Inspector West At Home - John Creasey

Reluctantly, Roger said : “I still can’t understand why I was framed. The Oliphant-Malone coincidence might bo enough and yet it doesn’t make sense.”

“Ah !” said Chatworth. He leaned forward, pressing the backs of his hands against the side of the desk. “Does anything else puzzle you? Or have you allowed yourself to be dazzled by your change of fortunes and forgotten to think?”

“Do you mean — the manner of my suspension?” Chatworth simply glared. “You were so sure that I was involved—” his mind kept probing. “You took it for granted that I was, didn’t you?”

“We knew someone was accepting bribes and shutting his eyes to a lot of things. We thought it was you.”

“You mean there’s still someone?” Roger asked tensely.

“Yes,” said Chatworth, and exhaled with a noise like a collapsing toy balloon.

Before Roger could speak after the silence which followed, the telephone rang. Chatworth frowned, and lifted it promptly. His frown disappeared in an expression of amazement. He said : “Yes, I’ll come.” He put the receiver down and got up slowly. “Come with me, West,” he said. “Malone nearly escaped from his cell. He got a key from somewhere.”

Roger exclaimed: “A key!” The significance of that crashed into his mind. “That proves someone here is trying to help Malone.”

“It proves it, yes,” said Chatworth.

A sergeant and three policemen at Cannon Row had managed to overpower Malone, after he had unlocked the door of his cell and tried to fight his way out of the police station. Cornish had brought Malone and the others here to Cannon Row, and then gone on to the East End. Afterwards, Malone had been visited by Abbott, and later by both Abbott and Tiny Martin.

CHAPTER 23

Dishonour Among Police

CHATWORTH BEGAN to speak in a low voice.

He had long suspected that information was leaking from the Yard. Two or three arrests of men wanted for various crimes — all in the East End — had been prevented because the suspects had been warned and had managed to escape; they were now in hiding. After the first two, in the November of the previous year, he had kept a careful watch, and had given Abbott and Tiny Martin the task of trying to find the leakage. There had been other leakages only slightly less serious. Raids on West End clubs had failed because the proprietors had been warned in advance. Two small fences had been able to get rid of stolen jewels before their premises were searched. As far as Roger and the rest of the Yard knew, these were incidentals, cases which had failed at the last moment — as many did, there was nothing unusual about it. Chatworth had drawn a line between them all.

Abbott had worked quietly. Malone’s name had been heard more often and Roger’s associated with it. Abbott had tried the obvious thing, and approached Leech.

“And from then on it appeared to be a clear-cut case against you,” said Chatworth. “You know what happened after that. The tape-recorder proved that you were not the man. However, there is someone involved. Malone getting the key proves that beyond doubt. You suspect Abbott, don’t you?”

“He’s an obvious possibility. He told me that he had seen Malone, and only a policeman could have given Malone the key. But I don’t always trust the obvious, sir.”

“Charitable of you,” growled Chatworth. “Who else?”

“It could be Sergeant Martin, who is familiar with all that Abbott does — and he was at the cell. But — it needn’t be either of them.”

“You think it is but you’re trying to be fair,” said Chat- worth. “All right, West! Abbott was very anxious that you should arrest Mrs Cartier immediately, wasn’t he? He tried to persuade me to give those instructions, but your case, for her, was a strong one. She must be watched, but there is no need for immediate action. We’ve uncovered the main plot, we must now find who is letting us down so badly.”

“Have you any action in mind, sir?”

“Yes. To use Oliphant as a bait. We won’t go for him yet, but will broadcast the fact that it’s only a matter of time before we do. I’ve already given Abbott those instructions. If Oliphant remains where he is—” the AG shrugged. “It might be that whoever has been selling us out, thinks it will be too dangerous this time. On the other hand, if he tries to get away we can pick him up. In a police force several thousand strong there are bound to be some rogues, but I don’t like to think that any of them reach a position of responsibility. There’s another thing we have to admit — it has completely disrupted our organisation. I’ve never known so many things go awry at the same time because I haven’t felt that I can wholly trust anyone.”

Roger had a curious sensation; he felt sorry for the AG! Of all the men whom he had imagined able to stand alone Chatworth was the strongest. Now he was confessing that the situation had got beyond him.

