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  “He’s my employer,” one man said, pointing to the second man.

  “He’s mine, mister,” said the second man, pointing to the first.

  “What they want is another ten minutes with O’Hara, he’d knock some sense into them,” a local man growled.

  “He might,” Roger said. “If they don’t knock some sense into themselves the judge soon will. What’s the maximum sentence for robbery with violence?”

  “Ten years,” the local C.I.D. man answered.

  “You won’t get us for ten years,” said the smaller of the two.

  Roger eyed them keenly and thoughtfully, and with the sense of frustration which was with him so much in this job. These men would not give anything away. What they said had been carefully prepared, and probably carefully rehearsed. They knew perfectly well that the police realised that this was one of a series of raids, but could insist that it had been an isolated one, thought up for themselves. They weren’t going to be easy to break down. One was probably of Italian extraction, but both spoke the Cockney of the native East Ender. They were thin-faced, sneeringly insolent, very sure of themselves.

  “I want scrapings from their nails, and have them wash their hands in clean, warm water without a detergent,” Roger ordered. “Put the dirty water in a bottle and let me have it with the nail scrapings, will you. Then we’ll have ‘em up with the others in the morning.”

  The taller of the two drew in a sharp breath. The Italian began: “What oth—?” and then broke off. Was he really surprised that there were others, or because he thought that the police had made other arrests?

  Roger said: “You didn’t think you were the only two to get caught in that raid, did you?”

  The taller man said: “I dunno what you’re talking about.”

  But he wasn’t so sure of himself, and if the police could put half a dozen of the raiders up in the dock next morning it might make one prisoner break down. Roger didn’t speak again, and the prisoners were taken out and down to the cells. He turned to the Inspector in charge, and said:

  “Mind if I have a word with O’Hara?”

  “Glad if you do,” said the C.I. “He always did love a fight; it must be the Irish in him.” He sent for the constable, who came in briskly: a big man with gingerish hair, clear blue eyes, and massive shoulders.

  “O’Hara, this is Chief Superintendent West,” said the C.I.

  “It’s a real pleasure to meet such a famous officer,” said O’Hara warmly.

  Roger grinned.

  “So you kissed the Blarney stone too.” After a pause, while all the others smiled dutifully, he went on: “This makes you quite a hero, O’Hara.”

  “Who, me, sir? I was only doing me duty, and when I saw the two varmints I said to meself, I said, it’s ten to one in pints of Guinness that they’re carrying knives, and if they’re carrying knives then it’s up to me to use me truncheon. So use it I did, with a vengeance. But I’m no hero, Mr. West. I could eat a dozen little shrimps of that size and be ready for my breakfast afterwards. Which reminds me, sir,” he went on to the Chief Inspector, “my wife was asking me if I could have half a day off on Saturday, ‘tis the birthday of one of me daughters.”

  Roger grinned.

  “I think we can manage it,” the local Inspector said drily.

  “It’s very good of you indeed,” said O’Hara. “I’ve written the whole story in me report, sir.”

  “I’ll check it,” Roger said. “What made you suspect them?”

  “That I couldn’t rightly say,” declared O’Hara. “It was a combination of circumstances, as you might say. They looked top heavy on the scooter, and they’d got the carrier bags. I glanced round at them and one of them looked round at me, sly like. Then when they’d turned the corner there was a sudden silence, which meant they’d stopped the engine, and I knew there was Mrs. Dixon and her son alone in that shop on the corner. You can say that you caught the two devils yourself, Mr. West. If you hadn’t made all of us policemen so aware of the danger to shopkeepers, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.”

  Roger was still chuckling when he left the police station, with the water in which the men had washed, and the scrapings from their finger-nails; but he sobered down as he drove back to the Yard, with the radio on. No more arrests had been made, but detailed reports were coming in from all South West London. There were now thirty-six known robberies; the total proceeds of the haul were in the neighbourhood of eight thousand pounds in cash, and four thousand in cigarettes and tobacco. Reports were all very similar, but a variety of vehicles from motor-scooters to motor-cycles, little cars and stolen cars, had been used; some raids had been carried out by men on bicycles. Each raider had carried a canvas sack, to hold his loot, and the containers on the captured scooter were large enough to hold fifty or more packs of 100 cigarettes, in tens or twenties. Four men and two women had been injured, none of them seriously.

