Crime at Christmas (4 page)

W
ITH
Christmas only
three days away, men and women throughout London were celebrating the season
of joy and goodwill by elbowing and pushing each other ferociously through
every shop and department store.

And at Omniums, the giant store in Oxford Street, it was worse than
anywhere.

Outside, past lanes of lighted windows, festive snowflakes sifted from a
darkening sky. A loudspeaker van blared 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing' to crowds
struggling in slush.

Inside, frantic shoppers assailed the gift counters, and assaulted each
other in the process.

Their noise was a shuffle and roar. Their aroma was a steam of wet
overcoats.

And at the entrance to Toyland on the fifth floor stood a pretty,
fair-haired girl. Her loving glance at the tall, handsome man beside her was
clouded with annoyance. The little boy, clutching his hand, jumped up and down
in a desperate attempt to break his far-away look of intense preoccupation.

The girl said: 'For heaven's sake, Bob, what is the matter with you?'

Detective Superintendent Robert Pollard for a moment did not reply.
Officially off duty, he was still thinking hard about the case he had left for
others to solve at New Scotland Yard—so that he could take his fiancée, Elsa
Rawson, shopping at Omniums, and her six-year-old nephew, Tommy, to the
toyfair.

'Bob,' said the girl again, in exasperation, 'do look as though you're
enjoying yourself.'

'I've just thought,' said Bob, returning once again to the shopping
battle. 'When I left the office, I didn't ring the Duty Room to say where I was
going.'

'And that's all?' asked the astonished Elsa. 'That's all you're worried
about?'

'Elsa, everybody has to phone the Duty Room when he leaves Scotland Yard.
. .'

Young Tommy, saucer-eyed, leaped high in the air.

'Scotland Yard!' he cried in ecstasy. 'Scotland Yard . . .Yeepee!'

'Tommy, please do be quiet, said Elsa, 'or Uncle Bob won't take you to see
Father Christmas.' Tommy writhed. Privately, he thought this Father Christmas
business all a gag. But you couldn't be sure, and it was too close to Christmas
to take any risks.

'Anyway, Bob, is it all that important?' she asked, searching his face
closely for an endearing look.

From the moment they left for their shopping expedition, Elsa's suspicion
grew—Bob did not have his mind on her. She wondered if perhaps Tommy's presence
had annoyed him. Was he really more concerned about his precious crime work
than pleasing her?

She couldn't restrain a petulant note when she asked:

'And how are all the little coppers at Scotland Yard? Are they having a
happy Christmas?'

To Det. Supt. Pollard this was the last straw. He raised his powerful
voice above a din which included the whiz of toy trains and a radio loudly
blaring 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'.

'If anybody at the Yard started singing about herald angels,' Pollard
said. 'I hate to think what would happen to him. Anyway, they've got something
else to think about right now, Elsa. It's a really big case. And we're all in a
flap about it.'

'Is it a murder, Uncle Bob?' screamed Tommy.

'No, old chap, it's not a murder. And yet, in way, it's worse.'

'Crumbs,' said Tommy, and jumped so high that he seemed to be levitated
from Pollard's hand.

'Bob, stop it!' snapped Elsa. 'You mustn't tease the child.'

'I am not teasing. This case isn't a teasing matter. It's not every day
that we hear about two people, at exactly the same moment, but in completely
different parts of London, both disappearing like soap-bubbles before the eyes
of police witnesses.'

'Tommy, don't listen! He's joking!'

'Elsa, I'm not. A crook known as "The Colonel", and another crook
known as "Shorty", both vanished off the face of the earth. Twenty
thousand pounds' worth of uncut diamonds went with them. The point is
how did they vanish?'

'Tommy, don't believe a word of this,' cried Elsa, gripping Tommy's other
hand so that he was tugged between them. 'Uncle Bob never talks about police
work. I can't make him talk about it!'

In fact, having just reached the howling centre of Toyland, Bob couldn't
make himself heard.

Tommy was yanked away between his captors to a place of comparative quiet.
There, behind his counter, the conjuror was exhibiting a large skull which
first made whistling noises and then talked like Marshal Wyatt Earp.

Elsa was shivering with excitement.

'Why do they call him The Colonel?'

'Because he looks like a colonel in a comic paper. Middle-aged; military
bearing; usually wears an eyeglass. Even when he doesn't wear an eyeglass, he
has a gesture he can't help making. He keeps dragging down the side of his left
eye. Like this!'

'Darling, for heaven's sake, don't leer. You look horrible.'

'Well, so does The Colonel. But you can spot that gesture a mile away, and
you can spot him. As a rule, he's a confidence man.'

'A confidence man? You mean he swindled somebody out of £20,000 worth of
uncut diamonds?'

'No!' Pollard snapped. 'It's worse. For the first time in his life, the
fool used violence.'

'Did he murder somebody?' shouted Elsa. 'Cut some poor man's throat?'

Tommy, who had been trying vainly to scream gave it up and writhed in an
agony of fascination. But Pollard only shook his head.

'Elsa, don't be so infernally bloodthirsty! No'.

'Then what was it?'

'In Sykes Street, a little turning off Upper Regent Street, there's a
diamond-merchant named Van Bele. For years, Van Bele's been carrying regularly
a fortune in uncut stones in a little wash-leather bag in his pocket. Up to now
he's got away with it; nobody's bothered him.'

