Copyright & Information

Travelling Crimes

(Gideon’s Ride)

First published in 1963

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The right of John Creaseyto be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

This edition published in 2010 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

Typeset by House of Stratus.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

EAN	ISBN	Edition
0755117565	9780755117567	Print
075511874X	9780755118748	Pdf
0755125746	9780755125746	Kindle/Mobi
0755125754	9780755125753	Epub

This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

www.houseofstratus.com

About the Author

John Creasey – Master Storyteller - was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron.

Creasy wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the ‘C’ section in stores. They included:

Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.

Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the One Party Alliance which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.

He also founded the British Crime Writers’ Association, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing. The Mystery Writers of America bestowed upon him the Edgar Award for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate Grand Master Award. John Creasey’s stories are as compelling today as ever.

Acknowledgment

I would like to express my warm appreciation of the great help given me by the Press and Publications Officer, London Transport and the Superintendent, British Transport Police (London Transport) Division. They not only gave me information and advice before the book was written but read it through in manuscript and proof form, enabling me to avoid many pitfalls.

Death Stalks the Innocents

There was a tap at the front door. It was Symes. The expression in his dark eyes scared her.

“Love your kids?” he demanded suddenly. He took her wrist and began to twist. The pain streaked right up as far as her elbow. “Don’t say a word to the police if they ask you any questions. If you do – you won’t have any kids to love any more. Understand?”

She understood. She felt icy cold. No matter what she did, he was going to kill her children.

1: Bus From Kilburn

A true Londoner, one of his earliest recollections was of the thrill of clambering up the twisting, metalled stairs of the old open-type bus, and scampering along the gangway in the middle in the hope of getting a front seat, where he would have the wind cut against his eyes and face, and the whole of London stretched out in front of him. The whole of his London, that was.

Nowadays, whenever he looked at the jerky, almost comic newsreels showing the early motor buses, they seemed so top heavy it was a marvel that anyone had had the courage to mount them, let alone run up the stairs. He wondered what his mother, a heavy and rather cumbersome woman, must have felt when she had puffed and laboured up behind him and his brothers and sisters.

Bus rides, too, had been the joy of his own children, stretching over a period of twenty odd years. Now the last child had become so sophisticated that he regarded buses only as a necessary way of getting to a football or cricket match if the ground were too far away for comfortable cycling.

On a morning late in October, with a sharp nip in the air but bright sun over the rooftops promising a fine day, Gideon squatted on a corner of the kitchen table in his home in Hurlingham, the better residential part of Fulham, waiting for the kettle to boil before making the tea and taking it up to Kate, his wife. She was going through a tired patch, and for the past few days each member of the family had got his or her own breakfast, and Kate came down to an empty house, able to take things easy. In fact, she probably worked hard the rest of the day, but at least Gideon felt that he was doing all he reasonably could to help her. Only one boy, Malcolm, still needed much looking after. Matthew was up at Cambridge, Tom and Prudence married, the other two girls much interested in various young men.

Anything to do with crime interested Gideon, as it should interest the Commander of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Police. This little headline, tucked away in a corner, made him thoughtful, because there had been too many such robberies lately. A man travelling alone, on a 176 bus from Kilburn to Willesden late the night before had been set upon, beaten about the head, and robbed of all he had in his wallet – about thirty pounds. The conductress on the bus had known nothing about it until she had gone upstairs and found the injured man unconscious.

“Humph,” grunted Gideon, and stared out of the garden window at the dew which filmed the grass; it was already drying up in places near the house itself. Then the lid of the kettle began to dance, and he turned the gas down. The jet went too far down and went out.

Annoyed with himself, Gideon warmed the brown teapot, tossed in tea, lit the gas again, and made the tea only when the water was boiling furiously. Then he tucked the newspaper beneath his arm, and went upstairs. It was nearly nine o’clock, and only Kate was in. He had been at the Yard very late the night before, and it would not greatly matter if he did not reach his office until twelve o’clock.

He found Kate sitting up in bed, propped against the pillows, eyes laughing at him. She wore a short-sleeved, white nylon nightdress.

“Might as well kill a chap as frighten him to death,” Gideon said. “How long have you been awake?”

“Slept like a top.” Kate hitched herself up further on the pillows. “In a day or two you might even have a wife who gets your breakfast for you.”

“Never mind my breakfast, you get yourself right,” ordered Gideon. He poured out, and was halfway through a cup of tea when the telephone bell rang. “Here we go,” he said, half complainingly.

