Gideon's Day Read online

  Wouldn’t they?

  He reached the end of a narrow road which led to Tower Hill, and saw Lefty.

  Lefty was a snowy-haired youth of nineteen, who looked cherubic enough for Leonardo. His strength was the broken beer bottle, thrust into a man’s face and twisted. He was one of Murphy’s gang.

  Had he heard about the hunt for Birdy?

  Birdy nipped back into a doorway, but didn’t go fast enough. Lefty didn’t smile, didn’t change his expression, just sauntered toward Birdy. He wore a big, baggy, black jacket and there was a bulge, the kind of bulge likely to be made by a beer bottle with the neck smashed off. This was in his left-hand pocket. He was called Lefty for the obvious reason.

  Birdy turned and ran.

  Lefty didn’t run; he whistled softly. It was only a matter of time.

  Gideon looked at the clock; it was just after six. He yawned, but it was much too early to start yawning. This was a day which might last its full twenty-four hours. He knew himself well; what he needed now was a good meal, well-cooked vegetables and some good red meat, a pint of beer and forty winks. Once he’d had all that he would be all right, but he might not have time.

  Lemaitre was out again.

  The telephone bell rang.

  “Gideon,” said Gideon. “Oh, hallo, Fred, what’s on?”

  He listened, turned down his lips, made one or two notes, muttered an unenthusiastic thanks, and put the receiver down. He began to doodle on a blotting pad, and after a couple of minutes told himself that it was further evidence of the fact that he was running down, and needed replenishing.

  Lemaitre came in.

  “George,” he said, as a man with a worry, “I’ve just been downstairs to see my missus. Remember, I’m a married man? I forgot that I told her we’d go along for a snack to the Troc, and blow me, she’s got tickets for the Arthur Askey show. If I can’t go, you’ve got to tell her.” His anxiety was comical.

  Gideon said: “How long’ve you got?”

  “She’s come with the handcuffs,” Lemaitre said.

  “About the only way they’ll ever drag us away,” Gideon grunted. “Wouldn’t be a bad idea if we laid on a campaign. Now if Kate—” he drove the fanciful thought off. “Okay, Lem, I don’t know that there’s anything to keep you.” What he did know was that this would keep him until the small hours. “Just had a word with Fred Hartley.”

  “ ‘Bout Birdy?”

  “Yes. The Murphy gang’s out.”

  Lemaitre said: “Oh, gawd! Poor tick’s had it now.”

  “One day we’ll get round to Murphy,” Gideon said. “Anyway, Birdy’s on the run. We’re all looking out for him, and if our chaps find him first they’ll pull him in on a charge. Not that Birdy’ll want that. Still—”

  Gideon stood up slowly. He felt very hungry, the kind of raw emptiness that affected one’s nerves and muscles, made one sag, started the tight feeling at the back of the eyes. “And Fred’s worried about Birdy’s woman and the two kids. So he’s tipped off Black Jo, and Jo’s looking after the family. Murphy won’t risk a gang fight, I shouldn’t think, but Black Jo won’t lift a finger to help Birdy, although he’ll help the woman. High life in civilized London!” He scratched his chin. “Send for a sergeant, Lem, and then sort everything out so that it’s in apple-pie order when I get back.”

  “Okay. Where you going?”

  “Across to the pub to get a square meal, and I’ll tell Fifi about her good luck on the way!”

  He was smiling when he went outside; he always smiled when he thought of Lemaitre’s wife as Fifi, which was her real name. A French grandmother’s influence – or was it grandfather? Skittish little blonde, no better than she ought to be, but then, Lem Lemaitre wasn’t exactly a one-woman man. The frailty of human nature—

  Fifi was in the main hall, and there was an exceptionally good-looking constable on duty there. She was overdressed in a plum-coloured suit and a Perry-and-plum hat, and didn’t look bored. Gideon told her Lem would be down in a few minutes, and then walked across the yard toward Cannon Row and the convenient pub where he knew he could get a meal that any trencherman would enjoy.

  He could afford to relax for half an hour or so, too. It was easy to forget that the Yard didn’t stop working, whatever he or anyone else did. Thousands of coppers were on the lookout for that Austin with a Michelin tyre, and there was just a chance that they’d have some luck tonight.

