backwards—‘they say he’s crook to his back teeth! But he doesn’t rob the poor. He takes it in large slabs from the fat men.’
‘If that’s so, I’ve nothing to say. He’s on the side of law and order,’ said Elk gently. ‘A man who hands out police stations as Christmas presents can’t be wholly bad!’
By the time the train pulled into Plymouth station, Detective-Inspector Elk was perfectly satisfied that there was nothing further to be learnt from the man. He went to the post office and sent a telegram to Jim which was short and expressive.
‘Revolution stuff. Nothing important.’
He was on the same train that carried Mr Ingle to London, but he did not occupy the same compartment, except for half an hour after the train flashed through Bath, when he strolled into the carriage and sat down by the man’s side; and apparently he was welcome, for Ingle started talking.
‘Have you seen anything of my niece? Docs she know about the burglary? I think you told me, but I was so angry that I can’t remember.’ And, when Elk had given him the fullest particulars: ‘Harlow! Why did he come? He met Aileen at Dartmoor, you say?’ He frowned and suddenly slapped his knee. ‘I remember the fellow. He was sprawling in his car by the side of the road when we came back from the field that day. So that was Harlow! Does he know Aileen?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘They met at Dartmoor; that’s all I know.’ Ingle gave one of his characteristic shrugs.
‘I suppose he’s running after her? She’s a pretty sort of girl. With that type of man, money’s no object. She’s old enough to look after herself without my assistance.’ So this Utopian left Aileen Rivers to her fate.
CHAPTER 7
HE HAD wired from Plymouth asking her to call at the flat that night, and she arrived just as he had finished a dinner he had cooked for himself.
‘Yes, I’ve heard about the burglary,’ he said, cutting short her question. ‘They’ve got nothing that was worth a shilling to them, thank God! Why did you call in the police?’
And then he had a shock.
‘Who else should I have called in—a doctor?’ she asked.
It was the first time he had met her in a period of freedom. She had had her instructions to look after the flat, smuggled out of prison by a discharged convict; and their talks during the brief visiting hours had been mainly on business.
‘What does one usually do when a burglary is discovered?’ she asked. ‘I sent for the police—of course I sent!’
He stared at her fiercely, but she did not flinch. It was his eyes which dropped first.
‘I suppose it’s all right,’ he said, and then: ‘You know Harlow, don’t you?’
‘I met him at Dartmoor, yes.’
‘A friend of yours?’
‘No more than you are,’ she said; and he had his second shock. ‘I’m not going to quarrel with you, and I don’t see why you should want to be rude to me,’ he snapped. ‘You’ve been useful, but I’ve not been ungenerous. Harlow is a friend of yours—’
‘He called here on the night of the burglary to offer me a job,’ she replied, without any visible evidence other rising anger. ‘I met him at Princetown and he seemed to think that because of my relationship with you, I should find it rather difficult to get employment.’
He muttered something under his breath which she did not catch and it occurred to her that she had cowed this bullying little man, though she had had no such intention.
‘I shall not want you any more.’ He took out his pocket-book, opened it and extracted a banknote. ‘This is in the nature of a bonus,’ he said. ‘I do not intend continuing your allowance.’
He expected her to refuse the money and he was not wrong.
‘Is that all?’ she asked. She did not attempt to take the note.
‘That is all.’
With a nod she turned and walked to the door. ‘The charwoman is coming tonight to clean up,’ she said. ‘You had better make arrangements for her to stay on—but I suppose you’ve already made your plans.’
Before he could reply, she was gone. He heard the street door slam after her, took up the money and put it back in his case; and he was without regret for, if the truth be told, Mr Arthur Ingle, despite the largeness of his political views, was exceedingly mean.
There was a great deal for him to do: old boxes to open and sort, papers and memoranda to retrieve from strange hiding-places. The seat of the big settee on which Aileen had sat so often waiting for the cleaner to finish her work, opened like a lid and here he had documents and, in a steel box, books that might not have come to light even if the police had been aware of the flat at the time of his arrest, an had made their usual search.
Ingle was a man of wide political activities. No party man in the sense that he found a party to match his own views; rather, he was one of those violent and compelling thinkers who are unconsciously the nucleus of a movement. His grudge against the world was a sincere one. He saw injustice in the simplest consequences of cause and effect. His opinions had not made him a thief; they had merely justified him in his disregard for the law and his obligation to society.
Imprisonment had made him neither better nor worse, had merely confirmed him in certain theories. Inconsistently, he loathed his prison associates, men who had been unsupported by his high motives in their felonies. The company of them was contamination. He hated the chaplain; and only one inmate of that terrible place touched what in him still remained tender. That was the old, blind horse who had his stable in the prison, and whose sight seemed to have been destroyed by Providence that he might not witness the degradation of the superior mammals that tramped the exercise ring, or went trudging and shuffling up the hill and through the gates.
He was the one man in the prison who was thankful when the cell door closed on him and the key turned in the lock.
The foulness of these old lags, their talk, their boasts, the horrible things that may not be written about…he could not think back without feeling physically sick. In truth he would not have stretched out his hand if, by so doing, he could have opened those cell doors and released to the world the social sweepings whom it was his professed mission to salve.
His work finished, he lit a cigarette, fitted it carefully into an amber holder and, adjusting the cushions, lay down on the settee and smoked and thought till the telephone bell roused him and he got up.
The voice that spoke to him was quite unfamiliar. ‘Is that Mr Ingle?’
‘Yes,’ he said shortly.
‘Will you make a sacrifice of your principles?’ was the astonishing request, and the man smiled sourly.
‘What I have left, yes. What do you wish?’
It might be an old friend in need of money, in which case the conversation would be short. For Arthur Ingle had no foolish ideas about charity.
‘Could you meet me tonight on the sidewalk immediately opposite Horse Guards Parade?’
‘In the park, you mean?’ asked Ingle, astonished. ‘Who are you? I’ll tell you before you go any further that I’m not inclined to go out of my way to meet strangers. I’m a pretty tired man tonight.’
‘My name is—’ a pause—‘Harlow.’
Involuntarily, Ingle uttered an exclamation.
‘Stratford Harlow?’ he asked incredulously.
‘Yes, Stratford Harlow.’
There was a long pause before Arthur Ingle spoke. ‘It’s rather an extraordinary request, but I realise that it isn’t an idle one. How do I know you’re Harlow?’
‘Call me up in ten minutes at my house and ask for me,’ said the voice. ‘Will you come?’
Again Mr Ingle hesitated. ‘Yes, I’ll come,’ he said. ‘At what time?’
‘At ten o’clock exactly. I won’t keep you hanging about this cold night. You can get into my car and we’ll drive somewhere.’
Ingle hung up the telephone a little bewildered. He was a cautious man and after ten minutes had expired he put through the number he discovered in the phone directory, and the same voice answered him. ‘Are you satisfied?’