“Late-ish,” replied Gideon evasively, and crossed to the other side of the bed, where the extension telephone stood. He lifted the receiver. “Gideon.”

“What it is to be the boss,” said a man with a twangy, Cockney voice. “Go home early, come to work late. That’s my boy.”

The speaker was Superintendent Lemaitre, now Gideon’s second-in-command at the Yard, a kind of right arm. When he was being facetious, like this, he could be annoying, but Gideon had trained himself to think more of Lemaitre’s good points than his bad: his absolute loyalty, for instance.

“Didn’t see it there meself,” complained Lemaitre. “Well, he’s dead, George.”

“Died without recovering consciousness,” Lemaitre went on. “The conductress thinks two Teddy Boys did it. They must have given him a hell of a crack. I’ve been on to London Transport Police, and they’re all ready for us. Anyone in particular you want to send over?”

Gideon hesitated, his thoughts running over the Superintendents who were free to take on such an investigation. He had to make sure it was someone who could work smoothly with London Transport Police, someone who really knew London, not simply a section of the metropolis. Lemaitre kept quiet; he would know instinctively what was going through Gideon’s mind. Kate, sipping her tea, was watching.

“Turned in his final report last night,” answered Lemaitre. “He won’t love you for it, though. He’s put in for a week’s leave.”

“He’d better have a few days off,” conceded Gideon. “How about Hobbs?”

“Sure. I won’t run away,” said Lemaitre. “I dunno about Hobbs, though. He’s a bit highbrow, isn’t he? We want someone who knows his way about on buses.” Lemaitre really meant that he feared that Hobbs, a public school man who had made rapid progress at the Yard through sheer intelligence, might tread on the toes of London Transport police.

“He’ll do,” Gideon agreed at once, and wondered why he hadn’t thought of Parsons immediately. It was almost a habit to regard Parsons as a Soho and Central London man, and always a mistake. “That’s if he’s in.”

“He got in early,” said Lemaitre. “Not like some people.” It was easy to imagine his grin. “Want to brief him yourself?”

“Send him over to the Willesden depot, and ask him to make sure he gets back in time to talk with me this afternoon,” Gideon said. “Thanks, Lem. Anything else in?”

He replaced the receiver, and saw Kate had put a saucer over his cup. He took it off, poured in fresh tea to warm that in the cup, and sipped quickly.

“Man attacked on a bus. Died of his wounds,” he told Kate briefly. “There’s been too much trouble on buses lately.” He smiled. “Better get it cleared up, or you’ll be demanding a car.”

“A car wouldn’t be any good to me in London,” Kate said. “Give me the bus or the tube all the time. Must you hurry off?”

Nevertheless he lost no time grilling bacon and frying a couple of eggs while thinking about the dead man. All he knew, so far, was the name: Robert K. Dean. Lemaitre couldn’t know much about the victim, or he would have reported.

The inevitable questions rose in Gideon’s mind. How old was Dean, what kind of chap had he been, what family had he left behind, what grief and unhappiness would be caused by this? That was almost an association of ideas, and did not really concern him, although subconsciously he realized that it was his feeling for the victims of crimes which kept him on his toes so much. Being a London policeman was a vocation if one did the job well.

He did not take his car that morning, but walked to New King’s Road, caught a number 22 bus as far as Harwood Road, and changed to a number 11. A front seat on the upper deck was empty. He took it, looked at the busy, familiar road ahead of him – this part of London had changed less than most – and kept hearing people behind him get on and off the bus. The man Dean must have been sitting on a bus like this, must have heard someone clatter up stairs which were so much easier to negotiate than in the old days – and then felt a blow on the back of the head.

The police had been very kind and understanding, even when they had taken her to see Bob in that cold room with the hard light. Most of the newspapermen had been kind, too, although one man had kept trying to take photographs inside the house, when she had asked him not to. She had not done much about it. She had not felt that she could do much about anything. She had one heartfelt feeling of gratitude: that she had been here alone when the news had been broken.

Now, with everyone gone except a single neighbour, she faced the need to tell the children, and she could not guess how it could affect either of them. How did a boy and girl, aged seven, face the fact that they had been orphaned? They had been so happy. Bob and her and the twins.

Quite suddenly, pain seemed to explode inside her breast, and she jumped up, her hands clenched and raised above her head.

She glared across at her neighbour, Mrs. Millsom, a faded middle-aged woman from next door. Mrs. Millsom was clearing the living-room table of the breakfast things. The Deans’ was a small, terraced house in Willesden, not far from the depot; a house built on a site emptied by bombing. There were three bedrooms upstairs, this room, a kitchen and a small front room down here.

