the purloined parure 17

 

Chapter 17

 

“Still alive, then? Never mind,” said Barrett, jocularly.

“The little turds decided to go a-burgling first, rather than tangling with a senior police officer as their first choice, proving them to have some brains,” said Alexander. “And I’m going to be the laughing stock of the yard, the inspector who was burgled.”

“Morrell is having a field day.”

“Of course he is,” said Alexander. “He hates me more than I hate him, and without as much excuse.”

“He thinks that he has more justification than you.”

“Really? He hates me because I exist.”

“No, he hates you because he truly believes you are bent.”

“Then he’s a fool. My parentage and background are a matter of public record if he wanted to go and look; my family have been carefully building up wealth for generations, and that by not living it up.  If I was bent, doesn’t he think I’d indulge myself?”

Barrett sighed.

“From his point of view, you do; expensive clothes and car, eating out a lot of the time. It’s pure envy at bottom, but he genuinely thinks that a man of your wealth would avoid a hard job like being a copper if he could live  without the bribes he assumes must be your only reason for remaining in the job.”

“Doesn’t he have any concept of duty?”

“Not, I think, in the way you do,” said Barrett. “I’m not in your class, but I was raised to believe in the giving of duty as a part of noblesse oblige. My parents are borderline gentry.”

“Much as my family were, a hundred years ago,” said Alexander. “I haven’t asked Morrell about his background; I was afraid he might tell me.”

“He’s middle class, like Teal, but where Teal sets out to better himself, Morrell clings to his roots as the son of a Methodist minister in the rooting out of sins of the flesh, middle-class standards, and rigidly obeying the rules.”

“Well, you know what he’s going to get if he tries to both obey the rules and behave in a proper manner for his class,” said Alexander.

“I’m not going to like this, am I?” said Barrett.

“A Morrell dilemma,” said Alexander.

Barrett swiped him across the back of the head for this terrible pun, and Alexander grinned at him.

“Morrell, poor bastard, is in the same situation in a way as a promotion by merit into the officer’s ranks, except he ought to adapt better as there has never been the elitism in the police that there is in the armed forces,” said Alexander.

He went out into the outer office, and Morrell sneered at him.

“Diamond cuff links shining so bright the cons followed you home to nab them?” he asked.

“Chummies picked up an empty jewellery box they thought might have something exciting in it,” said Alexander. “Do you really think I’m on the take?”

“Well, why would any rich bastard be a copper if he could afford to swan around the way you do?”

“Weren’t you brought up to have a sense of duty to the Crown and to the people, to do what you could for your country? If you had such a sterile upbringing devoid of moral obligation, I’m sorry for you, but it makes me wonder why you are a copper.”

“I was brought up well! My father’s a Minister of God!” snapped Morrell.

“Oh, I see; they say the son of a policeman fears not Mammon, but the son of a reverend fears neither God nor Mammon.  Well, Morrell, you’re going to come with me, and see exactly where my income comes from. I’m sick of your insinuations; you can bloody well run a financial check on me.”

Alexander seized Morrell by the arm and dragged him out to his car.

“Get in,” he said.

Morrell got in. Alexander was white with fury.

“I... what....?” Morrell managed.

“We are going to Child’s Bank, where my family has banked since my ancestress was a friend of Sally, Countess Jersey, who inherited it and ran it,” said Alexander in a low, tight voice. “You make my arrest record suspect and stop me from doing my job properly if you make even one person doubt my integrity.  I could have walked away from what I’m working on, with a four hundred thousand pound parure – that’s a jewellery collection that matches, if you didn’t know – but I didn’t. I am holding it in trust for the owner, who happens to be a con, but he fulfilled the terms of the will.  The last person the chummies I’m after believed to be in possession of it was tortured to death. His end was messy and agonising.  Now, I trust your integrity to hold the thing for Mickey Stubbins if you want to run the risk, and I’ll tell a murderous pair to whom I gave it, but I haven’t asked you, because I didn’t think it fair to put the risk on anyone else. They broke in to steal it, and when they found they only had the case, they’ll be back.  Now, are you ready for them to break into your house and start torturing you to get a case against two slippery customers who are likely to get away without the evidence of their sadistic insanity? If so, we can go to my parents’ house and collect it and I drop them the word.”