  Odd thing, that tyre.

  He thought about it a lot during the meal – roast saddle of mutton, mint sauce and new potatoes, with rich, fatty gravy – probably the potatoes came out of a tin, but they had the true Jersey flavour. He ploughed steadily through the meal, refusing to be hurried, making it clear that he didn’t want to talk to the other Yard men, the reporters and a couple of sergeants from Cannon Row Police Station who were at the bar.

  Chang – Foster – the Battersea riverside – the Waterloo Station job. If it were the same tyre, and there wasn’t much doubt, this could really lead to something big. But it connected Chang with some of the post-office robberies, and that was a very nasty possibility. The worst thing about the mail-van jobs was the tips that the robbers had in advance. They always knew when a van would have a valuable load on; they knew when it would leave one place and was due at another; and of late, Yard men on duty at key points had been attacked and prevented from going to the rescue. Today’s two morning jobs had suggested a break in the system, but now—

  Had Foster been one source of the leakage?

  Foster wouldn’t have known anything about the Waterloo job, would he?

  The door opened, and King-Hadden, the Superintendent of Fingerprints, came in. If Gideon had a close friend at the Yard, apart from a mass of good friends with mutual liking, it was King-Hadden. This man had succeeded one of the most brilliant fingerprint men the Yard had ever had, and he wasn’t doing so badly. In fact, what King-Hadden didn’t know about prints no one knew. He was a world authority, and in the middle forties; he couldn’t get any higher.

  “Hallo, George.”

  “Come and sit down, Nick.”

  “Thanks.” The barmaid’s help hovered. “Bessie-double whisky and not too much soda, please.” He dropped down into a chair opposite Gideon. “Got some good news for you, chum,” he said.

  “Wassat?” Gideon’s mouth was full of succulent roast potato, oozing fat.

  King-Hadden grinned as he took a small envelope from his inside breast pocket. He was a big, plump; pale, rather shapeless man, whose intelligent eyes usually held a laugh. Coins chinked in the envelope. He opened it, and let three six-pences roll out onto the cloth; two of them were stained slightly, as if with brown wax.

  Gideon knew a dried bloodstain when he saw it.

  “Prints on two,” said King-Hadden, “middle of the thumb, right index finger – could be the left. It depends on what pocket he had the money in.”

  “Who and what money?”

  “The Islington shop job.”

  Gideon said sharply: “No!”

  “Yes. This was found on the pavement at a bus stop this afternoon, the kid who saw it was being watched by a copper. He recognized bloodstains. They fell out of” the pocket of a man dressed in a brown suit, who was waiting for a bus at Islington Town Hall. That’s five minutes’ walk away from the shop where the old woman was killed. About the time of the job, too. The copper kept his wits about him; lot of good to be said for training some of the uniformed boys in C.I.D. work, whatever there is against it. He turned them into the Division.”

  Gideon said: “Any record?” as if it were too much to hope.

  “Oh, yes,” said King-Hadden blandly. “Didn’t I tell you?” He looked smug and his eyes glistened. “Identified them as the prints of Arthur George Fessell, who’s been inside twice for robbery with violence. The call’s gone out for him. See – all we do is your work, while you sit gluttonizing!” He glanced up. “Ta, Bessie, I’ll drink your health.” He picked up a whisky and soda, sniffed it,
and sipped. “Ah, I needed that. Going home?”

  “Tomorrow, maybe!”

  “Well, I’m off now,” said King-Hadden. “I keep my department up to date. Cheers. By the way, there’s another little thing that may amuse you. They’ve picked up that Austin with the Michelin tyre you’ve been making such a fuss about. Parked in Haymarket. Lemaitre’s over there, waiting until the driver turns up for it, and his Fifi’s giving him merry hell. Cheers,” King-Hadden repeated, and sipped again.

  Bessie, flat-breasted and big-handed, approached them again.

  “Like any sweet, Mr. Gideon?”

  Gideon was rubbing his hands together, and looking as pleased as a prize-winner schoolboy.

  “I do, Bessie,” he said. “Treacle pudding’s on, isn’t it? Plenty of treacle, remember. And after that a bit of Dorset Blue and some butter. This isn’t such a bad-day after all,” he confided in King-Hadden. “We got Sayer, we’ve got a line on the Islington chap, Fessell you say; and now this tyre – not at all a bad day. Let me buy you a drink.”

