Maurice Procter - Two men in twenty

France's troubled thoughts did not cause him to relax his vigilance. It was not the first time that he had had to reply entirely on his ears to learn what was happening. He reflected that it was a pity that the windows were not of clear glass. Only the office windows gave a view of the street, and they were on the wrong side of the building. Nobody would want to go and station himself in the office, in case Coggan should come and go in a hurry. Nobody would want to take the risk of being left behind.

So France had to listen for a sign, and eventually it came. There was a very slight click as someone gently turned the handle of the door beside which he sat. In a moment he had his face to the floor, trying to look under the door. He saw a brief, pale glimmer of light. It was the merest flicker, but he was certain about it. As he looked under the door he had his ear to the ground, but he seemed to feel rather than hear the pad of soft footsteps. There had been two men, he felt sure. Two of them! Therefore not men working a beat in the normal way, because beat men did not go in pairs. A beat man would have made more noise trying the door, and probably he would have shown more light. Those two men were looking for something or somebody in a definite way. It was highly probable that they were looking for Cain and Company.

Husker gave utterance in a strained whisper: 'How much bloody longer will we be stuck here?' And Cain's reply was also indicative of strain. He said: 'Belt up, you bloody little nitwit.'

France realized that the others had not seen the moving light, nor had they been able to see his own movements. He pondered what he should do, and loyalty did not enter into his considerations. One man had more chance of sneaking through a police cordon than four men had. He was reasonably certain now that Coggan would not come. He wondered if he could depart without being noticed.

His eyesight was excellent, and for the past hour it had been conditioned by darkness. He could dimly discern the end of the long packing table on which the others were sitting. There was very little light from the room's two windows, because they were a long way from any street light. The door at the rear of the room was not visible at all, but an open doorway near the furthest window showed as a rectangle of lesser darkness.

He turned and began to crawl, so that he would not be seen as he passed the windows. Before each movement he felt his way ahead, but he encountered no obstacles. Near the doorway he stood up. He stepped through into the next room and waited there. There was no comment from the others. They had not seen him go.

He did not risk using a light, but groped round the walls until he found a door. It was not locked. He opened it and passed through towards the front of the building, moving into deeper darkness because there were no windows. He used his torch, and saw that he was in a huge room which was two storeys high. In front of him were a few steps and a raised floor. He climbed the steps, and saw that he had found the loading bays. A familiar smell came to his nostrils, and this time it was not groceries. It was the garage smell. There were lorries parked in the loading bays.

He went to the first bay and examined the lorry nearest the door. It was a Thames Trader which seemed to be almost new. It was a vehicle which might be strong enough to knock aside temporary obstructions.

He turned his attention to the great steel shutter of the loading bay. It was fastened down by a bar which passed through a staple embedded in concrete.

His light flicked upward as he looked at the mechanism for raising the shutter. There was a roller at the top, and at the side there was a strong chain for working it. He assumed that energetic hands on the chain could make the shutter go up quickly, if noisily.

It seemed to him that there was a way of escape for all four of them, after all.

Beside the back door, Cain decided to take counsel with France. He groped his way to where the door-and-window man had been sitting. Finding nobody there, he peered around in the dark.

'Ned,' he whispered as loudly as he dared. 'Where are you?'

There was no reply, and dread came like an echo of his whisper. His most useful and reliable man had been there, and now he was not there. Panic gave him the feeling that some malign creature of darkness had snatched France away.

But the panic was momentary. 'No good getting the jitters,' he decided. He tried the door, and found that it was still locked. He called again, and was not answered. He returned to Husker and Jolly. He could not see their faces, but their agitated whispers made their alarm quite evident.

'I never trusted that bastard,' Husker said. 'He's piked off an' left us.'

'If Bill comes for us now, how're we goin' to get that damned door open?' Jolly demanded.

Something moved in the lesser darkness of the doorway beside the wall. 'Take it easy,' France said as he approached. 'I'm still with you. I've been havin' a look round.'

'Well, don't do it again without telling me,' was Cain's sotto voce explosion. 'You had me worried.'

'You're goin' to be more worried in a minute,' came the calm retort. 'I know something you don't know. Two coppers tried that door five minutes ago, and they were awful quiet about it. They know we're around here somewhere, and soon they'll be searchin' every place.'

'Let's get out of here!' Jolly blurted. 'Open that door!'

'Hold your horses. I've been to look for a better way of goin' out of here, and I think I've found one.'

They were silent as he told them about the Thames Trader in the loading bay. 'It'll be a noisy job, so it'll have to be quick,' he said. 'You three will get into the cab and start her up. As soon as the engine is goin', I'll start raisin' the shutter, and I'll give you the word when it's clear of the top of the cab. Then you go. Like hell.'

'What about you?' Cain wanted to know.

'I'll scramble on to the back and lie flat. I'll be all right.'

Cain thought for a moment. 'It seems to be the only thing for us to do,' he admitted. 'All right, let's go. I'll drive.'

As France led the way to the front of the building he continued to weigh the odds against a successful escape. He was uncertain about his own chance of survival on the open platform of the lorry, if it should crash into an obstruction and suddenly be stopped. He wondered if it would be a better plan to simply let the others go. They would distract the attention of the police, who would naturally assume that all the men they sought would be on the lorry.

He was still undecided when the others climbed into the lorry. 'Ignition key's here all right,' Cain whispered through the lowered window of the cab.

'Start her as soon as the noise starts,' France told him.

Noise came almost immediately. The shutter bolt was stiff, and France had to kick it from its socket. The whirr of the lorry's starter was almost simultaneous with the clang of the bolt. France sprang to the chain, pulling it down with rapid hand-over-hand movements, and behind the noise it made he heard the soft roar of the lorry's engine. In that moment he made up his mind. When the shutter was high enough he called: 'Get going!' and ran to the back of the lorry. But he did not climb aboard. The lorry shot forward almost too abruptly. It needed the full width of the street to make the turn. It roared away, round a corner, out of sight.

Listening, France heard running footsteps. He faded far back into the building, and down the steps to get below the level of the loading floor. Watching from there, he saw two men run to the open doorway. He ducked as the beam of a flashlight swept across the loading floor.

'You'd better stay here, Bert,' one of the men said, and he ran on.