Morrell had gone white.

“B... but isn’t that entrapment?”

“No, because my custody of the thing was arranged by the family solicitor.  I didn’t ask anyone to come collecting on it.  The terms of the will are, anyone who finds it, and can keep it a year, owns it. In theory I could claim it, as it was where Mickey hides his stolen goods; but I count it as being the same as his quid of tobacco in his pouch, and other stuff from his pocket, his own property, held in trust for the little blighter while he does time. But that means they have a year to get hold of it, and hang onto it.  If they take it from me and keep it for a year, it is legally theirs. But torturing me to find out where it is, that’s not legal, and their inoffensive cousin deserves his legal revenge on them.  But waiting for them to decide if they are going to treat me the same as Marty is making me jumpy, so pardon me, I am not going to treat you with kid gloves to stroke your self-righteous ego.  Now, get in the bank.” They had arrived at Child’s.

Alexander demanded to see a manager.

“This is Police Inspector Morrell,” he said. “I have been accused of financial irregularities, and I not only give you permission, I demand that you show him my fiscal records, so that he may see for himself where my income comes from.”

“Is this an official investigation, Mr. Armitage?” asked the manager.

“No, it isn’t; but I want my colleague to be satisfied so that we can work together,” said Alexander. “Give him anything he wants;  feed him if it goes past lunch time. I’m parked illegally and I don’t want a ticket.”

He swept out, leaving an embarrassed and stammering Inspector Morrell, being led tenderly into a private office with marble, gilding, soft deep carpeting, and velvet-covered rosewood furniture, provided with a pot of tea and macaroons, and a clerk showing him Alexander’s ledgers.

 

oOoOo

 

“Armitage!”

Barrett bellowed as Alexander was about to head for his office.

“Sir?”

“Where’s Morrell?”

“I’d like to say he’s twenty feet down under the Thames with concrete overshoes, but alas, I cannot tell a lie, and last I saw, he was gingerly nibbling macaroons in Child’s Bank,” said Alexander.

“What? Why?”

“I demanded of him that he verify for himself that my wealth is legitimate,” said Alexander, in a hard voice. “It won’t make him less envious, indeed, it may make him more so, but he will have no further excuse to get on my case over my expenditure. I am not going to put up with his sly insinuations any longer.”

“Testy, ain’t you?”

“Yes,” said Alexander.

“I had a look at the images of you by that Henderson fellow; I wondered, but he really does have your number. Thank goodness, you’re not Mr. Bloody Perfect.”

“I never claimed I was,” said Alexander.

“It’s the impression you give,” said Barrett. “Having a temper makes me like you the better for having a human side. Now come in here; as you’ve stolen Morrell’s attentions, you can bloody  well work his case.”

“Oh, that will go down well.”

“I’ll make him feel guilty over abandoning it.  But it’s a trifle urgent.”

Alexander allowed himself to be ushered into the superintendant’s office.

“What’s urgent?” he asked.

“Missing girl,” said Barrett.

“Yes, that is urgent, I’m sorry I stole Morrell,” said Alexander. “Brief me.”

“The girl is... well, actually she’s not technically a girl, she’s over twenty-one, but she was seeing a man her father disapproved of. And he thinks she’s been abducted.”

“Photo?” said Alexander, and was soon looking at a pretty blonde flapper, the photograph hand-touched with colour. It was an expert job, and one could almost believe the picture to be a rare colour photograph.

“So, what’s the story?”

“Argument with her father – a wealthy industrialist – about her boyfriend. His name is Tom Kent, he’s a mechanic in a garage, and he’s souped up her car for her, little sporty red number, last seen heading north with a couple in it, assumed to be Tom and this Winifred Havilland.”

“And no doubt the police in the north asked to be aware, and yet missing seeing a sporty red car heading for Gretna Green?”

“Apparently,” said Barrett.

“Make of her car?” asked Alexander.

“No idea,” said Barrett. “Here,” he found a photograph.

“That,” said Alexander, in awe, “Is an Alfa Romeo.”

“Well, it seems to have attracted ’alf a Romeo, anyway,” said Barrett.

“Oh, nice one, sir,” said Alexander, who could never resist a pun. “Do we know what he looks like?”

“Father’s description is not helpful; ‘greasy great bastard, probably a Dago,’ which tells us that he’s probably got dark hair and might be swarthy.”

