Not Hidden by the Fog Read online

  Gideon asked, coldly: “Do you mean trickery, Lady Carradine? Or treachery?”

  On that word, the driver Davies came into the room, so quickly that Gideon was sure he was bursting with news. He did not wait for orders to speak, he simply cried: “There’s been word from Mr. Hobbs, sir! At the Yard!”

  Chapter Fifteen

  TREACHERY?

  Gideon had schooled himself over the years to be ready for the unexpected; to watch other people’s reactions while concealing his own. He had a picture of the stolid driver’s excited face, and then swivelled towards the women. Lady Carradine’s expression was one of complete surprise, while Hilda piously ejaculated: “Thank God!”

  Davies suddenly realised that he may have been too impetuous; that it might have been a mistake to make the announcement in front of the women. In some circumstances it could have been, but in these, Gideon decided, it did not greatly matter.

  “What else?” he asked.

  “He’s going to call again, sir, in half an hour’s time: then every half-hour until he gets you. He—” Davies gulped. “He’s under duress I understand.”

  “So I would expect,” Gideon pondered, then went on with great deliberation: “I can’t be at the Yard half an hour from now. I—” He looked at a telephone by the side of Lady Carradine’s bed and moved towards it, asking with mechanical courtesy: “May I use your telephone please?” She said, “Yes” or at least formed the word. He did not pause until he had the receiver to his ear, and was dialling. After a moment he said: “Gideon. Who took Mr. Hobbs’s call…? Let me talk to him.” He held on for the last man he had expected, and indeed would have wanted: Superintendent Nathaniel Bruce. “Bruce, exactly what did Mr. Hobbs have to say?”

  He listened for a moment, and then looked at his wrist-watch.

  “I can’t be back by then, and I don’t want to miss him. Have him call this number if he can, will you…? One moment.” He read the number on the telephone disc: Hampstead 851712, and repeated it. “Yes, I will be here … Is there anything else…? All right, thanks.”

  He rang off, rubbing his chin, as if at a loss for words. But he wasn’t at a loss; he knew exactly what he was doing and saying, even when he spoke a little above a whisper, as if he were talking to himself. “Except that he is being held captive but being treated well, he would only say he had to talk to me.”

  He fell silent for a few moments, and then shook his head, as if out of a reverie.

  “Davies, when the car arrives – I think I can hear it – send the woman officer up here, and have the others wait downstairs. You wait for me, too.” He nodded dismissal, then, moving back to the window, said in a clear, carrying voice: “Now, Lady Carradine. How long have you been training your members to this kind of civil disobedience?”

  “For some time,” she replied.

  “Weeks? Months ? Years?”

  “Years.” There was stubborn defiance in her manner but she had lost much of her confidence. Gideon’s task now was to get the information he needed without deflating her too much; it was never wise to destroy a woman’s ego completely. “On what scale?”

  The woman police officer came in, but Gideon did not think the woman in the bed realised it; he wasn’t so sure about Hilda Jessop.

  “On whatever scale I felt necessary to draw attention to the scandalous behaviour of young people in the parks.”

  “Lady Carradine,” Gideon said, “there are a lot of people who would think permissiveness of sexual affairs, brazenness and what you would doubtless call licentiousness, preferable to any attempt to break down the forces of law and order.”

  “You are exaggerating what I did out of all proportion—” Lady Carradine began, but she stopped even before Gideon actually spoke, as if she anticipated his reaction and his interruption.

  “You have created conditions which have apparently enabled other criminals to commit a very grave crime indeed. That is not exaggeration—” He shot a glance at Hilda Jessop, asking sharply: “How long have you been aware of this?”

  “I — I told you this morning.”

  “And you didn’t know before?”

  “No,” Hilda Jessop answered. “I had no idea. I knew how strongly my aunt felt—” Gideon tried not to show his surprise at the revelation that these two were related —”and I knew she organised the protests but I didn’t think she actually organised the—vandalism, the destruction. She had been a great help in my Society, and—”

  “Hilda,” interrupted Lady Carradine, “I don’t know what makes you think that I took any part in the destruction of the bushes and shrubberies.”

  “Didn’t you?” demanded Gideon.

  “Most certainly I did not.”

  “Then who did?” Gideon asked.

  The woman in the bed drew in a deep breath, and for a few moments closed her eyes; she began to speak before she opened them, as if she felt this was a burden too great to bear.

  “I do not know who did, Commander. I do know that some of the E.L.C. workers have been instructed, without my knowledge and I am sure by no one in my organisation, to distract the police, park-keepers and others while the damage has been done. If I knew who, if I even suspected who it was, I would tell you. I must ask you to accept my assurance that I have no idea at all.”

  Again Gideon looked at Hilda.

  “Have you, Miss Jessop?”

  “No,” she answered. “I have no idea. Alec—Mr. Hobbs told me he suspected that the vandals and the civil disorder organisation were one and the same. That is what he really wanted me to find out. Commander—”

  “Commander.” Lady Carradine’s voice rose over the younger woman’s. “You have to find out who has used our organisation for this destructive reason, and why—”

  She broke off abruptly for the bedside telephone rang; and on that instant the name of Hobbs sprang to Gideon’s mind. He moved forward and had the receiver to his ear before the bell had given two double rings.

