A Conference For Assassins Read online

  Information told him that there had been no major crimes during the night, and that there should be no difficulty about getting the information about any of Carraway’s men who wore a ring. As Gideon finished, Kate came downstairs briskly, turning at the foot of the stairs with an unconscious grace which Gideon noticed much more these days.

  “You haven’t got to go to the office, have you?” She looked anxious.

  “Day off, I should say,” said Gideon. “Kate, I’d like to go up to town this afternoon. Have you anything fixed or will you come?”

  Kate’s eyes lit up.

  “No, do you want an early lunch?”

  “One-ish.”

  “I’ll go and see how those girls are getting on,” said Kate, and hurried along to the kitchen.

  Gideon heard the three of them talking, and then laughing. There was something reassuring and satisfying about a happy family, and these days his could hardly be happier, although ten years ago the marriage could have gone on the rocks. Rocks. He thought of the three drowned girls in Cornwall, and now the drowned Marjorie Belman, whom he had never seen, but who had been eager and alive on Tuesday - certainly not longer ago than Tuesday.

  He thought, as he so often did, of the impenetrable fog of London; of the secrets it held, the horrors it could cover, the fear that lurked in many places, the death that threatened. For four days Marjorie Belman had been dead, and there had been a moment when she had realized that she was about to be murdered, an awful moment of dread and horror and pain.

  How many others had suffered?

  How many had died? How many bodies would be found this week, next week, even in a few weeks’ or a few months’ time? Too many. And how many men were sitting in a pub, or at their own breakfast table, or reading the newspapers and plotting the crimes for next week and next month? How many were cashing in on the Visit, for instance, or planning to?

  He left with Kate soon after two o’clock, well fed on roast beef. Kate was wearing a summer-weight suit of small black-and-white check, black shoes, white gloves and black handbag. She looked fresh and contented. “I thought we’d have a drive along the procession route and walk back,” said Gideon. “We can pick up a cab back to the car if we feel like it. Then how about tea at the Dorchester?”

  “Sounds lovely and expensive,” said Kate. She watched him when they reached Buckingham Palace, approaching it from Victoria and Birdcage Walk. His large hands were very square and firm on the wheel. He anticipated where other cars would go, and what they would do, so well that no other vehicle drew too close. He had to crawl around Trafalgar Square where a band was playing. When it stopped, a man’s voice came over the loud-speaker.

  “What’s happening here today?” asked Kate. “Some kind of drive to help refugees,” Gideon said.

  “Haven’t got a thousand, have they? Give them a ‘Ban the Bomb’ meeting, or an anti-something hate campaign, and we wouldn’t be able to move. Like to stretch your legs for a minute?”

  A few people were sitting by the bronze lions. There was a thick crowd near the Strand, besieged by the pigeons. The man was still talking; a dozen banners were being held high, as the Gideons listened. Kate felt Gideon’s hand tighten on hers. “Look straight ahead,” he whispered, but before she could stop herself she glanced around and noticed a tall, lean man with angular shoulders, walking with an absurdly short woman and a boy of nine or ten. Gideon stared straight ahead. Kate saw the man glance round, too, and saw him react, much as her husband had done. She caught his eye and, because she had no idea who it was and suspected it might be a man on the Yard’s blacklist, she looked away.

  “See that man in the green hat and brown suit?” asked Gideon, when they were back in the car.

  “With the tiny woman and the boy?”

  “That’s Ray Cox,” said Gideon. “I pretended not to notice him. Last thing I want is to make him think I’m watching him all the time.”

  “You’re a bit worried about Cox, aren’t you, George?’

  “I suppose I am a bit.”

  Had Kate pressed the subject he would not really have been able to say why.

  “Did you see that?’ demanded Cox.

  “What, dear?’ asked Mildred.

  “Gideon.”

  “Commander Gideon?’

  “Yes, Mr. Commander Gideon,” said Cox in a hard voice. “He cut me dead, and his wife snubbed me, too.”

  “Ray!”