“As you say, insulting and not a lot of help,” said Alexander. “And, I fear, shows the ignorance of the lady’s father in using a generic pejorative for anyone of Hispano-Italian origin and probably with as much accuracy as calling anyone blond a Hun.”

“I did point out that if they have gone to Gretna, it’s their right to do so,” said Barrett. “But he is convinced that she is acting under duress.”

“I take it the lady has an apartment of her own?” said Alexander.

“Yes, and Morrell questioned the maid and chauffeur, and came up blank; he reckoned the maid was wanting.”

“A lady who buys a fancy sports car and has a chauffeur to drive it?”

“You have a chauffeur.”

“I use my car for work, he can drive when I’m tired,” said Alexander. “What did the maid look like?”

“Morrell did not say,” said Barrett.

“I’ll lay a tenner on it that the maid was Winifred Havilland in disguise, the chauffeur is her husband, married locally, and the car is a rapidly painted car of similar look and a couple of friends laying a false trail,” said Alexander.  “Got a copy of her photo?”

Barrett handed him a black and white copy.

With a black pen to colour out the frizzy bob, as if the hair was pulled back, Alexander cut out the shape of a maid’s cap from a piece of plain paper and stuck it onto the photo with gum arabic, sketching in details with a pencil.

There was a knock on the door, and Morrell, looking flustered, came in.

“Hello, old boy, Barrett had me on the carpet for taking up your time and asked me to look over your case,” said Alexander. “Would this happen to be the maid who told you she knew nothing about her mistress?”

Morrell looked suspiciously at the doctored photograph.

“That’s her,” he said.

“Chauffeur; dark hair, swarthy?” asked Alexander.

“Yes,” said Morrell. He looked at the photo again. “Good God! That’s the Havilland wench!”

“I thought it might be.  It was a hunch,” said Alexander, with a shrug. “The sort of woman who buys a sporty car does so to drive them; and that sort of woman does not have a chauffeur. So if the chauffeur was false, it struck me that the maid might be false, too, which is why I’ve been messing around producing an art work for you.”

“Well, if he didn’t coerce her into running away, there’s no case to answer,” said Morrell.

“I expect you’ll find they were married locally, too,” said Alexander. “She’s of age, wedded and doubtless bedded, and her father can do nothing about it. If he disowns her, that’s his prerogative, but I predict that in a couple of years, he’ll be showing people photos of his grandchildren.”

“I hope so,” said Morrell, gloomily. “Family splits are nasty.  You know more about servants than I do.” His voice was a little resentful again.

“I’m engaged to a girl who is considering what car she wants to buy when she celebrates her twenty-first birthday next month,” said Alexander. “She was interested in the same model Alfa Romeo as Miss Havilland, and she had a ‘No, you may not drive it’ look in her eye. I know about girls. I have sisters too.”

“And you don’t mind?”

“Mind? It makes no difference if I mind or not. I’d be a poor sort of husband to dictate to my life partner.  I can be justified in asking her to drive carefully. And to take her maid with her; Gladys drove ambulances during the war, and you have to be good to manage that.”

“I owe you an apology for doubting your source of wealth,” said Morrell, with something close to a snap. “I had no idea so much wealth existed.”

“We aren’t on the level of those of the upper ten thousand,” said Alexander, “But we’ve made careful investments. I can’t help it if you let the deadly sin of envy into your heart; I’m always ready to help out a colleague who needs doctor’s bills covered or anything of that sort, but I’m not going to give away my wealth to be on a par with the average man, because I don’t feel guilty about having it, and I don’t see why I should.  As you will have seen, I have increased it with judicious share purchases.  It’s a sacred trust to use to educate my children of the future, and make sure they are also sufficiently well off not to have to worry, before you say anything about rich men and camels, and needle’s eyes.  Are you going to leave off irritating me?”

“I have no choice.  And I have to thank you for breaking open my case.”

“Oh, glad to be of service.  You could ring and ask to see the maid and chauffeur again, and then confront her, and give her a good ear-wigging about wasting police time, and that sort of thing.”

“Yes, I believe I will. I’ve been worrying about that girl at the mercy of some brute of a ne’er do well, but the chauffeur was well enough spoken, not some brawny brute as her father represented him, and she’s been laughing up her sleeve at me.”

