Give a Man a Gun by John Creasey

Author:John Creasey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Stratus

Chapter Fifteen

Mass Meeting

For a week there was a period of uneasy calm. Several coshing attacks were made in different parts of the country, mostly in London. A policeman was attacked by two youths in Croydon, and left battered and unconscious but not seriously injured; the youths were found. There were no more letters, but silence brought no marked easing of the tension at the Yard or at the Divisions. Plans for double patrols in certain districts were put in hand, but most of the attacks had been made in supposedly ‘safe’ districts, not in the notoriously bad areas.

Citizens’ League branches had caught on, and were being formed in dozens of London districts, all pledged to work for an armed police force, doubled strength, and violent punishment for cases of proved violence.

Members of Parliament were flooded with letters from constituents, many prominent people gave their names to the League, several retired judges gave it active support. Matthewson and Hann-Gorlay found themselves public figures. With help from all the newspapers, the Movement became gigantic almost overnight.

None of this helped Roger or the Yard to track down the killer youths. None of it eased the present tension among the police.

Nothing that. Pauline Weston did gave the police any grounds for suspecting that she knew more than she should. Except Mortimer, the Yard found no connection between any of her friends and Ruth Linder’s. She seemed to get friendlier with him than ever, but was still as friendly with Brammer.

Roger was driving along Fleet Street when he saw them, three days after Ruth had named Pauline. A traffic block held him up. He pulled into the kerb and got out. Then he saw another man was with them – small, dapper, middle-aged.

All three stopped.

“You don’t know Mr Rodney Matthewson, do you?” Brammer asked Roger. “Chief Inspector West, Rodney—”

Roger liked the lawyer’s manner and firm handclasp; and the humour which lurked in his eyes.

“Now what are you plotting?” Roger demanded.

“We’re really going to get you fellows looked after,” Brammer said. “Arms and—”

“Did it ever occur to you that we might not want to carry guns?” Roger’s voice sharpened at once.

Matthewson murmured: “But if we get this recruiting campaign and double your forces, as well as harsher punishment for the criminals, won’t you be grateful?”

Roger said: “The gibbet didn’t stop highway robbery—didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”

“For a policeman,” Matthewson observed, “you are remarkably humanitarian. However, I cannot believe that many of your colleagues would oppose sterner punishment. Be honest—would they?”

“No,” Roger said grudgingly. “Not many.” He thought of Sloan.

“That’s what I like about Mr West,” said Pauline; “you can believe anything that he says.”

She looked lovelier, Roger thought – but she still wasn’t a beauty. Yet there was something right about her being with Brammer – nothing right about her seeing so much of Mortimer. He wasn’t sure that Mortimer wasn’t one of the desperadoes.

He wasn’t sure of anything.

“Don’t pay him too many compliments,” Brammer said. “And let’s answer his question—we’re plotting the biggest demonstration yet, Handsome.

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