By the Pricking of My Thumbs

  This is the only address I myself know. Letter addressed to the bank's address, care of Mrs Richard Johnsot would be forwarded. Mrs Johnson is, I believe, a niece 141 distant cousin of Mrs Lancaster's and it was Mrs Johnson who made all the arrangements with me for Mrs Lancaster's reception at Sunny Ridge. She asked me to make full inquiries about the establishment, since she had only heard about it casually from a friend. We did so, I can assure you, most carefully. It was said to be an excellent establishment and I believe Mrs Johnson's relative, Mrs Lancaster, spent several years there quite happily.'

  'She left there, though, rather suddenly,' Tommy suggested.

  'Yes. Yes, I believe she did. Mrs Johnson, it seems, returned rather unexpectedly recently from East Africa - so many people have done so! She and her husband had, I believe resided in Kenya for many years. They were making various new arrangements and felt able to assume personal care of their elderly relative. I am afraid I have no knowledge of Mrs Johnson's present whereabouts. I had a letter from her thanking me and settling accounts she owed, and directing that if there was any necessity for communicating with her I should address my letters care of the bank as she was undecided as yet where she and her husband would actually be residing. I am afraid, Mr Beresford, that that is all I know.'

  His manner was gentle but pounds -m. It displayed no embarrass-ment of any kind nor disturbance. But the pounds ality of his voice was very de pounds ite. Then he unbent and his manner softened a little.

  'I shouldn't really worry, you know, Mr Beresford,' he said reassuringly. 'Or rather, I shouldn't let your wife worry. Mrs Lancaster, I believe, is quite an old lady and inclined m be forgetful. She's probably forgotten all about this picture that she gave away. She is, I believe, seventy-five or seventy-six years of age. One forgets very easily at that age, you know.' 'Did you know her personally?' 'No, I never actually met her.' 'But you knew Mrs Johnson?'

  'I met her when she came here occasionally to consult me as to arrangements. She seemed a pleasant, businesslike woman.

  Quite competent in the arrangements she was making.' He rose and said, 'I am so sorry I can't help you, Mr Beresford.' It was a gentle but firm dismissal.

  Tommy came out on to the Bloomsbury street and looked about him for a taxi. The parcel he was carrying, though not heavy, was of a fairly awkward size. He looked up for a moment at the building he had just left. Eminently respectable, long established. Nothing you could fault there, nothing apparently wrong with Messrs. Parringdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale, nothing wrong with Mr Eccles, no signs of alarm or despondency, no shiftiness or uneasiness. In books, Tommy thought gloomily, a mention of Mrs Lancaster or Mrs Johnson should have brought a guilty start or a shifty glance. Something to show that the names registered, that all was not well. Things didn't seem to happen like that in real life. All Mr Eccles had looked like was a man who was too polite to resent having his time wasted by such an inquiry as Tommy had just made.

  But all the same, thought Tommy to himself, I don't like Mr Eccles. He recalled to himself vague memories of the past, of other peoltle that he had for some reason not liked. Very often those hunches - for hunches is all they were - had been right.

  But perhaps it was simpler than that. If you had had a good many dealings in your time with personalities, you had a sort of feeling about them, just as an expert antique dealer knows instinctively the taste and look and feel of a forgery before getting down to expert tests and examinations. The thing just is wrong. The same with pictures. The same presumably with a cashier in a bank who is offered a first-class spurious banknote.

  'He sounds all right,' thought Tommy. 'He looks all right, he speaks all right, but all the same -' He waved frantically at a taxi which gave him a direct and cold look, increased its speed and drove on. 'Swine,' thought Tommy.

  His eyes roved up and down the street, seeking for a more obliging vehicle. A fair amount of people were walking on the pavement. A few hurrying, some strolling, one man gazing at a brass plate just across the road from him. After a close scrutiny, he turned round and Tommy's eyes opened a little wider. He knew that face. He watched the man walk to the end of the street, pause, mm and walk back again. Somebody came out of the building behind Tommy and at that moment the man opposite increased his pace a little, still walking on the other side of the road but keeping pace with the man who had come out of the door. The man who had come out of Messrs.

  Partingdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale's doorway was, Tommy thought, looking after his retreating figure, almost certainly Mr Eccles. At the same moment a taxi lingering in a pleasant tempting manner, came along. Tommy raised his hand, the taxi drew up, he opened the door and got in.

  'Where to?' Tommy hesitated for a moment, looking at his parcel. About to give an address he changed his mind and said, '14 Lyon Street.' A quarter of an hour later he had reached his destination. He rang the bell after paying off the taxi and asked for Mr Ivor Smith. When he entered a second-floor room, a man sitting at a table facing the window, swung round and said with faint surprise, 'Hullo, Tommy, fancy seeing you. It's a long time. What are you doing here? Just tooling round looking up your old friends?' 'Not quite as good as that, Ivor.' 'I suppose you're on your way home after the Conference>' 'Yes.' · 'All a lot of the usual talky-talky, I suppose? No conclusions drawn and nothing helpful said.' 'Quite right. All a sheer waste of time.' 'Mostly listening to old Bogie Taddock shooting his mouth off, I expect. Crashing bore. Gets worse every year.' 'Oh! well ' Tommy sat down in the chair that was pushed towards him, accepted a cigarette, and said, 'I just wondered - it's a very long shot - whether you know anything of a derogatory nature about one Eccles, solicitor, of the firm of Messrs. Partingdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale.' 'Well, well, well,' said the man called Ivor Smith. He raised his eyebrows. They were very convenient eyebrows for raising.

  The end of them near the nose went up and the opposite end of the cheek went down for an almost astonishing extent. They made him on very little provocation look like a man who had had a severe shock, but actually it was quite a common gesture with him. 'Run up against Eccles somewhere have you?'

  'The trouble is,' said Tommy, 'that I know nothing about him.'

  'And you want to know something about him?'

  'Yes.'

  'Hm. What made you come to see me?'

  'I saw Anderson outside. It was a long time since I'd seen him but I recognized him. He was keeping someone or other under observation. Whoever it was, it was someone in the building from which I had just emerged. Two rums of lawyers practise there and one fu'm of chartered accountants. Of course it may be any one of them or any member of any one of them.

  But a man walking away down the street looked to me like Eccles. And I just wondered if by a lucky chance it could have been my Mr Eccles that Anderson was giving his attention to?'

  'Hm,' said Ivor Smith. 'Well, Tommy, you always were a pretty good guesser.'

  'Who is Eccles?'

  'Don't you know? Haven't you any idea?'

  'I've no idea whatever,' said Tommy. 'Without going into a long history, I went to him for some information about an old lady who has recently left an old ladies' home. The solidtor employed to make arrangements for her was Mr Eccles. He appears to have done it with perfect decorum and effidency. I wanted her present address. He says, he hasn't got it. Quite possibly he hasn't.., but I wondered. He's the only clue to her whereabouts I've got.'

  'And you want to fred her?' 'I don't think it sounds as though I'm going to be much good to you. Eccles is a very respectable, sound solicitor who makes a large income; has a good many highly respectable clients, works for the landed gentry, professional classes and retired soldiers and sailors, generals and admirals and all that sort of thing. He's the acme of respectability. I should imagine from what you're talking about, that he was strictly within his lawful activities.'

  'But you're - interested in him,' suggested Tommy.

  'Yes, we're very interested in Mr James Ecc
les.' He sighed.

  'We've been interested in him for at least six years. We haven't progressed very far.'

  'Very interesting,' said Tommy. 'I'll ask you again. Who exactly is Mr Ecdes?'

  'You mean what do we suspect Eccles of? Well, to put it in a sentence, we suspect him of being one of the best orgnl ng brains in criminal activity in this country.'

  'Criminal activity?' Tommy looked surprised.

