Читать книгу The Fifth Man - Cyril Henry Coles - Страница 8

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Three days later the body of Abbott was found in an empty warehouse in the maze of small streets between Kennington Road and the Albert Embankment. He had been shot through the head. Of Warren there was no trace, nor of the taxi-cab in which the two men had driven away from the Foreign Office on the way to Brixton Jail. Bagshott in person brought the news to Hambledon, whose face settled into grim lines.

“And I promised that poor fish that he would be safe,” said Tommy. “Not that the world is much the poorer for his loss, but I dislike having my promises broken for me, especially by Germans. There’s one minor consolation, they only shot him through the head. I suppose they hadn’t the time to play with him as they said.”

“Why,” said Bagshott, “what did they say?”

Hambledon told him, and the Chief-Inspector looked a little sick.

“I wish I knew what has happened to Warren,” he said anxiously. “I went along and examined the place myself, but there was nothing there to tell us anything.”

“There’s a pretty efficient organization behind all this,” said Hambledon. “I wonder whether your Special Branch Inspector who collected Abbott at Coveham noticed anything or saw anybody.”

“He’s at the Yard,” said Bagshott, “I’ll ring up and tell him to come round, shall I?”

“Please.”

While they were waiting for the Inspector, Bagshott said, “I should like to know why they made a dead set at Abbott. The other two men, Nicholls and Little, are just as dangerous to them as he was.”

“I think perhaps Abbott was the only one they managed to keep tabs on, he rowed ashore at once from the submarine as he was told. Nicholls hung about off-shore till daylight and only came in when he saw some soldiers. Little rowed parallel with the shore—I say, rowed, though I understand you can only paddle those rubber dinghies. He must have put in some pretty strenuous exercise. He landed about three miles further along the coast, I expect the tide helped him; and then gave himself up to a coast watcher. I daresay the reception committee lost track of those two. That’s why I wanted a word with your Inspector.”

Bagshott nodded. “What about the man who sent you the information in the first place?”

“Goodness knows who or where he is, even the R.A.F. officer who brought the letter didn’t see him. He—the flying man—was forced down in Belgium, baled out, and was hidden by patriots belonging to the organization who smuggle these fellows across. He was handed the letter at the last moment before leaving Belgium and asked to deliver it, and that’s all he knows. He was told a friend wanted him to take it.”

The door opened and Bagshott introduced the man who entered. “Detective-Inspector Ennis, of the Special Branch.”

“I want you to tell me, Detective-Inspector,” said Hambledon, “every single detail of your arrest of the man Abbott at Coveham in Dorset on the night of Sunday last. What arrangements you made, who assisted you, and all about it.”

“Where shall I start, sir? When I reached Bridport?” Hambledon nodded. “I took with me Detective-Sergeant Fowler of the Special Branch and applied to the Bridport police for the loan of two constables of the Dorset County Police. They lent me P.C.’s Widgers and Morgan. The place where the man was expected to come ashore is a narrow break in the cliffs which run along that coast; it was there or nowhere for some distance either side. There’s a lane runs down to the sea there, and a little half-moon beach, with cliffs either side. I posted Fowler and Morgan out of sight down on the beach, and waited with Widgers about a hundred yards up the lane where there was a clump of hollies providing cover. I didn’t want to be too conspicuous.”

“Quite right,” said Hambledon.

“Fowler and Morgan on the beach had instructions not to interfere if the man came straight up the lane, only if he tried to dodge away. We got into position before dark and waited about two hours. I couldn’t see the beach from where I was. Fowler reported that just before six he thought he heard the sound of engines out to sea, and about twenty minutes later he picked out a small boat coming inshore. It’s never perfectly dark down by the sea, somehow. The boat grounded and a man sprang out and ran up the beach, by luck he found the lane practically at once. They could tell by the sound of his footsteps, sir.” Hambledon nodded, and Ennis went on. “He came up the lane, alternately running and standing still, till when he was abreast of me I stepped out and stopped him.”

