The Man Who Hated Banks & Other Mysteries Read online

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  The Man Who Hated Banks & Other Mysteries

  First published in 1997

  © Estate of Michael Gilbert; House of Stratus 1997-2012

  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 Michael Gilbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2012 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

  0755119215 9780755119219 Print

  0755132327 9780755132324 Kindle

  0755132327 9780755132324 Epub

  0755146727 9780755146727 Epdf

  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

  Born in Lincolnshire, England, Michael Francis Gilbert graduated in law from the University of London in 1937, shortly after which he first spent some time teaching at a prep-school which was followed by six years serving with the Royal Horse Artillery. During World War II he was captured following service in North Africa and Italy, and his prisoner-of-war experiences later leading to the writing of the acclaimed novel ‘Death in Captivity’ in 1952.

  After the war, Gilbert worked as a solicitor in London, but his writing continued throughout his legal career and in addition to novels he wrote stage plays and scripts for radio and television. He is, however, best remembered for his novels, which have been described as witty and meticulously-plotted espionage and police procedural thrillers, but which exemplify realism.

  HRF Keating stated that ‘Smallbone Deceased’ was amongst the 100 best crime andmystery books ever published. “The plot,” wrote Keating, “is inevery way as good as those of Agatha Christie at her best: as neatlydovetailed, as inherently complex yet retaining a decent credibility, and asfull of cunningly-suggested red herrings.” It featured Chief Inspector Hazlerigg, who went on to appear in later novels and short stories, and another series wasbuilt around Patrick Petrella, a London based police constable (later promoted)who was fluent in four languages and had a love for both poetry and fine wine. Othermemorable characters around which Gilbert built stories included Calder and Behrens. They are elderly but quite amiable agents, who are nonetheless ruthless andprepared to take on tasks too much at the dirty end of the business for theiryounger colleagues. They are brought out of retirement periodically uponreceiving a bank statement containing a code.

  Muchof Michael Gilbert’s writing was done on the train as he travelled from home tohis office in London: “I always take a latish train to work,” heexplained in 1980, “and, of course, I go first class. I have no trouble inwriting because I prepare a thorough synopsis beforehand.”. After retirementfrom the law, however, he nevertheless continued and also reviewed for ‘TheDaily Telegraph’, as well as editing ‘The Oxford Book of Legal Anecdotes’.

  Gilbertwas appointed CBE in 1980. Generally regarded as ‘one of the elder statesmen ofthe British crime writing fraternity, he was a founder-member of the BritishCrime Writers’ Association and in 1988 he was named a Grand Master by theMystery Writers of America, before receiving the Lifetime ‘Anthony’ Achievementaward at the 1990 Boucheron in London.

  MichaelGilbert died in 2006, aged ninety three, and was survived by his wife and theirtwo sons and five daughters.

  INTRODUCTION

  Of the four characters who play, in turn, the principal part in this collection of stories, the first in the field, by a long chalk, is Hazlerigg, who featured in my crime novel Close Quarters playing, on that occasion, second fiddle to his own assistant, Detective Sergeant Pollock.

  This, my maiden effort, appeared in 1947, though most of it was written before I disappeared into the Army in 1939. Judging by his rank, which was at that time Chief Inspector, and argues an age of forty or more, he must, by now, be over ninety, which may account for the fact that not much has been heard of him lately.

  He was what you might call a standard pattern policeman, and I have a feeling that the late Julian Symons would have considered him to be “humdrum.” It was with this adjective, you may remember, that he insulted many of the leading lights in the crime story field of the early years of this century.

  I find the thought encouraging.

  It is the fashion nowadays for the author to penetrate deeply into the characters and feelings of his policemen; their family quarrels and upsets, their psychological backgrounds, their secret ambitions and phobias, all are laid bare for us. The great American writer Professor Jacques Barzun objected strongly to the practice. “Am I a couch?” he demanded.

  I side with Barzun. Let your policeman get on with his job. And for many years, and through many novels and short stories, Hazlerigg did just that.

  Henry Montacute Bohun, solicitor and partner in the Lincoln’s Inn firm of Horniman, Birley and Craine, made his first appearance in my book Smallbone Deceased, which appeared in 1950.

  It fell to him to play the part of detective in this book, and in a number of short stories which appeared in John Bull and Argosy, two excellent short story magazines, now both deceased. Since I had, myself, just become a partner in a Lincoln’s Inn firm of solicitors, people were not slow to suggest that Bohun was me in disguise. This was far from correct. I sleep excellently at night and have never felt any desire to dabble in real life crime. My criminals all come from my pen.

  Bohun’s detective activities arose by chance.

  Since he suffered from a form of para-insomnia which never allowed him more than two hours sleep each night, and sometimes none at all, this left him with a lot of time on his hands which he spent, as another man might puzzle over an unsolved clue in the Times crossword puzzle, in thinking out answers to the problems which he encountered either from his growing friendship with Inspector Hazlerigg, or from his job as a solicitor.

