Bodies from the Library 6 by Tony Medawar

Author:Tony Medawar [Medawar, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2023-07-28T17:00:00+00:00

7

FISHER GETS A LEAD

‘Call this a joy-ride? It gives me the creeps!’

Mr Knapp’s unlovely voice was raised in the stuffy gloom.

‘’As it ever occurred to you,’ he said, ‘what’d ’appen if someone was to set a parcels trolley in motion, and it was to come ’urtling down ’ere like one o’clock? Where should we be then, I’d like to know?’

‘Safely under it and out of this business for good,’ said Box cheerfully.

The three men were walking down the old Post Office tube now used by the two branches of Westbridge’s Department Stores. Box went in front with a torch. Mr Knapp trotted along at his elbow, and Bill the Swede brought up the rear. They bent low to avoid the overhanging electric cables which propelled the swift little parcels trucks from one shop to the other.

Here and there along the line there were old ‘stations’ which marked the sites of long-disused post offices. Mr Knapp’s garage was one, and there was another beneath the modern block of Winton Street flats. But these had been long passed by the three, and they now came to a bend beyond which was the faint light of a single electric bulb.

This was the end of the tube as it was now used; the dispatch department of Westbridge’s Oxford Circus branch.

Box turned of his torch and spoke softly.

‘Keep back! There’s an armed watchman on the premises, and it’s most important we shouldn’t get caught tonight.’

‘It’s most important we shouldn’t get caught any time, I ’ope,’ said Mr Knapp truculently, and he shrank closer to the dusty sides of the tube.

The dispatch department was yet another of the old ‘stations’. A low concrete platform ran down to the rails, and five or six parcels trucks were drawn up at the far end. The single electric bulb, which was kept alight night and day, glowed over the ghostly and deserted scene.

Motioning to the others to follow him, Box crept forward across the concrete way and tried the doors leading into the back basement of the shop. They were unlocked, since the only approach to them was through the shop’s private tunnel.

He passed through silently. Mr Knapp, sniffing irritatingly, followed him, and Bill, a life-preserver clenched in one mighty fist, came last.

Inside all was pitch dark and uncannily quiet. Box drew out his torch and flashed it round.

They were in a huge packing cellar, but the doors to the concrete staircase stood open, and they moved towards it.

They climbed up the stairs on silent, rubber-shod feet. At the first landing they paused. Had they been attempting burglary nothing would have been more simple, but since their intention was merely to get out, the problem was, perversely, more difficult.

The service doors were closed with huge iron bolts which would make a tremendous noise when moved. Moreover, they were probably well provided with burglar-alarms.

Box seemed to have an uncanny gift of finding his way about, however, and he led the others down a corridor, past great showrooms covered with ghostly

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