Hopscotch (21 page)

Just as he was not an accomplished cat burglar, so he was not an expert lockpick; but he'd had rudimentary training in the art and he was not pressed for time and after several minutes with the coat-hanger wire he had the old throw-bolt lock whipped and he was ready to open the door. But first he reached up and unscrewed the bulbs in the wall fixtures. They weren't burning but if there was a trap set up he didn't want them to throw a switch and silhouette him in the doorway like a cardboard shooting-range dummy.

He took several very deep breaths. If he was jumped it would help to have his lungs full of air. Then he went in.

He was alone in the room. He left the door open behind him; he wanted an available exit in case of trouble and besides he didn't want to light a lamp because that could be seen from the servants' window and he wasn't sure the drapes here would be
opaque. The indirect illumination from the distant chandelier made the room dim but it would be enough to work by.

Something creaked. He froze until he was satisfied it had been natural settling; it was an old house.

He commenced his search, not sure what he might find, keenly hoping for one thing but not counting on it. If Chartermain wasn't carrying his passport it would be in his office in Whitehall or it would be here. With luck it would be here.

There was a wall safe; he didn't examine it—it would be impregnable to him, its contents largely composed of documents in binders with stern warnings from the Official Secrets Act on the jackets. He wasn't interested in stealing state secrets. He went through the desk drawer by drawer and had his piece of good luck: it was an old wallet, very thin pliable expensive pigskin of the old-fashioned diplomatic style, containing Chartermain's official red passport, the memsahib's civilian black-bound one and an assortment of documents and foreign currencies.

Kendig took everything out of the wallet; he left the currency, the memsahib's papers and the rest of the things on the desk. Then he tore his photo out of his own passport; he put that back in his pocket along with Chartermain's VIP passport. He put the Jules Parker passport into Chartermain's wallet and placed the wallet on top of the other things in the middle of the desk blotter.

He wrote a little note in Chartermain's pad and propped the note against the wallet; and left the room.

The house creaked again but he went right along the corridor and retraced his path to the kitchen. He paused by the door before opening it and had a glance through the window at the coach house. The servants' light still burned upstairs; the curtains remained as they had been before.

He opened the door silently and slipped outside, unable to eliminate the click when he pulled it shut behind him; he went down the steps and then paused and turned his head, and wondered why he had hestitated; then he had it—a trace of tobacco smoke on the air.

They jumped him from either side of the steps. One of them pinioned his arms; the other whipped around in front of him and he saw the billy club.

“Red-handed, mate,” said the one behind him with relish.

They were London police, not Chartermain's agents. He had to do it very quickly: he said, “Cor stone the crows, you give me such a fright!”

“Give you a heart attack mate, if I had my way.”

At the head of the coach-house stair the door opened and the butler-chauffeur came hurrying down. “Good work, officers!”

In his Cockney rasp Kendig said, “'Ow'd you get onto me then?”

“Mr. Musgrove saw you in the act of breaking and entering.”

The old man bobbed his head vehemently. “Heard something, looked out my window, saw the door just closing behind the thief. Called you right the instant.”

The policeman still had his arms in a vise lock
and his partner was frisking Kendig for weapons, sliding around like a contortionist to keep out of range of any kicking Kendig might have in mind to do. The man holding his arms had the exact positioning of long practice; both wrists high under the shoulderblades, twisting him forward in a half-bow; there was no way out of that hold. Then the partner locked the handcuffs on him.

“You've a keen eye, Mr. Musgrove. You'll want to come down in the morning, I'm afraid, to give us a statement.”

“Glad to do my duty,” the old man said, rearing back on his dignity.

“I imagine the governor'll give you a rise for this, old boy.”

Musgrove smiled. His wife stood at the head of the outside stair, watching with suspicion. The policeman hustled Kendig along the lane into the mews. Their car was a Morris 1100 with a globe light on the roof; he went into the back with the muscular officer who'd pinioned him. “Bloody crackers,” Kendig mumbled.

“What's that, mate?”

“Crackers I said. Old fool ought've been fast asleep, this hour. Tell you I never had nothin' but hard luck my whole life.”