  “Hallo, Alec,” he said, so sure that it would be Hobbs.

  “But I’m not Alec, Commander,” a man said in a voice which had a curious, hollow-sounding echo. “But I shall cut his throat, or have his head bashed in, if you don’t call off your dogs.”

  The voice, uttered through some thin substance placed over the mouthpiece, added to the savagery of the threat; to the horror which it caused. In spite of exerting every effort of which he was capable, Gideon almost lost his self-control, almost cried out in protest. But, teeth clamped together, jaws working, he said: “If you have any sense at all you will release Mr. Hobbs at once.”

  The “Mr. Hobbs” had a strangely archaic, artificial sound. He was aware of that, and of the man at the other end of the line; not of these two women, nor of the third one at the door. For a split second he thought he had broken through the other’s guard; but almost at once the man laughed; and went on laughing. It was forced laughter of course, but there was something hideous about it. For the first time Gideon wondered whether he was dealing with a sane man.

  At last, the other said: “You make me laugh, Commander, you really do. You’re the one who needs the sense. If you’ve got any, you’ll call off your dogs, otherwise you won’t have Mister Hobbs to hold your hand nor sleep with your pretty daughter. I’ll give you until tomorrow. Just tomorrow, that’s all. By tomorrow night or—”

  Across his words there came an ear-splitting scream: “No, don’t!”

  Gideon felt his heart thudding, felt the horror of helplessness, expected the telephone to be banged down; but instead there were background noises: laughter, voices, a snatch of music. Into this, Hobbs’s voice came quietly: “That wasn’t me, George.”

  Gideon’s throat felt stiff and painful.

  “I didn’t think it was.”

  “I’m sorry I’ve got you into this mess,” Hobbs
went on.

  “Got me!” gulped Gideon.

  “Well, you are in a mess,” Hobbs said. His voice was quite normal and controlled. “I wish to God I could do something to help, but even if they would let me talk I couldn’t tell you anything of significance. I don’t know where I am or who is responsible for the kidnapping.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Hobbs said, and actually managed to laugh. “There’s a woman here who cooks stews better than most, and her dumplings—” He broke off, only to say in a different, harder tone of voice: “George, don’t do anything they say.”

  Gideon didn’t speak, but the other man spoke with the mesh still over the mouthpiece.

  “You’d better do everything, Commander.”

  “George,” said Hobbs, “if the situation were reversed, I would not allow myself to be blackmailed into any course of action. Give my love to Penny.”

  “I will. Alec—”

  “That’s enough,” said the man with the distorted voice. “Keep away from those parks, Gideon. Draw off the dogs.” He gave the laugh again but rang off in the middle of it, and this time the receiver went down noisily.

  Gideon stood absolutely still for what seemed an age; he was oblivious of the others in the room, but his mind was working with a speed which only emergencies could stimulate. The other three remained as still as he.

  When at last Gideon moved, it was slowly; when he spoke it was mildly.

  “Lady Carradine, I shall leave two police officers here, and will be glad if you will make a full statement of what you have told me. It will be typed and ready for your signature by ten o’clock in the morning. Add any details – or matters of significance – what you may have forgotten. For your own safety I shall have a guard placed on this house day and night until this business is over.” He turned from her to Hilda Jessop. “Miss Jessop, I would like you to come with me, please. There are some matters on which you can help.” He nodded to Lady Carradine and crossed to the door.

  Outside, he talked to A.B. Division, which took in Regent’s Park, arranged for the statement to be taken and the house to be watched, and by that time Hilda Jessop had joined him; she now wore a dark coat, with a chiffon scarf tied over her hair.

  “If you will ride with these officers they will follow me,” he said.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To Scotland Yard.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Miss Jessop, if at any time I think you should be arrested, I shall leave you in no doubt of it.” He opened the door of the other car for her and she got in the back seat; an officer sat beside her. Gideon went back to the large car, and as Davies took the wheel, he said sharply: “The Yard – as quick as you can make it.”

  He took the receiver off its hook as they started off, and Information answered almost as if someone had been standing by for his call.

  “I want this message to all divisions and sub-divisions,” Gideon said. “They are to have a detailed report ready by noon tomorrow listing exactly what measures they are taking for security in the parks and open spaces. How many men are involved, when it began, how many instances of vandalism and/or arson have been reported, how many known to have been checked.”

  “Right, sir.” This was the man who passed 40, Adderley Terrace so often on his way to work. “Is Mr. Hobbs all right?”

  “So far,” Gideon said tersely.

  “Is that all, sir?”

  “Not quite.” Gideon paused; the only sounds were the atmospherics and the whirr of the tyres. Abruptly he went on: “Another paragraph. Mr. Hobbs is held in a house in which there is an extension to the telephone. All Divisions should contact the local Telephone Manager’s office and check where telephones with at least one extension have (a) recently been installed and (b) are installed in houses which were empty until recently and where the telephone service might have been restored after a period when it was not operative. Have you got that?”

