Hang The Little Man by John Creasey

Author:John Creasey [Creasey, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: papachanjo
Published: 2011-05-08T04:00:00+00:00

“All thirty-three shop raids today evidently carefully timed and cleverly planned. Stop. No total figures yet but substantial stocks of cigarettes already reported stolen. Stop. Please refer my Memo, dated July 10th and arrange for watch on all tobacco warehouses and wholesalers for deliveries this evening or through the night.

R. West. Superintendent.”

He handed this to the sergeant as his telephone bell rang again. It wasn’t yet six o’clock, so in an hour, the whole situation had changed completely. In the background was a driving anxiety, the knowledge that the people behind this could lay on sixty-six people to work at the same time, and could plan and time it all so that the raids went off without a hitch.

So far, there was no report that anyone had been caught; it was almost impossible to believe that every one of the sixty-six people could get away, but Roger had to remember that each attack had been complete in itself, and thoroughly prepared.

The caller was Appleby.

“Having a n-nice t-time?” the pathologist inquired.

“How much have you heard?”

“I’ve just come from the A.C.’s office,” said Appleby. “He’s busy wishing he’d l-l-listened to you before. Going t-t-to have any luck?”

“It doesn’t look like it yet.”

“Can I help?”

“I’ll call you if you can.”

“Like me to call Janet and t-t-tell her you’ll be late?”

“Will you?” asked Roger, and heard Appleby chuckle. He rang off, glad that there was no need to tell Janet himself that he wouldn’t be home until midnight; he would be lucky to get home at all.

One problem was how to visit all the places where the raids had taken place; it would take him days. But he had an even greater problem.

He had been convinced all along that some of the robberies were connected, but it hadn’t dawned on him that anything like so many men would be involved. He certainly hadn’t anticipated raids on anything like this scale, and it might be only the beginning. The effect had been cumulative, and the next obvious step for an organisation as strong as this would be to raid places where there was more loot—banks, post offices and wages offices, for instance. The more he contemplated this the more dangerous the possibilities threatened to be.

Then the door opened with a rush, and the Detective Sergeant came in, his eyes glowing. “We caught two of them, sir. Over at Battersea.”

Just before five o’clock that afternoon, a youthful police constable in the Battersea Division, a man named O’Hara, had been walking along Park Street, which led to Battersea Park through a colony of flats and small houses. There was very little trouble for the police in this area, and most of what there was came when the Battersea Fun Fair was open, and some of the youngsters lost their heads or had too much to drink.

O’Hara, a married man with three school-age children, was thinking about the shop robberies, and in fact was quickening his pace so that he could see the four shops in his area at least once an hour.

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