  “One’s enough before I drive to the danger of the public,” said the flabby man. “How’s Kate?”

  “Fine!”

  “Must have a Sunday together again when the weather gets a bit better,” said King-Hadden. “Might make it this weekend if it keeps like today. Meg’d like it. Well, good luck, hope you catch ‘em all, but don’t forget the day’s only just started!” He sipped again. “Be a funny thing if we could sit back now and know in advance what’s going to happen tonight wouldn’t it? What’s sure to happen? A dozen burglaries, a murder, dopies getting dopier, girls being laid for the first time, someone sitting back and plotting a coup for tomorrow, someone getting rid of the thirty thousand quid they picked up at Waterloo – who’d be a copper?” He finished his drink. “So long, George.”

  He went out.

  Two minutes later, Birdy’s wife came in.

  12. Two Tales of Jewellery

  Gideon recognized Ethel Merrick on the instant, long before she saw him. He judged from the expression on the faces of some of the other men that they also recognized her. She stood there, wearing a grey suit and a white blouse, a huge, frilly blouse which was stretched so tightly that it looked as if someone had stuffed it as sausage meat or sage and onions in a turkey. She had on a coat that was too small for her, and strained open at the front. Her small red hat had a blue feather broken at the tip, and her patent-leather shoes had very high heels. No one could fail to see her distress, no one could miss the graceful shapeliness of those calves and ankles.

  Then she saw Gideon, opened her mouth, gulped, and walked toward him.

  He stood up.

  No one else watched now.

  “Hallo, Mrs. Merrick,” Gideon said, “come and sit down.”

  He could hear her agitated, bubbly breathing, almost as if she were asthmatic. She was pale, her forehead and upper lip were wet with sweat. Gideon pulled out a chair, and she licked her lips as she sat down, and then eased her coat under the right arm. Bessie, who had a wonderful sense of timing, appeared with the treacle pudding.

  “What will you have, Mrs. Merrick?” asked Gideon.

  “Oo, thanks ever so!” Ethel caught her breath. “Could I—could I ‘ave a gin and It? I need to buck meself up a bit.”

  “Of course you can. Double gin and a splash of Italian, Bessie,” said Gideon. “Cigarette, Mrs. Merrick?” The big case, with one side filled with cigarettes, the other half empty, was held out in front of her.

  “Ta,” she breathed, and when she had settled down, added gustily: “It’s ever so good of you to make me feel at home like this, Mr. Gideon. I wouldn’t have come if I wasn’t so worried about Birdy.” Then her fear affected her words. “They—they’re arter him!”

  Gideon said calmly: “Who is, d’you know?”

  “Why, Murphy’s gang! Mr. Gideon, I know Birdy’s done a lot of criminal things, but—oo, ta, dearie.” She almost snatched the glass out of Bessie’s hand, for Bessie also had a trick of speed when it was necessary, and gulped.

  “Ooh, that’s better. But he’s not bad, like some people, like that Murphy for instance. He—”

  “Has Murphy threatened you?” asked Gideon hopefully.

  “Well, no, not in so many words, but that don’t count, do it? He come and asked where Birdy was, said he just had to see him, that’s enough for me. Mr. Gideon, can’t you pull Birdy in?”

  “He’s got a clean sheet these past few weeks, Mrs. Merrick.”

  “Oh,” said Ethel Merrick, “ ‘e ‘as, ‘as ‘e?” She had given up the struggle with aspirates. “Well, it’s not that I like squealing on me own ole man, but don’chew believe it. Remember the Marshall Street jeweller’s job? That was Birdy! Got some of the rings at home now; ‘e—’e ‘id them,” she added hastily, “I come across them by accident. Ain’t that enough, Mr. Gideon?”

  It was plenty.

  She knew that if she appealed for police help against Murphy, it would do Birdy a lot of harm. She knew that she dared not go to the Division, because it would be reported. She also knew that if the police wanted Birdy for a “job” it would be a different matter. He would get at least three years if he were sent down for the Marshall Street robbery, and she thought it worth sending him down; that was a measure of her fear.