“Ruddy well asked for every bit of it, didn't you,” said the second policeman; he started the car and they rolled out of the mews.

It was a small police station, casual and Edwardian; a dozen police officers roamed in and out. His captors delivered him to a sergeant in a partitioned office. The sergeant said, “Give a squeal to
in the morning to find out if he has any form, Good work, you two,”

“It was the butler did it,” the first policeman said and they all laughed at the little joke, all except Kendig who sat deep in a feigned gloom of self-pity, his senses cataloging everything and his mind racing with calculation.

The two arresting officers retrieved their handcuffs and left the room. A youth in the dark uniform passed them on his way in; he had a stenographic note pad. The sergeant said, “Very well now. Your name?”

“… Alfred Booker.” He said it as if with heavy reluctance; he kept shifting his baleful guilty stare from one patch of floor to another.

“How's it spelled?”

He snarled. “Spell it yourself, copper.”

The sergeant's weary eyes sought inspiration and patience from the ceiling. “Come on now Alfie.”

“Booker. Bee double-oh kay ee are.”

The young cop wrote it down; the sergeant said, “Vite stats now, Alfie.”

His whine got more resentful. “I'm forty-six, right? No permanent address.”

“Got a job, Alfie?”

“No.”

“Got a wife? A mother, a dad, anybody we should notify?”

“No. Let's get this over with.”

“Solicitor?”

“Don't they give you one?”

“If you haven't got your own the court will appoint one for you. What's this, Alfie, you new at this game?”

“I got no bleeding record if that's what you mean. I'm clean as her ladyship's fingernails, copper.”

“Not after tonight you're not. All right, come over here and empty out the pockets, that's a good lad—let's see what you made off with.”

There was no helping it. Physical reluctance would only make them treat him with greater caution and he didn't want that. He emptied everything out onto the desk. He managed to turn while he was doing it so that he had a good view through the sergeant's open door—the back of the officer on the desk, the counter, the small squad room, the outside door beyond. A hell of a gamut to run but he had one thing in his favor: none of them was armed, they didn't carry sidearms.

The sergeant watched him with shrewd cop's eyes. Kendig passed his jacket to the sergeant and turned his pants pockets inside out to show he'd emptied everything. The sergeant went through the jacket meticulously. “Swank stuff for a Soho tramp. Paris label. Where'd you steal the threads, Alfie?”

“I paid good money.”

“Whose?”

“You got me on nothing, copper. I stand on me rights.”

“Rights? It's dead to rights for you, Alfie. But have it your own way. Now there's a money belt under your shirt. You can take it off or we can take it off for you. Which'll it be?”

He pulled his shirttails out and undid the canvas belt and dropped it on the desk. The sergeant gave his jacket back to him. He thrust his shirt back into his waistband and put the jacket on. He had a reason for doing that but it didn't arouse the sergeant's suspicion.

The sergeant intoned, “One length wire, heavy gauge, coiled. Probably coat hanger. One pocket calendar, plastic, Kensington Close Hotel. One knife, pocket clasp, two blades, one awl.”

“That ain't no switchblade,” Kendig snapped. “Just you make it clear, copper.”

“Not a switchblade,” the sergeant drawled wryly. “Pocket coins—let's see, fifteen, seventeen, shilling, hate this bloody coinage mess—make that thirty-five new pence. Pounds sterling, loose”—the eyebrows went up as the sergeant counted it like a bank teller, moistening his thumb and flipping up the corners of the notes—“blimey. I make it three hundred forty-six quid. Hit yourself a jackpot, didn't you Alfie.”

“I didn't lift that money. Nobody can prove I did.” In the outer office the cops were milling to and fro. The telephones rang now and then; two men laughed easily at something one of them said.

“Stole the governor's pasport, I see,” the sergeant observed. “Know whose house that was you chose to break and enter, Alfie?”

“Boffin or something, in't he? But what's it matter anyhow.”

“Hardly a boffin, mate.” The sergeant chuckled. “Bit of a laugh, old Chartermain getting invaded by a common thief.”

