Cynthia Manson (ed) (63 page)

“I’ve ’eard that before tonight. Mum
was creating. Not my fault if Mr. Pope wants to see me about exam papers.”

“You’re never taking G. C. E. ?”

“Why not?”

“Coo! ’Oo started that lark?”

“Mr. Pope. I just told you. D’you
want to dance or don’t you?”

She did and she knew Ron was not one
to wait indefinitely. So she joined him, and together they went to the main
hall where dancing was in progress, with a band formed by club members.

“ ’Alf a mo!” Ron said as they
reached the door. “I got something you’ll like.”

He produced the brooch.

Sally was delighted. This was no
cheap store piece. It was slap-up dress jewelry, like the things you saw in the
West End, in Bond Street, in the Burlington Arcade, even. She told him she’d
wear it just below her left shoulder near the neck edge of her dress. When they
moved on to the dance floor she was holding her head higher and swinging her
hips more than ever before. She and Ron danced well together. That night many
couples stood still to watch them.

About an hour later the dancing came
to a sudden end with a sound of breaking glass and shouting that grew in volume
and ferocity.

“Raid!” yelled the boys on the dance
floor, deserting their partners and crowding to the door. “Those bloody Wingers
again.”

The sounds of battle led them,
running swiftly, to the table-tennis and billiards room, where a shambles
confronted them. Overturned tables, ripped cloth, broken glass were everywhere.
Tall youths and younger lads were fighting indiscriminately. Above the din the
club warden and the three voluntary workers, two of them women, raised their
voices in appeal and admonishment, equally ignored. The young barrister who
attended once a week to give legal advice free, as a form of social service, to
those who asked for it plunged into the battle, only to be flung out again
nursing a twisted arm. It was the club caretaker, old and experienced in gang
warfare, who summoned the police. They arrived silently, snatched ringleaders
with expert knowledge or recognition, hemmed in their captives while the battle
melted, and waited while their colleagues, posted at the doors of the club,
turned back all would-be escapers.

Before long complete order was
restored. In the dance hall the line of prisoners stood below the platform
where the band had played. They included club members as well as strangers. The
rest, cowed, bunched together near the door, also included a few strangers.
Murmurings against these soon added them to the row of captives.

“Now,” said the sergeant, who had
arrived in answer to the call, “Mr. Smith will tell me who belongs here and who
doesn’t.”

The goats were quickly separated
from the rather black sheep.

“Next, who was playing table tennis
when the raid commenced?”

Six hands shot up from the line.
Some disheveled girls near the door also held up their hands.

“The rest were in here dancing,” the
warden said. “The boys left the girls when they heard the row, I think.”

“That’s right,” Ron said boldly. “We
’eard glass going, and we guessed it was them buggers. They been ’ere before.”

“They don’t learn,” said the
sergeant with a baleful glance at the goats, who shuffled their feet and looked
sulky.

“You’ll be charged at the station,” the
sergeant went on, “and I’ll want statements from some of your lads,” he told
the warden. “Also from you and your assistants. These other kids can all go
home. Quietly, mind,” he said, raising his voice. “Show us there’s some of you
can behave like reasonable adults and not childish savages.”

Sally ran forward to Ron as he left
the row under the platform. He took her hand as they walked towards the door.
But the sergeant had seen something that surprised him. He made a signal over
their heads. At the door they were stopped.

“I think you’re wanted. Stand aside
for a minute,” the constable told them.

The sergeant was the one who had
been at the flat in the first part of the Fairlands case. He had been there
when a second detailed examination of the flat was made in case the missing
jewelry had been hidden away and had therefore escaped the thief. He had formed
a very clear picture in his mind of what he was looking for from Mrs. Evans’
description. As Sally passed him on her way to the door with Ron, part of the
picture presented itself to his astonished eyes.

He turned to the warden.

“That pair. Can I have a word with
them somewhere private?”

“Who? Ron Sharp and Sally Biggs? Two
of our very nicest—”

The two were within earshot. They
exchanged a look of amusement instantly damped by the sergeant, who ordered
them briefly to follow him. In the warden’s office, with the door shut, he said
to Sally, “Where did you get that brooch you’re wearing?”

The girl flushed. Ron said angrily, “I
give it ’er. So what?”

“So where did you come by it?”

Ron hesitated. He didn’t want to let
himself down in Sally’s eyes. He wanted her to think he’d bought it specially
for her. He said, aggressively, “That’s my business.”

“I don’t think so.” Turning to
Sally, the sergeant said, “Would you mind letting me have a look at it, miss?”

The girl was becoming frightened.
Surely Ron hadn’t done anything silly? He was looking upset. Perhaps—

“All right,” she said, undoing the
brooch and handing it over. “Poor eyesight, I suppose.”

It was feeble defiance, and the
sergeant ignored it. He said, “I’ll have to ask you two to come down to the
station. I’m not an expert, but we shall have to know a great deal more about
this article, and Inspector Brooks will be particularly interested to know
where it came from.”

Ron remaining obstinately silent in
spite of Sally’s entreaty, the two found themselves presently sitting opposite
Inspector Brooks, with the brooch lying on a piece of white paper before them.

“This brooch,” said the inspector
sternly, “is one piece of jewelry listed as missing from the flat of a Mrs.
Fairlands, who was robbed and murdered on Christmas Eve or early Christmas Day.”

“Never!”
whispered Sally, aghast.

Ron said nothing. He was not a
stupid boy, and he realized at once that he must now speak, whatever Sally
thought of him. Also that he had a good case if he didn’t say too much. So,
after careful thought, he told Brooks exactly how and when he had come by the
brooch and advised him to check this with his father and mother. The old lady’s
son had stuck the tree out by the dustbins, his mother had said, and her
daughter had told his father he could have it to take home.

