Burrow sorted out to one side or the other.”

>>2
Macdonald went up to his own office: he found, as he rather expected to find, another report from the zealous Fordworthy, labelled “Urgent.” It had been brought up from Plymouth by the guard on the Cornish Riviera Express and delivered to Scotland Yard by the Paddington police. Macdonald had just finished reading it when Jenkins came in.

“I left the boy with Miss Dillon,” he said. “They wanted to talk things over between themselves, and I didn’t see any objection.”

“Nor anybody else, either,” said Macdonald. “Do you think Salcombe will find his own way back to my flat without getting lost in London?”

“Oh yes. I told him very carefully, and he’s a sensible chap.”

“The Misses Dillon and Maine will have to do their own housework until they find another charlady,” said Macdonald. “Their fair Rosa was just an unreliable lazy hussy who took the money for two hours’ work which she skipped through in twenty minutes or so. Nothing much else against her, except a partiality for entertaining tradesmen and meter-reading operatives in the kitchenette.”

“Poor young ladies,” said the kindhearted Jenkins. “I might help them there, perhaps.”

“With the housework?” enquired Macdonald.

“No. By recommending an honest char,” said Jenkins. “I know a lot of chars.”

“Don’t mention it outside these walls, then,” said Macdonald, “or we shall be haunted by hopeful housewives. Here’s Reeves. The worst has happened, Pete. Wally Burrow was on that train. So this is where we think again.”

“Then I’ll leave you to it,” said Jenkins. “I like thinking, but you two chaps are too mobile for me---too much like performing fleas, if I may say so without offence. I’ll go and do a quick think by myself.”

“Did he own up?” asked Reeves promptly as Jenkins closed the door.

“No,” said Macdonald, “assuming it’s Burrow you mean. He was seen boarding the train at Exeter. The story of Richard Greville’s accident has got around, and Burrow’s not very popular in his own district. It doesn’t look too good, in Fordworthy’s opinion. Burrow drove from Plymouth to Exeter, garaged his car there, and came to London by train, knowing that Greville was travelling by it.”

“How much of the doings could he have been responsible for?” asked Reeves promptly.

“You can answer that one as well as I can,” rejoined Macdonald.

“I said I couldn’t see a farmer like Burrow being quick enough to take advantage of a London particular, but perhaps I was wrong,” said Reeves slowly. “I should have said an average Devon farmer. Most of them don’t take jaunts up to London. Did he give any reason for his journey, Jock?”

“Yes. He wanted to see the Fat stock show. You can’t get past that one.”

“Yes . . . cattle dying from the fog . . . they got in the headlines, poor beasts. Well, here goes. Burrow came to London to see the Fat stock show, and he chose the train Greville travelled by, but was careful not to board it in Plymouth, where he was known. Arrived at Paddington, he followed Greville up the platform and out into the station approach.”

“Steady on a minute here,” said Macdonald. “Are you postulating that Greville had joined forces with Lewis, or any of the other charmers we’ve been hearing about?”

“Well, it’s guesswork, because we’re as much in a fog as they were,” said Reeves. “What I’m doing is to make out a case which fits Burrow: so I’ll say that Greville and Lewis walked up the platform together as far as the barrier, and then Greville branched off towards the booking hall and the carriageway, with Burrow just behind him. Lewis followed, having had an afterthought: ‘This chap’s a sucker anyway: I might get a quid or so off him with luck.’ And Barney O’Flynn followed Lewis on principle, because he was inquisitive about Greville’s interest in Lewis. When Greville and Burrow got outside the booking hall, where there were some people and light of a sort, into the carriageway, which was pitch black, Burrow suddenly thought: ‘Well, here’s my chance---I shall never have a better one.’ He drew up level with Greville and hit him. Farmers may not be scientific hitters, but there’s beef in their fists. Greville went down, knocked flat out on the pavement---and knocked that iron bar over as he fell. Burrow would have stood and waited, to see if anybody had noticed the row. They didn’t---we know that---except Lewis. Lewis was pretty close to them. When nobody came along to ask what it was all about, Burrow decided to empty Greville’s pockets and take his haversack: while this was being done, Lewis squirmed under the trolley.” Reeves broke off. “Anything impossible in that lot?”

“No. I should say it’s pretty close to probabilities,” said Macdonald, “but you haven’t reached the snags yet.”

