The Theft of Magna Carta (3 page)

Caldicott had been asked to come to advise Stephenson on the value of these particular paintings. They had done business together often before, in London, in the United States, in Paris, Madrid, Milan and Rome, as well as the Scandinavian countries; and they did business by letter and by telegram.

They had arranged to meet in Salisbury because the Stephensons had wanted to come a day ahead of the preview.

Caldicott, a widower of long standing, had never met Sarah Stephenson before; had not in fact known of her existence. He had seen her for the first time here at the Rose and Briar; and he had never been more affected by a woman. Now, as he strolled through the garden, he could not get her out of his mind. What on earth was such a beauty doing married to a moron like Stephenson? It was repellent: why wasn't
she
repelled by the man? How could she bear to touch him as she did, with a familiarity which seemed to be born of affection?

She had suggested a walk in the grounds. He had fooled himself into thinking that if he came out here, she would eventually appear, but she did not. The couple who had kissed and hugged for so long, left the spot arm in arm. Some cars left and others arrived. The porter appeared, visiting all the tables; and as he collected empty glasses and coffee cups, he said to Caldicott: “We'll be locking up in a few minutes, sir, now.”

“I'll be there very soon,” Caldicott promised.

He scanned the windows again, wondering which was Sarah's, longing to see her. Even when he reached his own room and told himself he was behaving like a fool, he could not get her out of his mind. She was at once the most composed, poised and beautiful woman he had ever met.

And married to that humourless idiot!

At last, he went to bed, half-dreaming over her; and at last he fell asleep. The remarkable thing was that he had become so infatuated that he had quite forgotten Stephenson's ludicrous proposal to find out how much some collector of secret treasures would pay for the Salisbury Magna Carta. Another thing, nearly as remarkable, was that he had not given the man Batten, Tom Batten, another thought, categorising him as a local zealot with a loquacious habit and a good heart.

Certainly it did not occur to him that Detective Sergeant Thomas Batten of the Wiltshire Constabulary had recognised him, although Batten had not the slightest idea who the Stephensons were.

 

 

Chief Superintendent Roger West of New Scotland Yard had friends and acquaintances in many parts of England; in fact, many parts of the world. There were those to whom he had visited on assignments; there were as many who had come to the Yard and worked with him there. One of the vital requisites of a police officer, of course, was to remember not only names and faces but to fit them to places and events. Deep in his mind was a kind of photograph album of people whom he could identify after a few moments. He had often reflected that his own “album” was not a variation of a rogues' gallery; there was little or no need to remember criminals, for their records were on tap at the Yard. Moreover the new system at the Scotland Yard on Broadway, London, S.W.1, was remarkably efficient. One pressed a button for a dossier on a man and seven-and-a-half minutes later a file virtually fell into one's hands.

He had never ceased to marvel at the conveyor belt in its near perpetual motion on the seventh floor of the new building. Like a great many senior officers who had known the old building on the embankment near Westminster Bridge for their whole working career, he had lacked enthusiasm for the new, modern premises. But he had soon come to admit that what it lacked in the picturesque it made up for in efficiency. He was never likely to feel that it was “home”; but it was now a kind of home away from home.

On the morning which followed the meeting of the Stephensons and Caldicott at the Rose and Briar in Salisbury, he did a rare thing: walked from his home in Chelsea to the Yard. It took an hour and before he was halfway there he began to wonder about his wisdom, but on the whole he was glad.

He was on his own at home during that particular week, and nothing prevented him from getting a light breakfast and starting off early: in fact at a quarter to eight. Much of the previous evening he had spent virtuously mowing his front lawn and weeding the flower patches. His was a pleasant house in a pleasant street of houses built between the wars. Most of the other owners were enthusiastic gardeners. The spring flower season was over; most of the flowering trees and shrubs were gone, but a few late lilacs were in bloom, and some late may – it had been a long cold winter – and antirrhinums were abundant if rather leggy. He had two round beds of violets of which he was especially proud, and some beds of forget-me-nots. A perfume of flowers wafted as he walked past his own garden and that of his neighbours. King's Road, hardly a thoroughfare of great aesthetic beauty, had a rare freshness this morning, and every antique dealer appeared to have cleaned his showrooms.

Can't imagine how so many of them keep going, he mused, passing a row of three such shops and an art gallery in one short block. But he did not dwell for long on art or antiques. Instead, he reflected on his own life, his career and his future. Only a few weeks before he had rejected an offer from one of the private security companies to join them, but sooner or later he might have to accept such an offer.

