print,” he announced. “And then — look at this!”
Gideon waited, with a kind of choking excitement; Hobbs, too, was more visibly tensed-up than he had ever seen him.
With exasperating precision, King-Hadden took the other documents from under his arm and placed them carefully on Gideon’s desk so that both he and Hobbs could see them. This was a copy of the Records file on Charlie Blake, with Charlie’s dead face,.photographed, stuck to one corner. Pinned to this, was the photograph of a fingerprint.
“See that?” King-Hadden cried in triumph. “That’s the print we got off Blake’s neck-the thumb-print of his murderer. And that —” he pointed to the one on John Spratt’s envelope —”is identical! Same print; same person. The man who handled that envelope with the money in it was Blake’s killer. Find that man, George, and you’re home and dry!”
After a long moment, Gideon said into a hushed silence: “Where is Jacobus, Alec?”
“Over at Cannon Row,” Hobbs told him.
“Bring him here,” ordered Gideon. “Bring him here at once.” He looked at King-Hadden’s big, pale face with a grimly approving smile. “Good job you were so quick off the mark, Nick! Our man might have taken fright and—”
He glanced sharply at Hobbs. “He hasn’t, I hope?”
“We’re watching all the Spratt brothers,” Hobbs assured him. “They’re not going to get away. I’ll go over for Jacobus myself, George,” he added. “Would you like to see Bligh while I’m gone?”
After a pause, Gideon said: “Yes. Yes, I will.” He clapped a hand on King-Hadden’s shoulder as he went out, still very pleased with the way things were going. “Thanks again, Nick. That’s a real shot in the arm.” Then he turned to the communicating door as Bligh came in briskly from Hobbs’ office.
Without speaking, Gideon motioned to a chair. He needed a few seconds to adjust himself, unwind a little; and it would do Bligh no harm to control any impatience. He went to the window, and looked out; and the brightness and the gaiety of the river, the familiar panorama of Bridge and Embankment, brought him a kind of peace. It was such a pleasant day, too -the thirteenth in a row without rain, in London, but with a slight breeze which made the river surface dance and gentled his forehead as he stood there.
Bligh had obeyed the tacit injunction to sit, but he sat like a statue, hardly seeming to breathe.
At last-what must have been to Bligh, at long last-Gideon returned to his desk and seated himself in his own vast chair. He was aware of Bligh’s scrutiny, and wondered what was going on behind the younger man’s eyes. Gruffly, he told him: “Recognising Jacobus could be very important indeed.”
“My luck, sir,” said Bligh, and did not add: “has turned.”
“Call it luck if you like,” Gideon grunted. “We’re not sure yet, but it might take us to Jackie Spratt’s bunch.”
Bligh’s eyes glinted. “That would really be something, sir!”
He did not ask ‘how?’. He was behaving in copy-book fashion and there was no doubt at all that he was exerting every effort to ensure that his behaviour was impeccable.
“It would indeed. Now-today’s Test Match with South Africa. What have you in mind?”
“Well, sir, I’ve had a long talk with Mr. Henry and another with Detective-Constable Conception. I asked questions, she wrote the answers. I’ve talked to five of the Action Committee, but they’re a stubborn lot: won’t say a thing. However, Miss Conception is convinced that the action will be today — she says she saw a lot of the tickets which were distributed, and they were all first day reservations. I’ve seen over forty, myself, that were in the prisoners’ possession — and they were all for today. It seems a safe bet that all the rest are.”
“A thousand altogether, weren’t there?” Gideon remarked.
“Yes, sir. And if there’s going to be a big demonstration like that, you can be sure they’ll wait until the crowd’s at its biggest.”
“After the tea interval,” Gideon murmured.
“That’s right, sir. The fans leave their offices and works early and get in around four or four-thirty for the last two hours’ play. So I would guess the trouble will start somewhere around half-past four. We ought to be ready an hour earlier, at least.”
“Yes. Are there any indications of what the demonstration will be like?”
After a pause, Bligh said slowly: “Only one, sir. The tickets were all in ones and twos. I mean, they weren’t in long sequences — weren’t all bunched together. Miss Conception says those she saw were dotted pretty widely about the ground. Mostly in the popular stands, sir — the unreserved seats: the ten shillings and seven-and-sixes. If that’s true of the whole thousand, then it looks as if it could be a general attack from a thousand different places.”
“Have you any indication of what kind of attack or demonstration?” Gideon asked him.
“Yes, sir.”
“What?”
“Fireworks and smoke-bombs — presumably mostly among the crowd, sir. Although there are certain to be some on the pitch.”
“Steady on! Why do you think this?”
“Because among the papers found at Kenneth Noble’s, sir, was a receipt from a manufacturer of pyrotechnics for squibs, crackers and smoke and stink-bombs. We haven’t found many, but there were some at the homes of each member of the Action Committee. I deduced that — “
“All right, I’ll buy that,” interrupted Gideon. “What do you propose to do?”
Bligh cleared his throat, nervous for the first time since he had come in. It was almost painful to see how
