15: Sad Case of Plugs Mulligan

PLUGS Mulligan had been a burglar when he was young and active, but advancing years slowed him and a tendency to deafness rendered him vulnerable. Finally he was caught, and served a short sentence as a first offender, aged 47.

"It is deplorable," he was told when they released him, "to find a man of your age taking to crime. More than that, it's stupid. How can you expect to get away with it? Give it up, like a sensible man, and keep out of trouble in future.

"Mister," said Plugs earnestly, "I've done me last burglary---me first and last," he added hastily. "I was a fool, that's all. Oo 'ever 'eard of a deaf burglar?"

He retired to his native Aldgate and remembered an idea which had been described to him by an old friend. A suitcase, a large but ordinary-looking suitcase. It was not so ordinary as it looked; if it were put down upon another and smaller suitcase its bottom side collapsed inwards and swallowed up the smaller case. An inconspicuous knob under the handle could then be slid along, causing grabs inside to grip its prey. Then all one had to do was to pick up the case again and carry them both away. A soft job for one's declining years.

"I'll get one of them," he said. "Expensive, but worth it. You can't expect to set up in business without putting a spot of capital into it."

He got his case, though the cost made a hole in his savings. It was worth it, and he did very well indeed out of his investment.

He was wandering round Waterloo Station, looking for another dividend, on the evening when Colemore met Eddie by the War Memorial. Colemore arrived first and had waited several minutes when a taxi pulled up and the man with the shepherd's plaid scarf got out. He turned back and lifted a brown suitcase, with a blue-and-silver stripe on it, carefully out of the taxi and placed it gently upon the pavement. When he had paid off the taxi-driver, Colemore strolled up to him and said, "Hullo, Eddie! How's things?"

"Hullo, Bill! Sorry to be late, we had bad luck with the traffic lights. Doesn't matter, there's plenty of time. Let's go up, shall we?"

They walked up the long flight of steps, and Colemore noticed that Eddie held up the suitcase in front of him with both hands instead of carrying it normally. It looked awkward and was obviously heavy.

"Can I lend you a hand with that?" asked Colemore.

"No, thanks. I can manage all right. I don't want to bump it against the steps, that's all. This gelignite's a bit elderly and it gets unreliable with age, as I daresay you know."

"Dear me," said Colemore. "I hope we don't have a railway accident."

Eddie grinned. "Don't worry," he said. "If we did, you'd be standing at St. Peter's gate before you knew what had happened. Oh, it's not too bad, but it's time it was used up, if you know what I mean."

Plugs Mulligan, standing at the top of the steps, watched them come up and noticed, with interest, the care that was being taken.

"Now, what's in that case?" he wondered. "Somethin' vallyble. Eggs? or watches? If they was comin' to town I'd say it was eggs, but leavin' town--I'll wait and see if they are catchin' a train."

They reached the top of the steps; as they were passing Mulligan Eddie asked Colemore if he would go and get the tickets. "Two first returns to Petersfield. I'll wait for you in front of the departure board."

Colemore nodded and they parted, Mulligan drifting after Eddie. The point that was worrying Plugs Mulligan was that Eddie's suitcase was as big as his own, it would never go inside.

"Better let it go," he said to himself. "And yet--what the heck's inside that case?"

There was a sudden rush of last minute passengers for Surbiton, they threatened to engulf Eddie and he hugged his case closely to him and sidestepped behind a seat to avoid them.

"Very precious," said Plugs, "I must 'ave it." Eddie waited for Colemore; Mulligan, six feet away, evolved a scheme. He would put down his own case beside theirs, pick up the other, take it to the left-luggage office, and book it in. Then he would come back and pick up his own. There was little risk of losing it, people are very honest about luggage as Plugs knew very well. Eddie went on and stood in front of the departure board looking up the trains for Petersfield, and Colemore came to join him.

"No train till six twenty-seven," said Eddie disgustedly. "We've got half an hour to wait." He put his case down close to his feet.

"We don't want to stand here for half an hour, do we?" said Colemore. "What about going along and having a drink? Or even a sandwich or so. It seems to take the best part of two hours to get to Petersfield."

"Not a bad idea," said Eddie. "Where is the refreshment place in this station?"

"Along there somewhere," said Colemore, pointing.