A tall, powerful man in his late forties, looking no more than forty-one or two because of his fair hair, unlined face and brisk walk, he was “old” as age went at the Yard these days. Long gone was the time when he was “the youngest chief inspector” and later the youngest superintendent on the Metropolitan Police Force. Thirty-five was “old” these days; many men younger than he were retiring to civil jobs. Now that he was having a week of looking after himself, his wife being away with family friends and his two sons being out of London, he had plenty of time to ponder and reflect; it was no longer necessary to do everything under pressure.

When he reached the Yard he turned into the Victoria Street entrance, which was almost deserted, and went up in the nearer lifts. This, the highest building in the complex, housed the Criminal Investigation Department. He walked along plain, bare-walled passages past a succession of doors, and turned into his own office. It was small but compact, with a window overlooking the complex “well” and his large desk stood in front of the longer wall, half-hidden by the door before one was right inside the room. A small pile of reports stood on the desk but his “Out” and his “Pending” filing trays were empty. For some inexplicable reason he was in the middle of a run of easy-to-solve cases; clues and evidence all fitted in quickly. As a result desk work had fallen off and pressures at the Yard had slackened more than he could remember. When this trend had first revealed itself he had suspected that hierarchy, including the commander C.I.D., Coppell, was diverting work from him. But it wasn't that. Early summer had brought a lull which was continuing.

Instead of being grateful and taking the chance to slacken off, he had become almost fretful; at times there was hardly enough to do. And this would happen when Janet was away!

He sat down, opened the file, read a typewritten note saying:
The Commander would like to see you in his office at ten o'clock
, wondered why, and was interrupted by the telephone. He picked up the instrument mechanically.

“West.”

“Good morning, Mr. West,” a man said in a voice he recognised as from the West of England. “You won't remember me, I'm afraid – my name is Batten, Tom Batten of Salisbury.”

Small, deep-set eyes; distended nostrils; an odd-shaped face in every way, just a little like the pigs for which Wiltshire was famous, came at once to Roger's mind, and with it the lonely farm in the Avon Valley which had been burned to the ground, three bodies with it. He had gone down to help the Wiltshire Police with inquiries which had lasted over a month.

“Indeed I do,” Roger said mildly. “Your wife cooks the best game pie I've ever tasted.”

“So you do remember!” Batten was obviously delighted. “I said to Florence only half an hour ago that you have a better memory than any man I've ever met. Mr. West, I don't want to take up a lot of your time and I may be on a wild-goose chase, but I ran into a man last night I recognised, and if I'm right I would like to know what he's up to in Salisbury.”

“Who is he?” asked Roger.

“A man named Caldicott, Frank Caldicott,” answered Batten. “I thought I would check if you know anything about him. He's registered in that name at a local pub. He's a valuer of paintings and fine art, if I remember rightly—”

“And you're the man who's talking about my memory!” exclaimed Roger. “Give me twenty minutes, and I'll call you back.”

“Very kind of you,” said Batten. “The number's Salisbury 7654 extension 17.”

After he had hung up the receiver, Roger made a note of the number. He was nearly sure that Caldicott was out and about; someone had mentioned him lately: ah! Kempton, one of the younger men who specialised in fine art. Before asking Records it might be a good idea to call Kempton.

He dialled the other's number, and Kempton answered at once.

“Chief Inspector Kempton.”

“Superintendent West.”

“Good morning, sir!” The formality between ranks was as rigid as ever, new building or not.

“What can you tell me of a man named Caldicott – Frank Caldicott?” asked Roger.

“I can tell you he's one of the most slippery customers I've ever had to deal with,” answered Kempton, on the instant. “I'm pretty sure he's been on the fringe of a lot of art thefts but I've never found anything to prove it. I suspect he's a kind of high-class runner, if you know what I mean.”

“Tell me,” invited Roger.

“Very well, sir. As you well know, the art trade has hundreds of runners who go from shop to shop, reporting what one place has just bought and what's generally available. A gallery might have a customer for a painting in the Reynolds School, say, and he'll pay a runner to find what there is about. And the system's much more widespread than it used to be. Runners used to cover only London and the big cities, but nowadays they cover small towns and villages too. Small dealers you've never heard of get on the list of some of the big boys. It's a curious thing in a way how much valuable stuff there is in the country. Half the dealers don't know the value of their stocks, especially if they buy it up cheap—sorry, sir!” exclaimed Kempton, and there was a rueful laugh in a voice which had already become near-breathless; when Roger didn't speak, he went on in a self-chastened mood: “I get carried away on this business. I—” He paused and then blurted out: “I wonder if you could spare me an hour some time.”

