The Missing Angel by Erle Cox (english books to improve english txt) 📖
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constable, who imagined until that moment that he had nothing more to
learn in graphic malediction.
But duty is duty. “I’ll book you for that—Colonel or no Colonel,” he
declared grabbing his pen. Then, over his shoulder to his subordinate,
“Answer that phone.”
Inspector Kane was feeling at the moment that his cup was too full to
hold another drop of anguish. But the announcement that the Commissioner
was enquiring if Basil Williams had been caught made him feel that he had
been inflicted with an unfair share of tribulation. As he took the
receiver, the argument between officials and captives broke out with
renewed strength.
Three times did he try to make the irascible voice from wires understand
that four men, identical with Williams, had been brought in. Then, while
he was spelling the word f-o-u-r to an uncomprehending chief, he suddenly
looked towards the door and gasped, “No. I mean seven.” The voice
enquired with freezing sarcasm if he were quite sure he had not
overlooked a few more Basil Williamses. It went on to assure Inspector
Kane that only one Basil Williams was required—the right one. He
appreciated the zeal that had collected seven, but—it went on—doubted
if either the bench or the press would be so favourably impressed by the
industry of the police. The voice would accept it as a kindness if
Inspector Kane would report in due course if Basil Williams should be
arrested, an achievement which seemed at the moment highly improbable.
Gently, replacing the receiver, Kane looked at it with a malevolence it
did not deserve. Softly he repeated what he could remember of Sir Cyril
Oliver’s final outburst, then, feeling a little relieved, he turned on
the riot that raged across the counter. “Silence!” His voice crashed in
on the uproar to which three newcomers were adding their quota.
“Take those men into the inner corridor and shut the door,” he ordered.
“You wait, O’Connor!” he added.
Seven protesting captives and six constables filed out of the charge room
into the gloomy, bare corridor that led to the cells.
Kane watched them until the door closed. Then, hands deep in his trouser
pockets, he paced to and fro with his head bent in thought. Neither the
senior constable in charge nor his colleague cared to break into that
reverie. The silence was broken by another shuffle of steps from the
outer world. Kane paced on unheeding. Then a bright voice broke into his
thoughts. “The beer’s mine, Senior! I’ve got him! I’ve got him!” From the
pitying eyes of the two men behind the counter that juicy young constable
met the basilisk glare from the pale countenance of Inspector Kane.
“Beer—beer—” the voice grated at him, “you’ll get—beer!” There was a
pause between each word as though it were wrenched out. Then, “Take that
man into the corridor,”—the trembling finger pointed—“and stay there
with him.”
He stood while the staggered constable removed his obnoxious presence and
more obnoxious charge. Then he turned to O’Connor.
“O’Connor,”—the Inspector had himself under control—“you saw Williams
on the night of the first riot. You arrested him the time he escaped from
custody. You saw him the other night when he escaped arrest. Is that not
so?”
“Yes, sir!” replied O’Connor.
“Do you honestly think you could pick him out of that gang of humming
birds?” Through the closed door the murmur of voices indicated that the
captives were still protesting.
“I thought, sir,” answered the stolid and bewildered O’Connor, “that I
could swear to him anywhere, but now…” He paused.
“I understand.” Kane nodded with pursed lips. “What about you?” He turned
to the senior and his subordinates.
“No hope, sir,” said one. “Same here,” replied the other.
“If you ask me, sir,” O’Connor ventured, “that Williams bloke’s put
something across us.”
For once the sharp edge of adversity had taken the sting from Kane’s
temper. He looked at O’Connor thoughtfully. “I’m crazy enough to agree
with you, O’Connor, but…” He paused, and almost wailed. “Dammit
all, how could he? Eight of them…”
“Nine!” said the senior, who was looking down the corridor. “There’s
another coming.”
The four watched the entrance of a new candidate in silence; as a
plain-clothes man led him to the counter. Entirely disregarding the pride
of his captor and the wrath of the captive, the four officials examined
the man with eyes trained to miss nothing.
“The dead spit of him, sir!” O’Connor spoke, “and the dead spit of every
one of the others.”
Kane ordered the astonished couple to join the menagerie in the corridor.
“Do you men recognise what this means?” asked Kane as they disappeared.
“Williams had diddled us,” said the senior.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Kane agreed. “But how? It’s
preposterous!”
“Can’t make me believe it’s coincidence,” the senior growled. “Nice fools
we look.”
“And—look here, sir,” O’Connor broke in. “You can bet your life that
swine Williams knows it, and he’s one of them.”
“Hopeless!” muttered Kane. “There isn’t a magistrate in the world who
would convict.”
“It’s a put-up job, all right,” the senior muttered. “Prove it!” snorted
Kane. “I suppose you did not finger-print Williams.”
“Never do it until the morning, sir,” the senior replied.
“Then we’re scuppered!” Kane’s voice almost broke. “And see what a hole
we are in. We can never dare to try to arrest him again that is, unless
he commits another offence and we get him red-handed.”
The others nodded a bitter acknowledgment of the truth. “What’s to be
done, sir?” asked the senior.