Inspector Brooks found the tale too
fantastic to be untrue. Taking the brooch and the two subdued youngsters with
him, he went to Ron’s home, where more surprises awaited him. After listening
to Mr. Sharp’s account of the Christmas tree, which exactly tallied with Ron’s,
he went into the next room where the younger children were playing and Mrs.
Sharp was placidly watching television.

“Which of you two found the brooch?”
Brooks asked. The little girl was persuaded to agree that she had done so.

“But I got these,” the boy said. He
dived into his pocket and dragged out the pearl necklace and the diamond
bracelet.

“ ’Struth!” said the inspector,
overcome. “She must’ve been balmy.”

“No, she wasn’t,” Sally broke in. “She
was nice. She give us two and a tanner.”

“
She
what?
”

Sally explained the carol singing
expedition. They had been up four roads in that part, she said, and only two
nicker the lot.

“Mostly it was nil,” she said. “Then
there was some give a bob and this old gentleman and the woman with ’im ten bob
each. We packed it in after that.”

“This means you actually went to
Mrs. Fairlands’ house?” Brooks said sternly to Ron.

“With the others—yes.”

“Did you go inside?”

“No.”

“No.” Sally supported him. “She come
out.”

“Was she wearing the brooch?”

“No,” said Ron.

“Not when she come out, she wasn’t,”
Sally corrected him.

Ron kicked her ankle gently. The
inspector noticed this.

“When did you see it?” he asked
Sally.

“When she looked through the window
at us. We shone the torch on ’er. It didn’t ’alf shine.”

“But you didn’t recognize it when
Ron gave it to you?”

“Why should I? I never saw it close.
It was pinned on ’er dress at the neck. I didn’t think of it till you said.”

Brooks nodded. This seemed fair
enough. He turned to face Ron.

“So you went back alone later to get
it? Right?”

“I never! It’s a damned lie!” the
boy cried fiercely.

Mr. Sharp took a step forward. His
wife bundled the younger children out of the room. Sally began to cry.

“ ’Oo are you accusing?” Mr. Sharp
said heavily. “You ’eard ’ow I come by the tree. My mates was there. The things
was on it. I got witnesses. If Ron did that job, would ’e leave the only things
worth ’aving? It says in the paper nothing of value, don’t it?”

Brooks realized the force of this
argument, however badly put. He’d been carried away a little. Unusual for him;
he was surprised at himself. But the murder had been a particularly revolting
one, and until these jewels turned up, he’d had no idea where to look. Carol
singers. It might be a line and then again it mightn’t.

He took careful statements from Ron,
Sally, Ron’s father, and the two younger children. He took the other pieces of
jewelry and the Christmas tree. Carol singers. Mrs. Fairlands had opened the
door to Ron’s lot, having taken off her brooch if the story was true. Having
hidden it very cleverly. He and his men had missed it completely. A Christmas
tree decorated with flashy bits and pieces as usual. Standing back against a
wall. They’d ignored it. Seen nothing but tinsel and glitter for weeks past. Of
course they hadn’t noticed it. The real thief or thieves hadn’t noticed it,
either.

Back at the station he locked away
the jewels, labeled, in the safe and rang up Hugh Evans. He did not tell him
where the pieces had been found.

Afterwards he had to deal with some
of the hooligans who had now been charged with breaking, entering, willful
damage, and making an affray. He wished he could pin Mrs. Fairlands’ murder on
their ringleader, a most degenerate and evil youth. Unfortunately, the whole
gang had been in trouble in the West End that night; most of them had spent
what remained of it in Bow Street police station. So they were out. But routine
investigations now had a definite aim. To collect a list of all those who had
sung carols at the house in Mrs. Fairlands’ road on Christmas Eve, to question
the singers about the times they had appeared there and about the houses they
had visited.

It was not easy. Carol singers came
from many social groups and often traveled far from their own homes. The youth
clubs in the district were helpful; so were the various student bodies and
hostels in the neighborhood. Brooks’s manor was wide and very variously
populated. In four days he had made no headway at all.

A radio message went out, appealing
to carol singers to report at the police station if they were near Mrs.
Fairlands’ house at any time on Christmas Eve. The press took up the quest,
dwelling on the pathetic aspects of the old woman’s tragic death at a time of
traditional peace on earth and good will towards men. All right-minded citizens
must want to help the law over this revolting crime.

But the citizens maintained their
attitude of apathy or caution.

Except for one, a freelance
journalist, Tom Meadows, who had an easy manner with young people because he
liked them. He became interested because the case seemed to involve young
people. It was just up his street. So he went first to the Sharp family, gained
their complete confidence, and had a long talk with Ron.

The boy was willing to help. After
he had got over his indignation with the law for daring to suspect him, he had
had sense enough to see how this had been inevitable. His anger was directed
more truly at the unknown thugs responsible. He remembered Mrs. Fairlands with
respect and pity. He was ready to do anything Tom Meadows suggested.

The journalist was convinced that
the criminal or criminals must be local, with local knowledge. It was unlikely
they would wander from house to house, taking a chance on finding one that
might be profitable. It was far more likely that they knew already that Mrs.
Fairlands lived alone, would be quite alone over Christmas and therefore
defenseless. But their information had been incomplete. They had not known how
little money she kept at the flat. No one had known this except her family. Or
had they?

Meadows, patient and amiable, worked
his way from the Sharps to the postman, the milkman, and through the latter to
the daily.