|
Admin
|
 |
« on: November 22, 2023, 07:20:13 am » |
|
“I SWEAR there’s something, Jock. The name ‘Dorward’ shook him quite a bit,” said James.
He was back at Scotland Yard again, reporting to Macdonald: the time was now nine o’clock in the evening. Reeves was pursuing his own researches in the hinterland of Paddington (probably entertaining “somebody’s dream of Arabian nights”) and Macdonald had been having a long telephone conversation with Fordworthy in Plymouth.
“This case needs a mind like a radio receiving set, geared to pick up different wave lengths,” said Macdonald resignedly. “I’ve never met such a collection of extremes: we’ve got Reeves’s bunch of charmers, about as dirty a set of chislers as the dregs of civilisation can produce: a psychiatrist whose training and intelligence represent civilisation at its highest---we hope: a farmer from Devon who isn’t civilised at all if civilisation is an urban product, and an engineer who runs a well-established business in Reading for manufacturing miniature radio sets and hearing-aids.”
“Don’t you feel disposed to cancel the farmer out, Jock? The whole business is too involved for a country bumpkin to be at the bottom of it.”
“I certainly can’t cancel him out merely because he looks the easiest guess,” said Macdonald. “He was on that train, he’d got a motive, and he spent the following day in London and didn’t get back home until late on the Wednesday evening. If you think farmers are simple, it’s only because you know nothing about farmers. And getting back to your comment about Garstang---the fact that he admitted the name ‘Dorward’ rang a bell counts in his favour, not the reverse. It would have been perfectly easy for him to say he’d never heard the name. Hullo . . . what is it this time?”
He lifted the telephone and listened, and then said: “Send him up here.” To James he said: “This is a plus for your theory, a minus for Reeves and me. The Paddington police have brought along a young journalist who has something to report.”
The lad who was brought into Macdonald’s room was a lively, alert-looking fellow of twenty-one or two, his face showing plainly enough that this visit to Scotland Yard was an event in his young life.
“Robert Forbes?” asked Macdonald. “Sit down and tell us what you’ve got to say in your own way, but facts only.”
“Yes, sir. I’m junior reporter on the Cricklewood Courier---at least, I’m in training, really. I live near Slough and travel to and from Paddington every day. Last Monday evening I got to Paddington about half-past seven: I went there by the tube, and walked across to the indicators to see what train I could get home: they’d got a sort of skeleton service running on account of the fog and they were chalking up the trains that were due to go out, not far from the arrival indicator. I saw Dr. David Garstang by the arrival indicator. I recognised him because I heard him giving evidence in court last month: it was at the Marylebone Police Court, when a young woman named Merrill was charged with shoplifting. I noticed Dr. Garstang particularly then, and I’m quite sure I saw him at Paddington Station on Monday evening. It wasn’t only his face I recognised. He was wearing the same topcoat he wore when he gave evidence.”
“Can you describe Dr. Garstang?” asked Macdonald.
“Yes, sir. I’d say he’s five foot eleven, broad-shouldered, bony, but with a straight back. His hair was once black, but is going grey and thin on top. He has dark eyes and wears big glasses and I think he’s shortsighted. He’s got a long nose, rather hooked, and a nutcracker jaw, but somehow he looks kind. The overcoat was a sort of russet tweed, big and loose and not belted.”
“And you’re prepared to swear that you saw Dr. Garstang at Paddington Station about half-past seven on last Monday evening?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good. Now will you tell me why you mentioned this fact to the police: why, in your opinion, Dr. Garstang’s presence at Paddington Station was of any significance?”