  Mildred glanced down at their son who was looking up with keen interest. Then she went on: “Perhaps he didn’t notice you, dear. He’s probably doing the same as you, spying out the ground.”

  “Spying,” Cox echoed, and laughed without humour. “That’s about it.”

  On that beautiful Sunday afternoon, half London seemed to be patrolling the route for the Visit. Gideon did not see them, but Alec Sonnley and his Rosie walked the length of the route, Rosie sighing about her poor feet, Sonnley whistling softly. Lumati had a stand near Trafalgar Square - outside the National Gallery - where he did his lightning portraits for ten shillings each, and was seen earning his honest living by at least a dozen men from the Yard, including Cox. Matthew Smith walked the route with his wife, who seemed very anxious to placate him; he was desperately anxious to select the perfect spot for throwing his bomb. Now and again the realization that he would soon strike the final blow for the memory of his son affected him so that his eyes took on that glittering, frightening expression. He did not realize this physical change; but Grace, his wife, did.

  Carraway wasn’t in the heart of London, but Little, his wife and three children were, and they actually passed the Belmans’ father and mother. Belman had persuaded “Mother” to come with him, in another effort to shake her out of herself, but she walked along as if in a daze, saying “Yes,” and “No,” and “Really!” whenever he tried to spark her interest. Beryl was at home doing her smalls and washing her hair.

  Gideon and Kate were back at their car when a plainclothes man came up, gave a half-timid grin at Kate, and reported: “There’s a message for you, sir. Will you telephone the Commissioner at his house when convenient?”

  That was a rare request.

  “I’ll call as soon as I can,” Gideon promised, and a few minutes later pulled up near Westminster Bridge station. He left Kate in the car and called Scott-Marie’s home number from a call-box.

  “Oh, Gideon. Thank you for calling.” Scott-Marie paused for a moment, and then went on, in his clear, precise way: “I have had an urgent call from Washington. A man named O’Hara is known to have flown from New York to London yesterday morning, and Washington thinks he might try to harm the President when he is here next month. Will you start a search for this O’Hara?”

  “I’ll get it started at once,” Gideon promised. His voice gave no indication of the way his heart lurched; this was the kind of development he feared.

  “I’ll be glad if you will,” said Scott-Marie. Gideon, still covering his feelings when he went back, said: “Sorry, Kate. You’d better sit here and watch the river. I’ve got a job that will take twenty minutes or so.”

  “I’ll be all right, dear,” Kate assured him. In fact, it took Gideon half an hour to brief some of Ripple’s men and to start inquiries at the London airport. Once it was done, he felt better. At least they were forewarned. The Special Branch men would get a dossier on this O’Hara from Washington, probably from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the airport police would start the long, painstaking and often futile task of checking back on passengers. Washington would always fuss over the President, but

  by naming the man O’Hara, they showed how worried they were.

  Gideon went back to the car and tried to put this new anxiety out of his mind.

  Kate looked at him inquiringly, and he said: “Washington wants some special precautions,” and left it at that.

  He drove back to a street leading from Birdcage Walk to Victoria Street and parked. It was still warm, but the sun was dodging behind clouds as
they walked along to Parliament Square, then up Whitehall. At Trafalgar Square they crossed the road and walked on the other side towards the Houses of Parliament, passed the little street leading to the Yard, and stopped at the corner approaching the Houses of Parliament. “Here’s another danger spot,” he said. “Just imagine what could happen if a lunatic threw a bomb from here.”

  “It might kill a dozen people!” Kate sounded shocked.

  “That’s the second big worry,” said Gideon. “We can be reasonably sure of saving anyone in the procession, but a man with a nitro-glycerine bomb, or even” dynamite, could injure a lot of bystanders.”

  Deep down in his mind, that worry was as great as any; the consequences of any attempt at assassination among the crowd could be dreadful. It was a half formed fear, a dread, urging him to even greater precautions, greater thoroughness. More than ever he wished that he could cut through the barrier which seemed to have become erected between him and Cox.

  “Very well, as we’ve come this far, let’s go into the Abbey,” said Matthew Smith to his wife. He was smiling to himself, calmer now because he had selected the exact place from which he was going to stand and throw his bomb. Grace felt momentarily happier, too, because he seemed more content, but she had an underlying anxiety.