“Yes,” Roger said. He vacillated between saying there was no time like the present and the wisdom of taking his time; he decided not to rush it. “I'll be in touch soon. Meanwhile, this man Caldicott.”

“The simple answer is that he's a very shrewd judge and he's often been at showrooms and galleries, even private houses, a week or two before a robbery. But he always appears to be in the clear, doesn't seem to have anything at all to do with the actual job. What's your interest in him, may I ask?”

“He's down at Salisbury, and a Salisbury C.I.D. man recognised him.”

“That sounds in character,” Kempton answered. “That stuff at Leech's Gallery, I suppose.” So he kept his finger on the pulse in the provinces as well as London. “He goes everywhere – never know where he'll turn up next. If anything develops will you let me know, sir?”

“Yes,” Roger answered, and rang off.

He pushed his chair back and pondered. Clearly, Kempton was a zealot, and the Yard couldn't do without some. He, Roger, hadn't worked with him a great deal and their last meeting had been a brief one in the canteen. And he, Roger, hadn't realised that Kempton had been concentrating on art thefts. It was surprising how departmentalised one could get, so to speak – be aware of one's own and any major job but be virtually oblivious of what was going on in the rest of the C.I.D. He put in a call to Salisbury and ran through the rest of the papers on his desk. They nearly all covered jobs which were at trial stage. Perhaps Coppell wanted to see him about an assignment: there was nothing he would like more.

His bell rang.

“You've been very quick, Mr. West,” Batten said.

“I found the man who could give me the information we needed off the cuff,” said Roger. “Caldicott has never been in jail but he's known to be very knowledgeable and at least one of our chaps is suspicious of him.”

“
That's
a relief,” Batten said. “I'd persuaded my C.I. to detail an officer to watch him, and this fully justifies it.”

“Good,” Roger said. “Will you let us know what happens?”

“I certainly will, Mr. West. We've had so many art thefts in this area lately, including the one at Longford Castle, I don't want anyone to slip through my fingers. Goodbye, sir, and thank you again.”

Roger, replacing the receiver, wondered whether there could be more to Batten's calls than he had admitted: that last remark seemed to have widened the issues a great deal. Roger tucked this fact into the back of his mind, then picked up the newspapers. There was little or nothing of interest: Great Scott, he was actually waiting for ten o'clock! At least he could go and eat in the canteen; toast and coffee didn't satisfy him for long. What he needed, he decided, was to plan a few days ahead carefully. A morning with Fingerprints, for instance; another with Records; one with Photography and another with Ballistics. In other words, take some refresher courses. It was easy to allow developments in detective sciences and medical jurisprudence to get past one. The danger was that he should take his knowledge of the different departments for granted.

Should he make out a schedule? If he did he must use it casually, the “just dropping in” technique. He moved from his office to another, reached by a communicating door. The room was shared by two detective sergeants and two detective officers who worked for him and the superintendent, whose office was directly opposite his.

“I'll be in the canteen, Venables,” he said to the very tall, youthful-looking but ungainly man nearest him.

“Very good, sir. You won't forget the commander, will you?”

“No,” Roger promised.

“Thank you, sir.”

He was formal, everyone was formal, but then they always were. Why was it getting on his nerves this morning? It wasn't simply because of Coppell; he had felt restless from the time he had got up. The number of “good morning, sirs” seemed ludicrous as he walked along to the lift. When it arrived, there were five men and a youngish woman in it, all of subordinate rank. The “good morning, sir” was like a celestial chorus. Roger went into the canteen, headed for the nearly empty cafeteria and took some bacon, eggs, and a sausage on his plate, and carried it, with coffee, to an empty table. Across the room was Coppell, with one of the other commanders, and as Roger glanced over, a tall, attractive-looking woman, the commander of the Women's Branch, joined the two senior men.

Was it his imagination? Or were they nodding and looking towards him?

It was five minutes to ten when Roger left, without having said a word to anybody; this was his morning for communing with himself. Coppell had gone, the other commanders were still there. At ten o'clock on the stroke he tapped at Coppell's door. A man, replacement for a once-sour-faced and hostile woman secretary, called “Come in” as he got to his feet.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning.”

“The commander said would you go straight in.”

Roger tapped gladly on a communicating door and went inside.

Coppell was a big, very thick-set man: ox-like at the shoulders and heavy, bovine of feature. They had never been particularly friendly, and in fact had been hostile on occasions, but they had come to respect each other. Nevertheless, Roger was seldom wholly at ease with the man, who usually gave the impression that he had something disagreeable to say even if he didn't say it.

“Good morning, sir,” Roger said; and was sharply conscious that Coppell must have heard this a dozen times already.