  “There’s only one thing common to each raid,” Sergeant Sam Ede told him when he got back to the office.

  “What’s that, Sam?”

  “They all wore masks.”

  “So the radio told me. Same kind of masks?”

  “No such luck. Some wore scarves, some wore handkerchiefs, some harlequin masks,” the sergeant reported. “But it makes a big change, doesn’t it? They didn’t intend to be recognised easily. Not like the one who killed Mrs. Stone.”

  Roger said: “No. That wasn’t true to form.”

  He sent the washing water and nail scrapings to the laboratory for analysis, then took out the articles found in the pockets of the two prisoners. He had arranged for the Yard’s fingerprint experts to check them all, but first wanted to take a good look. The men had refused to give their names, and there might be a clue to their identity.

  He noticed a lobster claw.

  There was nothing remarkable about it, except that it was an unusual thing to find in a man’s pocket—rather as if, instead of carrying a rabbit’s paw for luck, this man had carried the claw. Roger turned it over with the end of a pencil. There it was, pink and white, with the serrated edge which could give quite a nip. It was polished and apparently had been in the man’s pocket for a long time. It struck a chord in his memory, and he looked up at Sam.

  “Seen anything like that before, Sam?”

  “Don’t like shellfish myself, but my old woman’s daft on lobster. Likes it served with a cheese sauce, too—she says it’s lovely.”

  “Get the records on Gantry and Endicott, will you?” said Roger. “I want to know what they had in their pockets.” He was looking at the contents of the pockets of the second prisoner, and frowning.

  Among these was a very small, fan-shaped shell; he wasn’t sure what shellfish it came from. It was yellowish in colour, very delicate, and about the size of a shilling. It was the kind of thing one might pick up at the sea-shore and put in one’s pocket as a souvenir; the boys had been very fond of doing that when they were young. Sam had gone out, and Roger was alone for ten minutes, trying to remember what had been in the pockets of the two murdered men, wondering why these shells rang a bell in his mind.

  Sam came in with the list.

  “Funny thing here, Mr. West.”

  “What’s that, Sam?”

  “Endicott didn’t have anything like it on him, but Gantry did—he carried a winkle shell. A plain ordinary winkle, like you pick up in thousands at Southend when the tide’s out, but—what’s that one, sir?”

  “Just another shell,” Roger said. “We might be on to something here, if it isn’t just coincidence. Sam, I’m going to make a round of the four Divisions where they had trouble. Tell the night man to contact me at them, will you?”

  “Going shell collecting?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Roger said. “What about those laboratory reports?”

  “Just came in,” Sam said. “One man’s been handling a lot of bacon, lately. The other had vegetable dirt on his hands and fingers—as if he worked i
n a greengrocer’s shop.”

  “Well, well,” said Roger. “Don’t they sell vegetables at these big supermarkets?”

  “They sell everything that’s eatable,” declared Sam. “Talking of supermarkets, Mr. West, I did a bit of checking on Cockell Shops, as you asked me. It’s a big board now, with nine directors. Used to be a one-man concern. The original Cockell built it up from one general shop. But he had a bit of family trouble. Son kicked over the traces, married beneath him, and the old man disowned him. That’s nine years ago. Two years next November old Cockell died, and his widow brought a lot of new blood into the business. The managing director is a chap named Slessor, but he’s only a guinea-pig, really.”

  “Make me an appointment with Slessor, and Mrs. Cockell,” Roger said.

  Mrs. Cockell was out of England, he was told, but Slessor seemed glad to see him. He was a tall, rather indeterminate man, obviously worried by the robberies, probably worried by a lot of things. He knew that some dubious characters were employed at the Cockell Shops, in spite of all efforts to prevent it, but no one with a known criminal record was employed. And should one condemn a man, untried?

