Читать книгу Without Lawful Authority - Cyril Henry Coles - Страница 6

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Warnford left off opening drawers and looked at him. “Are you sure? I didn’t hear anything.”

“My dear chap, you were much too busy with your boy friend to notice a little thing like that, but I did. Hiss of escaping air, thud of closing door, followed by a clanging noise. Why the clang? And where’s the safe?”

“Fellow was kneeling on the floor opposite the door, wasn’t he?”

“He was, yes. In front of the electric fire, warming himself, presumably. No, by heck, this fire’s stone cold. He wasn’t warming himself, unless he’s got an unusually strong imagination.” Marden switched the fire on, and the elements began to warm up. “It’s a real fire too; it works.” He switched it off again and began to feel round it, pressing here and pulling there, while Warnford went back to his pigeonholes full of papers till an exclamation from Marden stopped him again.

“My soul! Now, what d’you know about that?”

The whole panel of the electric fire swung open on hinges, and behind it was the door of a safe. “Four-number lock; now we shan’t be long.”

Marden returned to the hall to fetch the small attaché case he had concealed on the coat stand, got out his listening apparatus, put the ends in his ears, and stuck the other end on the safe door.

“Warnford!”

“What?”

“There’s somebody talking in that safe.”

Warnford felt his nerves prick in his finger tips and his scalp tingle; Marden’s face, turned half towards him, showed the whites of his eyes all round the pupils. The soldier pulled himself together.

“It isn’t a real safe,” he said. “It’s a door leading somewhere. Better be careful.”

“A door eighteen inches by twelve for those fat men! Don’t believe it. Get the poker or something and stand by; I’m going to open it.”

But electric fires have no pokers, so Warnford armed himself with a heavy ruler from the desk which made Marden smile when he saw it. In a matter of seconds Marden took the earpieces out of his ears, laid his hand on the handle of the safe door, and said, “Now for it.” Warnford stood with the ruler poised for action, and the safe door swung slowly open.

Inside was nothing but a telephone receiver of the pedestal type with the earpiece lying on the bottom where Stanley Johnson had dropped it in his haste. Somebody at the other end of the wire was talking, for the earpiece was squeaking and gibbering to itself after the manner of earpieces when the line is good and the speaker has a resonant voice.

Warnford and Marden stared at the telephone and then at each other. Marden picked up the receiver and listened, but a moment later the receiver said, “Good-bye,” quite audibly and followed it with a loud click, after which there was silence.

“He’s rung off,” said Warnford in such an aggrieved tone that Marden laughed. “Just as well, perhaps,” he said. “We can have a look at it now; there may be something funny about it.”

But the receiver presented no unusual features except that there was no bell that they could see anywhere. There was another perfectly normal telephone on a small table near the door; when Marden lifted the receiver of this a bell said, “Ting!” in the hall outside.

“Well, that’s that one,” he said, putting the receiver back. “No connection at all with the firm on the other stand. What shall we do, wait for Clarence Cholmondeley to ring up again, or give the house the once-over?”

“Let’s wait just a few minutes,” said Warnford.

“We haven’t too much time; it’s nearly nine now.”

“I know, but let’s give it a few minutes more. This may tell us more than anything else we can find.”

“We might have a look round this room while we’re waiting,” said Marden. “Did you find anything interesting in that desk?”

“Not in the unlocked drawers; there’s one locked one here I was just going to deal with. What’s that you’ve found?”

“Portable wireless, rather a natty little set. I thought I’d look inside because, in a book I was reading the other day, there were papers concealed in a portable——Hullo, this is rather a funny wireless set, isn’t it? I’m no expert, but it looks a bit unusual.”

Warnford abandoned the roll-top desk and went to look.

“I know these sets; we have—they have them on tanks, or something very like this. They are receivers and transmitters. You listen in with headphones in a tank, of course; probably this one’s got a loud-speaker—yes, it has. If they want a reply they say, ‘Over to you, over,’ and you turn that switch which brings the transmitter into action and then you can answer.”

“I see. What shall I do with it, put it back where I found it? Or break it up?”

“Leave it for the moment,” said Warnford. “It might be rather amusing to take it away with us and see if anyone wants to talk to us. I’ll just look through——”

There was a click from the telephone receiver in the safe; Warnford made a dive at it and got it to his ear just as the squeaking started again.