  'Oh yes, yes. No cloak and dagger. No espionage, no counter-espionage. No, plain criminal activity. He is a man who has so far as we can discover never performed a criminal act in his life. He has never stolen anything, he's never forged anything, he's never convened funds, we can't get any kind of evidence against him. But all the same whenever there's a big planned organized robbery, there we fred, somewhere in the background, Mr Eccles leading a blameless life.'

  'Six years,' said Tommy thoughtfully.

  'Possibly even longer than that. It took a little time, to get on to the pattern of things. Bank holdups, robberies of private jewels, all sons of things where the big money was. They're all jobs that followed a certain pattern. You couldn't help fecl/ng that the same mind had planned them. The people who directed them and who carried them out never had to do any planning at all. They went where they were told, they did what they were ordered, they never had to think. Somebody else was doing the thinking.'

  'And what made you hit on Eccles?'

  Ivor Smith shook his head thoughtfully. 'It would take too long to tell you. He's a man who has a lot of acquaintances, a lot of friends. There are people he plays golf with, there are people who service his car, there are pounds 'ms of stockbrokers who act for him. There are companies doing a blameless business in which he is interested. The plan is ge.ttng ??er but his p. art in.it hasn't got much clearer, except mat ne s very conspcnousy absent on certain occasions. A big bank robbery cleverly planned (and no expense spared, mind you), consolidating the get-away and all the rest of it, and where's Mr Eccles when it happens? Monte Carlo or Zurich or possibly even fishing for salmon in Norway. You can be quite sure Mr Eccles is never within a hundred miles of where criminal activities are happening.' 'Yet you suspect him?' 'Oh yes. I'm quite sure in my own mind. But whether we'll ever catch him I don't know. The man who tunnelled through the floor of a bank, the man who knocked out the night watchman, the cashier who was in it from the beginning, the bank manager who supplied the information, none of them know Eccles, probably they've never even seen him. There's a long chain leading away - and no one seems to know more than just one link beyond themselves.' 'The good old plan of the cell?' 'More or less, yes, but there's some original fifinking. Some day we'll get a chance. Somebody who oughm't to know anything, will know something. Something silly and trivial, perhaps, but something that strangely enough may be evidence at last.' 'Is he married - got a family?' 'No, he has never taken risks like that. He lives alone with a housekeeper and a gardener and a buffer-valet. He entertains in a mild and pleasant way, and I dare swear that every single person who's entered his house as his guest is beyond suspicion.' 'And nobody's getting rich?' 'That's a good point you've put your finger on, Thomas.

  Somebody ought to be getting rich. Somebody ought to be seen to be getting rich. But that part of it's very cleverly arranged.

  Big wins on race courses, investments in stocks and shares, all things which are natural, just chancy enough to make big money at, and all apparently genuine transactions. There's a lot of money stacked up abroad in different countries and different places. It's a great big, vast, money-making concern - and the money's always on the move - going from place to place.' 'Well,' said Tommy, 'good luck to you. I hope you get your

  'I think I shall, you know, some day. There might be a hope if one could jolt him out of his routine.' 'Jolt him with what?' 'Danger,' said Ivor. 'Make him feel he's in danger. Make him feel someone's on to him. Get him uneasy. If you once get a man uneasy, he may do something foolish. He may make a mistake. That's the way you get chaps, you know. Take the cleverest man there is, who can plan brilliantly and never put a foot wrong. Let some little thing rattle him and he'll make a mistake. So I'm hoping. Now let's hear your story. You might know something that would be useful.' 'Nothing to do with crime, I'm afraid - very small beer.' 'Well, let's hear about it.' Tommy told his story without undue apologies for the triviality of it. Ivor, he knew, was not a man to despise triviality.

  Ivor, indeed, went straight to the point which had brought Tommy on his errand.

  'And your wife's disappeared, you say?' 'It's not like her.' 'That's serious.' Serious to me all right.' 'So I can imagine. I only met your missus once. She's sharp.' 'If she goes after things she's like a terrier on a trail,' said Thomas.