“What, exactly, did you say and what did he answer?”

“I said, ‘Stop, please.’ He asked who we were and I said ‘Police.’ He said, ‘Thank God,’ and grabbed hold of my arm. He said, ‘Take me to British Intelligence, I’ve got something to tell them. Be quick, don’t let’s wait about,’ words to that effect.”

“You’re sure he mentioned British Intelligence?”

“Certain, sir. He was in a nervous excited state, one could see that, he was looking all ways at once——”

“See it, you said. You turned a torch on him?”

“Yes, sir,” said Ennis in a tone of surprise. “I had no instructions not to show a light.”

“No, no,” said Hambledon. “It’s all right, I only wanted to know. Go on.”

“He was very frightened, thought he heard a noise behind the bushes. I told him it was only a rat.”

“Did you go behind the bushes and look?”

“No, sir. I didn’t hear anything, and my instructions were to get him away as quickly as possible. So I took him up the lane to where I had the car waiting, me on one side of him, Widgers on the other, and Fowler and Morgan following on behind. We put him in the back seat between Fowler and Widgers and drove to Bridport where we left the two constables and the car; and Fowler and I brought him up to town by train.”

“Did Fowler or Morgan see or hear anybody on the beach?”

“No, sir, I asked them both. Not a sound or a sign.”

“Oh. And you didn’t see anyone, either?”

“Only one man, a local resident who’d taken the wrong road. That would be nearly half an hour before Abbott came ashore.”

“A local resident taking the wrong road?” repeated Hambledon. “Surely not.”

“He hadn’t lived there more than a few weeks, I understood him to say. Moved down from London.”

“Did the local constable—Widgers—know him?”

“No, sir. He didn’t come from Widgers’ village, and not having been there long——”

“Did you check his identity card?” asked Bagshott.

“Widgers did. I supposed it was all in order as Widgers didn’t query it.”

“What sort of man was your wanderer?” asked Hambledon, and Ennis described the very fat man uncertainly riding a lady’s cycle, with a basket full of shopping.

“Doesn’t sound very suspicious, certainly,” said Bagshott, but Hambledon said, “I think I’d like a chat with Widgers, something might emerge.”

“I’ll put a call through to Bridport,” said Bagshott, and talked about over-riding priorities to the telephone exchange to such purpose that Bridport answered within five minutes and Hambledon took over.

“Hambledon Foreign Office, speaking. Could I have a word with Police Constable Widgers if he is available, please? Thank you ... Not in the station, that’s unfortunate. No, I’m afraid nobody else will do, Superintendent, I’m sorry to be so exacting, but it’s a matter of an eye-witness account ... Yes, please.” There was a short pause during which Hambledon lit a cigarette and practised patience. “Yes? Oh, thank you very much, please do. I am most grateful, Superintendent.” Hambledon put down the receiver and said, “Widgers is out on duty remonstrating with somebody who has set their chimney alight contrary to the black-out regulations. They are fetching him back and will ring us again in a quarter of an hour. ‘Oh, Mary, go and call the cattle home, and call the cattle home, across the sands of’—Bridport.”

Ennis looked respectfully amused and Bagshott remarked in a tone of relief that at least it wasn’t Shakespeare. Hambledon said that in point of fact the quotation was not very well chosen because, if he remembered correctly, Mary came to grief and the cattle never arrived after all. Ennis diffidently suggested, as an amendment, “I hear you calling me,” and the telephone rang again.

“If this is Widgers,” said Hambledon, reaching for the receiver, “he’s put the fire out very quickly. Hullo! Yes, speaking. Good. What I wanted to ask you, Constable Widgers, was for the fullest possible particulars about a fat man on a lady’s cycle who turned up while you were waiting for somebody to come ashore last Sunday night, you remember?”

