Chapter Twenty-Four

“I suppose we’ve got to make the best of it,” said Clark.

“You won’t have to put up with me for long,” said Mercer. “A week at the most, would be my guess. You know they’re promoting Tom Rye. He was lined up for this job anyway. I’ve just kept him out of it for a month.”

“It seems more like a year,” said Clark. It was a backhanded offer of peace, but Mercer accepted it gladly enough. “I hear you had some trouble last night.”

“Not as much trouble as we’d planned for, I’m afraid. They left one man behind, very dead. And one of them won’t walk for a few months.”

“What’s the next move?”

“They’ll fight that injunction, no holds barred. They’re not short of money. They’ll put leading counsel up next week, and I think they’ll probably win. The judge wasn’t at all anxious to give us even a temporary stop.”

“And after that?”

“Bull will try to move the money somewhere else. We’ll have to play it as it comes.”

“Suppose he ignores the court order, and shifts it now?”

“He’s not going to hear about it until later today. By that time I shall have fixed the safe deposit. I’m going over there right away.”

The receptionist at the Southern Counties Safe Deposit depressed a red switch in the gadget on her table and said, “Detective Inspector Mercer is in the waiting room for you, sir.”

“What does he want now?” said Mr. Nevinson irritably.

“He said his business was urgent.”

“No doubt. It hasn’t perhaps occurred to him that other people might be busy, too.”

“There’s another gentleman with him.”

“Another policeman?”

The receptionist hesitated. The truth is that she had been impressed by the second man, a military type of early middle age with a red-brown face and formidable eyebrows, tufts of greying hair which stood out horizontally over a pair of angry brown eyes.

“I think he might be, sir.”

“Did he have a name?”

“It’s a Mr. Michael Robertson, sir. Do you know him?”

Mr. Nevinson said, “Oh, yes. Please show them up at once.”

The Chief Constable came straight to the point. He said, “Show Mr. Nevinson the office copy of the injunction, Mercer.”

Mr. Nevinson read it carefully. He said, “It’s effective for a week, I see. After that, I imagine I cannot refuse Bull access to his own strong-room.”

“It’s not what happens after the end of the week that’s bothering us. It’s what might happen now.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you,” said Mr. Nevinson. “Naturally, any application for access during the next seven days will be refused.”

Mercer said, “I’m not sure if you quite understand the sort of people we’re up against. The money in that strong-room doesn’t belong to Bull. It represents the proceeds of half a dozen highly successful robberies by a powerful, violent and very well-organised group of criminals.”

Mr. Nevinson’s face went first red, then white. He said, “I can assure you—”

“It goes without saying that you knew nothing about it,” said the Chief Constable. “The point is that the men it belongs to will stop at nothing to get it back. I’ll go further. They must get it back. If they don’t, they’re finished.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Mercer said, “Last time I was here, you were explaining to me the steps you took if a key was lost. You had some system of knocking out the lock.”

“Yes. We can do that. It takes a bit of time.”

“How quickly could you remove the existing lock and put in a new one?”

“If I gave the orders now, the old lock could be drilled out in about three hours. A new one could be put on in two.”

“Then,” said the Chief Constable, his eyebrows coming together with an almost audible click, “give the orders right away.”

Mercer went next to call on Superintendent Ferraby of the Slough Police. There he made arrangements for a twenty-four-hour watch to be kept on the safe deposit. Two squad cars were to be available on immediate call, with two more from Stoneferry.

“If we want anything heavier,” said the Chief Constable, “we’ll have to get soldiers from Windsor. I’ll do it if I have to, but I don’t like calling out the army. Bad for public relations.”

“Do you think it might be necessary?” said Superintendent Ferraby, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice.

“I’m not taking any chances. And I’m going to give you the necessary authority, in writing, now, to arm the crews of the stand-by cars. Pick the men yourself. And don’t issue a gun to anyone who doesn’t hold a Firearms Proficiency Certificate. We don’t want them shooting each other.”

Mercer was back in Stoneferry by midday, and at a quarter-past twelve he was letting himself in at the front door of Mr. Weatherman’s offices in Fore Street. The young lady behind the reception desk seemed worried about something. Her worry increased when she understood that Mercer wanted to see Mr. Weatherman.

She said, “I’m sure I don’t know if he can see you.”

“Suppose you were to ring through and find out?”

“It might be a bit difficult. You couldn’t come back this afternoon, I suppose?”

“It’s rather urgent,” said Mercer. “Has something happened?”