“I tell you it can’t have happened by my Bob! God wouldn’t be so cruel. It’s all a mistake, it’s a terrible mistake! / couldn’t have seen him.”

“I tell you it couldn’t have been Bob! I’ve got to go to that morgue place again. It couldn’t have been Bob. It must have been someone like him. I was so frightened. I didn’t know what I was saying. It couldn’t have been. . .”

She broke off, catching her breath. In that moment she realized the folly of the outburst, and the awful, inescapable fact – it had been Bob. She felt another spasm of pain in her breast, just above the heart, but did not realize its significance. Yet it was awful, it was awful. She clutched at her breast, and stared across at Mrs. Millsom, saw the alarm spring into the older woman’s eyes.

“It—it hurt – it hurts so much. It—it’s as if my heart’s going to break,” she gasped. “Oh God, the pain. Oh, the pain. Oh—”

She felt as if a knife had been thrust into her. There was another stab of excruciating pain, before everything died away except a shimmering brilliance in front of her eyes. That suddenly disappeared.

Unconscious, she fell heavily, banging her head on a chair before Mrs. Millsom could save her.

The neighbour said: “Oh, dear, what shall I do now?” She went down on her knees in front of the murdered man’s wife. Worldly wise in many ways, she was perturbed by the pallor and the touch of blue at her lips. She slipped Mrs. Dean’s blouse off her shoulders, hardly noticing the fine breasts, then undid the waistband of her skirt. Good gracious, she didn’t wear a belt, not even a suspender belt! She had on just a flimsy brassiere, one of these half-cup things or whatever they called them, and a pair of panties. That was everything beneath the blouse and the skirt. It was almost shameful.

Mrs. Millsom placed a calloused hand beneath the full left breast, and felt an unusual kind of irregular beating of the heart.

“Well, she isn’t dead, that’s one good thing.” She hoisted herself to her feet; she was a heavy woman, and movement had never been easy for her. “I must get a doctor. Mrs. Jones will ring for one, I’m sure. I hope he’s not gone out on his rounds yet. I hope—”

Breathing heavily, still scared, still shocked, she padded along the narrow passage to the front door, and opened it to see three men outside. One was a policeman. One, close to the doorstep, reminded her a little vaguely of the Circuit Minister of her Methodist Church, and the third was a tall, youthful man, who stood behind the others.

“I don’t know what you want, but Mrs. Dean can’t see you now, she’s been taken ill. She’s had a seizure, I think, or a stroke. I must get a doctor.”

The rather familiar-looking man answered: “Don’t worry, Mrs. Millsom, I’ll see that we have a doctor here at once. My name is Parsons, Superintendent Parsons of the Criminal Investigation Department.” He gripped her arm, firmly. “Sergeant – telephone for a doctor at once, and make sure that he gets here quickly.”

Mrs. Millsom noticed that he turned round and hurried back to the car, but did not know what he did after that. She did know that this policeman, Parsons he called himself, had a soothing effect. She was glad he was here.

2: The Thoughtful Criminal

AT the time when Parsons was looking into the worried face of the Deans’ neighbour, when the coroner was arranging the date and time of the inquest on the murdered man, and when Gideon was at a meeting with the Commanders of the other Departments of the Metropolitan Police, a man named Kenworthy was very thoughtful indeed.

He was sitting in a cafe in Aldgate, the gateway to the East End of London – or, if one preferred to think of it differently, to the City of London. He was just in sight of the old pump, which had been giving water to Londoners for centuries, and now and again he glanced out of the window at the big red buses as they passed by. It was a first-floor cafe, and with a stretch of the imagination, Kenworthy could reach out and touch the advertisements on the sides of the buses, or the windows where the passengers sat steamed up or smoked up, looking like troglodytes.

Kenworthy believed himself to be a thinker and organizer. In fact, he was used by many of the small-time crooks who ate at the cafe as a grapevine.

He was known to the police, for he had once served a sentence of three months’ imprisonment for picking pockets in Petticoat Lane, and later served a sentence of six months for shop-lifting, but as far as the authorities knew, he had been clean for several years.

His wife really ran this cafe, and another in the Mile End Road. This one was so busy at lunch-times that only a fool could have failed to make a profit. So the police had reason to believe that Kenworthy was living fairly well, largely because of his wife’s energy.