Widgers said he remembered perfectly, and gave a more detailed description of the man than Ennis had, including the clothes the man wore and the make of cycle he was using. Hambledon took notes.

“You examined his identity card, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir. It seemed all in order. He said he came from London, and there was a London address on it; and an address in Coveham written below when he re-registered, sir.”

“You haven’t seen him since, by any chance?”

“No, sir. I haven’t looked for him,” said Widgers. “The Coveham constable is here, sir, I could call him to the ’phone if you wish.”

“Ask him yourself, for a start, if he knows your fat friend,” said Hambledon. “I don’t want to waste time on the matter if it’s all in order. I’ll hold on.”

“Very good, sir,” said Widgers. There followed a pause of five long minutes before he returned to the telephone with some excitement in his voice. “Sir? There is something wrong. There’s no such man living in Coveham at all, and the address he gave is occupied by two old ladies who’ve lived there all their lives. They have a brother from London staying with them now, an old gentleman over eighty and infirm. There’s nobody else there, the constable called there to-day about something. It’s only a small house.”

“Oh, really,” said Hambledon. “How very interesting. I suppose you can’t, by chance, remember the London address? There’s no reason why you should, but——”

“I’ve got it written down,” said Widgers unexpectedly. “And the identity card number. Just a moment—I’ve got it. The address is 101 Tavistock Square, W.C., and the reference number is EEPO/9/6.”

“Well done, constable,” said Hambledon heartily. “This information is of the utmost value. I am very much obliged to you. I wish every member of the Force had his wits about him to that extent.” Widgers, at the other end, was reduced to incoherent burbles, and Hambledon went on, “Tell me, why did you make these notes? Did you suspect him, and if so, why?”

“Not exactly, sir. I did think it a bit odd that I hadn’t seen him before if he’d been about the district for weeks. He’s rather remarkable-looking, but it’s a big district, I mightn’t have chanced to meet him. No, I make a practice, sir, of noting down odds and ends just in case they might be wanted any time, the numbers of cars left standing in lanes, things like that. It’s never been any use before,” added Widgers frankly.

“Well, it is this time. Thank you again,” said Hambledon. “Good-bye.”

When the reference number was looked up, it proved to be a Hampshire number belonging to an elderly but ferocious barber at Portsmouth. He had never been in Dorset, didn’t want to go to Dorset and had no intention of going there. Why should he? He’d got quite enough to do by being so short-handed as he was with all his assistants called up, and all his A.R.P. work as well, without gallivanting off to Dorset——

“All right, all right,” said the police officer who interviewed him. “This is only a routine enquiry it was my duty to make——”

But the barber took a dim view of routine enquiries when he was busy. As for number 101 Tavistock Square, it simply didn’t exist. There never was such a number.

******

Bagshott turned the whole resources of the Police Force, Special Branch and C.I.D., on to the task of finding Warren, but nearly three weeks passed without a trace of him. In the evening of Friday, January the twenty-eighth, Hambledon’s telephone rang and Bagshott announced himself in a triumphant voice.

“I’ve got them,” he said. “Warren, my Special Branch man, and the man who found him.”

“Alive?” said Hambledon anxiously.

“Certainly. Alive and well. Warren’s a bit the worse for having been locked up all this time, but otherwise he’s all right. He’s been in a house at Teddington.”

“Teddington, eh? I should like to see them both at once, if Warren is well enough to tell his story.”

“I’ll bring them along at once.”

Five minutes later Bagshott walked in to Hambledon’s room. “Most extraordinary affair,” he said. “I thought Warren was at the bottom of the river weeks ago. Which would you like to see first?”

“Warren, please.”

Warren came in, pallid in face but bearing no other marks of ill-usage.

“Sit down, do,” said Hambledon. “I am very glad to see you alive—I didn’t think you were. I’m afraid you’ve had a rotten time of it.”

“Thank you, sir. Yes, it wasn’t too good. I shall sympathize with yard dogs more than ever, in future.”

