Gideon Combats Influence Read online

  She saw the face of the driver, his lips parted, his eyes staring, as if his fear was as great as hers. The whistle kept shrilling. The shouting grew louder. The car swung past her, and something seemed to snatch at her ankle, causing a sharp pain.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Missing Men

  Gideon pushed an empty cup away from him as the telephone bell rang, picked it up and announced himself, and went on reading the top report of several that had come in during the afternoon. It was half past four. He sat with his coat off, perspiring a little, but not consciously hot.

  “Mr Hooper of ST Division would like a word with you, sir.”

  “Put him through.”

  “Yes, sir.” Gideon finished reading the report, scribbled: ‘Check with Northern Ireland,’ and then heard the broad Dorset burr of Hooper of ST. He tried to think of anything on in that Division, south of the river, which would warrant the call, could think of nothing, and thought gloomily that it must be a new job: Hooper wouldn’t call him about a trifle. “Hallo, Sam,” he said. “Don’t you think I’ve got enough on my plate?”

  “Never known anyone up there overwork yet,” retorted Hooper. “Thought you’d want this at once, George. There was an attempt to run down Rachel Gully. You know, the—”

  “She hurt?” Gideon asked sharply.

  “Sprained ankle. A wheel took off the heel of her shoe.”

  “Get the driver?”

  “No. It was a newly painted Hillman Minx; they’re two a penny. Our chap watching the girl managed to distract the swine; if it hadn’t been for that she’d be a goner. She says she’s seen him before with the Carters, but doesn’t know his name. I’ve got a call out for the car, and a description of the driver—he’d been seen lounging by a telephone kiosk earlier.”

  “Did your chap get a good look?” asked Gideon.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you spare him for an hour or so?”

  “I know, I know,” said Hooper. “Will he come up and look through the Rogues’ Gallery? Yes—want him right away?”

  “Please.”

  “You’ll have to pay him overtime, he’s done his stint today.”

  “You can afford that,” Gideon said. “What’s his name?”

  “Watson—George Watson.”

  “Have him go straight to the Gallery. I’ll lay it on,” said Gideon. “Any tyre marks, or anything?”

  “It’s all being taken care of, and as soon as I’ve some photographs or anything else worth seeing, I’ll call you.”

  “Thanks,” said Gideon, and rang off; and heard Bell saying into another telephone: “… yes, in about half an hour, a man named Watson, from ST. Give him all the help you can.” He rang off in turn, and said: “See, I’m learning to do what you tell me before it occurs to you. Well, you’re right.”

  “That’s a change. What about?”

  “The tie-ups between the snatch of the Black Maria and the car thefts,” Bell said quietly. “It was all so slick. Only expert drivers could get away with it, and after this job we know that Red can lay on cars and drivers. A newly-painted Hillman Minx fits, too—pity we couldn’t get it and check the engine number to see if it was stolen.” Bell was talking more freely than usual. “George, Red Carter’s a bigger shot than I ever thought. How far do you think he really goes?”

  “It’s just beginning to worry me, too,” Gideon admitted. “Anything in about the men in the Black Maria?”

  “Bruises and shock, that’s all.” Bell found himself grinning. “You’ve got to hand it to them, George-—they’d looked out the exact spot for the van; if it hadn’t been for the tyre marks it would have stayed in that warehouse for days.”

  “I don’t feel like handing anything to the Carters,” Gideon said. He turned over a report, and found the next one was attached to a letter from the Surrey C.I.D. and headed: ‘Suspected Horse Doping.’ He skimmed the letter and the general details. “See this about the Epsom job?”

  “Yes. I could tell you the names of a dozen chaps who went down on the favourite on Saturday, George.”

  “Daresay,” said Gideon, and read aloud: ‘Running of Disc in the September Stakes exceptional and believed to be due to some kind of stimulant … No indications of the usual drugs in blood or saliva except a faint trace of cortisone.’ That’s the latest pep dope for horses. How many outsiders have come up lately, Joe?”

  “There are always some,” Bell said, “but I’m not a horsey man.”

  “No.” Gideon lifted a telephone. “Give me Mr Hamm.” He had not long to wait. “Hallo, Hamm, got anything for me at a nice long price?” Gideon asked, grinning. He paused. “You’re right, the Derby and the Grand National are my limit. Have you noticed any exceptional number of outsiders coming in first lately, though? … Yes, I had a feeling I’d seen them in the headlines more than usual. Will you check through and let me know? The morning will do … Tomorrow morning, not next week! Thanks.” He rang off. “He says he thinks that there have been an abnormal number of outsiders at the courses near London. Chase him tomorrow, Joe—we’ll be lucky if we get a report from him this week, but it’s worth trying. Heard anything from Brixton?”

  “Nothing new,” Bell answered, while making notes. “They’re still sending food into Borgman from the Gourmet; he’s getting VIP treatment all right. Wonder what his wife is really thinking?”

  “I’m more interested in what Borgman’s really planning,” Gideon said, “and what Delaney’s got out of that nurse. Nothing in?”

  “No. Tell you what did come in,” Bell went on. “This blonde of Borgman’s spent a lot of yesterday with Mrs B. and Cuthbertson, at Mrs B.’s flat. So they’re not scratching each other’s eyes out.”