  In saying this, I do realise that there may be solicitors whose thresholds are never crossed by crime, potential or actual, but I don’t suppose there are many such. For the most part, when they encounter a criminal matter, they are ready to pass it on to Counsel, or even to the police. Horniman, Birley and Craine preferred to take in their own dirty washing.

  Former Detective Chief Inspector Mercer plays the leading part in a book called The Body of a Girl, which was first published in England and America in 1972.

  He once shared with Hazlerigg the rank of Chief Inspector, but this is almost the only thing that he did share. While Hazlerigg plays the game according to the rules. Mercer is prepared to bend any rule that gets in the way of his single-minded pursuit of his objective. Hazlerigg is monogamous. To Mercer a girl is somebody to be enjoyed and forgotten. Their difference must be apparent to a perceptive reader when Mercer is described: “A lot of dark hair, worn rather long, and a thick, sensual face, his appearance not improved by a puckered scar which started at the cheek-bone and gathered up the corner of the left eye, so that it seemed to be half closed!”

  He was going to get
his revenge for that scar whatever the cost.

  Last, but by no means least, comes Patrick Petrella, who first saw book publication in 1959 in Blood and Judgment, although many of the short stories are earlier. Son of a senior Spanish policeman and an English lady, fluent speaker of Arabic, knowledgeable about vintage wines and the mechanism of locks.

  I have described elsewhere how he arrived, and hope that I may, for once, quote my own words.

  “Patrick Petrella was conceived in church. It was a drowsy summer evening and the preacher had reached only the midpoint of his sermon. It was not an inspired address, and I turned to the hymn book for relief. I opened it at the lines of Christina Rosetti, ‘Who has seen the wind. Neither you nor I. But when the trees bow down their heads, the wind is passing by.’ And later, ‘Who has seen the wind. Neither I nor you. But when the leaves hang trembling, the wind is passing through.’

  “And there, quite suddenly, it was. A working class family, wife and children, sitting in their front room being talked to by a visitor (parson? social worker? policeman?) but remaining totally unresponsive. Answering in monosyllables. Trembling. Heads bowed down. Why? Because they know, but their visitor does not, that there is a monster in the back kitchen. Their father, a violent criminal, had escaped that day from prison and is hiding there. At that moment their visitor (he is now quite definitely a policeman, and a youngster at that) recalls the poem and realises the truth.”

  In that short sequence a complete character is encapsulated.

  A young policeman, in his first posting, sufficiently interested in his job to visit the wife of a man who was serving a prison sentence, sufficiently acute to notice the unnatural behaviour of the woman and children, sufficiently imaginative to deduce the reason for a simple, furtive glance at the kitchen door; above all a young man who read and could quote poetry.

  Almost everything that happened afterward was as traceable to their first conception as is the character of a real person to the accidents of the nursery and the schoolroom.

  So there they are. Four different characters, deployed for your pleasure.

  Michael Gilbert Gravesend, Kent November 1996

  BACK IN FIVE YEARS

  (As Told by Chief Inspector Hazlerigg)

  IN THE EARLY THIRTIES, when I was a junior inspector attached to the uniformed branch in a North London division, there were a number of known counterfeiters at work in London. I don’t mean that we knew their names and addresses, for they tend to be shy people, but a surprising number of facts about them and their products were filed and tabulated at the Criminal Records Office and in the M-0 file.

  There were forgers of Post Office Savings books, and there were those who specialized in passports and share certificates. But the kings of the trade were the forgers and utterers of banknotes. And the king of them all was a certain shy, unobtrusive genius who manufactured the “Beauties.”

  His identity was, of course, a mystery. He was known to us only by his £1 notes, finely etched and most scrupulously printed.

  In a lot of ways they were a better product than the stuff being turned out by H.M. Mint. That young lady who sits up in an inset in the top left-hand corner (on the genuine pound notes she looks rather a pudding-faced young person) – well, in his productions she was a miracle of dignified beauty. That’s why we called them “Beautiful Britannias,” or “Beauties.”

  And you can take it from me that there wasn’t a policeman in the Metropolis who wouldn’t have given his belt and buttons for a chance to lay hands on the artist.

  However, as it happens – and as it happens in most police work – it wasn’t one man or even a few men who got on the track of the forger. When this happy event finally came to pass it was the result of a combination of luck and instinct backed up by the hard, slogging work of a great number of people.

  We had regretfully decided that in the case of the Beauties we were up against one of those rarities in the field of crime – an entirely solitary and single-handed operator; a man with at least one god-like attribute, the strength which is said to come from loneliness.

  He must have made his own plate – it may have taken him a year or more of patient trial and error, cutting, smoothing, and sizing. He even had a rotation system which enabled him to change the numbering.

  But it was his method of distribution that put him at the top of the class.