In July 1938 Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon returned to London via Danzig from a very long visit to Germany and after a short period of leave was posted to the Foreign Office to pick up the threads of current affairs and make the acquaintance of men who had come there during his absence. His room was small, but he had it to himself except for his secretary, who occupied a desk facing his own. Both desks were austerely furnished with an inkpot, a glass pen tray, two trays labelled “In” and “Out” respectively, lots of blotting paper, a pile of narrow sheets of yellowish paper—the traditional “buff slips”—and twin receivers from the same telephone extension.

Tommy Hambledon did not really care about having a secretary at all; he said it made him feel old. The fact was that so many years of working underground in the dark, like a mole, had made secrecy second nature to him, and it fidgeted him to have a man there all the time hearing what he said and seeing what he wrote. He fell gradually into the habit of extending his lunch hour till it was nearly time for his secretary to leave, and then working far into the night when he had the place to himself.

This evening he had a visitor, a long lean man who was sitting in the secretary’s chair with his feet on the secretary’s desk and drawing cats on the secretary’s blotting paper. He was filling up a few gaps in Hambledon’s information about men and affairs; his name was Charles Denton.

“What worries me most at the moment,” Hambledon was saying in rather an irritated tone, “is having to be so infernally law-abiding. I can’t even have anyone brought here for questioning just as and when I want to, or they demand a solicitor or write letters to their M.P. about it, and as for going through a house——”

“I know,” said Denton. “You have to get a search warrant signed by the local authorities——”

“Who want to know why, and you can’t and won’t tell ’em——”

“Does cramp your style more than somewhat, doesn’t it?”

“ ‘As is well known to one and all,’ ” quoted Hambledon. “Unfortunately for us. Look at this fellow who’s arriving tomorrow. D’you suppose he’d blow airily into Germany like that? Or Russia? Not on your life. Yet if I go through him and his goods with my customary thoroughness and fail to find what I’m looking for I shall just have to let him go. He will then go and take a room at the Carlton or somewhere and write letters to The Times, complaining about the hostile and suspicious attitude adopted towards friendly foreign visitors by the officious mutton-headed jacks-in-office here. ‘What,’ he will say, ‘is England coming to? Once the door-ever-open to the by-inordinately-despotic-governments-oppressed stranger, now the loathsome trail of a more-than-Nazi-heel tyranny bars the entry of a——’ ”

“Can a trail bar an entry?”

“Of course it can. Look at ivy.”

“Have it your own way,” said the amused Denton. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Have him pulled in and chance it. You heard the report about him on the telephone just now, didn’t you? I think that’s good enough.”

Hambledon picked up the telephone receiver and gave a number, waited a few moments, and began.

“Is that the Southampton police? Can I speak to the superintendent or inspector—whichever is on the premises at the moment? ... Thank you.... Good evening. Hambledon, Foreign Office, speaking. I want you to send somebody aboard the Havre boat tomorrow as soon as she docks and collect a man calling himself Gray who is coming over on that boat. I want him brought to me here, by car, under escort. He is not to communicate with anyone, and no fuss will occur on the quayside or elsewhere.”

“Don’t forget his luggage,” put in Denton.

“His luggage will accompany him,” said Hambledon into the telephone. “Here is his description,” and there followed a detailed catalogue of height, colouring, and physical characteristics. “Got that? ... Good. I shall be much obliged if you will kindly attend to this little matter for me. Good-bye.” Hambledon started to take the receiver away from his ear but hurriedly replaced it, an expression of extreme astonishment crossed his face, and he gestured to Charles Denton to pick up the other receiver. A perfectly strange voice had intruded upon the line.

“Excuse me,” it said. “I do apologize for eavesdropping, Mr. Hambledon, and for butting in like this, but I think you ought to know that your line has been tapped.”

“Dear me,” said Hambledon blankly. “Who are you?”

“I am speaking from 23 Apple Row, Westminster,” said the voice, and Denton snatched a pencil to write it down. “This telephone is in a safe concealed behind an electric fire in the front sitting room of this house, on the ground floor. Door left of the front door as you enter. The two owners, Percy and Stanley Johnson, are trussed up on the kitchen floor at the back of the house. I think they have regained consciousness; I hear mooing noises.”

“How very interesting,” said Hambledon.

“The servant—they keep one manservant—will be out until about ten minutes past ten; the time is now—er—nine-twenty. I will leave the safe standing open and the front door unlocked to save you trouble, as no doubt you will wish to take some action in the matter.”