“She deserves a good telling off,” said Alexander. “And she should let her father know, so he isn’t in fear over Christmas.”

“I’ll soon sort her out,” said Morrell. He left the office with a bang.

“Armitage, did you just deflect all the irritation he is feeling towards you at the Havilland girl?” demanded Barrett.

“Yes,” said Alexander. “I don’t know her, so I don’t care.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Yes, sir, but I have my bad points too.”

 

the purloined parure 16 bonus just because it's Friday

 

Chapter 16

 

Alexander could see what was meant by people moving back in; though some of the tenement buildings had sightless bare windows, some had defiantly gay curtains back up, and the signs of being lived in.

“If I was on the run, holed up in a derelict block, what would I do?” muttered Alexander. “Actually, I’d put up curtains, and appear as normal as possible. But what would Barty and Bertie do? I wager they’d pick an unoccupied house, and try to make it seem still unoccupied. But it’s almost Christmas... bless the poor buggers who have crept back, there’s a Christmas tree in that house, and hand-made decorations in that one. And there’s smoke out of the rear chimney of that one with no curtains, and no signs of life at the front. They need a fire, it’s perishing.”

Whistling ‘with cat like tread’ under his breath, Alexander went to the front door with nonchalance rather than furtively, and utilised a tool which would have been frowned upon by Barrett, and would have occasioned his arrest had any bobby on the beat known about it and had the temerity to search an officer of Scotland Yard; though actually Alexander could have applied for the right to carry it to search supposedly slum unoccupied properties. He slid through the front door which yielded to his skeleton key and closed it quietly.  He passed silently down the short hallway and walked into the kitchen, where a seedy and unshaven little man sat, huddled in a greatcoat over the smoky range.

“Merry Christmas, Bertie,” said Alexander.

“Oh, bollocks,” said Bertie, in resignation.

“You’ll be safer on the inside. And warmer,” said Alexander. “Is Barty here too?”

“’E’s in the outhouse,” said Bertie.

“Well, let’s douse this fire, and we can collect him on the way out the back,” said Alexander. “He’d be a fool to run, with Harry Shearer’s men out looking for him,” he added, raising his voice.

The back door opened and the unkempt figure of Barty Tolliver came in, a far cry from his usual spruce appearance.

“We’ve got bags upstairs,” said Barty.

“Go and get them; I’ll see they’re dropped off with Vera,” said Alexander, naming Barty Tolliver’s long-term girlfriend.

“I was ’oping to ’ave Christmas outside,” said Bertie, gloomily.

“We do run to turkey or goose over Christmas,” said Alexander.

Bertie brightened.

“Oh, well, that’s somethin’,” he said. “An’ the chow is better nor what Barty cooks.”

“Lord Above!” said Alexander.  He led the two out of the back of the house and installed them in the plain car.

“Home, James, and don’t spare the horses,” he said to the driver.

“My given name is Charles and we’re in an automobile,” said the constable.

“It’s a figure of speech,” said Alexander.

When they got back to Scotland Yard it was to find a few of the office staff making an effort to decorate with paper-chains, tinsel, and, with some very naughty words as the bulbs insisted on blowing, fairy lights.

“You need a step-down transformer,” said Alexander, helpfully.

“Where am I to get one of those two days before Christmas?” demanded the frustrated WPC trying to put up the lights.

“Tell you what,” said Alexander, “There’s a car out of commission in the garage – burst radiator. If you get someone to nick the battery, the lights should run off that.”

“Cheers, sir,” said the WPC.

Barty Tolliver and Bertie Briscowe were duly booked for bunco, and Alexander wandered back up to his office. To his delight, the painting of the seven scenes of him had been mounted.

He went into the outer office and kissed Mary on the cheek.

“Thanks for collecting my painting,” he said. “Your Christmas present and that of your husband is under the tree. In case I’m not there for Christmas day.”

“Where are you likely to be?” asked Mary, suspiciously.

“Possibly in hospital,” said Alexander. Or the morgue, he thought. He was desperately afraid, but it was not something he could ask of anyone else, and unless caught in the act, nobody would believe a pair of fresh-faced lads, neither of them even adults, would do anything so gruesome.