“Nothing, it’s a washout! Lord send the press don’t get hold of the
story. Kane walked from behind the counter and followed by O’Connor,
passed into the inner corridor to be greeted by a storm of abuse and
demands for immediate release.
“Line those men up!” Kane ordered.
Nine Basil Williamses shuffled into line and faced him defiantly.
Kane and O’Connor walked slowly down the line in the hope of a possible
clue, but there was none.
He stood before them at last. “One of you,” he said, “I am convinced, is
Basil Williams. It is with profound regret that we cannot positively
identify him. To the other eight, I offer apologies for a mistaken
identity, which any honest (he emphasised the word) man will pardon. You
may all go, as there can be no further reason for detaining you. Though I
am convinced that some of you at least are associated with Basil
Williams. Go!” he hooted, as they paused as if to argue.
Kane watched them till they filed down the entrance corridor into
freedom. Then he addressed the waiting constables: “Don’t bring in
another Basil Williams unless you actually catch him committing an
offence. Warn all other men you see.” Then he, too, departed.
That evening, before midnight, three more samples of Basil Williams were
brought into the watchhouse. They were all rejected as though
plague-stricken by the charge officer—especially the one, Sir Cyril
Oliver, who was arrested for the second time that night. The senior
constable in charge suffered the orderly room dressing down he received
from the Colonel in a seething silence.
One Basil Williams spent what was left of the night at the Casino Club,
enjoying the society of a lively and openly adoring partner whom he
addressed as Elsie.
As Basil Williams said much later that night, in his bedroom, to Nicholas
Senior, he had been given “the freedom of the city.” He went on to relate
that during the evening O’Connor had returned to the Casino and had
glared balefully at Basil Williams, but without attempting to hinder his
movements. “I think,” Tydvil observed, “O’Connor would have given a
month’s pay to bite me. He looked like it, anyway.”
For a few weeks Tydvil’s days and nights passed in uneventful happiness.
August had passed into late September. Although he by no means neglected
his empire in C. B. & D., there were afternoons during which he did not
appear at the office. The widening circle of friends made by Basil
Williams were making some demands on the daylight hours as well as those
of darkness. He was aware, but made no sign of his awareness, that Basil
Williams was under close observation by unobtrusive men. In police
quarters he was a subject of occasional heated argument, because, on
comparing notes, different officers claimed to have watched him in
diverse activities in diverse places. Inspector Kane himself had read a
detailed report on a merry picnic Basil Williams had adorned one Saturday
at Beaumauris. At the time the picnic was in progress he had been
introduced to Sir Cyril Oliver by their mutual friend Archie Stone on the
Moonee Ponds racecourse. Sir Cyril had been in a genial mood and freely
forgave Kane for the inconvenience of his arrest.
Kane had also unprofitable consultations with Senior Constable O’Connor
on the subject of the place of abode of Basil Williams. Every attempt
that had been made to trace him, or anyone resembling him, to his lair,
had been a dismal failure. Williams or his doubles seemed to have an
uncanny power of vanishing into thin air if he turned a corner or entered
a building. Unfortunately, also, no Basil had committed any act that
could be construed into a breach of the law.
“But, dash it all!” Kane spoke fretfully after the report of still
another failure, “he must live or sleep somewhere.”
O’Connor looked glum. “Martin swears he never lost sight of him for a
moment from the time he got into a train at Sandringham. He left the
station by the Elizabeth Street entrance, crossed Flinders Street and
walked slowly until he turned into Degraves Street. Martin was not one
hundred feet behind him, but when he reached Degraves Street the brute
had disappeared—not a sign of him.”
“Must have dodged into a shop. It’s not one hundred yards long, anyway!”
“Too late for that. They were all closed,” O’Connor assured him.
“But was there no one in the street?” demanded Kane. “‘Martin swears
that the only soul in it was that wowser chap, Tydvil Jones, walking
towards him.”
“Rot!” grunted Kane. “Martin’s a dashed idiot. Did he question Jones?”
O’Connor nodded. “Jones said he hadn’t seen anyone pass him.”
Kane stared at his subordinate. “Well, one of them was a liar,” was his
uncompromising retort. Then, sharply, “Didn’t you tell me Williams was
wearing Jones’s hat on the night of the first brawl?”
“Oh! Jones explained that. The hat was stolen from the dining room at the
Carlton,” O’Connor replied.
“Dashed queer,” Kane murmured thoughtfully, “that Jones was the only man
in the Centreway the night you let Williams bite you and get away.”
The senior constable reddened at the memory and the taunt. “Jones
wouldn’t say ‘Boo!’ to a goose. His missus allows him a bob a week pocket
money, and washes his face and hands before she puts him to bed every
night. Besides, there’s three inches difference in height and build.”
“What I mean is,” Kane waved an impatient hand, “that Jones might know
more than we think he does.” But he added, “Though what that
ginger-beer-swigging pipsqueak would be doing with Williams is more than
I know.” He glanced at a paper before him. “I see some Williams has
thrown three hot parties this week—and two on the same night at
different places.”
“That’s just it, sir,” O’Connor said glumly, “and neither of them may
have been Williams.”
Kane waved him from the room with a gesture of mingled despair and
disgust. As O’Connor reached the
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