  “Yes. Shall I read it back, sir?”

  “No, have it typed – I haven’t finished yet – and sent up to my office, I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I’ll check it before it goes out. Add another paragraph: There are at least two men and one woman in the household where Mr. Hobbs is being held. One man has a phrase he used often and may use again – draw off the dogs, or call off your dogs. I have no information about the other, but the woman is apparently a good plain cook. The fact that she cooked dumplings was mentioned.”

  “Shall I put that in, sir?”

  “Yes. Any suspicion, no matter how remote, that individuals might be known or identifiable should be reported to me at once: my office will be available day and night. Special note: No steps of any kind should be taken without prior consultation with the undersigned. George Gideon, Commander, C.I.D.” He paused again and then was caught by a huge yawn, smothered it, and added: “That’s the lot, Carpenter.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Gideon sat back and closed his eyes – and Hobbs’s voice seemed to echo in his mind. Every word and every nuance was deeply etched, and Gideon began to search afresh for any hint that Hobbs had tried to give him. He could see none except the mention of the woman cook.

  Echoes grew louder:

  “George, don’t do anything they say.”

  “You’d better do everything, Commander.”

  “If the situation were reversed, I would not allow myself to be blackmailed into any course of action.”

  “Give my love to Penny.”

  “That’s enough … Keep away from those parks, Gideon. Draw off the dogs.”

  The words and the voices merged together. Gideon was aware of movement, of drowsiness, of words and faces which were confused, and then of a cessation of the movement, making him open his eyes. Davies was looking at him, as if in commiseration, and they were outside the Victoria Street entrance to the Yard.

  “There shouldn’t be so many Press men here, sir,” said Davies, getting out.

  “No,” Gideon said. “Thanks.” He got out, with Davies’s hand on his elbow. “You get off home, Davies. I shall probably put my head down here for a few hours.”

  “I do wish you would, sir!”

  “I almost certainly shall. Good-night.”

  “Good-night, sir.”

  Gideon went into the nearly deserted hall; only Hilda Jessop and one policeman were there; that driver must have put a move on. It was overwarm, and the woman had loosened her top coat. Gideon nodded, and said to the policeman: “Arrange for tea and coffee and sandwiches in my office, will you?” and led Hilda to the lifts. “I can do with a snack and I daresay you can.” She didn’t speak, and they reached the second floor and went along to his office, passing Hobbs’s. He felt an ache behind the eyes, probably because he was hungry. He opened the office door and was startled to see a man sitting in his chair, with files in front of him.

  It was Superintendent Bruce, as immaculate as ever. He rose quickly when he saw Hilda, and obviously did not know what to say. His mouth was actually open as he looked from one to the other.

  “Superintendent – Miss Hilda Jessop.”

  “Good-evening, Miss! Commander, so many messages have been coming in I thought someone should be in your office. I—”

  “Quite right. Is there anyone in Mr. Hobbs’s office?”

  “Yes, sir – a man taking any messages that might come in.”

  “Good. You might tell him to call the canteen and tell them to make that order for three people,” Gideon said. “Sit down, Miss Jessop.” He rounded his desk and placed his heavy coat on a hanger which Spruce Bruce was quick to take from a wooden clothes stand. “Superintendent, there will be a draft of a general call up here soon. I want to read it before it’s sent out. It might help us to trace Mr. Hobbs.”

  “Did y
ou actually speak to him?”

  “Yes.” Gideon looked levelly at Hilda as he answered, then went on: “I want Miss Jessop to answer some questions and .it would be useful if we had notes of them—”

  “I’ll take ’em,” Spruce Bruce said eagerly.

  “Very well. Miss Jessop, did Mr. Hobbs tell you anything about the inquiries he was making—what he was doing, who was involved?”

  “No,” she answered.

  “Is there anything about his discussions with you that you haven’t divulged?” Gideon asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Miss Jessop,” Gideon said, earnestly. “I think you have a deep personal regard for Alec Hobbs. Have you?”

  Her lips hardly opened as she answered: “Yes.” And with the word thought of Penny cut through him like a knife.

  Chapter Sixteen

  EMPTY HOUSE

  “Is it a long-standing regard?” Gideon asked the woman.

  “Yes.”

  He could only just hear Hilda Jessop’s word.

  “Since childhood?”

  “He was—older than I. I was a—child, yes.”

  “Did he ever return this—deep regard?” Gideon asked.

  He saw Bruce’s hand pause for a moment, knew that the man looked up from under his lashes. He saw Hilda close her eyes as if she were suffering from an unbearable headache.

  “I don’t see what this has to do with—with the situation,” she said.

  “It could have a great deal to do with it,” replied Gideon. “A policeman is first a man. A man might conceivably bend rules and regulations for someone with whom he was in love, for instance, or with whom he had once been on terms of intimacy. Were there any special circumstances which might justify Alec giving you special – even privileged – treatment ?”