 

He could not put off going home any longer. Moreover, he had an obligation to Campbell not to leave him in danger.

Alexander took the tube from St James’s Park, it making no odds if the train he took was District or Circle as he was only going two stops to Embankment to get out and change to the Northern Line for Goodge Street. He hated changing on the tube, the inexorable noise and bustle, the pushing and shoving reminding him of the trenches. The thick smell of humanity jam-packed into a confined space allied with the odd ozone smell of the trains, and thick grease of machinery made his nose wrinkle. But he did it, and came gladly up the steps to walk the four minute walk to his flat. At least nobody was likely to jump him at the tube station, not one of those much frequented, as he was known to have a car.

He walked up Store Street, and reflected that he must be on the lookout to purchase one of the three storey buildings there, as close to the Southern Crescent as possible, with its grand buildings at odds with the plainer ones in Store Street, and make a way through to Gower Mews. He thought, whimsically, of the grand houses in Bedford Square the other side; but he needed a house like that, even grander than the house in Orme Court, like he needed a hole in the head. But a bolt-hole rather than having to go all the way to Gower Street and as far back, almost, to the far end of the Mews left him vulnerable. And it was a terrible fire trap.  Alexander shuddered. If they set the place on fire to see if he went for the parure, it would be the death of him, and of Campbell.

But it would be a trap for his quarry, too, so hopefully they were intelligent enough to avoid that.

He unlocked the garage door and went in. Here, on a camp bed, dozed Sergeant Claud Eustace Teal. Harris was indoors. There was a door into the passage from the front door to his flat upstairs, which he would leave unlocked for Teal. A quick tuneful whistle was answered by the next phrase of the pirate king’s song, and he ran upstairs.

“No problems yet,” said Campbell.

“Which, beings as it’s only been dark a couple of  hours, ain’t surprising,” added Harris.

Alexander made stuffed cabbage leaves served over rice with a sauce he whipped up from tomato ketchup with added garlic, onion, and sour cream and called Teal up to join in the repast.  The other men regarded it suspiciously.

“I likes a bit o’ meat for my dinner,” said Harris, plaintively.

“The leaves are stuffed with lamb mince,” said Alexander. “We have our Russian relatives staying with us in Essex, and Dmitro cooked this for us, and I asked for the recipe.”

“It’s good!” said Campbell, in surprise. “Cor, ’Oo’d of thunk it. Russian, eh? You wouldn’t fink they ’ad time between revoluting.”

“It’s a lot older than the revolution,” said Alexander. “I wanted to make something so nobody could guess how many people I have here.”

“It’s nice, and you made it really quickly; can I have the recipe?” asked Teal, who was more cosmopolitan and better educated than some of his fellows.

“Certainly,” said Alexander. “I’ll write that out whilst you are digesting; just in case I’m unavailable tomorrow.”

“None o’ that, sir,” said Campbell, gruffly.

“If they blip me on the bean first, I might be half silly in hospital,” said Alexander, more lightly than he felt.

Teal, happy with stewed pears and custard as a pudding, and with his recipe in his pocket, retired back to the garage with a hot water bottle, to tuck himself under the heavy quilt there, hidden behind a tarpaulin seemingly carelessly thrown over one of the bare joists. Campbell and Harris retired behind the breakfast bar in the kitchen area, on piles of cushions, taking turns to doze. And Alexander retired to bed. They had re-checked all cupboards and small rooms as a matter of course.

 

Alexander did not think he would sleep, so he put on the beside lamp to read ‘Nicolette,’ a newly-published novel by Baroness Orczy, supposedly based on an old French satire, but taking more liberties than her usual fare of the French in the Scarlet Pimpernel books, with much fraternity and equality unlikely in the period of the time. Still, the Baroness was incapable of writing a bad book, and Alexander enjoyed it until relaxation and tiredness combined to overwhelm him in sleep, or as the Baroness would doubtless have put it, the inexorable forces of exhaustion from strain, combined with a comfortable position, drew him without protest into the arms of Morpheus.

 

Alexander awoke to the sound of breaking glass.

He sat up, his heart hammering. His light was on and his book had fallen off the bed. He bent down to pick up the book and put on the side stand, and turned off the light.  It would not have penetrated his thick curtains; and the breaking glass had not been in this room.