“Have a cigarette,” said Hambledon, “and tell me all about it from the moment you left this office.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Warren again. “I left this room with the prisoner, Abbott, who was lamenting about having to go back to Brixton. We went out of the building, I expected some trouble in finding a taxi, especially in the dark—it was quite dark by the time we left, if you remember, sir. However, at the corner of Charles Street and Whitehall I found a taxi standing, the driver was having an argument with a man who, I gathered, was his previous fare. I said, ‘Excuse me, is this cab engaged?’ and the man on the pavement said it was not, paid the driver and walked away. I put the prisoner in, told the driver to go to Brixton Jail, and got in myself. We started off, the taxi turned round in Whitehall and went over Westminster Bridge all right, down Westminster Bridge Road and turned right into Kennington Road, all as it should have done. The prisoner started arguing again about how an Englishman couldn’t be kept in prison without a trial, I remember he was talking about the Habeas Corpus Act as we crossed Lambeth Road. I started to tell him about Section 18B when suddenly the taxi, instead of keeping straight on, turned right. I tapped on the glass and shouted at the driver, but he said there was a traffic diversion further on and it was better going that way. I am not very familiar with that part of London, sir, and traffic diversions are so common now-a-days—I am sorry, sir,”—to Bagshott—“I ought to have known, no doubt——”

“Carry on,” said Bagshott.

“We turned left and right and all ways, it was pitch dark and I couldn’t see a single street-name even if I should have known it if I had. Little narrow streets they were, too, and a lot of bomb damage here and there, I could see that much.”

“Did the driver hesitate at all?” asked Hambledon.

“No, sir. I was beginning to get uneasy, but he seemed so confident I was sure he knew the way—I was right there, anyway,” said Warren with a rueful laugh. “All this didn’t last long, you know, five minutes or a bit over, and the prisoner talking nineteen to the dozen all the time——”

“He did indeed,” said Tommy sympathetically.

“When all of a sudden the taxi swerved so violently to the left that I was thrown on top of the prisoner, and then round again to the right into a building of some kind. There were men there I could just see, and I heard sliding doors being run along behind us. At the same moment the taxi stopped so violently that I was thrown forward just as the door opened and somebody hit me a crack on the head—it all happened at once. I didn’t go right out, I could dimly hear the prisoner yelling, ‘no, no, no,’ and somebody laughed.”

“Just laughed,” said Hambledon. “You didn’t hear anybody speak?”

“No, sir. Only the prisoner shouting, and this laugh. I wasn’t quite conscious, but I remember trying to hang on to him—the prisoner, that is. Then somebody hauled me out of the cab and hit me again. At least, I suppose that’s what happened, I went right out that time and there were two bumps on my head when I woke up.”

“Where was this—where did you wake up?”

“In the room where I’ve been all this time. It had strong wooden panels over the windows like a permanent black-out, they were screwed on, the screws countersunk and the heads puttied over. I could just see they were screws in one or two places. I hadn’t any tools, they took my knife away. I imagined that the room was at the top of a house because there were ventilators in the ceiling, but I couldn’t see out. The door was very solid and had no handle on the inside, I knew there were two bolts outside because I used to hear them being run along whenever the door was opened. It was a fair sized room and had a small wash-place off it with hot and cold water laid on, that window was blocked too. Electric light on all the time, I couldn’t turn it off. That worried me, and I used to take the bulb out sometimes for a rest, or tie it up in a blue handkerchief I happened to have with me. I don’t know how much of all this you want, sir?”

“Go on, please,” said Hambledon. “I want everything.”

“The room was fairly comfortable, carpet on the floor, a bed and an easy chair. A man used to come in three times a day and bring me food and drink—at least, I suppose it was in the day, I couldn’t tell. For all I know they might have left me alone all day and fed me during the night. I tried to make him talk, but he wouldn’t. He used to shave me, too, they wouldn’t trust me with a safety razor.”