During his second period in jail, however, he had done a great deal of thinking. He had always been the ruminative type, not violent – although he had no objection to the use of violence – and not particularly original. During the second “curative” period of incarceration he had decided that he must think more about the jobs he did. There was no need to be caught, if one went about crime the right way. Since then, he had concentrated on receiving and passing on information, for a percentage. He had one or two cronies, whom he believed he organized.

He did have certain qualities and had learned a lot. He was aware, for instance, that all criminals had a kind of trade mark, and this distinguishing mark often told the police who had committed a crime. So Kenworthy changed the kinds of crime he organized, as well as the method of any crimes which he repeated. It had paid off. He was not particularly ambitious. He did not see himself as a master criminal. He was basically a lazy man, and had long believed that the clever man always got others to do the work.

He would just do the thinking. He was in his middle forties, rather tall, black-haired, pale-faced, somewhat Italian to look at – in fact, his mother had been from Naples – with fine eyes and clearly defined eyebrows.

A few months ago, two young thieves, who lived in the dockland area of London, had come to him in alarm. They had followed a merchant sailor, home from a long voyage, with his pockets stiff with money, caught him in a narrow street between a bus stop and Aldgate Station, where he had been heading, and attacked and robbed him. They had discovered that there was a lot of French and Dutch money among the English, and they had not known how to change it, while one of them was afraid that the sailor had recognized him.

Kenworthy had paid them half of the face value of the money, and let them work in the Mile End Road restaurant until the danger had blown over. He had never made money so easily, and the incident had started him thinking along different lines. The two youths had acted almost on impulse, but properly handled, they could pick up a lot more cash than they had from the injured sailor.

That was how Kenworthy had begun to realize the advantages of robbing individuals, usually on pay night when they were on their own. He used now ten men – the original pair and four other couples. No one pair knew of the others’ existence. It wasn’t exactly big business, but it brought Kenworthy in all he needed, and he was able to save a bit, too.

The man Dean had been on Kenworthy’s list to be robbed for some time, because he worked a lot of overtime, and took home a big pay packet.

The Evening News was propped up in front of Kenworthy, and one of the double column headlines ran:

He knew exactly what the story said: that during the morning, after her husband had died, Mrs. Dean had suffered a heart attack and was in the hospital. Her two children, boy and girl twins, aged seven, were staying with a neighbour, a Mrs. Millsom. The grandparents lived in Devon, and the grandmother was bedridden; there would be no help from them.

Kenworthy had no feeling for the woman or for the twins, but there was another paragraph in the story which did worry him:

The conductress of the bus was able to give the police a clear description of the two men who boarded the bus in Willesden Lane and alighted at North Street, a few minutes before the injured man was found.

“So she saw them,” Kenworthy muttered to himself. “Or the cops say she did!”

He lit a cigarette, drew smoke in deeply, and let it trickle out through his nose.

His wife appeared at the kitchen doorway, glanced across and called: “You going to stay there all day?”

“Only objection I’ve got is to you, you lazy great lout,” retorted Kenworthy’s wife. She moved across, rather big boned, fair-haired, smiling, wearing a grease-spotted nylon overall. “Want another cuppa, Jack?”

She filled a cup at a hissing, bubbling urn, then filled another, and brought them across to the table.

“I can’t imagine what you sit here and think about, I really can’t,” she said. “If you ask me, all you do is sit and think.”

“No one was asking you,” he retorted. “But I’ll let you into a secret.”

“There’s one way to get rich in this world,” declared his wife. “And that’s to work for it. One day you’ll find out, Jackie. Sooner than you expect, maybe.”

He stared at her. She had a very clear complexion, in spite of the heat and the steam of the kitchen where she spent so much time. Her nose was snub. Her full lips often parted in a smile – she was a good natured, happy woman.

“You can think that one out,” she said. “I’m not telling you. Anything in the paper?”

“Nothing much, ducks.” Kenworthy pushed it across to her. As she read it, he thought of that conductress. She had seen Arty Gill and Bert Symes, who had murdered the man named Dean.

He would have to think about it. He certainly mustn’t become involved in a murder charge. Arty and Bert were scared. They hadn’t admitted it; in fact they had boasted of the speed with which they had done the job, and the fact that it had only taken one smack on the head from each to silence Dean, but it stood to reason – they were scared.

They were tough, he knew, but thick in the head. Before long they would come to him again; they were sure to.

Kenworthy was so preoccupied with this situation that he did not give any further thought to his wife’s cryptic comment about having to work for a living sooner than he expected. She was fond of her little joke, Ivy was.