“I know that---but I don’t think there are any unsurmountable snags, not if Lewis is taken into consideration. You see, I’m arguing Lewis followed Burrow---after Wally’s done his damned dirtiest with the iron bar. Lewis knew he was on to quite a thing, if he played his hand right.”

“If you’re going to tell me Lewis approached Burrow and said: ‘Five hundred by tomorrow,’ to quote his famous last words, can you tell me why Burrow didn’t put Lewis where he belonged?” asked Macdonald. “After all, the fog was still doing its foul best, and the beef was still in the farmer’s fists.”

“No snag there,” said Reeves promptly. “Lewis would have known all about keeping out of reach---and he’d have chosen his moment, outside a pub, or within earshot of a copper. He’d only to say: ‘All right guv’ner. If you won’t play ball, I’ll shout for a rozzer, and you can explain to him how you never done it. You got his bits and pieces on you.’ Come to think of it, Lewis had every ace in the pack to Burrow’s deuce.”

Macdonald nodded. “That’s perfectly true. If Lewis did follow the would-be murderer immediately after the thing happened, then Lewis held every ace, but we don’t know that Lewis did follow immediately. There were those two boys who ran away when Buller saw them: if Lewis heard footsteps approaching, he’d have stayed under his trolley, pro tem. But leave that for the moment, and get on with your own reconstruction. We’ve only had Act I so far.”

“Act II,” murmured Reeves, “played out in some pub or dive where Lewis wasn’t known. It’s a rum thought: at one moment Lewis held all the cards, but the minute he tried to turn things to his own profit he lost that advantage. He became vulnerable.”

Again Macdonald nodded: he was getting more and more interested in Reeves’s argument. “Hostages to fortune,” mused Macdonald. “Lewis knew that if he were caught out in what he was doing he would share the penalty rather than the profits.”

“That’s it,” said Reeves. “Lewis had brains, of a sort. He couldn’t control the laws of chance and he couldn’t make a dud dog win a race, but he was cunning, all right. Once he’d decided to play his hand for profit, he was in it with the other, tarred with the same brush, and it was to his interest that the other bloke didn’t get caught. He’d’ve said: ‘We better think this out, chum,’ and it was Lewis’s thinking which made things happen. ‘Things’ including Henry Brown’s headache, Barney O’Flynn’s unfortunate accident, and the disappearance of Miss Dillon’s book.”

“I wondered how you were going to fit that in,” said Macdonald.

Reeves lit a cigarette, reflectively. “You started me on this,” he said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about Lewis. I said he’d got brains---of a sort. So he had, but they didn’t go far enough. His brains were slick, but not thorough. He could think fast, but not ahead. That’s why he is where he is. If he’d been thorough and capable of thinking ahead, he’d have known that it was better to lie doggo and take a chance than to get busy organising accidents. Come to think of it, I expect he got jittered over the O’Flynn business. He knew it was a bit near home. So he tried to cash in quickly so that he’d got the dough to beat it, go underground---fresh fields and pastures new.”

“Yes, I think that explains why Lewis got caught out,” said Macdonald, and Reeves nodded.

“That’s how I see it. Lewis panicked. He’d been too clever and done too much too quickly. He thought he’d better raise what he could as fast as he could and go to earth. If he’d been offered fifty quid on account I reckon he’d’ve jumped at it---and a slow train on a foggy morning’s not a bad place to have a confidential chat.”

Macdonald agreed. “I think that’s quite a point, Pete. Come to think of it, between eight and nine in the morning isn’t the sort of time a chap like Lewis usually does business. No pubs open, no cafés or eating houses of Lewis’s sort; and he wouldn’t have wanted to do business in the street. I’d been puzzling a bit as to whether Lewis would have risked getting into an empty compartment with a chap who’d every reason for wishing him dead, but if Lewis was in a panic and out to get the money quickly, he might have risked it.”

“Especially in a stopping train,” said Reeves. “Those slow trains out of Paddington stop every few minutes---Royal Oak, Westbourne Park, Acton---he’d have calculated that nobody’d risk a schemozzle when the train was stopping so often, and maybe he forgot that there was still enough fog to make the train take double the usual time between halts. Yes, I reckon Lewis might have actually made that date himself---such and such a compartment on the eight-thirty stopping train to Slough. And as for what happened then---I’ve heard one like it before. The chap who’s being blackmailed produces the dough in pound notes and says: ‘Count them, damn you,’ and the blackmailer loses his head seeing all that money and gets busy counting---and that’s the chance for one over the boko---followed in this case by a quick shove out of a door which has been organised to open at a kick.”