  “But I hope you will give our shops all possible protection, Mr. West. I really do. The matter will be raised at next week’s directors’ meeting, of course. May I assure the Board that you have the matter well in hand?”

  Roger said: “You can warn the Board that if the branches employ dubious characters, these dubious characters might work with raiders, and that you’d be wise to check all your staff.”

  “Staff is such a problem,” Slessor remarked, unhappily.

  “Heavy losses through theft could be a bigger one,” Roger said, drily. He left, and started on the round of the Divisions. As he drove about London he seemed to see grocery “little man” shops, Cockell Shops and Food Fairs everywhere.

  By the time he had been to each of the Divisional Stations, checked all the reports and all the results of the investigations, it was nearly midnight.

  He had had some fish and chips at Battersea and was more thirsty than hungry when he started back for Chelsea and home. The cleverness of the organisation and all its implications worried him, and the possible significance of the shells seemed to fade. He did not intend to go back to the Yard, and would probably be home before Janet went to bed, after all; it often happened like that. He listened to the confusion of sounds on the radio, the normal network of requests, news flashes, reports of crimes, reports of arrests, instructions to police cars, all in the background. Then he had a flash:

  “Calling Superintendent West . . . Calling Superintendent West . . . Over.”

  Roger flicked on his microphone.

  “Superintendent West is hearing you . . . over.”

  The man said: “Message for you from Superintendent Baker of Whitechapel, sir . . . A man named Orde, who has been spending some time with Mrs. Endicott, of Brasher’s

  Row, has gone into her house tonight, been there for the last two hours. Superintendent Baker thought you would like to know.”

  Roger said: “Yes. Thanks.” He flicked off the radio, and drove silently and frowningly for several minutes along the Embankment towards his home. Baker of Whitechapel knew that “Orde” was actually Cyril Owen, of course, and Baker obviously thought it wise that he, Roger, should know what was happening tonight. This probably meant that Baker was worried.

  So would Roger be, if Owen spent the night with Ruth Endicott.

  Or did Owen think there was no limit to what he should do for the sake of his job?

  XV

  NIGHT DUTY

  “I’LL tell you what, Cy,” Ruth Endicott said. “Why don’t we buy some fish and chips and take it home, it’s ever so much more comfortable there.”

  “That’s a jolly good idea,” said Cyril Owen, “but I ought to be in bed early tonight, ducks.”

  “I won’t stop you,” Ruth promised him.

  They were walking away from the Roxy, in Whitechapel Road, just after ten o’clock. The show had finished earlier than usual, and they felt a little cheated. Owen was uneasy because the situation between him and this girl was getting out of hand. It was one thing to scrape an acquaintance— and that certainly hadn’t been difficult; he had waited until Ruth came into the Walsh’s shop, made the usual joking suggestions about a night at the pictures or at the palais, and hadn’t really been surprised when after a show of coyness she had said yes.

  That had been a week ago, and he had seen her every evening since. He had not yet started to try to find out much about her husband, being sure that he must approach that question cautiously; but a situation had developed which really began to worry him.

  In the first place, he was getting fond of Ruth. She had a perky way with her, a nice sense of humour, and a much higher intelligence than he had anticipated. She wasn’t clever by any means, and hadn’t a great deal of general knowledge, but she certainly wasn’t a fool. Many of the girls he had been around with had been morons compared with shrewd little, plump little Ruth.

  Her smallness, or rather her shortness, and her plumpness, intrigued him, too. She dressed to fit her figure much more than she had when her husband had been alive, and had a ridiculously small waist—he couldn’t quite span it with the fingers of his two hands, but the middle fingers weren’t far apart when he tried. She had a swelling bosom, tightly confined, showing a deep cleavage, and her hips curved so that from behind she looked like an old-fashioned egg timer.

  More important than any of this was the fact that she had taken to him.