Forbes flushed a little, but he replied quite readily: “Well, sir, we’ve all been on our toes over these crimes in the Paddington area. News is our stock in trade, and we don’t wait for news to come to us: we go out after it, or we should soon get the push if we didn’t. We get what we can from the police---what they’re willing to tell us, that is, and then we go round asking---snooping, if you like---but it’s our job. Williams and I went to the mortuary, to see if we could get any facts, and it was at the mortuary we heard that Dr. Garstang was taking an interest, so to speak. He’d been there shortly before us. When I told the police sergeant I’d seen Dr. Garstang on Monday evening, I did so because I hoped the sergeant might be a bit more forthcoming to me---freer with the gen, if you see what I mean. I didn’t suggest Dr. Garstang was implicated in any way, sir.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” rejoined Macdonald. “Very well, Forbes. You’ve used your wits, and we’re grateful to you for behaving straightforwardly about this. This officer will take you down to the public relations officer, who may be able to give you some information---or may not. But he’ll give you a good mark, which may be of use to you some other time.”
Forbes departed, flushed and gratified, and James said to Macdonald: “Well, there you are. If Garstang was all above board, why didn’t he tell you to start with he’d been at Paddington Station?”
“Well, I think I might guess the answer,” rejoined Macdonald, “but we’d better find out what Garstang himself says.”
“He’ll deny it, of course,” said James morosely.
Macdonald was just reaching for the telephone when an incoming call was indicated, and, having listened for a moment, Macdonald nodded to James to listen in on another receiver.
“Chief Inspector Macdonald? Weldon here. I’m a bit ashamed of bothering you, but I admit to feeling a spot jittered over all this business. You may remember I told you I had a vague idea that Dr. Garstang’s face was familiar in some way, and my mind’s been nagging away at it ever since I left you. I think I’ve placed him, but I can’t be quite certain. The reason I’m ringing you is to ask if I could have a word with you later this evening. I’ll come along to you, wherever you happen to be, if you’re available.”
“Yes, of course,” rejoined Macdonald, “but I can save you the trouble of coming out---I’ll come along to you. Are you at home now?”
“No. I’m not. I’m talking from a call box on the North Circular road. I’m on my way to see a chap who I think can check this idea of mine. And after I’ve seen him I’d rather come direct to have a word with you. It may be silly, but that’s how I feel about it. I’m not used to this cosh-and-come-again entertainment that’s going on.”
“Look here, Mr. Weldon, if you feel apprehensive in any way, you’ve only got to tell me the number of the call box you’re speaking from and I’ll have a police car there in a matter of minutes.”
“Good Lord, no. I don’t mean that at all. I’m as right as rain in these parts. It’s just that I’ve got a thing about going home before I’ve told you the result of my evening’s researches.”
“Wouldn’t it be more sensible if you told me what’s in your mind now, Mr. Weldon?”
“No. It just wouldn’t be fair. I’m only guessing, and I’m not going to say anything damaging about a man without a flicker of real evidence to bear me out. It’s easier to say things than to unsay them. Just let me know where you will be in an hour’s time and I’ll put any ideas I’ve got at your disposal and you can sort them out. Don’t imagine I’m the sort of hero who goes courting trouble. I’m not. I prefer to avoid trouble.”
“Then why not tell me why it is that you’ve begun to get apprehensive in the last hour or so, Mr. Weldon: you didn’t suggest anything of the kind when I saw you earlier this evening.”
“I know I didn’t, and I’m probably being a ninny to be worrying you now---but I told you I got an idea that I want to look into. And rather an odd thing happened . . . I say, are you there? This phone is a bit haywire.”
“Yes. I’m here: the line isn’t good, but I can hear you all right.”
“Good. Well, shortly after I left you I went along to Poloni’s for a quick meal, to save having to turn out again. I habitually go there---it’s in the Marylebone Road, just off the Edgware Road. While I was there Garstang asked for me on the phone. He said he’d rung the housekeeper at my chambers and she’d told him I might be at Poloni’s. He wanted to come along and see me when I got home. Well, I may be being quite unreasonable, but I’m rather anxious not to meet Garstang until I’ve looked into things and had a word with you. I’m sorry about that boy---Greville.”
“What are you sorry about?” asked Macdonald.
“Why---he’s dead, isn’t he?”