It did not occur to him to wonder what she would think if she knew that among the week’s takings had been the thirty pounds stolen from the murdered man. Mixed up with all the rest of the money he had banked, there wasn’t much chance that it would be identified. But he wouldn’t have been so quick to pass it through to the bank if he’d known about the murder.

At half past five that afternoon, there was a tap at Gideon’s office door. When he called “come in,” Parsons entered.

No man had ever been more aptly named. He looked so like a parson when dressed in clerical grey, that to be convincing he would only have had to turn his collar round. He was a little full in the cheeks, his lips were 90ft looking and also full. He would purse them a lot, and would often say: st-st-st-st rather as if he were saying tut-tut. He looked a little, but only a little, unctuous. His habit of pressing the rounded tips of his fingers together was in fact part of that act in which he had trained himself. By some quirk of fate, among his early cases had been several involving vice in the West End, and today Parsons was the Yard’s expert on the subject. He would talk about the most monstrous things, obscenities and indecencies, perversions and abuses, in his soft, persuasive voice, and hold an audience of hard-bitten, hard-headed policemen absolutely enthralled. It wasn’t until after he had finished that one realized just how beastly the story – the factual story – had been.

“Right,” said Gideon. He lifted a telephone, one of three on his desk, went on: “Messengers room,” and when a messenger came on, he ordered: “Go and get some tea, for two, and bring some ham or beef sandwiches.” He rang off. “Had a tough day, have you?”

“Haven’t relished it much,” admitted Parsons. He sat back in a green armchair which had seen a lot of use. It was in front of an empty fireplace, so that he faced Gideon. Lemaitre’s chair at the littered desk, just behind him, was empty. “The doctors think Mrs. Dean will come through, but it’s not certain yet. She always had a bit of a weak ticker.”

“They’re all right for the time being. Staying next door. I gather they think it’s play-acting.” Parsons smoothed down thinning, greying hair, and kept his hands tight on the back of his head, pulling the hair back straight, and making his forehead seem very broad and shiny. “I’ve checked all ways I can, George. There was nothing to it but robbery with violence.”

“The chap gets paid on Wednesdays,” said Parsons. “Worked for a small firm of electricians. He’s been on a rush job, working overtime and week-ends for the past month. That’s how he came to have so much in his pocket – a week’s wages plus some travelling money. Poor devil.”

“I talked to this conductress, Winifred Wylie,” Parsons went on. “Little Jamaican girl.”

After a pause, Parsons replied: “She described them down to the colour of their socks. She keeps her eyes open all right. She says she didn’t like the look of them when they got on, and they jumped off the bus without waiting for it to stop. And she says she’s quite sure she would recognize ‘em again. So all we’ve got to do is find ‘em.”

“Don’t know that anything has,” said Parsons. “I’m just fed up with the day, that’s all. I’m happier on my usual beat, George.” Before Gideon could speak, Parsons went on: “I take that back. Glad of the chance of having a crack at something different. I think it was Dean’s wife – the widow, I mean. I saw her just after she’d collapsed; she looked like death. This Mrs. Millsom had taken off her blouse and loosened her skirt – I suppose a copper shouldn’t notice what kind of figure a woman’s got, but I did. It struck me as such a bloody wicked waste. I saw the two kids when they came home from school – she never let them stay to lunch, as the school’s just around the corner. Happiest pair of kids you ever saw, dressed almost identically – George!”

“Won’t do any harm to moan a bit,” said Gideon. “That tea won’t be long. How did you get on with the London Transport chaps?”

“All right,” answered Parsons. “They’re glad we’re on the ball. They seem to be, too.”

“How much of this robbery on buses has there been?” inquired Gideon. “Is this one of a series or an isolated instance? Any way of being sure?”

“Boman thinks we can find out, and he’s as sound as they come,” Parsons answered. “He says there have been a few cases, but not really a crop. Lot of minor sabotage, too, but nothing in a big way. He’s digging out all the details. One robbery every two or three weeks, in different parts of London. I’ll get his full report in the morning,” Parsons went on. “Ah.”

The door opened, and a messenger came in carrying a tray. At the same moment, one of Gideon’s telephones rang. He lifted the receiver while watching the grey-haired messenger, who was working out his last months on the Force, spreading a table-napkin over a small table and smoothing it out with surprisingly frail hands.

“Information Room, Mr. Gideon,” a man said briskly. “I thought you would like to know that Mrs. Dean, the widow of the man Robert Dean, died without regaining consciousness.”