  Abbott came up from Brighton but did not go near the crowds that Sunday. He spent much of the time at the Yard.

  In the afternoon, he learned that Donald Atkinson, one of Carraway’s salesmen, habitually wore a ring. At twenty past four, he was told that Eric Little, the chief salesman, also wore one.

  Carraway himself did not.

  Before long, Abbott knew, the fact that Marjorie Belman had been found drowned would have to be released, but he believed that the right tactics were to play cat-and-mouse with Carraway, Little and the man Atkinson. It would make little if any difference to the girl’s parents; they would endure another day or two of uncertainty, that was all. From all he heard, the sister was a nice kid, but the young were seldom affected as much as the old.

  If Gideon would agree, Abbott decided to stall a while longer.

  On that Sunday, in Glasgow, another and very different kind of crime was being considered - one which made Benny Klein and Jack Gorra of the Glasgow Blacks feel very pleased with themselves. They had hatched out the plot together - one man who had been adopted by Great Britain and given its nationality, the other the leader of one of the most vicious of the gangs north of the Tweed. Their plan was simple, and depended entirely on perfect timing. Instead of Sonny

  Boy Sonnley’s pickpockets and bag-snatchers being busy during the Visit, the Glasgow Blacks would descend on London in strength.

  Whenever they had done this in the past there had been a clash with the London crooks, often a pitched battle. Each side had brought its gangs as reinforcements, and usually the fights had been broken up by the police.

  Klein had said, and Gorra had agreed, that this was a crazy way to go on.

  “All you want to do is put Sonny Boy’s artists out of action for a few days,” Klein had said. “Then London’s wide open.”

  “You’re telling me what to do, now just tell me how.” Gorra was a thick-set man with a small, round head covered with a gingery bristle. His short, pale eyelashes and stubby eyebrows made him look almost like an albino; his pale-blue eyes seemed to stare all the time.

  “You ever seen a dip or a bagman work with burned fingers?” Klein had inquired smoothly. At first that had not made sense to Gorra, but the light had soon dawned. They were working out a way to burn the fingers of Sonnley’s artists, and Klein was on a winner: acid would do the trick, a nice hot corrosive acid.

  The only question was how to get it on to the right fingers.

  12: Efficiency

  On Monday morning, there was a thick file on Gideon’s desk, marked: “Proposals for Special Occasions - Uniformed Branch.” Bell was on the telephone, and the report was on the top of a pile. Gideon leafed through it. In small, meticulous handwriting were detailed proposals for the whole of the State procession. With it was a sketch map of the area, taken from previous processions, and marked in red were those points which Cox suggested be barricaded off. Wooden fences with small doors would be erected; the Office of Works would require details soon. Cox was right on the ball.

  Gideon took out his own files and checked. “Victoria Street, police cordon.” On the map, police cordons were marked in broken blue lines. “Whitehall approach from Great Scotland Yard - barricades both sides.” Good. Gideon’s lips moved as he checked, until at last he came to the last entry: “To regulate traffic more effectively, it is recommended that the approaches to Westminster and Lambeth Bridges be cordoned off.” This was new, but at first sight wise; every big occasion brought more and more traffic into the city.

  Bell stopped talking into the telephone and put it down.

  “Morning, George.”

  “Morning, Joe. When did this thing come in from Cox?”

  “It was here when I arrived.”

  “He must have been at it the entire week end.”

  “And couldn’t wait to show you how good he was.”

  Gideon looked at Bell sharply.

  “He been needling you?”

  “I met him in the corridor. He just acknowledged that I exist.”

  “Can’t see what else has rubbed him the wrong way,” Gideon said, and rubbed the shiny bowl of the big pipe in his pocket. He seldom smoked it, but it was a kind of touchstone. “Have you seen this?”

  “Seems a good job.”

  Gideon didn’t answer. “Isn’t it?” asked Bell.

  “As far as it goes, yes.”

  “Where doesn’t it go?”