The girl looked even more worried. Then she said, “We had Mr. Bull here, about half an hour ago. He was in a terrible state. I don’t know what it was all about. I could hear him shouting from down here.”

“He must have been shouting very loudly.”

“Oh, he was. When Mr. Bull came down he looked terrible. And Mr. Weatherman told me he wasn’t seeing any clients this morning. I had to put off Colonel Watterson. I don’t like to interrupt him.”

“Quite right,” said Mercer. “It’s always better to obey instructions. But there’s nothing to prevent me interrupting him, is there?”

The girl started to say something, but Mercer was already halfway up the stairs. He went into Mr. Weatherman’s room without knocking. The solicitor was seated behind his desk. He looked up as the door opened and Mercer thought he had never seen a face in which fear and anger made a more ugly mixture.

Mercer said, “You know what I’ve come for?”

Mr. Weatherman said nothing.

Mercer said, “You’re to give instructions to your partners, and your staff, that no papers are to be taken out of this office until further notice. And you are to hand over your passport to me.”

There was a long silence.

Then Mr. Weatherman said, “I presume that you imagine you have some right to make such an outrageous request.”

“Whether I have the right or not isn’t important. I can offer you an alternative. I have a warrant for your arrest on charges of criminal conspiracy and fraud. And I have a warrant to search this office. If you don’t do as I say, without further argument, I shall execute those warrants.”

There was another long silence. Mr. Weatherman said, “I have no alternative.”

“None at all. And may I say that of all the people involved in this matter, I have least sympathy for you. I can get along with ordinary crooks, but a crook in striped trousers turns my stomach.”

On his way out of the office half an hour later, Mercer ran into Willoughby Slade. The young man looked embarrassed, but resolute. He said, “I say.” Mercer said, “Hullo.” Willoughby said, “I gather—I mean—my sister told me that you tried to discourage her from coming out with you last night.”

“I tried to throw her out. But she wouldn’t be thrown. How is she this morning?”

“She’s all right. She’s pretty angry with you. I can’t quite make out why.”

“Girls aren’t logical,” said Mercer.

He spent the rest of the day at the station. There was a lot to do. Sergeant Gwilliam went over to Slough in the afternoon, and reported that the lock on Bull’s strong-room was proving difficult to shift. Also, that he had made contact with his opposite number in the Slough force, Sergeant Harraway, who thought that Stoneferry were getting the breeze up about nothing.

Mercer said, “Tell him to read Confidential Information File thirty-six stroke sixty-nine. There’ll be a copy at his headquarters station.”

At half-past three, and again at four o’clock, Bull telephoned the station and was told that Mercer was in conference.

At five o’clock Gwilliam came through again. He said that the lock had responded to treatment and the new one was now going on. And Sergeant Harraway had read C.I.F. 36/69 and had changed his mind.

At seven o’clock the conference in Superintendent Clark’s room broke up. He said to Mercer, “Well, that’s all we can do for the moment. I suggest we have two of the four of us on call on alternate nights for the next few weeks.”

Mercer nodded. It was, he thought, the first time since he had arrived at Stoneferry that Bob Clark had referred to the uniform branch and the C.I.D. in the same breath as ‘we’ and ‘us’.

“Medmenham and you stand by tonight. Rye and I will take tomorrow. There’s no need to hang round here. Have a line put through to your digs when you leave and have your cars on stand-by with a driver.”

When Clark got home himself he found Murray Talbot drinking his sherry and chatting up his wife. When Pat had departed to see to the dinner, Talbot said, “How did it go?”

Clark stared at him. Then he said, “Oh, that. Yes, well, it seems we were on the wrong tack.”

“The wrong tack?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say any more.”

“If it’s confidential,” said Talbot stiffly, “I can’t, of course, press you.”

He finished his sherry and got to his feet. At the front door Clark said, “And, incidentally, I should tip-off that cashier friend of yours, Derek Robbins, that he may be looking for another job.”

Pat, who had come out into the hall, said, “What’s wrong with Murray? He looked a bit huffed.”

“He’ll get over it,” said Clark. “What about that dinner you were promising me? I only had a sandwich for lunch and I’m ravenous.”

“Come and get it.”

Halfway through the first course they heard the telephone ring from the drawing room.

“Take no notice,” said Pat. “Pretend you’re not here. If it’s important they’ll ring again.”

But Clark was already in the drawing room.

It was Mercer on the line. He said, “We’ve had a message from Slough. It was Mrs. Nevinson. Her husband’s the manager of the safe deposit. He hasn’t come home!”