  Gideon said, heavily: “Pity.”

  Charlotte Borgman hardly knew what to think, and hardly knew how she felt. From the time she had heard of her husband’s arrest, she had felt numbed; and when she had seen him in the dock, and heard him remanded in custody, she had felt as if her world were coming to an end. A simple, honest woman, she had never been inside a police court before, and that had helped to unnerve her; but there was also the awfulness of the charge: that John had poisoned his first wife.

  If he could kill one wife, what was there to prevent him from killing another?

  Emotionally, she rejected the very possibility that he was guilty, but every now and then a sliver of doubt crept into her mind, cold and frightening: would the police have made such a charge if they were not sure of themselves? The newspapers carried the hideous story all the time: she had read about the exhumation, and the fact that the arrest had followed soon afterwards seemed to prove that the police had found what they had been looking for. Now that she was forced to make herself think, she realised how often John had been away from her in the past year or two. It was partly her fault; she was a poor traveller, always air and sea-sick, even short car rides could be unpleasant; and she had her world of the fashion salons, her hairdresser, her beauty specialists, her bridge and tea parties, her gooey cakes and cream. She knew that she was putting on weight, but it was very gradual, and it did not occur to her that she had lost much of her attractiveness.

  Now, she began to wonder, and to study her face in the mirror of her luxury bedroom; study her figure especially, and the rolls of fat at the waist, the extra heaviness at the breast and the hips when she stepped out of her sunken bath in a bathroom. She had always admired the smoothness of her flesh, and liked the satiny feel of it beneath her hands, but in the few days since John had been arrested, she had begun almost to hate herself.

  And she had begun to hate Cuthbertson.

  At first she had turned to him as the only man who could really help her in this time of awful need, but there was a quality about him which she did not understand; he seemed to be trying to do something without telling her what it was, and
he made it obvious that he had little regard for her intelligence.

  He had much more for John’s secretary.

  Charlotte Borgman had met the girl several times, once in this Mayfair flat, with its main rooms overlooking Hyde Park, and all the beauty of the countryside in the heart of London. Clare Selby had come with an urgent message one afternoon when John had been off colour and had not gone to the office. A thin, cold type, Charlotte had concluded, the antithesis of what she was herself, absolutely different from any woman who would appeal to John.

  This evening, she was expecting Cuthbertson and the girl to dinner. She could almost hear the solicitor’s voice as he had said:

  “One of the essential things, Mrs Borgman, is to establish the loyalty, the love and the honour of your husband and his absolute devotion to you. We have to show that it is utterly unthinkable that a man of his character could consider committing such a crime. That is very important indeed. We do not yet know whether this case will in fact be brought to trial, and I have hope—very sound hope—that we may be able to establish that there is no case to answer. One of the things to be established is your own personal friendship with Clare Selby.”

  “Why?” Charlotte had asked flatly.

  “My dear Mrs Borgman, you know how damaging scurrilous gossip can be, especially in a large organisation where there is a great deal of jealousy. We must make sure that there is no possible risk that your husband might be considered-—what shall I say?—unfaithful even in thought. Miss Selby—Clare—is a very attractive young woman; she is his personal secretary; it has been necessary for her to make certain journeys with him.”

  “And I didn’t know,” Charlotte had almost cried aloud.

  “That is not uncommon, but since she is a very able young woman, and was promoted quickly, there is jealousy at the office, and there might be imputations of an affaire. Nothing could be further from the truth—you know that as well as I do—but in a case of this kind it is not always possible to rely on the truth being established. The police are extremely vindictive. That is already obvious, since they have taken five years to bring this charge—if they had had good reason to believe John guilty, they would have brought the charge before. I am convinced that someone with deep malice has laid false information before the police, and that is the kind of factor we have to combat. So, we must establish that you were fully aware of all the journeys that your husband made with his secretary, and it would be a very fine thing if it were made clear that you and Clare are great personal friends.”

  But she had only met the girl casually.

  “The best way to establish that, I think, will be for us to have our discussions here, and for Clare to come and see you occasionally when you are on your own. After all, she is almost young enough to be your daughter!”

  Oh, dear God: so she was: and she was slim and she had that beautiful complexion and the clear, calm eyes …

  Clare Selby arrived that evening a little after half past six, ahead of Cuthbertson. It was a warm evening, and yet the girl looked immaculate and cool, without a hair out of place. She was wearing a model cocktail dress, too, and Charlotte had no doubt that it had cost nearer sixty than twenty guineas. Had she money of her own that she could afford such luxuries?

  The maid announced her.

  “Hallo, Charlotte,” Clare greeted smoothly. She smiled charmingly, and came forward, and they touched cheeks. “How lovely you look tonight.” Does she think I’m an utter fool? “It’s unbearable to think that John is in that cell—utterly unbearable, isn’t it?”

  John.

  “Yes,” Charlotte said tensely. “I still can’t believe it’s really happened. There can’t—there can’t be any danger for him, can there?”