“No. He’s not dead and he’s not going to die: who told you he was dead?”
There was only a blurred sound in reply: then a clatter, followed by the rising tone which announced that the receiver had been put down or the lines disconnected.
Macdonald swore softly and James looked at him with raised eyebrows. “That appears to be that---no more from a call box on the North Circular road---or will he come back?”
“There are moments when I could consign the automatic telephone system to perdition,” said Macdonald. “You can neither argue with it nor ask why, who, or where.”
During the next few minutes a lot of instructions went out from the telephone and radio system of Scotland Yard. Police cars in the northwestern area of London heard the call on their H.F. sets, and the cars began to patrol the length of the North Circular road from Willesden to New Southgate: police cars in the West One area turned towards Wimpole Street and Lancaster Gate Crescent. Macdonald, meanwhile, dialled Garstang’s number, but he got no reply. Then a member of the Flying Squad came on the air from Wimpole Street.
“Calling from 500, Wimpole Street. The houseman says Dr. Garstang must be out; he doesn’t answer his bell. Are we to search his flat---the houseman has a passkey. O.K.?”
“How the hell did he get out?” growled James. “You’ve got a man outside, haven’t you?”
Macdonald sat and waited---it was one of those occasions when waiting paid a premium. Then the radio cackled another message.
“Garstang’s flat is empty, but there’s a fire escape leading from his bedroom window: it goes down to within nine feet of the ground to a yard at the back, and the yard connects with that bombed site in Harley Street. We’re going round there now. Garstang must have got out that way. He didn’t come out into Wimpole Street. Reporting again in five minutes.”
“He’s beaten it, Jock. He saw the red light and went,” said James.
Macdonald sat thinking---thinking hard. “The North Circular road . . . I wonder,” he said slowly. “I couldn’t even swear that was Weldon’s voice, the line was muffled . . . but what was the idea? Did he think we should go raging up there ourselves? But with this qualified automatic business, that call might just as well have come from Croydon, or anywhere else in the London area.”
“En route for the London airport?” murmured James. “I believe he’d have got it taped. Back to Germany again somehow, and pick the old threads up again.”
“Maybe, but not by air, to my way of thinking,” said Macdonald. “An aircraft’s like a trap to a fugitive. We’ll warn all airports, but I don’t think it’ll be that way.”
“It won’t matter to Garstang what route he takes. He knows them all,” said James. “If he could seep through German-occupied Europe in wartime, the frontier checks of today won’t worry him at all. And I bet the great idea behind that phone call was to make us believe Weldon’s still alive, which he probably isn’t.”
“You don’t know---and neither do I,” said Macdonald, “but it’s my belief that any fugitive who uses his brains won’t try flying to get out of the country. The cross-channel boat would be a safer bet. It’s easier to ‘seep’ from a seaport than an airport.”
“Something in that,” agreed James (who had plenty of experience of “seeping” on his own account), “and if he’s done that, he’s been clever. Held us up just long enough to miss the Victoria boat train---the Dunkirk Ferry. Was that the idea?”
Again Macdonald pondered. “It’s by way of being an idea. . . . We can’t be in more than one place at once, but I feel inclined to put my money on the night boat. I think you’ve got something when you maintain that Garstang will head for Germany---and crossing the Channel’s his first lap.”
“Well, he’ll probably make it. He knows more about simple disguises than any man I know: he’ll probably embark as an English porter and disembark as a French one,” said James morosely, “and there’s damn all we can do about it.”
“You’re wrong there. We can do quite a lot,” said Macdonald. “We’ve got to wait for further reports, but I can ginger up the A.C. to ask for co-operation from the R.A.F. They’re always drooling around with their night flying. They can oblige with transport if the right people ask them---and they can land in places the charter companies dare not touch.”
“Fly to Dover? Well, that’s the evening’s great thought,” said James more cheerfully. “If you make it snappy with the high-ups we can still beat the boat train hollow---and sort things out on the Dunkirk Ferry. Come to think of it, Dunkirk would be a lot more convenient to him than Calais. . . . He won’t risk a sleeper, you know . . . he’ll just walk on. . . .”