“Oh,” said Gideon. “Bad show.” He hesitated. “Thanks for telling me.” He rang off, saw that Parsons was eyeing the tea as if he could not pour out quickly enough; or was he eyeing the sandwiches? They were of ham and beef, cut as Gideon liked them, with meat hanging over the sides of the thick bread.

He felt heavy-hearted; a lot of feeling had already been engendered over this murder. But there was no need to tell Parsons yet; let him enjoy his snack and relax for half an hour. He would be told soon enough.

Gideon felt sure that this case would draw the best there was out of Parsons; thanks to Lemaitre, they had the right man for this job.

The next thing was to make sure that everyone involved handled it properly, as a good team.

3: V.I.P

AMONG the millions who read about Dean’s murder and the subsequent death of Belle Dean was Sir Henry Corrington, K.C.B.E, the Deputy Chairman of the London Transport Board. Corrington had been a surprise choice for the post, and when the appointment had been announced, there had been a lot of whispering about old school tie and string pulling. In fact, Corrington had been selected because of his early training in the Diplomatic Corps – he had served both in Washington and in Moscow as a commercial attaché — and his extensive knowledge of big business.

His appointment was now a year old, and no one talked any more of undue influence. He was accepted by both management and labour, but a few knowing ones shook their heads. In the course of Corrington’s year, there had been no major problems. He had not been called upon to ask the Transport Commission for an increase in fares, and none of the big unions had applied for a pay rise. The real testing time had not yet come.

“One of these days Corrington is going to run into trouble,” the Jeremiahs prophesied.

Corrington lived with his wife and two daughters in a flat near the Westminster headquarters of the Transport Commission. The daughters spent much of their time away at school. Lady Corrington, sometimes a little bored, divided her time between exclusive shops, Mayfair and Knightsbridge salons, and charity committees.

The Corringtons were sitting in a beautiful room, furnished in Regency style, overlooking St. James’s Park. Music

from a record player came softly, unobtrusive and almost melancholy chamber music with strings in the background.

“Oh.” She frowned. “Beastly. But—” She uncrossed her slender legs. “What can Freddie do?”

“I don’t want to stop you,” Lady Corrington said. “But don’t start worrying about this too much, Harry.”

“Nonsense,” murmured Corrington. “I reflect and anticipate, that’s all.”

He went outside and closed the door, stepped into the small book-lined library, sat at a Queen Anne desk and

dialled “Freddy” – Colonel Frederick Tulson, who kept an eye on the liaison between the London Transport Police and the Yard. Tulson himself answered.

“Yes, they’re being looked after,” he replied. “And our man in charge, Boman – remember Boman?”

“He’s told the neighbour who’s looking after the children that we’ll help where we can – meet expenses until something is sorted out, anyhow. Right?”

“If you don’t mind my saying so,” said Tulson, “you worry about little things too much.”

“So Moira tells me. Make sure the newspapers know what we’re doing, won’t you?” Corrington rang off, smiling faintly. As he turned round he saw his wife at the door.

“Depends upon how you look at it,” replied Corrington. “On the principle that if you look after the pennies the

pounds will look after themselves – no, I don’t. If we can keep the small things running smoothly, the big ones may settle themselves. Tomorrow the newspapers will tell the world how human and considerate the Transport Commission is, acting so swiftly to help those orphans. And we will have won more goodwill.”

She studied him, a woman in her middle forties, nearly as tall as he, by no means a beauty but striking, with her

Instead of turning the question aside by pretending that he didn’t know what she was talking about, Corrington moved to her, slid an arm round her waist, and led her back to the other room. The strings still droned faintly. He went to a beautifully panelled French cabinet, and took out gin, whisky, tonic and soda-water. While each had a drink, the music faded, and the record player made a gentle clattering sound.

“It depends which way you look at it,” Corrington replied. “There hasn’t been a wage increase for a surprisingly

long time. The Union’s likely to ask for a big one which we can’t hope to grant—”

“Oh, we’ll negotiate,” Corrington agreed. “But if the stories I hear are right, there’s an unofficial strike

committee in most of the depots, bursting for action. The Union will be reasonable, but—”

“I’m trying to think of a way of making sure it doesn’t even start,” Corrington told her. “Better to give it a lot of

“I don’t believe anyone who knows you even suspects how you think,” Moira said. “Do you know what I think?”

“I think you’re far too good for your job,” said Moira. “You ought to be Minister of Transport, not—”

“It would be rather pleasant, wouldn’t it?” he remarked. “But keeping on top of a section which costs