  “Oh, not when the truth is known,” Clare said. “Darling, could I have a drink? I’m absolutely parched tonight, and it’s so harassing at the office—everyone seems to think they can do what they like now that John’s away.” John. She watched as the older woman poured out a sherry for herself, whisky and soda for the guest. “Thank you, that looks lovely.” She drank, and then sat on the arm of a chair and crossed her slim, lovely legs. “Charlotte, I’ve had Mr Cuthbertson with me most of the afternoon, and obviously he’s really worried about one thing.”

  “What—what thing?” Charlotte made herself ask.

  “That secret compartment in his desk,” Clare told her, and sipped her drink. “John had no idea that it was there. The desk wasn’t new when he bought it, of course—it came from Lord Alston’s study. Lord Alston is dead, and there’s no way of proving that he must have put those things in the secret compartment.”

  “But John knew about them,” Charlotte said miserably. “Just after he bought it he told me about the compartments. Why he actually showed me one of them!”

  Clare was looking at her very levelly.

  “Darling,” she said with great deliberation, “you’re dreaming. You must be. You see, if we can prove that John didn’t know about the secret compartments in the desk, then it will go a long way to establishing his innocence. If it should be proved that he knew—” “But he did know!”

  “Did he?” asked Clare very softly. “Did he really, Charlotte? Do you want him to be sent for trial at the Old Bailey? Isn’t it bad enough as things are? After all, you are his wife, and he is desperately in love with you. If he did want his first wife dead, it was only because he was so passionately in love with you. And you can help him more than you’ve ever been able to before. Mr Cuthbertson has been with him a lot, and John is positive that he told no one else about those secret compartments; you’re the only one who could say that he knew about them. So—” The beautifully curved lips parted a little, as Glare paused before she went on softly: “You couldn’t have known, could you?”

  Charlotte could not answer.

  “And there is another thing,” Clare went on, swinging one beautiful leg. “There was, in fact, that family of John’s wife. They all had a share in the inheritance, and several of them needed money pretty badly, didn’t they?”

  Charlotte’s eyes lit up.

  “I didn’t know that, Clare. I hardly knew the family and John didn’t talk much about them. Is that true? Were they in need of money?”

  “Of course it’s true,” Clare assured her. “And that’s one of the facts that Mr Cuthbertson is going to bring out. When it’s known that there were other people who had the opportunity to commit the murder, and when it’s known that anyone could have put that poison and the syringes in John’s desk—well, Mr Cuthbertson says that the police case is bound to collapse. He says that the weight of public opinion in the City and in the Government is in John’s favour. I mean, he’s done so much good, and he’s so well liked and respected. It would be a dreadful thing if anything were to happen to him; and you can make sure that it doesn’t.”

  “If only I could,” Charlotte cried.

  “Charlotte,” Clare said, and slid off the arm of the couch and came towards her, “there isn’t any doubt about it at all. You and I can save him. Mr Cuthbertson is going to ask you certain questions tonight, and rehearse everything that will happen in the police court next week. It is absolutely essential that you should know exactly what to say. He’s told me the kind of questions that the police will ask you, too, and I am going to practise them with you. You have to be absolutely word perfect, and I’m sure you will be.”

  After a long pause, Charlotte said huskily: “I will be.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Clare said, and she slid an arm round the older woman. “John has always told me how lucky he was when he married you, and I can understand it now.”

  It was an awful situation, and in spite of what she had said to Clare, Borgman’s wife did not know what to do. Cuthbertson wanted her to tell a barefaced lie, of course, but was that really surprising? If she could save John, if she could even help him, wa
sn’t such a lie forgivable? It would only be a white he.

  Her duty was to her husband, remember: ‘till death us do part’. But his first wife had said the same thing, and John had to her. Death had parted them.

  Could there be any truth in the accusation? If she told those lies, would they be helping John and putting others, even herself, in danger?

  It was about that time that a cable came into the Yard from Perth. It was decoded urgently and telephoned to Gideon.

  It read, bleakly:

  ‘Witness denies seeing B. this trip Stop Very tough customer Stop Regard it improbable she will make any statement Stop Delaney.’

  In the next three days, Clare and Cuthbertson visited Borgman’s flat for hours on end. Gideon, who was told of this, and who was now quite sure that the police case would not be helped by Borgman’s ex-mistress, had a shrewd idea that Borgman’s wife was being drilled to give certain evidence. He was still not sure what line the defence would take, but was inclined to think that Cuthbertson would go all out to try to prove that there was no case to answer. The need for overcoming that plea preoccupied Gideon more than anything else, even more than the need for finding Red and Syd Carter.

  He was looking through some newspapers in which Borgman was being discreetly white-washed when his telephone bell rang.

  “Gideon,” he said gruffly.

  “There’s another cable from Adelaide, sir, being decoded now.”

  “Bring it in the moment you’ve done it,” Gideon ordered, and was on edge for only five minutes. Then a messenger brought in the cable, typed with two carbon copies:

  ‘Still no success, witness intends flying to Sydney tomorrow Stop Can only hold if new justification available Stop Please cable.’

  Gideon picked up a pen, and wrote on a slip of paper: ‘Cable to Delaney, C.I.B., Perth, W.A.: “no additional justification for holding witness.”’