"It's so dark you can't see," said Eddie, turning to peer into the dimness. Mulligan, edging nearer, seized his opportunity. He put down his case, picked up Eddie's and slid off.

"We can go across and look for it," said Anthony.

"That's so," agreed Eddie, turned to pick up his case and let out a startled yelp.

"My case! It's gone."

"There's somebody else's left instead," said Colemore, repressing an inclination to laugh. If this were some of Hambledon's staff work----

"The point is, was my case stolen, or is this a genuine mistake?" said Eddie, and stooped to pick up Plugs'. "Gosh no. This one's empty."

He stood, dangling it from one finger and looking distractedly about him. What he saw disturbed him even more. Large men in plain clothes were converging upon him from several directions at once, and they were all staring fixedly at him. He lost his head, threw down Spike's case, dodged the nearest man and ran for it. At the entrance he collided with a tall man who immediately gathered him in and presented him to his pursuers. Colemore did not wait to see the outcome, but left the station at once without looking back.

Mulligan, in the meantime, did not reach the left-luggage office. He found his arm taken and firmly held while he was conducted to a waiting taxi. He protested loudly.

"What's all this about?"

"You will be taken to the police station and charged with stealing luggage. That suitcase, in fact."

Mulligan's face was a picture of bewilderment.

"I know I'm deaf," he said. "Must 'a got worse sudden."

"You heard me," said the Detective-Inspector.

"I thought I 'eard you say as I'd stolen this 'ere case. That's what I thought I 'eard."

"Too right, you did."

"I never! It's me own. Lemme go."

"Now then, no trouble, please."

"It's me own what I bought wiv me own money in the Mile End Road."

"You can tell them all about it at the police station. Get in the car."

Plugs put one foot on the running-board and took it off as an idea struck him.

"I say, mister! You don't mean to tell me as I've 'ad the misfortune to 'ave been sold stolen goods?"

"You can keep all that for the Super at the station. Get in!"

At the police station Mulligan stuck to his story. He'd bought the case off a man he didn't know in the Mile End Road. True, it was a bit cheaper than you'd expect, no doubt the man had stolen it himself and planted it on a poor unsuspecting old man who'd never had the advantage of much education. Trusting, that's what he was, been told so time and again.

"Listen," said the Superintendent. "You were seen to take that case. We were watching you."

"Eh?" said Mulligan, one hand behind his ear. "I can't make out what you're sayin'."

"Have you opened the case, Wilson?" asked the Superintendent of one of his constables. He spoke in a low tone and Mulligan really did not hear.

"Yes, sir."

"What's in it?"

"Explosives, sir. Sticks of gelignite and fuses, mainly."

The Superintendent whistled. "Bring it here. Be careful."

When it was brought and placed gingerly upon his desk, he opened it and turned to Mulligan.

"You say this is your case?"

"That's right," said Mulligan, trying to see past the lid.

"What's this, then?" The Superintendent held up a stick of gelignite.

"That? That--oh, that's only modellin' wax I was takin' down to me sister's kiddies. I dearly love kids, always did. Got none of me own."

"Oh. Where does your sister live?"

Mulligan nearly said Aldershot, but changed his mind and said "Portsmouth."

"And you were thinking of going there?"

"That's right. I 'adn't seen 'em, not for----"

"You ought to know you couldn't go there, anyway."

"Why not?"

"Protected area. No visitors allowed."

"Oh, b-bother this war," said Mulligan. "Can't a man----"

But the Superintendent got tired of it.

"You've got his statement down, Gibbs? Get it typed out, and then"---to Mulligan---"you can read it through and sign it, if that's the story you're going to stick to. Take him away, Wilson."

---

Eddie was taken into custody on a charge of "loitering with intent," and he also protested. Confronted with the trick suitcase he had dropped when he fled, words rather tended to fail him. He was searched, and a wallet was found in his coat pocket, a leather wallet with C.D. stamped on the corner. Inside it was twenty-five pounds in notes and some letters addressed to Charles Denton at an address at Blackheath.

"What's all this?"

Eddie cast a horrified glance upon it and said indignantly that he'd never seen it before and that the police had planted it.