  'You've not been to the police?'

  'Why not?' 'Well, tn'st because I can't believe that she's anything but all right. Tuppence is always all right. She just goes all out after any hare that shows itself. She mayn't have had time to communicate.' 'Mmm. I don't like it very much. She's looking for a house, you say? That just might be interesting because among various odds and ends that we followed, which incidentally have not led to much, are a kind of trail of house agents.' 'House agents?' Tommy looked surprised.

  'Yes. Nice, ordinary, rather mediocre house agents in small provincial towns in different parts of England, but none of them so very far from London. Mr Eccles's fLrm does a lot of business with and for house agents. Sometimes he's the solidtor for the buyers and sometimes for the sellers, and he employs various house agencies, on behalf of clients. Sometimes we rather wondered why. None of it seems very profitable, you see ' 'But you think it might mean something or lead to something?' 'Well, if you remember the big London Southern Bank robbery some years ago, there was a house in the country - a lonely house. That was the thieves' rendezvous. They weren't very noticeable there, but that's where the stuff was brought and cached away. People in the neighbourhood began to have a few stories about them, and wonder whothese people were who came and went at rather unusual hours. Different kinds of cars arriving in the middle of the night and going away again.

  People are curious about their neighbours in the country. Sure enough, the police raided the place, they got some of the loot, and they got three men, including one who was recognized and identified.' 'Well, didn't that lead you somewhere?' 'Not really. The men wouldn't talk, they were well defended and represented, they got long sentences in jail and within a year and a half they were all out of the jug again. Very clever rescues.' 'I seem to remember reading about it. One man disappeared from a criminal court where he was brought up by two warders.' 'That's right. All very cleverly arranged and an enormous amount of money spent on the escape.

  'But we think that whoever was responsible for the staff work realized he made a mistake in having one house for too long a time, so that the local people got interested. Somcbndy, perhaps, thought it would be a better idea to get subsidiaries living in, say, as many as thirty houses in dtfferent places. People come and take a house, mother and daughter, say, a widow, or a retired army man and his wife. Nice quiet people. They have a few repairs done to the house, get a local builder in and improve the phimbing, and perhaps some other firm down from London to decorate, and then after a year or a year and a half circumstances arise, and the occupiers sell the house and go off abroad to live. Something like that. All very natural and pleasant. During their tenancy that house has been used perhaps for rather unusual purposes! But no one suspects such a thing. Friends come to see them, not very often. Just occasionally. One night, perhaps, a kind of anniversary party for a middle-aged, or elderly couple; or a coming of age party.

  A lot of cars coming and going. Say there are five major robberies done within six months but each time the loot passes through, or is cached in, not just one of these houses, but five different houses in five different parts of the countryside. It's only a supposition as yet, my dear Tommy, but we're working on it. Let's say your old lady lets a picture of a certain house go out of her
possession and supposing that's a significant house.

  And supposing that that's the house that your Missus has recognized somewhere, and has gone dashing off to investigate.

  And supposing someone doesn't want that particular house investigated - It might tie up, you know.' 'It's very farfetched.' 'Oh yes - I agree. But these times we live in are farfetched times - In our particular world incredible things happen.'

  II

  Somewhat wearily Tommy alighted from his fourth taxi of the day and looked appraisingly at his surroundings. The taxi had deposited him in a small cul-de-sac which tucked itself coyly under one of the protuberances of Hampstead Heath. The cul- de-sac seemed to have been some artistic 'development'. Each house was wildly different from the house next to it. This particular one seemed to consist of a large studio with skylights in it, and attached to it (rather like a gumboil), on one side was. what seemed to be a little cluster of three rooms. A ladder staircase painted bright green ran up the outside of the house.

  Tommy opened the small gate, went up a path and not seeing a bell applied himself to the knocker. Getting no response, he paused for a few moments and then started again with the knocker, a little louder this time.