John Creasey: Inspector West At Home

The cab drew up outside the gates of Scodand Yard, and the cabby opened the glass partition.

“Needn’t take you right in, need I ?”

“No, this will do fine,” said Roger.

He got out, stumbling over the other man’s outstretched legs. He paid off the driver and watched the rear light fading into the night. He heard the footsteps of the policeman on duty and, a moment later, a bull’s eye lantern was switched on.

“Is that necessary?”

“Oh — sorry, sir,” said the policeman, putting the light out hastily. “Nasty night, sir, isn’t it?”

“Bloody,” growled Roger and strode towards the steps. It was some consolation to know that the man had no instructions to stop him. He went up the steps and into the hall, where a sergeant on duty saluted. He was an oldish fellow with a wisp of yellow hair and very thin features. It might have been the light and shade of the hall, but to Roger he seemed surprised as he said “Good evening.”

“ ‘Evening, Bates,” grunted Roger.

He passed no one downstairs nor on the stairs, but the walls themselves seemed cold and hostile. He had never been in the Yard before without feeling a certain friendliness in its atmosphere. He began to realise how much the place meant to him. The dimly-lighted passages, shadowy now, seemed to hold a menace which was no less disturbing because its cause was unwarranted.

He opened the door of his office quickly and stepped inside.

Eddie Day was sitting at his desk with a watchmaker’s glass screwed to one of his prominent eyes. He looked up — and the glass dropped out, bounced from his desk and rolled along the floor.

Roger repressed a comment, loosened his coat and approached Day, looking down at the startled man.

“So you’ve heard, have you ?”

“H-h-heard w-w-what?” stammered Eddie.

“Why pretend that you haven’t, Eddie? Is it all round the Yard?”

Eddie closed his mouth, then bent down to retrieve the glass. His face was scarlet when he straightened up. Then he burst out:

“I’ve heard a rumour, yes!” To his credit he stopped pretending and did not try to make light of it. “You could have knocked me down with a feather. I don’t know what to make of it, I really don’t. You’re the last one I would have thought —” he broke off. “What are you doing here ? You’ve been suspended from duty, haven’t you?”

“I haven’t been told so.”

“Oh, well, perhaps that’s a rumour,” Eddie said hopefully. “I hope it is, Handsome. I can’t believe —” he paused and then went on : “Did Abbott have a search-warrant?”

“He did. And he used it.”

“Blimey!” Eddie pushed his lips forward and eyed Roger owlishly. “I just couldn’t believe it when I heard. When Bennett told me I thought he was joking, but he said he’d seen the warrant. What’s the Old Man got to say?”

Roger said : “The Assistant Commissioner hasn’t thought it worth discussing with me.”

“Strewth !” exclaimed Eddie.

“Eddie, do something for me,” said Roger softly. “If you know what they think I’ve been doing, if you’ve any idea from where they got the tip, tell me. I was pretty sharp with Abbott, because I know nothing about it. What do you know?”

“Handsome, I’m with you. I think it’s all a lot of nonsense. I can’t understand the Old Man. All I know is that you’re supposed to have accepted bribes over a period of the last three months.”

“From whom ?” Roger demanded.

“The squeak came from Joe Leech.”

“Oh,” said Roger. He stepped restlessly to the fireplace, where the fire glowed red. He knew ‘Joe Leech’, a bookmaker in the East End who kept within the law and was allowed to go to the extreme limits because he was a regular source of information to the police. His information was usually reliable and the police were often obliged to act on it. Few at the Yard had any liking for Leech, whose bad reputation in the East End was well known. Two or three times a year he had to be given police protection after he had squealed and friends of his victims had threatened violence. One thing was certain. Leech would not have done this unless he believed the allegation to be true or unless he had been heavily bribed.

“Don’t say I told you,” pleaded Eddie.

He heard someone approaching and put his glass hastily to his eye. The footsteps passed. Eddie stared at Roger with his glass at his eye, his forehead and nose wrinkled.

“It’s a bad do, Handsome, no doubt about that.”

He broke off when the telephone on his desk rang. He answered it and Roger judged, from his manner, that it was Chatworth. Eddie was more impressed by the Assistant Commissioner than most Chief Inspectors, although Chat- worth had a reputation for being a martinet.

Eddie replaced the receiver and stood up, gathering some papers from his untidy desk.

“Got to go and see the Old Man,” he said, in a confidential undertone. “He wants my report on those dud notes. You know the ones I mean.”

“Yes,” said Roger, with a flicker of interest. “Are they slush?” He thought of the £1,000 now at the Strand Post office waiting for ‘Mr North’ but it was too early to ask Eddie’s opinion of the two specimens; Eddie was not a man to be trusted in these circumstances. There were two Yard men who might take the risk of helping him, but one, Sloan, was on holiday.

“Stake my reputation on it,” said Eddie, half-way to the door. “They’re good, though. Er — best of luck, Handsome. If I can do anything let me know.”

Alone in the office, Roger looked about him, putting his hand in his raincoat pockets. He felt an envelope in there but thought nothing of it. The green-distempered walls displayed a few photographs, including one, old and faded, of a

Suffragette procession down Whitehall in 1913, two cricket XI’s one of them including himself, two or three maps of London districts and several calendars. On one of the desks was a small vase of fading daffodils. The fireplace was littered with cigarette ends and the carpet, with several threadbare patches, had a few trodden into it. The desks were bright yellow but, in places, the polish had worn off and the bare wood showed. There were little partitions for different papers – ‘For Attention’–‘For Review’–‘Mail In’. Suddenly he stopped reading the black, stencilled letters, for his own desk was empty; everything had been removed since he had been there that morning.

He turned away, taking his hand out of his pocket and drawing the envelope with it. He looked down at the crumpled paper, frowning. It was thick and newish-looking; had it been in his pocket for some time it would have been grubby. He remembered thinking that morning that it was a fortnight since he had last worn his raincoat. He had not noticed the envelope then.

It was sealed and there was no writing on it. He inserted a finger at one end and ripped it open. Inside was a single slip of paper on which were two or three lines of block letter writing, upside down. He turned it swiftly and read :

Dear West,

I’ve another proposition I think will interest you. It will pay even better than the last. Meet me at the usual place, tomorrow, Wednesday, at 7.30, will you?K.

At first startled, then tight-lipped, Roger re-read it. All that it meant and all it might have led to passed through his mind, together with a fact which he had to face and which almost stupefied him. ‘Another proposition ’, inferring that there had been plenty of others; ‘It will pay even better’. . .’ meet me at the usual place . . .’