'And now?'

'On Tuesday, about 10.15 a.m., Van Bele had a phone-call asking him to
visit some clients. It was a fake call; The Colonel sent it. Van Bele walked
downstairs from his office. The Colonel, in his best Savile Row suit and
overcoat, was waiting in the entry. He just walloped Van Bele on the jaw,
knocked him out, took the little leather bag, and ran for it.'

Elsa spluttered.

'But—my dear Bob! Wouldn't they have caught him straight away?'

'No. With all this Christmas rush, he could have got clean away. But he
had bad luck. Two constables were coming along Sykes Street opposite the Regent
Street end. They saw our friend grab the bag and run.

'The Colonel jumped aboard a bus crossing Oxford Circus and went along
Oxford Street. One of the constables followed; the other phoned the Yard.

'Within a few minutes they had the whole area covered in a net. In just
two minutes, one of the Sweeneys—sorry, I mean a Flying Squad car—pulled up
beside the bus in Oxford Street. The Colonel was standing on the platform.

'He jumped down, and dodged across the street. Two of our men followed,
keeping him in sight. The Colonel, believe it or not, ran into Omnium's. Our
men still had him in sight when he ducked into a telephone box in the basement.
And that's all.'

'All? What do you mean?'

'The Colonel just vanished.'

'In the telephone box?'

'Apparently, yes.'

'But he can't have done!'

I know it's impossible. But it happened.'

Behind them, at the magician's counter, the talking skull left off
gibbering and now loudly sang 'Silent Night' in competition to the radio's
version of 'Silent Night'. But Elsa, Tommy, and Pollard himself had forgotten
the pandemonium of Toyland.

'Remember,' Pollard insisted, 'that these diamonds were uncut. That's to
say: they were only greyish lumps, like pebbles, and of no use to The Colonel
until they were cut and polished.

'What's the first thing he would do? He'd get in touch with his diamond-cutter,
of course. Naturally, Criminal Records knew who it was.'

'And this diamond-cutter was the other man you mentioned. . .Shorty?'

'Yes. Except that Shorty is a woman.'

'A woman?' said Elsa, yanking Tommy forward.

'Yes; why not?' retorted Pollard, yanking Tommy back. 'She's The
Colonel's girlfriend. They live not far apart.

'After the first phone-call to the Yard, the division had orders to put a
tail on Shorty. Not to arrest her—'

'Why ever not?'

'Dammit, Elsa, Shorty hadn't done anything—yet.

'But where was The Colonel meeting her to give her the diamonds? And how
was he going to give her the diamonds? And when? That's what they had to know.'

'So. . .?'

'Two policewomen, in plain clothes, picked up Shorty outside her lodgings.
Shorty was carrying a large parcel. She knew she was being followed. You'll
have guessed she and The Colonel planned this before-hand, in case they were
followed.

Shorty's quite an attractive trick, by the way: brunette, smooth skin, in
her early twenties. She walked faster. So did the policewomen. Shorty hurried
into Ilkley's—that big women's dress shop not far from here. So did the
policewomen. And in the shop, Shorty dodged into a telephone box. . .'

Here Pollard had to stop.

'You're not going to tell me,' said Elsa, who still thought that her
beloved was spinning a fairy story, 'that
she
disappeared out of a 'phone box?'

'Apparently, yes. Parcel and all.'

Elsa's pretty face coloured pink with anger. She turned away abruptly.

'I don't believe it,' she said, violently jerking Tommy's left arm. 'It's
silly! Look at the crowd here now. Just look!'

'Very well,' said Pollard, jerking Tommy's right arm. 'I'm looking. What
about it?'

'Crowds and crowds and crowds,' said Elsa, 'all moving. Could you be
certain somebody's disappeared out of a 'phone box, even if you were only ten
feet away?'

'You could be pretty certain that two different people couldn't vanish
out of two different shops under the conditions the police established. As soon
as The Colonel entered Omnium's, and Shorty entered Ilkley's, both places were
surrounded. Every possible entrance or exit was guarded. Every nook and cranny
was searched. Every customer was stopped and questioned . . .'

'Wait! What about all the sales staff?'

'They were the first to be questioned. Both Omnium's and Ilkley's open at
nine o'clock. The managers could tell from their time-sheets that every person
was at his or her proper place. No employee could have been larking about with
a pocket full of diamonds, or could have changed places afterwards with
somebody who had. Face it, my dear! Shorty and The Colonel didn't leave the
shops. And yet they weren't in the buildings either. They'd simply vanished.'

Elsa marched forward, dragging the others like a string of sausages.

'Come along, Tommy,' she said in exasperation.

'It's not very nice of Uncle Bob to enrage you like this. He's
insufferable, and I'll never speak to him again.'

'Now wait a bit, Elsa!'

'This way, Tommy; mind where you're going. We'll take you to see Father
Christmas.'

They had pushed through to a long grotto, a kind of mysterious and softly
lighted cavern, where even in Toyland voices were hushed.

Here children walked slowly.

At the grotto pay box, over which large red letters said that Father
Christmas would be in attendance from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Pollard bought three
tickets.

The grotto was murmurous with 'Oh's!' and 'Ah's!' Brightly painted in
cardboard or plaster, figures and backgrounds showed fairy stories. They were
well along in the cavern when Pollard stopped. His mouth fell open. He stood
rigid, staring straight ahead.