  Gideon didn’t want Birdy inside, but he’d have to put him there.

  “All right, Mrs. Merrick,” he said, “I’ll do what I can. We knew that Birdy was in trouble and we’re looking out for him. Don’t worry too much. This’ll have to be done from the local station, you know that—” –

  “So long as you’ll fix it,” Ethel pleaded.

  Gideon went across to the Yard and “fixed it.” There was no news of Birdy. There was no further word from Lemaitre. Fifi was probably on her way to the theatre by herself now – Gideon hoped she would not pick up a “friend.” The only man at the Yard who didn’t know most of what there was to know about Fifi was Lemaitre.

  Gideon forgot that.

  There was the fingerprint job that King-Hadden had done, and now that he saw photographs of the coins, enlarged to ten times their real size, he was able to marvel at the efficiency of King-Hadden’s work; the fragment of the fingerprint on the blood-stained coins was so fractional that few men would have tried to identify it. With luck, it would hang Fessell, whose dossier was on Gideon’s desk. It made ugly reading.

  Gideon began to wonder wryly about King-Hadden’s airy talk, of the day “just beginning.”

  Dusk was falling, the day’s brightness had quite gone, there were lights at some of the windows across the courtyards, and he could see lights on the cars and buses which passed along Parliament Street; he could see a few yards of the street from the window, too.

  What was certain to happen? King-Hadden had asked.

  Burglary; robbery with violence; murder – no, it wasn’t as bad as that yet; murder was certain once or twice a week, but not once a day. There was the whole range of crimes, from major to minor. At this moment, men were getting themselves into the toils of women who would never let go, blackmail was being nurtured, frightened people were blustering; there were young girls, perhaps completely innocent girls like Penelope, girls much younger than Pru, smoking their first reefer, feeling a terrific excitement and a tremendous kick and not knowing that they were on the way down to hell upon earth.

  Somewhere men and women were out at dinner or at the pictures, who would go home and find their houses burgled. People were sitting at their own table at this very moment, not knowing that a thief had broken in and was even now raiding the woman’s bedroom above their heads. It was a never-ending cycle. Gideon’s one hope was that whatever happened, it would happen in such a way that he did not have to tackle anything new tonight.

  His telephone rang. “Gideon.”

  “There’s a Mrs. Addinson here, sir,” the hall sergeant told him. “She would be glad if you could spare her a few minutes.”

  Foster’s sister had
made up, and dressed for effect. Black suited her, the white blouse and cuffs gave a touch of purity. Nice-looking, wholesome woman. Only her eyes hinted at strain, and this eased when Gideon made her welcome and gave her a cigarette. No two women could contrast more sharply than Florence Addinson and Birdy’s wife.

  “What can I do for you, Mrs. Addinson?” He was almost casual.

  “I’ve come because I think I can help you,” she said.

  Gideon didn’t show how that quickened his pulse.

  “That’s good. How?”

  “I’ve been going over everything that Eric’s been doing and saying,” she said. “We had a—a quarrel night or two ago, because he was never in. He used to pretend he was always on duty, but I knew he wasn’t I said so, and—and he flared up.”

  “I see,” Gideon said. He did not intend to help her just to let it come. There was still the possibility that she was involved, even though her visit made that seem less likely.

  “You may not think so, but I really want to help,’ she said a little sharply “I’m reconciled to the fact that Eric was—was doing wrong. I’d like to think that whoever made him do it suffers, too.”

  Gideon relaxed.

  “You don’t want that any more than we do.” He looked almost eager. “Really think you can help?”

  “I’m not sure, but something he said might give you something to go on – unless you know who bribed him.” She added that so quickly and unexpectedly that it was possible to believe that it was the focal point of her visit; that she had really come to try to find out how much he knew.

  Would Chang, would anyone, venture such tactics?

  Gideon just couldn’t be sure.

  “We guess a lot,” he said, and left it at that. “What was it that your brother said?”

  “He was really talking to himself,” Foster’s sister answered. “As he was going out of the room, he said: ‘I’d be a damned sight better off living with Estelle.’ I didn’t know whom he meant; I’d never heard him talk of a girl named Estelle. But a woman of that name telephoned me this evening.”