Roger smiled. “You know, sir, we aren’t doing too badly! Malone and his mob under arrest, the Society racket is uncovered, most of the agents, guilty and innocent, known to us. At another time we’d be congratulating ourselves. Within forty-eight hours we should know whether Mrs Cartier is the brains behind the scheme, or whether it’s Oliphant or someone whom we don’t yet know.”

“Yes,” said Chatworth, relaxing into a smile. “Comforting common sense, West. Do you think it possible that whoever is giving information from here is the real leader?”

“Vaguely,” Roger said. “Are you having any individuals in the force watched ?”

“Difficult to set the police to catch the police,” Chatworth said, “especially after our one failure. I shall leave it to you.”

“With full authority?” Roger asked, quietly.

“With full authority to act. You must tell no one here what you are doing. If you want anyone followed without his knowledge, whoever you use must believe that there is some danger for his quarry and that he’s acting as a bodyguard — you can arrange that, of course?”

“Of course, sir,” echoed Roger.

Ten minutes later he was sitting at his desk. The office was empty but for himself and he was grinning much as he had done in the taxi.

The quick changes of mood which he had felt that day were natural enough.

The telephone rang. “Mrs West is on the line, sir,” the operator told him.

“Put her through,” Roger said. “Hallo, Jan ! Are you all right?”

“I would like to wring Malone’s neck !” said Janet. “But I’m told that Bill Tennant didn’t do a bad job! Darling, I wanted to tell you not to worry about the lounge. They have left us some furniture, and well, it doesn’t really matter all that much. How are things going?”

“Not badly,” said Roger. “How could it, with a wife like you? Ask Mark and Tennant to meet me at the Green Cat — Mark knows it — at half past two, will you? Unless they’re both too tired, that is. I think I can find something for them to do.”

“Mark’s here,” said Janet.

Mark’s voice sounded on the line almost at once. He confirmed the arrangement to meet at the Green Cat, and rang off. He was smiling widely when the door opened and Eddie Day bustled in.

“Now what’s the matter with you, Handsome?” demanded Eddie. “Strike me, you look as if you’d lost a tanner and found half a crown! Been promoted?” he added, almost fearfully.

Roger laughed. “No, Eddie, I won’t be able to go any higher until I’m in the middle forties, if at all, so cast the green mote out of your eye !”

Eddie looked relieved.

“Things going all right, then?” he asked.

“Not badly at all,” said Roger. “You haven’t seen Abbott, have you ?”

“Just come from him,” replied Eddie. “Cold fish all right, he tried to tick me off. Me ! He doesn’t look as if he’s come into a fortune, if you ask me he looks as if he’s got something on his mind.”

“Does he ?” asked Roger, innocently.

He made one or two phone calls, wishing Cornish were at the Yard. But the fair-haired Inspector was working in AZ — his old Division — which he knew thoroughly, trying to find out more about Malone and keeping an eye open for Pickerell. Pickerell, Mrs Cartier and Oliphant, Roger thought, might give him the answer to the major problem, that of the renegade policeman.

“Seen Sloan ?” asked Eddie Day, looking up from his desk.

“Sloan ? No!” Roger was eager. “Is he back ?”

“I saw him coming in, half an hour ago,” Eddie said. “Looks as if he’s been in a place where the sun shone.”

Detective-Inspector William Sloan, until recently Sergeant Sloan and Roger’s chief aide, was a tall, not bad-looking man, with mousy hair and a rather speculative expression in his brown eyes. Roger sent for him. He said that he had come back early because he had heard a rumour of Roger’s trouble.

“Oh, it passed,” Roger said, as Eddie Day bustled out. “But the AC feels pretty sure that there is a leakage here.” He looked at Sloan steadily. The other did not answer, except with a nod.

“What I want to do,” said Roger, “is to make sure that no one has a crack at Abbott or Martin.” He paused, thinking that Sloan was probably the only man at the Yard, Cornish possibly excepted, who would be able to read between his words. “They’ve been up to the neck in this business and they might be in danger even though Malone’s finished. But then, you don’t know what’s been happening?”

“I’ve heard all about it,” said Sloan. “I’ve been in the canteen.”

“Good ! Take a couple of reliable men, and guard Abbott and Martin with their lives!” Roger smiled. “Don’t let Abbott know what you’re doing, or he might get annoyed. Phone me if there’s anything urgent. Oliphant is Suspect Number I at the moment — had you heard of that?”

“Everyone here seems to have heard,” Sloan told him.

“Nice work,” Roger said.