“You bet I will,” said Hambledon, “but who are you? Here, half a minute—don’t go. Dammit, he’s rung off! Denton, put down that receiver; I’m going to ring Scotland Yard. What did you think of that, eh? ... Is that Scotland Yard? ... Special Branch, please, urgent; this is the Foreign Office.... Thank you.... Please send some men AT ONCE to 23 Apple Row, Westminster——”

Warnford put down the receiver and laughed. “How was that, Marden? All right? I think we’d better scram without a moment’s delay. Got the tools? Good. We’ll leave this light on, I think, put the front door on the latch. No, leave the wireless set for the police; perhaps it might amuse Mr. Hambledon, whoever he is, to play with it. He sounded an incisive sort of bloke. All ready? Well, shall we go?”

Charles Denton strolled into Hambledon’s room at the Foreign Office the following evening and found him there together with a wizened little man who was examining a portable wireless set.

“Sorry to breeze in again like this,” said Denton. “Fact is, I found your story last night so enthralling I had to come in and hear the next instalment. I’ll come back later if you’re busy.”

“This is part of the next instalment,” said Hambledon. “You two know each other, I think; Denton—Reck. I believe you met in Köln at the end of the last unpleasantness.”

“Lord, yes,” said Denton as they shook hands. “I remember you quite well. How are the silkworms?”

“Silkworms I no longer cherish,” said Reck, speaking with a strong German accent. “They were not at any time remarkable-for-sparkling-animation companions.”

“This wireless set was found at 23 Apple Row,” said Hambledon. “Reck is looking it over.”

Reck gave much the same account of it as Warnford had given to Marden, adding that this set probably had a duplicate—or possibly more than one—tuned in with it. When the transmitter on the corresponding set was switched on, this bell—called the relay bell—would ring. By turning that switch the loud-speaker would be brought into action and the message received. If it was desired to reply, the loud-speaker was turned off and this switch put on instead, which awoke the transmitter to a sense of duty. Very neat little set, very. Made in Germany.

“That’s very interesting, what?” drawled Denton. “Regular Demon Kings, these Germans, always popping up, aren’t they?”

“Anything more you can tell us, Reck? How far would this thing send a message?” asked Hambledon.

“I can better decide,” said Reck, “if the other correspondent speaks. Perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow; how can I know? This will not for a long distance carry; two-three miles perhaps, four at most, and that in the open.”

“Oh. Well, we must hope for the best.”

“What happened to the two birds trussed up in the kitchen?” asked Denton. “Have you grilled ’em yet?”

“The police started by making a few routine enquiries for me,” said Hambledon. “The men are twin brothers, Percy and Stanley Johnson, born in Avenue Road, Chiswick, on September 22nd, 1890.”

“And were they?”

“No. At least Somerset House never noticed it. They were privately educated and started life as office boys in Medstead & Higginbotham’s, wholesale bacon merchants, in St. Mary Axe. They were then fifteen, so that was in 1905. Or ’06.”

“Was there such a firm?”

“Oh, certainly, and still is. Well known and deservedly respected. Unfortunately for our victims, Medstead & Higginbotham have kept all their records. They have, of course, had office boys named Johnson, but not between 1900 and 1910, and never two Johnsons at once. However, our Johnsons stayed on there, without the firm’s noticing them, till 1914, when they joined the Army and served in France from 1915 to 1917 with the Middlesex Regiment. Percy was wounded in February 1917 and Stanley in August of the same year.”

“And were they?”

“I haven’t heard yet, but I shall. Confirmation is made more difficult by the fact that they can’t remember which battalion they served in. Curious, isn’t it?”

Denton laughed.

“After the war,” went on Hambledon, “they inherited a couple of thousand pounds each from an uncle named Ebenezer Harris who lived in Castle Street, Wimbledon. He died in 1920.”

“What does Somerset House know about that?”

“Nothing, strange to relate. The will of the late Ebenezer Harris also passed unnoticed.”

“Curiously unobtrusive lives your friends have led.”

“Yes, haven’t they? With the proceeds of this legacy they started in a small way as importers of sausage skins from Germany in a tiny office in a turning off Leadenhall Street. This part is true. The business prospered and they moved, in 1926, into Leadenhall Street itself, where they still are, or were until yesterday.”

“And their secret telephone?”

“The Foreign Office private line passes their front door. I don’t know how they discovered that and I probably never shall. They dug through the front wall of their cellar till they met the cable—it runs nearly four feet below street level—and connected up. I had them in here this afternoon and asked them to tell me all about it.” Hambledon paused and smiled reminiscently. “They were a sorry pair. Percy has a wonderful black eye and a nose about twice its normal size, which is saying something, believe me. He looked like Cyrano de Bergerac. Stanley’s jaw hurt him; he had also bitten his tongue.”

“The gentleman with the charming voice who spoke to us on the telephone last night,” said Denton, “must have had a busy five minutes.”

