The Crime Club by Frank Froest

Author:Frank Froest
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008137342
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2016-04-20T04:00:00+00:00

IX

THE GOAT

BIG RUFE DEVLIN and Goat O’Brien moved on different planes of the criminal hierarchy. There was all the difference of status between them that there is between an ambitious curate and an archbishop. For while Rufe was merely a sneak thief of parts, the Goat was one of the potentates of crime with a fat bank balance and little fear of the police. Yet Rufe it was …

You might have passed the Goat a hundred times in the street without giving him a second glance. He was a slim-built, slouched-shouldered little man of seventy, with a trim grey beard and a deprecating manner, who wore well-made clothes untidily. His record ran back through fifty years of subtle and audacious rascality in three continents. Now, in his old age, he had promoted himself from the executive to the less risky but more profitable administrative side of crime. He was, in fact, a receiver, and it was the misfortune of the Criminal Investigation Department that he should have settled down to exercise his talents in London.

It is only in books that a man of the Goat’s reputation can avoid the suspicions of the police. And O’Brien, who knew every trick on the board, had no illusions on the subject. He knew that time and again the keenest men of the C.I.D. had taken the warpath against him only to retire at last baffled and chagrined, with the futile headache which comes from battering brains against a stone wall. He knew that the department had sworn to have his scalp, and at times he would smile grimly into his little grey beard. They might know he was at the back of half a dozen burglaries, not only in London but in Paris and Amsterdam, that his money had provided the resources, that his brains had planned the coup, that his fingers dipped deeply into the proceeds; but juries require concrete proofs, and proofs were just what were lacking.

More than once a surprise descent of officers, armed with a search warrant, had been made on his cosy flat on the north side of Regent’s Park. He would receive them mildly, with a resigned shrug of the shoulders, as one who is the subject of unjust annoyance, against which no protests would avail. On the last occasion it was Almack, newly promoted divisional detective-inspector of the 12th Division, who was confident that the Goat knew a great deal more than he ought of a weekend robbery of specie from a West End manufacturing goldsmith. He dropped swiftly down upon the flat with a couple of his staff. Three thousand ounces of gold cannot be disposed of in a hurry, and he hoped by rapidity of action to catch O’Brien before he had time to get rid of it.

It took a full five hours to convince him that wherever else the gold was it was not in the flat. The Goat, with a subtle irony that was not lost on the inspector, produced champagne.

‘You’ve got your duty to do, gentlemen, and I don’t complain.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.