“I ain't no common thief,” Kendig said loudly. “I was just—”

“You were just what?”

“Nemmind. I talk to my solicitor.”

“Do that,” the sergeant said. “One passport, diplomatic, property of William David Chartermain, Esquire. One wallet-size photograph of suspect identified by himself as Alfred Booker. One money
belt, canvas. One ring of car keys to fit a Rover automobile. Rover, Alfie? Traveling in style, aren't we.”

“I just happened to find those keys.”

The sergeant glanced at the youth who was copying down the items. “Those aren't Chartermain's keys—I think it's a Jaguar he drives.”

“And a Mini. No Rover—I know the house, sir.”

“Right. Let's have a look for a stolen Rover in the neighborhood. Just getting in deeper every minute, aren't we Alfie.”

“You can go right to bloody hell, copper.”

“Let's have a look at the inside of this belt now.… Well well well! Seems our friend the master spy must keep a devil of a cash fund in his library—and American dollars at that.… Let me make the count.… mmmhm … Roll me over, laddie, this would dent the bloody Westminster Bank.… five one, five one fifty, five two … Mark this now, seven thousand one hundred fifty dollars in notes of fifty and one hundred denominations. We'll run a list of serial numbers but you'd best keep it to a single original, no copies. Chartermain may prefer there be no record. We'll have to clear it with him.”

“Aye Sergeant.”

The sergeant hit his intercom key. “Are you chaps ready to fingerprint our boy?” He released the key and said to the youth, “Ought to find a proper way to hint to the old boy he ought to put first-class locks and alarms on his house if he means to keep this sort of lot on hand—”

Kendig scooped up the little photograph from the desk and made his break. He went out like a projectile: vaulted the phone desk, rammed shoulder-first into a policeman and hurled the man against
his partner, dodged among the desks, caught glimpses of their faces agape, elbowed a third in the ribs, slithered past a belatedly swinging club, stiff-armed the last cop off his feet, wheeled through the door and sprinted into the night.

He had a forty-yard jump on them before they came boiling out into the street. There was the shrill silly bleat of their whistles, the clamor of their voices, the rattle of their feet; he rah around the corner and pushed along as fast as his legs could pump, aiming straight for the traffic light at the intersection. That was his only prayer of reprieve, the traffic light. Cars flowed through it along the high street; it was changing as he ran and they were stopping in their neat obedient column. He flung a glance over his shoulder—some of them were a lot younger than he was, some of them had longer legs and better wind; the pack was dissipating but the leaders were gaining on him frighteningly fast.

He heard himself gasping when he shot across the curb. The light held; the cars hadn't started to roll. He aimed for the front car of the row. If that door was locked …

He jerked it open. The man stared at him open-mouthed. Kendig gripped the man's arm and yanked him bodily out of the driver's seat. Crammed himself into the car and searched for the gearshift with his left hand. It had been in gear and when the original driver's foot came off the clutch it had stalled out and now he had to find the key and the pack was just into the intersection now and the driver was lurching to his feet shouting.

Kendig punched the door-lock button and the driver heaved helplessly on the outside handle. The
key turned, the ignition meshed. Behind him a burly fool was emerging threateningly from a van. Kendig popped the clutch and roared away through the red light.

They'd be in cars within ninety seconds. He'd ditch this one within five minutes. The escape had worked but he had nothing now, nothing but his wits and the clothes on his back—no money, no papers, not a single possession except the two-inch-square photograph of himself that had been the most important object on the sergeant's desk.

Now they had him naked and running and when he left the car in a dark passage and dogtrotted away into the night he was breathing deep and grinning from ear to ear.

– 21 –

T
HE TELEPHONE BROUGHT
R
OSS
awake and he fumbled for it in the darkness.

“Up and out, Ross. Meet me in the lobby in five minutes. Our man's broken surface.”

“The hell time's it?”

But Cutter had hung up on him. He found the lamp switch and threw the sheet back and plunged into his clothes. He slid his expansion-banded watch on—it was just past two o'clock in the morning.