“They didn’t actually ill-use you?” asked Hambledon.

“No, sir. I asked for books to read and the man brought some. And a book containing fairly stiff crossword puzzles, and that was a great help. I used to do physical jerks and exercises, not to get too flabby. Room was fairly warm, there was a water radiator with a grating behind it, air came in that way. No, it wasn’t too bad, only the boredom and being shut in.” Warren shivered. “I started talking to myself.”

“Take it easy,” said Hambledon. “You’ll soon get out of the habit. You said just now you didn’t know whether it was night or day. You had your watch?”

“Yes, sir, they left that, but I got muddled, having been unconscious. I tried to keep a sort of calendar but it was a bit difficult.”

“I should think so. Nothing happened all the time till to-night? Nobody else came but the one man?”

“Nobody, sir. I thought somebody might come and ask me questions about Security stuff, but no one came near. I can’t think what they kept me for.”

Bagshott stirred in his chair and said, “A hostage, possibly,” and Hambledon nodded.

“Yes, I did think of that,” said Warren. “It’s a German habit.”

“What happened to-night?” asked Hambledon.

“Well—I ought to explain that sometimes they used to leave me an extra supply of food at breakfast time and not come in again till late at night. That happened—er—four times. It happened to-day, the man said they’d be back for supper. That was about nine o’clock generally.”

“Just a moment,” said Hambledon. “Bagshott, it is now half-past seven. This house—you know the address?” Bagshott nodded. “This house will be surrounded at once and anyone attempting to enter, arrested. The house will, of course, be entered and searched and any papers brought to me. Letters may arrive.”

“May I use your ’phone?” said Bagshott, and put a call through to the Superintendent of Police at Teddington.

“Now, go on,” said Hambledon to Warren.

“Soon after five o’clock I heard somebody coming up the stairs, I knew it wasn’t the same man, the step was different. He opened the door and came in. I asked him who he was and he wouldn’t tell me. He asked me my name and I gave it, telling him I was a prisoner and he was to get me out. He agreed and we left at once, bolting the door behind us. I gather he got in by a window at the back as he went to shut it before we left the house. We went out at the front door, shut it after us, and walked away. In the course of conversation I asked if he was the police and he said he was not. The question seemed to amuse him. I said I was going to the police station to get a car to London and he asked me if I could put him in touch with Intelligence. I was anxious to get him to the station as I considered his actions not above suspicion, so I agreed to try and he came with me. I brought him to the Chief-Inspector here who interviewed him.”

“What exactly did you consider suspicious, Detective-Inspector?”

“Well, he wasn’t either Police or Intelligence. What was he doing in that house? Was he just breaking-and-entering and happened to find me, or did he know I was there? He said he was just having a look round. How did he know the house was suspicious or was it just coincidence, and why was he so keen on interviewing Intelligence?”

“Quite a string of questions,” said Hambledon. “Did he answer any of ’em to you, Bagshott? And who is the feller anyway?”

“Don’t know,” said Bagshott. “He wouldn’t talk to me, not even to give his name. He only repeated his demand to see someone in Intelligence, so I rang you up.”

“Quite the little mystery man, isn’t he? I’ll unravel him,” said Hambledon. “About that taxi, did you get its number?” Warren shook his head. “Never mind, it was probably faked anyway. Anything recognizable about it? Or the driver?”

“No, sir. Perfectly ordinary taxi so far as one could see in the dark. I turned my torch on when we got in, nothing special about it. The driver was so muffled up in scarves and coats one could hardly see his face, but it was a cold night and taxi-drivers do wrap up. I didn’t make a note of his number, either.”

“We are making enquiries about a taxi which set down an argumentive fare at the corner of Charles Street at that time, and picked up another,” said Bagshott. “Somebody may have noticed him.”

“I wish you luck,” said Hambledon, “I think you’ll need it. Well, now for the other fellow. I hope he’ll think I’m good enough to talk to.”