Soon, she went off. Soon after, Gideon finished his talk with Charles Henry, without making any reference to the way the investigation had been conducted so far. He was driven away, a little after three o’clock, and passed Lords in bright sunlight.
“I’ll bet the match will be rained off,” he grumbled, then grinned: he reminded himself of Lemaitre.
“I tell you,” said Kenneth Noble, one of the inner council of the Action Committee: “I don’t trust Juanita. I’ve seen her talking to the same copper, twice.”
“If you feel like that, we’d better have her watched,” replied Roy Roche, the chairman and chief ideas man of the Committee. “If she is a two-faced bitch, the quicker we find out the better.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Now this is the last day of the course,” said Aunty Martha, happily. “And I don’t think I’ve ever had a better class. I really don’t!” ‘She beamed her approval at four boys and three girls, who smiled back in whole-hearted agreement, obviously aware that they were good. “I just want you to answer me a few questions, and then we’ll go and have some dinner-I always like to celebrate, when I’m sending new bunch of young people out into the world! When I’ve asked you the questions, you can ask me anything you like. No cheek, mind you!”
They all laughed, delightedly.
The room was small but very cool, in spite of the heat outside, for there were wide open windows and a cross wind. It was two days after Gideon had called for a survey of petty crimes such as shop-lifting and bag-snatching, and the weather was still very warm but not so humid. People were beginning to talk of the long, fine summers of their youth; the older folk of the fabulous one of 1921, when First World War cannons had been fired into the sky to try to make clouds.
“Now, let’s begin,” Martha almost cooed. “First, I want that look of injured innocence — the ‘surely you don’t think I would do such a thing, officer’!”
Immediately, the smiles faded, and each face seemed to change. Any stranger, seeing it, would have found the abrupt transition so astonishing that after a first startled silence, he could only have burst into laughter.
It was as if a mask dropped in a flash over each face. Eyes widened and rounded, one pair of lips parted as if in horror, one girl frowned, one boy looked both frightened and indignant at the same time. Martha got up from her desk and moved among them, touched eyes and cheeks and parted lips, chins and hair and even noses.
“That’s very good, Kitty.” She fingered an almost piteous mouth. “Just a little less like an idiot, dear-don’t open your mouth quite so wide! There, that’s better.., George my boy, don’t look as if the nasty policeman is going to drag you off by the ears and put you in prison. He won’t-not if you’ve learned everything Aunty has told you . . . Dulcie, that’s just right-butter wouldn’t melt in your pretty little mouth, would it? . . . Leonard, the only thing you have to remember is not to be cheeky when you open your mouth. You look like an angel . . .”
She frowned at a girl. “Bertha, love, your face is all right but you really should do something about your bra! If you stick out like that, there isn’t a man who’ll be able to take his eyes off you — you’d never be able to pinch a thing. Be flat when you’re working, dear, at least! What’s that . . . When you’re not working, love, you can stick out like a pair of Mount Everests for all I care! . . . Cyril, don’t look so happy . . . Yes you do, pet, your eyes do. We’ll have another try in a minute . . . Well, now for questions. All ready?”
There was a loud chorus of ‘yes’.
“Then the first question is, how many of you work together?”
“Three!” came a chorus.
“Why three, lovies?”
“Because two of us can be on the job and the other can take whatever we’ve got.”
“That’s right, dear. What else can Number Three do, pets?”
There was another chorus.
“Keep an eye out for the cops.”
“That’s it, exactly!” enthused Aunty Martha. “Now, what happens if you spot a cop?”
“Get to hell out of it.”
“That’s right, George-get to hell out of it! You never take a chance with the forces of law and order, see? It doesn’t matter how rich the pickings, you run. You can’t get many pickings in—”
“Jail!” one cried.
“Prison,” called a girl.
“The lock-up,” said a third.
“The hoosegow,” squeaked a boy.
They were all laughing happily; they continued to laugh, and even Martha Triggett kept bursting out with hearty laughter, but at long last she sobered.
“Now there’s another thing. We’ll have a car in two different car parks, and you’ll each have a key to the boots-both boots. When you want to get rid of some of your ill-gotten gains, go and dump them in one car or the other. You needn’t worry after that, I’ll see the cars are driven away when the time comes.
She paused giving them time to absorb all this.
“That’s for next week, not tomorrow,” she went on at last. “Tomorrow’s Monday — you can get a lot of practice in. Just mix among the shoppers in the High Street, and in the market-but keep out of the stores and supermarkets: they’ve got electronic eyes. You know you must get rid of the stuff quick, don’t you? . . . Could be a car boot, or a shop, or a van, wherever you’re told. The important thing is to be quick, every time. And if you think you’re being watched, scram! I’ll clear the stuff-you don’t have to worry about that. First share out, next Sunday. You’ll get equal shares, everyone shares and shares alike in Aunty Martha’s co-operative!”
Roaring with laughter, she looked very attractive with her bright gold hair and bright make-up, her well-