He lay back down, pretending to sleep, and then thought, perhaps I should get up to call out about what is going on; a policeman isn’t going to ignore the sounds of breaking glass.

He went downstairs, stealthily, and was in time to see a figure leaning out of the window, having broken one of the six panes of glass in the sash window, to unlock and open it in order to get in. They were lucky; the other window stuck.

Cold air blew in, and a few flakes of sleet. A figure was leaning out of the window, and Alexander heard a whisper, ‘Here, catch it!’ There was the sound of something landing somewhere, and Alexander decided it was time to make his presence known.

He turned on the light.

The figure at the window started, and banged his head on the lower edge of the upper sash, making it rattle.  He was wearing a mask.

Before Alexander could approach him, he sprang over the sill, and by the sounds of slithering and a brief burst of invective, slid down the ladder with more haste than wisdom, collecting a crop of splinters.

Alexander decided to act as he would if he had been robbed in the normal way. He snatched up a police whistle from the sideboard, and sounded  it loudly out into the night.

Campbell and Harris emerged.

“We didn’t do nuthin’ because you said leave it until they seized you,” said Campbell.

“Quite right.  Well, our little thieves decided they would rather do it the easy way than to indulge their dubious fun,” said Alexander. “Get Teal up here; he might as well thaw out. We’ll have bobbies all over the place presently, and the fingerprint boys, and they won’t be coming back tonight.”

It was a prediction which proved to be no less than the truth, and Alexander, wrapped in a dressing-gown of gaudy quilted silk, with a pattern of dragons and phoenixes on it, brewed endless cups of tea for bobbies on night duty, glad of a hot drink on a night with stinging, spiteful wind, and a precipitation between fog, rain, and sleet which showed a stubborn determination to work its way inside any clothing. Capes hung up on the drying rack in the kitchen, lowered for the purpose, steaming gently to add some warmth to the thawing bobbies when they must, reluctantly, leave, to get on with their duties.

Teal, Campbell, and Harris had been banished to Alexander’s bedroom so that no bobby talking out of turn might mention that the inspector had a veritable army with him who might have been expected to stop or at least deter robbers.

He did admit that they had taken an empty jewellery case which he was keeping for his own purposes.

The fingerprint squad came out by car, complaining about the hour, and the weather, and discovered that the housebreakers had worn gloves.

“Too much crime fiction,” said one, gloomily. “Chummies these days know about dabs.”

“And you can’t describe them, sir?” asked another.

“Slender, boyish figure, definitely not female, quite athletic, about five-foot ten,” said Alexander.

“Hair? Appearance?”

“Hood, black. Mask, black,” said Alexander. “Clothes, black. I conjecture that the clothing was army surplus, dyed.”

The constable nodded, making a note of this.

They finally got rid of the excess police at around five in the morning, and Alexander was permitted to shut his window, and tape brown paper over the hole. The gas fire finally started to make a difference.

“Gawdstrewf,” said Campbell.

“I’ll be a bit more sensitive with victims in future,” said Teal, meditatively. “That sounded a bit rough.”

“I am going to be ribbed unmercifully for being robbed,” said Alexander ruefully. “But then, I can’t say I mind being robbed, not tortured.”

“But they are going to find out it’s empty, and then they’ll be as mad as ’ornets,” said Campbell.

“Yes,” said Alexander. “But their costume is distinctive, and if they don’t try questioning me, if we can get enough doubt for a warrant to search, I wager we’d find it. Which doesn’t get them sent down for anything but petty theft, but it would be something.”

“And then they’ll wait for Cosher to get out, and go after ’im,” said Campbell.

“You’re right,” said Alexander. “Very well, same show tonight, gentlemen; I doubt they’re likely to delay long. They are not patient, and Joseph will be back at school in two weeks time.”

“Why don’t you put a tail on them, sir?” asked Teal.

“You know, that might not be a bad idea,” said Alexander. “I also need to telephone my folks and get Freddy to call his mother to reassure her that he is safe.  Actually, Teal, can you handle setting up the tail? I can’t ask you to spend another day in the cold.”

“I don’t think I’m much good in there, anyway,” said Teal.  “I’ll join the others.” He brightened. “You could teach me how to make that stuffed cabbage; I wouldn’t mind it again.”

“It’s a deal,” said Alexander.