“I’m really in a hurry,” Roger said. There’s a man outside.” He described the man in the raincoat. “Have him tailed, will you?”
Wirral said: “Right away,” lifted a telephone and gave instructions to someone named “George”. Then he said: “What?” and listened, grunted and rang off.
“The man has been hanging about for an hour or more, the sergeant downstairs noticed him. Seemed interested in this station and the Underground. What’s it all about, Handsome?”
Roger grinned. “Secret list, this time. Had anything on the go around here? Big enough to bring Bill Sloan and me to have a look round, and the raincoat to want to find out if there’s a big show on?”
“We’ve got a body,” Wirral said, looking more melancholy than ever; but his eyes held a smile. “Is that big enough? Cut throat.”
“Suicide?”
“Four inch gash, carotid severed, much more and it would have been decapitation. He was taken out of the river a couple of hours ago. When I saw your pretty face I thought you’d come about it.”
“Where’s the body?”
“It ought to be in the morgue by now.” Wirral used the telephone again and spoke to an echo that came from the receiver. “Where’s the stiff we took out of the Thames? . . . It is, good man.” He rang off. “Just arrived at the morgue. Like to have a look?”
“Yes, thanks. Get someone to talk about a body in the river — in the hearing of my man in the raincoat, will you?”
Wirral eyed him thoughtfully; warily.
“You look as if you want to cut someone’s throat yourself.” The telephone bell rang. “Superintendent Wirral . . . It’s Sloan,” he said to Roger. “Downstairs.”
“Ask him to wait.”
“He’s probably a better tailer than the man I’ve put on to your raincoat.”
“But he’s known to the raincoat.”
Wirral shrugged. “We’ll be down, Bill,” he said into the mouthpiece, and rang off.
On the way to the front hall he asked about Janet and the boys; the West family were known to most London police. Roger answered mechanically, letting his thoughts run now that he had digested the facts. He had not been followed to Hammersmith; the man in the raincoat had been here, and knew him. Wirral’s George had better be good. If the man in the raincoat discovered that he was being followed, he would slip his man, and he would also know that he was suspect.
“How good is George?” Roger asked.
“As good as I’ve got.”
“I hope you train ‘em well.”
Drawing up with Sloan, Roger told him what had happened, and where they were going, and they walked together to the morgue, all big, tall men, all talking earnestly. The man in the raincoat was on the other side of the road, at a bus-stop; he had an evening newspaper folded in front of him, and seemed to be reading it Two men walked from the police station to the bus-stop, and stood waiting and talking; laughing. One of them pointed to Roger.
“He’s letting the raincoat hear that we asked for you,” Wirral said.
“Thanks,” said Roger briefly. “Sorry I’m making so much mystery. Is there a back way out of the morgue?”
“Yes.”
“That’s for us,” Roger said to Sloan. “I’ll go first, and — no I won’t. Wirral, call me anything you like, but do something else for me, will you? Have one of your boys go to — what’s the name of the garage, Bill?”
“Stebber’s.”
“I know Stebber’s,” Wirral said. “And what?”
“Find out if anyone has been watching the garage today.”
They had reached the doorway of the morgue.
“I’ll go and lay things on,” said Wirral. “Hang on until I get there, and I’ll give you the latest on the raincoat.”
He doubled back, and Roger and Sloan went into the small outer room at the morgue, then into the chill, bleak room itself. The stone slabs were empty, except for one in a corner on which lay a body partly covered by a sheet. Three men were working close by. One of the men, a police photographer, was taking his last picture before packing up his equipment. The second man was going through the dead man’s pockets, handing everything he found to the third, who made a pencilled note of it before laying it down. The searcher had a sodden wallet in his hand.
“One billfold,” he said. Looking up, he recognized Roger, and at once stopped being casual and looking careless. “Afternoon, sir!”
Roger smiled. “Hallo. Why billfold?”
“It’s American.” The man handed the wallet over. “Some dollars in it, too.” He watched Roger take it, pull some wet dollar bills out and look at the corners.
“Twenties,” Roger said, and counted. “Seven twenties, two or three tens — count it all, will you?”
Nothing in his voice reflected the surge of excitement he felt, and Sloan schooled himself to show no unusual