But he believed that it was a mistake and was glad it was Chatworth’s responsibility, not his. If Oliphant were warned, anyone at the Yard might be responsible.

In the next hour, several reports were telephoned to him. The men watching Oliphant had nothing to report. The solicitor had not left his house but had been seen at the front window. He had had no callers. Mrs Cartier was at her flat, but her husband had gone to the City and had last been seen entering the building which housed the head offices of the Cartier Food Product Company. There was no trace of Pickerell, but Cornish, telephoning personally, said that several more of Malone’s men had been located and there were rumours that a man answering Pickerell’s description had been seen in the East End the previous evening.

“Good man. Go to it!” Roger said.

“Ought I to have a word with Abbott?” Cornish asked.

“Why not?” asked Roger, putting Cornish through.

He telephoned the letting office at Bonnock House, talked for some time, and at half past twelve, went down to the canteen, had a snack, then left for Pep Morgan’s office. He had telephoned to say that he would be there about one o’clock and asked for Pep’s chief operatives to be present. Maude greeted him with a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. She told him that she had been to see Pep that morning and that he was making a good recovery.

“That’s fine,” said Roger. “Where are the men ?”

Maude cocked her thumb over her shoulder towards Pep’s private office.

Lanky Sam was propping himself up against the window. A stolid, chunky individual — the man who had been at Bell Street and who had left soon after dawn that day — was sitting on Morgan’s desk. He swore that he had heard nothing of the taxi-driver’s arrival in the garage; Dixon had been put there before Pep’s man had arrived on duty. The other men, middle-aged with jaundiced looks in their eyes and the world-weariness which comes to men whose life is bound up with the sordid business of domestic disruption, were sitting on upright chairs. All of them eyed Roger hopefully.

“Okay, Boss,” Sam said. “Shoot.”

Roger smiled. “I’m no longer the bad boy of the Yard, but I still want some help.”

“So you really admit there are detectives outside the Yard?” Sam said, admiringly. “You learn quick, Handsome !”

“I hope you will,” Roger said. “Listen.”

He told them exactly what he wanted.

He thought Sam seemed disappointed but the men went off cheerfully enough.

He telephoned the Cry and the Echo from Morgan’s office, speaking to both Wray and Tamperly. He gave them a resume of the developments and promised them further revelations later in the day. Both men worked for evening as well as daily papers in the same combine, and he said to each :

“If you can get a paragraph in hinting at startling developments in .the next twenty-four hours, it would help,” he said. “But don’t say that I’m cleared.”

Each man agreed.

Roger replaced the receiver and saw Maude looking up at him narrowly.

“Have you got something, Handsome?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised !” Roger said.

He reached the Green Cat, a small restaurant off Piccadilly, at half past two precisely; he had to wait for ten minutes before Mark and Tennant arrived. At a corner table, where they had coffee, Roger outlined the situation, naming Abbott and Tiny Martin.

“I’m not at all surprised,” Mark said.

“Where do we come in, Roger?” asked Tennant.

Roger said : “I’m going to telephone Oliphant and tell him that Mrs Cartier wants to see him at her flat. Then I shall telephone Mrs C. and tell her Oliphant is coming — let’s say at four o’clock. That will give us time to work.”

“Supposing they don’t bite?” Mark said.

“Then we’ll have to try again.”

“Supposing they do bite?” demanded Tennant.

Roger smiled. “There’s my man ! You’ll be at hand. There is a flat next to the Cartiers which we can use — the tenants will be out but I’ve had their permission to use the flat. It has a lounge window next to the Cartiers. Outside Bonnock House there are little balconies — a man of your agility can easily climb from one to the other. I’ll be in the Cartiers’ lounge and you’ll be on the balcony. I’ll leave it to you when you come in ! They’ll probably try to be violent, but that won’t worry you ! Er — have you ever jumped through a pane of glass ?”

Tennant beamed. “I’ve jumped through every tiling!” he declared.

“Don’t cut yourself,” Roger said. “Well now — I’ll have to be busy. As soon as the message is phoned to Mrs Cartier I want her phone disconnected. Then you’ve got to be installed next door . . .”

He continued, outlining his plans; and by half past three everything was settled. Then he telephoned the Yard, to learn that reports showed no developments except that Sloan had left a message to say that Abbott and Martin had left the Yard, and had gone to AZ Division — that part of the East End which included Rose Street and Leech’s pub. Then, before he rang off, he was told that Oliphant had left his Chelsea house at three-fifteen.