  “Far enough. He’s forgotten the plans at the airport on arrival, the routes to the embassies and hotels, and the periods before and after the actual procession.”

  Bell rubbed a stubbly chin.

  “I missed them, too,” he admitted, ruefully. “Couldn’t see the trees for the wood. Think he’ll come up with it later?”

  “We can’t wait too long,” Gideon said. “I’d better see him.” He had already decided what to do with Cox today. “Get him on the line for me, will you?” He glanced through other reports as Bell called Cox’s office. Abbott was waiting for an interview. There were several other jobs on which the men in charge needed briefing; an hour altogether. “Make it eleven o’clock,” Gideon called across, and Bell wiggled a finger. Then he said: “When you find him, ask him to come along to Mr. Gideon’s office at eleven o’clock, will you?”

  Abbott had nothing new to report, but his new mood and determination reported itself. Gideon decided to let him defer an announcement of the finding of Marjorie Belman’s body for another forty-eight hours. It seemed so harmless and so right. Quite unaware of what the decision could mean to the murdered girl’s sister, Gideon soon forgot Abbott and Carraway. Parsons came in, a clerical cherub, to report full cooperation from all hotels.

  Bell said that all big stores had been asked to draw up special plans for watching for shoplifters. London airport reported that they could not trace the arrival of anyone named O’Hara. Washington cabled full description and a dossier on O’Hara, adding: “You can expect officers Webron and Donnelly to arrive London early tomorrow, Tuesday.” Glasgow telephoned to say that Benny Klein had spent the week end with Jock Gorra, of the Black Boys. Gideon noted this, and also that there was a negative report on Alec Sonnley.

  By the time Gideon had been through all of this, given instructions and made suggestions, cabled the negative report to Washington, and glanced through Cox’s report again, it was nearly eleven. Big Ben was striking the hour when there was a sharp tap at the door.

  “Come in*” called Gideon.

  Cox was as spruce as any new pin, immaculate in a medium-grey suit, handkerchief showing in his breast pocket, tie to match it. He came in with almost military precision and closed the door smartly.

  “Good morning, Commander.”


  “Take a pew,” Gideon invited, exerting himself to be affable. “You’ve been busy over the week end, I see.” He pushed a black lacquer box of cigarettes across the desk. “Smoker

  “No, thank you.”

  Stiff as a horse, Gideon thought gloomily. That might not matter much if Cox did his job really well, but it could create the conditions for serious mistakes or omissions.

  Cox sat down and kept silent.

  “Can’t see any big problems in this,” said Gideon. If he congratulated the other it would seem patronizing, and he was sure that would be the wrong tactics. “We’ll need to check with the Commissioner and Traffic about blocking off the two bridges, but I think they’ll take your advice. Will you check with Traffic?”

  “Very well.”

  “You’ve asked for a thousand uniformed men to be drafted in from the outer divisions. Sure it will be enough?”

  “I think so - together with the eight hundred special constables we can call on.”

  “How many will we want for the days preceding the procession?” asked Gideon, almost casually. He sensed on the instant that Cox had overlooked that, and was suddenly acutely aware of the omission. He went pale and his lips set more tightly. It seemed a long time before he said: “I understood that you required only the procession details.”

  “Until we know what men we want before and after, we can’t tell how many we’ll have to spare on the day itself,” Gideon said reasonably. “We might need to draft some in from the county forces, and they always want a lot of notice.” When Cox didn’t respond, he went on: “Will you get the total figures out, allow for rest periods, and then let’s have a look at the whole picture again?”

  “Very well.”

  “Thanks,” said Gideon, and now his manner was as stiff as Cox’s.

  When Cox had gone, Bell said caustically: “That’s what comes from putting little boys in big positions.” It wasn’t often that Bell sounded bitter about his comparatively low rank, and Gideon let the remark pass. It was half-past eleven. He wanted to check a lot of things with Rogerson before lunch so that he could go out and see some of the London divisions. Each one would have its problems for the Visit, and he knew from experience that if he went to see each division on its own ground he could get a better view of the situation.