“Well, it’s a nice neat reconstruction which accounts for what happened,” said Macdonald, “although it doesn’t tell us who did what. The point is, do I tell the Plymouth chaps we’d like to have Burrow brought up to us for questioning?”

“Yes to that, every time,” said Reeves. “We’ll have to check him anyway. He may be as innocent as his own dairy cows, but he’s got to account for every minute he spent in London, and we’ve got something to check him by.”

“I think so,” said Macdonald. “If he’s not on in this act we’ve got to get him tidied out of the way. Meanwhile, you might consider this one: do you think there’s anybody else in your set of charmers who frequent the Whistling Pig who might be involved in this Lewis-O’Flynn setup? If so, the sooner we pull them in the better.”

Reeves sat and pondered. “Too much been happening?” he queried, as though talking to himself. “Don’t you reckon we’ve got most of it accounted for---excepting the attack on Greville himself? We’re still groping there: but the rest’s all explainable in common-sense terms. Bert Lewis saw what happened when Greville was attacked; we’re justified in assuming that because it was Lewis’s one and only overcoat that was dragged over the muck under that trolley. Barney O’Flynn guessed that Lewis was on the spot when Greville was attacked. I’m certain of that one, even though I can’t produce positive evidence for it. You see these cosh boys like Lewis don’t commit murder without a reason---it’s not good business. The reason O’Flynn was put away was that he could have laid information against Lewis as accessory after the fact. And Henry Brown was knocked out for being too nosy. It seems to tie up to my way of thinking and I don’t reckon any of the other boys lent a hand, though I’ll have another bash at making that publican open up. Albert Hodgeson’s not feeling too good: he’s not had a real spotlight concentrated on his premises before.”

Reeves studied Macdonald quizzically. “That lot in the train, Chief: we’ve got Lewis and O’Flynn sorted out. O’Flynn was the chap in the corridor---‘the dirty one,’ according to Sally Dillon---and was she right! Maybe ‘the respectable one’ was Burrow. I’ll tell you one thing: no chap who Miss Dillon would have called ‘respectable’ ever frequented the Whistling Pig.”

The telephone beside Macdonald’s elbow rang, and after a brief colloquy he said: “Then I’ll come along to you now.” Turning to Reeves, he said: “That’s James, in the Special Branch. Reporting on Garstang. So here we go round the mulberry bush again.”

“Garstang . . . that’s grand,” said Reeves. “I’ll be toddling off to the less salubrious quarters of the borough of Paddington, putting the fear of God into that Hodgeson. I’ll give you a ring when I get back and you can tell me the worst. Good-bye till then.”

>>3
James was a man of fifty, long, lean, disillusioned-looking, yet with a humorous twist to his close-shut lips, and mobile, angular, dark eyebrows which did everything but talk.

“David Garstang: age 48, naturalised British subject, father German, mother English,” he began. “All he told you is true, Chief, so far as our information goes. For obvious reasons we can’t check all of it. Incidentally I had the job of screening him when he landed from a Portuguese boat at Bristol in July 1941---and I didn’t handle him any too tenderly then.”

“Why didn’t you like him?” asked Macdonald promptly.

James shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps I was feeling tired---and a bit sore as well: we’d been having a packet, hadn’t we, and he was German-born. Then he told me that Bob Lockett had got pulled in. Lockett had been in Germany since Munich: he was one of the best chaps we’d got---and someone gave him away: they blew the gaff on Garstang, too, only he sensed how things were going and beat it. He was damned clever to get out the way he did. Oh yes: we checked up on him as far as we could---I went on with it for two years, through some of our own fellows who were helped by the French escape organisations. I didn’t catch him out anywhere, and the high-ups thought the world of him. He brought quite a lot of useful information with him.” He fell silent, and Macdonald waited. At last James went on:

“I’m like Peter Reeves---unreasonable in odd ways. I thought how easy it’d be . . . I know we pulled in all the German agents over here, early on. You know all about that. But I often wondered if one or two of them were clever enough to do here what Garstang did in Germany---prepare a niche beforehand. Switch over with some respectable, established national and take up their identity. I don’t know. Anyway, all I can tell you is that Garstang’s got a clean sheet so far as our records go. Highly meritorious.”