“According to the Johnson brothers, there were two of them. One was tall, black-haired, and quite young, the other much smaller and older too. The younger one looked like a soldier. The Johnsons would know them again; at least Percy would. They were kind enough to suggest that if I would let them go they would try and find our friends for us.”

“Suffering from swollen cheek too,” said Denton.

“I thanked them kindly,” said Hambledon, “but said I thought I could find them some other little jobs to do in the immediate and prolonged future, such as picking oakum or sewing mailbags.”

“How did they explain away the telephone?”

“They didn’t. They knew nothing about it, they said. They didn’t know there was a safe behind the electric fire. They thought it was just an ordinary fire; it worked all right. It did too; the police tried it. Yes, they’d seen a lot of wires in the cellar but thought they were part of the ordinary house wiring; they are not electricians. The secret telephone must have been installed by the previous owner, who died there; they bought the house from his executors. They didn’t know anything about it, kind sir; really they didn’t. Nor about an envelope found under a loose board in the front sitting room. It contained a transcript of the last four days’ telephone calls from the Foreign Office, bless their little innocent hearts. When I brought that out they turned so green that I had them removed; I thought it wiser.”

“Quite right,” said Denton. “It’s so disconcerting when one’s guests are sick at a party. No luck with the wireless yet, Reck?”

“Not yet,” said Reck. “Presently, perhaps.”

“What about the blighter on the Southampton boat?” asked Dent on.

“Oh, he’s all right. We found what we were looking for wrapped up in a bit of oiled silk in the middle of a stick of shaving soap. Quite informative it was too. We are keeping him on ice for a few months while we deal with the matters arising, as they say on committees. He was foolish enough to assault the police in the execution of their duties—he really did—so that’s easy. He’ll go into the cooler for six months. He brought a list of information required from various people; one of them was that fellow at Newcastle——”

The electric bell in the wireless set rang suddenly and Hambledon stopped abruptly. Reck sat in the secretary’s chair with the set on the desk before him, waiting for a voice to begin talking; when it did he turned the set about till the voice was at its loudest. It was speaking in German.

“Come to me at once, please. I want to speak with you,” it said. A man’s voice, not unpleasant to listen to, and not too peremptory; just calmly giving an order he knew would be obeyed. After a moment’s pause the phrase was repeated, after another pause repeated again. “Reply, please,” finished the voice.

“On the wings of a dove if only I knew where you live,” said Hambledon thoughtfully. “You haven’t turned over to transmitter, by any chance, have you?” he added in an anxious whisper to Reck.

“I am not yet senile,” said Reck acidly.

“No, no. I only thought—habit, don’t you know——”

“Pity we can’t ask him for his address,” said Denton. “ ‘Sorry, old bean, where do you hang out? Slipped my memory.’ ”

Five minutes later the bell rang again, and the voice repeated its remarks in a rather less patient tone.

“Where d’you think he is, Reck?”

“Not more than two miles far, in that direction,” said Reck, indicating a line passing directly over the inkpot. “In some house on that line, under two miles.”

“There would be at least two thousand three hundred and fifty houses within two miles in that direction,” said Denton gloomily. “That’s practically due north.”

“Perhaps a little less,” said Reck in an encouraging tone.

“Two thousand three hundred and forty-nine houses,” said Denton. “It’s somewhere round Euston. Think of all those squares and terraces full of hotels and boardinghouses.” He sighed audibly.

The bell rang again, and the message was repeated at intervals for the next two hours. The voice became by turns contemptuous, commanding, and finally infuriated, and wound up by calling the Johnson brothers “pig-faced imbeciles.”

“He should see Percy now,” said Hambledon. “Not so much pig as anteater.”

“Or baby elephant?” suggested Denton.

“No. Elephants are comparatively refined. You haven’t seen Percy.”

“By the way,” said Denton, “didn’t they keep a servant?”

“Yes. He arrived at the house with a friend of his and walked straight into the arms of the police. We didn’t get much out of them. The Johnson retainer didn’t know anything, not even where he was born nor exactly how old he was; this may be perfectly true—or may not. The other fellow was merely a friend he’d spent the evening with and seemed to the police to be genuine enough except that he gave a false address, but quite a lot of people can’t remember where they live when the police ask ’em suddenly. He said he’d never been inside the house and wouldn’t know the Johnson brothers from a bar of soap. So we let them go, to see where they went to after that. I shall receive reports in due course, no doubt.”

The bell rang again. “Come to me at once,” said the voice. “I wish to speak to you.”