  This was their third evening at the pictures, the third of holding hands, the second when she had taken his right hand and guided it to her breast, to her full, soft thighs. Sitting so close to her, with this promise of intimacy, had awakened all the male in him; he had been glad when the film ended and the National Anthem was played.

  Now Owen had a real problem.

  He was pretty sure what Ruth wanted; sure that she was acutely lonely at night. Her suggestion of buying fish and chips and taking them home meant only one thing—she wanted to get him into the house. She knew that he wasn’t married, and knew where he lived and worked, too.

  It wasn’t often that an attractive girl threw herself at him; usually it took a lot longer than this to make a complete conquest, and Owen did not know what to do. If he made excuses, and didn’t go home with her, or if he stayed for an hour and left without any proof of passion and desire, it might be his last chance. He had wanted this affair to develop much more slowly and deliberately, but now he had to make up his mind in a hurry. His attitude could determine the whole of their future relationship, and this was hardly a thing on which he could take advice.

  She believed he was shy, of course, and diffident; he could tell that when she took his hands, when she whispered: “I love you touching me,” when she looked at him and smiled very knowingly.

  He was twenty-seven and she was twenty-four, and there were a lot of times when he felt that she was twice his age.

  Half a dozen people ahead of them turned into a brightly lit fried-fish shop, outside which a green fluorescent sign read:

  Eat Here or Take Away.

  Ruth believed that his hedging was simply due to shyness, remember; if he did anything which made it clear that it wasn’t, there was no telling how she would react.

  “Come on,” she said, as they reached the shop. “The plaice here is ever so nice, and we’ll be home in five minutes. It’ll still be hot.” She held his hand as she pulled him towards the door, and he followed her.

  He saw a policeman on the other side of the road, a man who had no idea that he was a plain-clothes officer; he had noticed that the police kept an eye on Ruth. She was smiling, almost laughing, as she went into the brightly lit shop, with its penetrating odour of frying oil and frying fish, the hissing and bubbling as fresh chips were tossed into the boiling oil. The four in front went to the tables, so that he and Ruth were alone at the counter.

  If he
made an excuse—

  “Three plaice and a shillingsworth of chips,” Ruth ordered from the dark-haired, dark-eyed Greek who owned the place.

  At one end of the counter was a stack of cigarettes and chocolates, just behind the cashier, a grey-haired woman who sat at a small window. The policeman in Owen noticed this, and tucked it away in the back of his mind. The Greek was taking pieces of plaice from the grille at the top of the fryer; a girl shovelled crisp golden chips into a greaseproof bag.

  “If I go home with her,” Owen told himself, “that’s it and all about it.” He watched her as she stood at the counter, flushed, rosy-cheeked, excited and happy. He found himself taking out a ten shilling note and paying for the fish and chips. He felt the increasing warmth of the packet as he carried it along towards the next turning, Ruth’s arm linked in his free arm. He turned the corner into Brasher’s Row, and saw the policeman who had been in Whitechapel Road, walking along with a sergeant; here, even in these days, the police did not patrol in ones except by day.

  The fish was hot and beginning to get smelly when they reached Ruth’s little house.

  “I won’t be half a jiff,” she said, and let him go, and rum-aged in her bag for her key. He was quite sure that once he was inside he wouldn’t be able to resist her; it would be virtually impossible to come away after a meal, anyway.

  She pushed the door open.

  “Go on in, silly,” she said. “I won’t eat you!” She gave him a little push, and switched on the light, and they stepped inside. She closed the door, quickly, and looked up at him. She was striking and beautifully coloured, and her eyes were so bright; she was obviously delighted.

  She pushed the bolt home at the top of the door, standing on tip-toe to do it, and then took the package from him. “I’ll pop this in the oven to keep warm, and lay the table,” she said. “How about a little drink, Cy? Would you like a whisky or a gin and something?”

  “A—a whisky sounds fine,” said Owen.

  “I’ll tell you what, you help yourself. I’ll pop this in the oven and then go upstairs and put some slippers on,” Ruth said. “I hate walking about the house in high heels. Wouldn’t you?”