RAFFLES CRIME IN GIBRALTAR by Philip Atkey

Author:Philip Atkey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

KNIVES ARE TRUMPS

THAT cross-street which cut across the alley at its lower end runs parallel with Main Street, and is called, somewhat quaintly, “Irish Town”. Like all Gibraltar’s streets, except those out at the newer end, toward Europa Point, it is extremely narrow-even narrower than most. Hemmed in between high, flat-fronted, shabby buildings, sunlight touched it only for a brief space at noon. Its buildings are the establishments of “general merchants”. Airless, it is never free of the strong odours of tobacco, garlic, carbon monoxide and decaying fruit; and, for all its name, you could hunt for a week and find never an Irishman.

Along this street, thankful for its indifferent lighting, sped the two prowlers whom Blake had interrupted in the backyard of Messrs. Chundra, Khitagara & Co. They ran practically without sound, one in shoes with soles of crepe rubber, the other in light dress pumps-and frequently they glanced back.

The runners darted soon into another alley, turning to the right off the street called Irish Town. This second alley was pitch-black. The runners entered it in a manner only to be described as precipitate. Quite different was the manner of their emergence at the other end.

Here the alley opened into what was, for Gibraltar, quite a wide road, with houses only on one side. The opposite side was open to the broad though grassless expanse of the Naval Cricket Ground, and beyond that to the harbour, the curving sea wall, and all the vast expanse of Algeciras Bay.

The two men who so precipitately had entered the other end of the alley emerged at this end with all the appearance of leisured saunterers. One, built on slighter lines than his companion, and with blond, smooth hair, wore a faultless doublebreasted dinner-jacket, with turn-down collar. The other long, loose-limbed, yellowhaired, wore white ducks.

They crossed the road to the opposite side, where a broad, paved walk, lined with palm trees and street lamps, looked down over the cricket ground. A cool breeze came in off the wide bay; the water shone silver under the moonlight. Far out, far off across the bay, the mountains of Spain were just visible, and a handful of distant pin-prick lights marked the town of Algeciras on that war-torn coast. Another handful of lights, much closer, showed where the Llandnno Chief yet lay at anchor, just outside the boomed harbour.

The two men walked along, with no appearance of haste, under the date palms. You would have taken them for a couple who had just stepped out from a dance or party somewhere for a breath of air and a cigarette down here on this open promenade which is called the Bastion. Nor would you have been entirely wrong.

Bunny Manders and his ally, the young American, Dan Westray, had not been long detained by the mountainous Sergeant Mifsud at the police office down on the docks.

It had been a shock to Bunny and Dan when the big sergeant, kicking the shut door, had made his enigmatic remark:

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