“If you must talk, talk to yourself,” snapped Macdonald.
>>2
It is not often that the C.I.D. asks for the co-operation of the R.A.F. in the matter of transport: once the decision had been taken the arrangements were of the simplest. Within half an hour of the request being made (with the authority of the Commissioner’s Office behind it), Macdonald and Reeves and James were being driven out to Hendon in a police car which had a motorcycle escort preceding it to get the traffic-control officers on their toes. It was an exhilarating ride, speeding northwestwards to the Watford by-pass turn from the Finchley Road, speeding through Hendon and Mill Hill with klaxon sounding and police lights up. Sometimes young hooligans cat-called at them, horrified drivers of other cars pulled into the kerb, bus drivers honked the V. signal on their horns, and pedestrians scuttled out of the way like rabbits.
“Road-hogging: doing exactly what we tell other people not to,” said Reeves. “If we kill anybody will they bring it in as justifiable homicide?”
“Cut it out, mate,” grinned the police driver, who was enjoying himself. “The only reason they pay me a bonus is that I can do this sort of thing without killing anybody. Here we are. Beaten my own record. I’d fly the plane for you if the Raf’d let me. I’m hot on night flying---and I tell you it’s a damned sight harder than jumping the traffic lights on an arterial road. There’s your bus: all warmed up. Oh boy, take me, too. . . .”
It was no sort of joy ride in the aircraft. This was no luxury passenger plane; there were hard let-down seats and no trimmings, and the pilot grinned from ear to ear at the thought of a bunch of policemen as passengers.
“Twenty minutes or so to Dover and land you on the old crash-landing ground---it’s the nearest we can offer,” he volunteered chattily. “The boys used to pancake their Spits there in ’41---if they were lucky. They’ve laid on transport to get you to the harbour, and emergency landing lights---we hope. Nice night when you’re through the overcast.”
It was a lovely night: the waxing moon floated serenely over trails of whitest gossamer and starlight glimmered in the ethereal vault, high above the smoke and grime and ground mist of the mighty Wen. Reeves sat silent, not pretending to enjoy the outing: James folded his arms, closed his eyes, and accommodated his person to a hard seat and occasional air pockets. The only time Macdonald spoke was to James.
“Did they send you photographs of Dorward?” he asked.
James woke up and grinned unsympathetically. “Yes. They did. Plenty of ’em. So guess again.”
A few minutes later James added: “Garstang’s seen that boy’s face---without the bandages. He was there when they changed the dressings. Funny to think of: we’ve none of us seen his face---not to say seen it.”
“No,” said Macdonald. Then he added: “What colour was Dorward’s hair?”
“Black. Sorry to be so unobliging. Oh God, this is it. How often I’ve wished I had a removeable stomach. This boy’s playing us up for fun. . . .”
The plane banked, turned, swooped: the passengers lurched, swallowed, held on tight and endured it.
“No nice comforting air-hostess patter for the likes of us,” said Reeves, “but they’ve obliged with the landing lights. Very good organisation in the time. Are we playing the goat, Jock? It’s a long shot.”
“It was the only available one,” said Macdonald. “I may kick myself for doing the wrong thing, but I’d have drowned myself if I’d let it go without a try.”
>>3
The C.I.D. men slipped inconspicuously through the customs sheds, after reporting to the local super, and having a look at the county men who were there to co-operate---if there was anything to co-operate about. They had beaten the boat train comfortably, but some passengers had already gone aboard.
The steamer at the quayside seemed to be garlanded in lights, green and red and white shining out from masthead, from fore and aft, from ports whose reflection glimmered gaily on wet gangway and quay and flickered in long ribbons of reflected radiance on the water which slapped choppily against the steamer’s sides.