"That'll do!" said the Superintendent sharply. At that moment his telephone rang and he lifted the receiver. The voice at the other end introduced itself as Charles Denton---with an address at Blackheath. He said that he had been robbed of a wallet, brown seal leather with C.D. in the corner, containing twenty-five pounds and some letters addressed to him. He apologized for troubling the police in a matter in which it was unreasonable to expect them to work miracles, but he understood that it was correct procedure to inform the police about such matters----

"Well, sir," said the Superintendent genially, "they say miracles do happen. If you could make it convenient to call at this Station... Thank you, sir.... Yes, certainly. In ten minutes' time. Thank you, sir."

When Charles Denton lounged into the Police Station he at once identified the wallet as his. What was more, he identified the prisoner too, as a man who had tried to jostle him in the Bakerloo Tube shortly before.

"That's a lie," said the prisoner. "I wasn't in the Bakerloo Tube."

"Oh, weren't you?" said the Superintendent. "How did you reach the station?"

"In a taxi."

"And where did you pick up the taxi?"

The prisoner opened his mouth, thought better of it and shut it again. He did not want to say where he'd come from.

"Of course," said Charles Denton in his slow, gentle voice, "I might have been mistaken about that. The lights, you know. But there's the wallet, what?"

"Oh, quite," said the Superintendent.

---

Denton had been one of Hambledon's assistants for years, and he was not at Waterloo by any coincidence.

"The fact was, I had a brainwave," said Denton, telling Hambledon about it later. "Feller came barging towards me so I just cannoned into him and dropped my wallet into his pocket."

"Whenever I've had to run away from police," said Hambledon thoughtfully, "it never occurred to me to stop and pick a pocket. However, I daresay it'll all help. We only want this Eddie put away in cold storage till the war's over."

Eddie, to his rage and disgust, received a sentence of five years' imprisonment. Both Judge and Jury took a dim view of men who went about with trick suitcases and snatched wallets in passing.

As for Colemore, he had made his escape without anyone appearing to notice him and walked rapidly away into the darkness. He thought it safe to lean over the parapet of Westminster Bridge and finish his laugh in comfort. Eddie's face, when he turned round and found his suitcase gone, repaid many hours of anxious boredom. Colemore decided that his obvious role was that of righteous indignation. How dared they partner him with such a bungler as Eddie? He entered the first telephone kiosk he saw and rang up the number Symes had given him. A gruff voice answered him.

"Mr. Symes there, please?" said Colemore.

"'Oo's that speaking?"

"Mr. Bilston."

"'Old on, please."

There was a short pause, after which the gruff voice said that Mr. Symes was out at the moment but was expected back in ten minutes' time. Say a quarter of an hour.

"All right. I'll ring up again later," said Colemore, and went for a walk along the Embankment to admire Boadicea and the dolphins upon the unlighted street lamps. There were searchlights up towards the east and their beams lit up the broad road as he strolled along, thinking. Probably Symes did not live at the place where the telephone was situated, but somewhere near from whence he could readily be fetched.

When the allotted time had passed, Colemore telephoned again, and this time Symes answered in person.

"Where are you speaking from?" he asked.

"I'm on the Embankment," said Colemore, in an angry voice, "and it's just pure luck I'm not in custody. What sort of a gibbering nitwit is that fool I met to-night?"

"D'you mean Eddie?"

"Of course I mean Eddie, who'd you suppose I mean? Look here, if I'm going to be landed with blasted idiots like that, the game's not worth the candle. It's not safe, and I shan't go on with it. You can find some other mug----"

"Look here," said Symes. "What's happened?"

"Happened!" snorted Colemore. "Know what the fool did? He let his suitcase---yes, that one---be stolen from him by a sneak-thief. As though that wasn't enough, he lost his head when a policeman looked at him, and ran away. So naturally the copper ran too, to see what Eddie was running for, and they caught him. They pulled him in I suppose, I didn't wait to see. I don't care, either, and I hope he gets fifteen years on Dartmoor. Fellow's a complete menace. If you can't----"

"Look here," said Symes again, but Colemore interrupted him.

"Don't keep on saying 'look here.' This is a telephone, not a television set!"

"All right, all right. I'm sorry. Loo---nearly said it again. I must cure myself of that. I'm frightfully sorry all this has happened. Come up West and have dinner with me, will you? There's a little restaurant in Soho where even now one can get a meal. Will you meet me in half an hour's time---that's at seven o'clock, say, at Piccadilly Circus? Corner of Shaftesbury Avenue. We'll have a spot of something and then some food, what?"