“Thanks. Now you can listen to me for a bit.” Once again Macdonald outlined his case, tersely, skilfully, omitting no essential. He concluded by saying: “I want to ask the old man to have you sent to Cologne, to check up on Salcombe’s story.”

“O.K. by me,” said James. “It’s damned odd: that’ll mean seeing Garstang again. You say he knew the place Salcombe described . . . it’ll be interesting to watch Garstang’s face when he sees me again.”

“You think it might shake him?” asked Macdonald.

“He won’t like it, no matter what,” said James. “He resented me from the word go in ’41---and you couldn’t blame him. He knew I’d got an idea he’d queered Bob Lockett’s pitch to get away himself. One thing about Garstang, he’s as near to being a thought reader as a man can be. It’s no use putting on an act with him, he always senses what’s underneath. But I admit I shall take a sneaking pleasure in asking him for details about the house Greville recognised. I’d better see Salcombe, too, just in case Garstang’s pulling a fast one.”

“Yes, I’ll arrange that,” said Macdonald. “You know it’s odd: I like Garstang. I’m bound to suspect every word he says, but there’s still something I like about him.”

“One would,” said James dryly. “I admit all that. I told you I was being unreasonable---but I shan’t do your job any the worse on that account.”

“I know you won’t,” said Macdonald. “Incidentally, how’s your hardy perennial getting on---the Dorward story?”

“It isn’t---not so far as finding out anything about his alleged one-time presence in England is concerned, though I admit that I’ve got more interested in the whole story since U.S.A. coughed up a few more facts about him. Dorward wasn’t an ordinary businessman: he was a metallurgist---an expert. He came to Europe a couple of times during the phony war period, travelling via Lisbon, of course---it was the only route---complete with all the visas and recommendations U.S.A. could produce. He came over last in December 1940, and his intention was to get to Sweden, and then come to England if there was any reasonable chance of getting here. If you ask me, he was acting as go-between for the high-ups, but they won’t admit that. The only useful fact I’ve got out of them is that he had a business associate in London named Cartoffel. Walter B. Cartoffel. This chap had a flat in Baker Street, which was run for him by a servant named Freedman or Freeman.”

“Cartoffel?” queried Macdonald. “Isn’t that a German name?”

“Yes, but lots of good U.S.A. citizens have German names. Kartoffel is German for potato. It’s also the sort of name which might be remembered, because it’s a very odd name. Anyway, drawing a bow at a venture, I advertised, asking anybody who remembered Cartoffel, Dorward, or Freedman to communicate in the usual way. I’m getting a few answers---mostly to say that Cartoffel was killed by a V.1 in ’44---but something may turn up.”

“Where did you advertise?” asked Macdonald.

“Agony Column. Times, Telegraph, and so forth. Didn’t you notice them? I thought you always read the Times personal column—I do.”

“So do I, generally. I enjoy it. When were your chits in?”

“A fortnight ago---oh, it was when you were up in Inverness, so I take it you read the Scotsman. I’ll tell you if anything materialises, but I think it’s pretty remote.”

“Try the name on Garstang and see if he reacts,” said Macdonald.

James laughed. “It’s a pretty long shot. . . . Still, it might crop up in the course of conversation, so to speak.” He sat very still for a moment. “After all, Garstang was in Germany at the same time Dorward was said to be. I wonder if you’ve got something there. . . . It’d be damned odd . . .”

“Odd things do happen sometimes,” said Macdonald.

James nodded. “Do you remember a chap named Blakely in our set of toughs?” he asked. Macdonald pondered:

“Was he the chap who was parachuted into Italy?”

“That’s him: he got his when the Jerries released Musso. Blakely once told me that he believed Dorward was associated with an Itye named Francesco Revari: they’d got some sort of racket going in the way of an escape route into Switzerland. It all sounded pretty improbable to me, and I couldn’t follow it up at the time because Blakely was bunged off into Italy. I tried the name on the F.B.I., but they didn’t react---said it was all my eye. It’ll be a damned funny thing if Garstang does know anything about this old wives’ tale. . . . Of course I never tried him on the Dorward story.”

“Well, now’s your chance,” said Macdonald. “You’ll be able to have quite a chat. What was your Italian brigand called?”

“Francesco Revari. Don’t tell me you know anything about him?”

“No. I’m pretty certain I don’t. It’s just that the sound of the name seemed to ring a bell.”

“Oh Lord!” groaned James. “How often have I heard that one!”