Macdonald left Reeves and James tucked away behind customs and passport officers respectively, reflecting that it certainly wasn’t easy to evade the shepherding of authority on the approach to a Channel steamer:
“Passports ready, please”---pass between two watchful though seemingly futile officials who handled passports without appearing to examine them---and “Pass along please” again and hand the same passport to another officer whose examination of it appeared to be quite chancy or perfunctory---or both.
“Customs, please. Is this all your luggage? How much English money have you? Any jewellery?” The customs officers did at last look at their customers: their watchful eyes often seemed more concerned with the faces of those they questioned than with their baggage.
Macdonald, in borrowed oilskin and sou’wester, went and stood on the quayside and watched the passengers embark up the gangway. There weren’t a great many---this cold December night held no attractions for tourists, and prosperous persons preferred the warm brevity of an air passage. A few porters carried baggage on board, and Macdonald found himself agreeing with James that a porter’s disguise would be a brilliant idea on a night crossing---the bowed figures with their rather shapeless clothes and peaked caps well down over their faces looked so anonymous.
Despite all his years of experience Macdonald was conscious of a stirring of excitement: he was taking a chance, backing a hunch, having arranged matters his own way. It might be a complete flop. There was a perfectly good chance that Weldon might be lying in a coma---or dead---in some hidden corner near the North Circular road: that Garstang might be walking round and round the Outer Circle. But there was still the slim chance that one---or both---might be aboard this steamer.
The arrivals thinned out, ceased. Reeves and James, also in oilskins, went aboard, and Macdonald went last up the gangway, just before it was withdrawn, and a few minutes later the vessel vibrated softly and began to slip away from the quayside. Reeves and James had their own instructions: one stood near the Passport Office, where passengers had to show their papers and get their landing tickets; one was searching the passengers’ quarters, quietly and unobtrusively. Macdonald avoided the brightly lighted alleyways, saloons, and buffets. He moved forward, towards the shadows in the bows, disregarded by any member of the crew. Here in the open, quite unsheltered, a thin, cold mizzle of rain blew spitefully, and spray flew up when a choppy sea smacked the ship’s sides as she cleared the shelter of harbour. Ashore, lights twinkled out, gay and confident---an abiding delight to any man who remembered the dour negative of wartime black-out. Macdonald leant over the rail and realised he was enjoying himself---which was no part of his programme. He would probably have to fly back in a few hours’ time, having spent a futile vigil on the English Channel, and his first job tomorrow would be to interrogate the surly farmer who was being brought to London by Fordworthy on the night train.
As he pondered over his case, Macdonald became aware that the shore lights had faded out, that the vessel was lifting to a choppy sea, and that no passenger at all had chosen to brave the chill drizzle and cutting wind as the steamer left the shelter of the cliffs and ploughed stubbornly towards mid-channel. Moving aft a little, on a deck whose angle was abrupt and ever-changing, Macdonald found the shelter of the superstructure and leant his back against the bulkhead, where he was concealed by deep shadows. There was a high sea running now, and the sturdy craft was pitching as well as rolling: with legs well astride, back to the bulkhead, he swung easily with the roll of the vessel and thanked his stars he had never felt seasick. In the spumey darkness he thought over his case, visualising every move in it with an imaginative faculty which was the essence of a detective’s mind.
Macdonald believed his quarry was making a bolt for it---alarmed through no move of the C.I.D. The alarm, if it had been given, had probably been through the medium of a telephone message, an enquiry, perhaps: a name mentioned when that name was held to be long forgotten. If that theory were sound, there might well be two fugitives on the cross-channel steamer tonight.
Macdonald could produce a straight narrative, with logical reasons to explain every event in the tangled story he had pieced together: he believed he knew what had happened, from the night of the Plymouth blitz to the night when Dick Greville was knocked out at Paddington Station. But like every policeman, he knew that his own beliefs were valueless: what he wanted was evidence: he was here, on the Dunkirk Ferry steamer on a dirty December night, because he hoped for the one item of evidence which could give substance to his own theories.
|