  Having printed a number of very excellent pound notes, he rationed himself to about twenty a week. These he would cash personally, going to shops and post offices all over London, and never to the same one twice. He would purchase some small object costing not more than a few pence or a shilling, pay with a pound note, and pocket the change. The system was laborious, but almost foolproof. And, but for one small thing, I really have my doubts whether we should have got on to him.

  The thing was he had a weakness for pawnbrokers. Perhaps it was because pawnbrokers’ shops are places which have a wide variety of things which you can pick up for a small sum; and they are usually rather dark and not very crowded and don’t make difficulties about change. Anyway, it proved his undoing.

  For pawnbrokers, as you may know, are people who like to work very closely with the police. There’s nothing underhanded about it. It just happens to pay both sides. There’s a Pawnbrokers’ List of Stolen Articles which we publish at Scotland Yard, and most pawnbrokers make a practice of reporting anything suspicious to the local station. The local police, in return, keep a special eye on their shops, which are a tempting target to the light-fingered fraternity.

  Well, over the months and years, reports piled up of these pound notes being received by pawnbrokers. So, just on the chance (that’s a phrase which features pretty prominently in police work), a letter was sent round to all pawnbrokers saying that if they should happen to notice a man or woman coming into their shop who wasn’t a regular customer, and who wanted to make a small purchase and proffered a brand-new pound note for it, then would they please make a careful note of his description, etc., etc.

  After a time the descriptions started to add up. It was extraordinarily fascinating, sitting back in an office watching a living person being built up out of fractions, watching his features line themselves in, and his identity declare itself.

  We got a picture of a man, middle-sized to small, plump, soft-spoken, with white, pudgy hands, strong black hair and weak, rather peering eyes. His clothes naturally varied from time to time and from place to place but the essentials were the same.

  A very wide and elaborate net was then spread. I won’t bore you with all the details, but you can gather the scope of it when I tell you it meant stationing policemen within call of almost every pawnshop which had not yet been visited and arranging a simple system of signals with the pawnbrokers themselves.

  And that was how, at the beginning of June, 194–, the police at last caught sight of Mr. Mountjoy and followed him discreetly home to 14 Malpas Street. This proved to be a small shop in North London, with living quarters attached, and an independent flat over it.

  Some further facts now came to light. All seemed to point to the one conclusion. To start with, Mr. Mountjoy’s business was that of a one-man printer and typemaker; very suitable, we felt, allowing its owner to possess and operate various small machines and lathes without exciting suspicion. Then again, he was a solitary man, who, according to Mr. Crump, of 12 Malpas Street, his nearest neighbour, spent much of his time out of his shop, apparently on journeys round London.

  “Looking for commissions, I expect,” said Mr. Crump. “Not that he seems to get much work. Manages to do very well for himself, none the less.”

  I was in charge of these local inquiries, and sensing a certain amount of rancour in that last remark, I guessed that there might be some trade rivalry. Mr. Crump was a newsagent and printer himself. However, he was unable to help me much, because he didn’t know very much. But he did say that Mr. Mountjoy seemed to do a lot of work at night.

  In some trepidation, becaus
e we didn’t want to expose our hand too soon, I tried Mrs. Ireland, who lived in the flat over Mr. Mountjoy’s shop. She was a middle-aged party, intensely respectable and slightly deaf. I visited her one morning in the well-worn disguise of an inspector of gas meters, and found her surprisingly willing to talk.

  She, unlike Mr. Crump, had the very highest opinion of Mr. Mountjoy. Possibly he was one who kept himself to himself but there was no harm that she could see in that. Better that than clumping about sticking your nose into what didn’t concern you. This, I gathered, was a back-hander at Mr. Crump, whom she didn’t like. Unfortunately, her deafness prevented her from being able to corroborate the story of night work.

  Well, there it was. You now know all that we knew at that point and you can see how we were fixed. I had no doubt in my mind. The description fitted. The setup was exactly what we had imagined. The printer’s shop – the night work – the journeys round London.

  There was only one thing to do – take a search warrant and chance the odds.

  Accordingly, on Midsummer Day, 194–, just after four o’clock in the afternoon, I took Sergeant Husband with me and walked over to Malpas Street to put the matter to the test. And as I turned into the road the first thing that struck my eye was that damned notice and I realised that we had missed our man. How narrowly we had missed him became apparent as we pursued our inquiries.

  The notice? It was pinned to the door of the shop. Written in a copperplate hand on a neat white card, it said: BACK IN FIVE YEARS.

  No. 14 was the end house of a block of seven. It had the shop entrance in front, and an independent side entrance which led up to Mrs. Ireland’s flat.

  Now the curious thing was this. Five minutes before we had arrived, several people had seen Mr. Mountjoy come out and pin that notice on his door. But after that no one could say which way he had gone. This didn’t all come out at once, but inquiries in the street, then and later, only deepened the mystery.