"All right," said Colemore sulkily. "I'll come."

He went, and presented such a picture of simmering indignation that Symes laid himself out to be charming. Anthony allowed himself to be gradually soothed; Symes apologized for Eddie, "a brilliant man on his job, but of course he had his limitations. My fault for not putting you in charge. We shall know better in future." They sat at a corner table from which they could not be overheard, and Symes unburdened himself of some of the sorrows which ham-handed subordinates inflict upon organizers. "These mutts," he moaned. "They think everyone stupid but themselves and that's where they slip up. Then they are caught, of course, and if it wasn't for the difficulty of replacing them I should be glad. Can't abide a fool."

"Dangerous, too," sympathized Colemore.

Symes nodded. "That house at Teddington. That's another worry just now."

"What's the matter?"

"The fact is," said Symes, lowering his voice, "we had a prisoner there, a policeman. He had to be left alone in the house sometimes, and eventually he managed in some way to remove the black-out and show a light. So the police broke in and found him, and now of course they're all sitting round the house waiting for one of us to go back there. And there are some things in there I want."

Colemore frowned thoughtfully. "That was the same house which you gave me as an address to write to, was it?"

"The same."

"And when did this happen?"

"Last night. That's one reason why I came round to you early this morning; to tell you not to write there."

Colemore nodded and allowed his frown to relax. "What have you got there?" he asked.

"Money and memoranda. Nearly five hundred pounds in notes and a file of papers."

Colemore whistled under his breath. "I expect the police have got them by now," he said. "If they're looking for anything in a house they usually find it, you know."

"Not where I put them, I think," said Symes.

"They will pull the house to pieces if necessary," said Anthony coldly. "Floors up, skirting-boards off, panelling pulled down, fireplaces out, plumbing dismantled, even the doorknobs taken off and inspected. Quite apart from what they'll do to the furniture. Where a thing can be put, it can be found."

Symes looked a little disconcerted. "I suppose it's possible to find them," he admitted. "I still think it's extremely unlikely." Colemore shrugged his shoulders and Symes continued; "In any case, if they haven't got them, neither have we."

The waiter came with the coffee, Colemore lit a cigarette and stared absently across the room until the man had tidied up the table and gone.

"What you really mean, I suppose," said Anthony at last, "is that you want me to go and get the stuff for you." He spoke in a slightly contemptuous tone; ever since Symes had had to apologize for Eddie's shortcomings the initiative seemed to have passed to Colemore, and he meant to keep it.

"I didn't mean anything of the sort," protested Symes. "I think it's far too dangerous."

"That's for me to decide. Where is the stuff?"

"But---" began Symes. Colemore looked at him, he stopped and began again. "I couldn't possibly allow you to take such a----"

"Where is the stuff?"

Symes gave in. "In the dining-room. Left of the front door as you enter. There's a fireplace in the room with an oak mantelpiece, you know, shelf above and flat panels either side of the fire. Behind the left-hand panel."

"I should think they've found it. In case they haven't, how does it open?"

"It's screwed to the wall. The heads of the screws are covered with plastic wood and don't show, but there are six of them. Two at the top, just under--"

"Heavens, man, I shouldn't have time to play about scraping wood off screw-heads. If I do it---if---I should take a two-foot tire-lever with me. I expect your friend the taxi-driver's got one. The thin end, that's the end you insert under the tire, wants grinding to a sharp chisle-edge. Can you get that done for me?"

"Certainly," said Symes, with a slight gasp. "Newman--that's the taxi-driver, you remember---has got a workbench in his garage. He'll do it."

Colemore nodded carelessly. "Very well, let him do it. I'll go down one night---not to-night---and look the place over. Then I can tell you whether I think it's possible. How do I find the house?"

Symes described the route from the station and Anthony listened, no one would have imagined that he knew the place at all.

"House on the left, you say. What's opposite? Only fields? I see. Yes, that's quite clear."

He rose from the chair and put his overcoat on. "Thanks for a pleasant evening," he continued. "I'll ring you up as soon as I've got any news for you. Good night and thanks again."

Symes looked as though there was a good deal more that he wanted to say, but Colemore nodded cheerfully and strolled out of the restaurant leaving him behind. Anthony walked to Piccadilly Circus and took a bus to Marble Arch.

"Moral ascendancy," he said to himself. "That's the idea. If only I can keep it up."