Poison ivy, p.17
Poison Ivy, page 17
The old dame is a sweetheart too, an’ they start to teach me to play three-handed bridge, which woulda been swell if my pants seat wasn’t stickin’ to the chair the whole durn time.
Just when I am beginnin’ to feel like one big sneeze these guys from Bognor arrive. They rush me off to some place near Chichester where I get some dry clothes that don’t fit me, some food an’ when I say I am feelin’ O.K. we go off some more.
It is half-past three in the mornin’ when we arrive at this Silver Grid Hotel at Southampton. The guys who run this dump are expectin’ me an’ they have got a bedroom an’ a big fire fixed for me. I have a hot bath an’ then get myself into some pyjamas an’ a dressin’ gown that I get from the manager an’ stick around an’ wait. At half-past four Herrick arrives with some other guys.
Believe me I am glad to see this guy. If you take a quick look at him you would think he is anything but a copper. He looks like a coal agent or an insurance guy or something. He is a thin fellow, tall, with sorta luminous eyes an’ he wears a derby hat right on the back of his head. It always looks to me that the only thing that keeps his hat on his head is his ears. But as a copper he is definitely good.
He don’t get excited an’ he has got brains. I like this guy.
We get down in front of the fire an’ we talk. I tell him the whole business as I see it from beginnin’ to end, an’ I tell him what I guess is goin’ to happen now.
First of all it is a cinch that the gold is still in this country—they have took it off somewhere. But there is one thing that I don’t say anythin’ to Herrick about, somethin’ I am keepin’ in the back of my mind just because it looks so big that I wouldn’t like to make a fool of myself by blowin’ it too soon.
Maybe you are on to it too. It’s the thing that I thought when I was scramblin’ up that path up the cliffs before I found the house where I telephoned. It is just this an’ I cannot get over it. Rudy Saltierra altered his plans an’ scrammed out of it good an’ quick because I went overboard. In other words he was forced to abandon the gold snatch just when the job was nearly pulled off, just because one guy might manage to reach shore an’ know that the boat that had the gold on it was the Atlantic Witch.
This is the point an’ it makes me think plenty. I reckon that I am not lettin’ Herrick down by not tellin’ him about this idea I have got in my head, because in any event it just don’t matter at the moment.
Anyhow we ain’t got anythin’ to worry about right now. We reckon the gold is in England, cached in some place where these guys have taken it. Maybe we’ll find it, maybe we won’t, but I reckon if my ideas come off we’ve got a good chance an’ I reckon we’ll find out plenty else besides.
We sit there for two hours plannin’ the whole thing, workin’ out the story an’ our line of operations, an’ when we have done this Herrick goes downstairs an’ puts in some heavy phonin’. He comes back an’ says goodnight an’ scrams off back to London. Before he goes he leaves me some English dough an’ gives me a police identification pass.
When he has gone I go back an’ I stand lookin’ in the fire. I reckon this case is the funniest job I ever had, because I have had plenty jobs before that was screwy but never a job where there were so many odd things turnin’ up. Lookin’ back I see that there has been plenty brains behind this gold snatch. I see that this job has been worked out to the last inch, but even so somebody had to make a mistake, an’ it is a funny thing that no matter how clever crooks think they are, they always do make a mistake, an’ that’s why they don’t ever win in the long run, although I ain’t sayin’ that Rudy an’ his bunch ain’t going to win out over on this job yet.
Then I get thinkin’ about Carlotta. Are dames funny? You’re tellin’ me. Here is a dame who can sing like anythin’, who is a swell looker with a swell figure an’ personality. But with all these things she prefers to kick around with a guy like Rudy Saltierra, who is just a thug, an ordinary mobster an’ a dope, the usual sorta nose candy king who likes bumpin’ guys when he’s had a sniff of cocaine.
All of which will show you that dames are strange things. You never know which way to take ’em, but I am wise to one thing. When Rudy told me that it was Carlotta’s idea that I should not be bumped off in the first place, but that I should be kept around to receive any wireless messages that came in, an’ to send out some message with my code number in it giving’ a false destination for this boat; now that was clever. Just at the time I didn’t quite see how this idea was goin’ to work out for them. Now I do see it.
An’ so did Rudy. He knew durn well that if for some unforeseen reason somebody had accidentally seen that gold shipment goin’ aboard the Atlantic Witch that night, my wireless message pushed out an hour or so later would have mixed things properly for anybody who was lookin’ for the Atlantic Witch, although—an’ I still cannot understand this—if there was nobody aboard the boat who knew wireless they would have a helluva chance of knowin’ what I was sendin’ out, whether I was sendin’ out the right stuff or not, wouldn’t they. Maybe they was playin’ me for a sucker here. Maybe some guy did know.
Eventually I get tired of thinkin’ about this business. I smoke a final cigarette an’ go to bed, an’ as I have told you before, bed is a very swell place for those guys who like it.
An’ I like it!
Chapter Twelve
HOT NEWS
Next morning I sleep till ten o’clock an’ then I have my breakfast brought up, an’ order the papers. They are all runnin’ something or other about the gold snatch, but I go for the Daily Sketch that is printin’ the report that I have fixed with Herrick. Here is what it says:
Amazing Gold Robbery.
Nothing in the annals of the most wild western “stick-up” romance can equal the story of the amazing and sensational gold robbery which took place in the early hours of the morning.
Gold ingots worth two million pounds which had been despatched by the American Government under the Tripartite Agreement were stolen from the special bullion train which was bringing the gold from Southampton to London.
The train was held up by armed men. The doors of the bullion train were blasted with the extract of nitro-glycerine known by criminals as “soup”; the guards were overpowered and the gold ingots transferred from the train to conveyances of some sort which were stationed in the neighbourhood.
The method employed in this unique robbery shows that the whole business was planned on a most extraordinary scale. The rapidity with which the gold was removed from the train indicates that at least fifty men were employed. At the moment—so excellent was the organisation—the police are without any clue as to the identity of the railroad robbers or the destination to which the gold was taken.
Chief Detective Inspector Herrick who is in charge of the case is certain that members of the gang are experienced in railway organisation. The method used to bring the bullion train to a standstill at a spot some three miles from the Havant level crossing indicates this.
This amazing coup was achieved in the following manner. The gold train, which was following a special route, was, it is calculated, some five miles from the Havant level crossing when two large lorries, one loaded with bricks and the other with heavy iron castings, collided whilst trying to pass each other on the level crossing track. The wheels became interlocked and the lighter lorry was overturned.
The time was one o’clock in the morning and the spot was deserted. The operator in the Havant signals box, realising that it would take some little time to remove the lorries from the crossing, put his signals at “danger,” thereby stopping the gold train some four miles away from the crossing.
In the meantime both lorry drivers had disappeared.
During the time that the lorries and debris were being removed from the line the gold train was held up.
The driver of the train interviewed this morning told a sensational story.
I was about four miles from the Havant Crossing, he said, when the signals went against me, and I slowed down. The train had hardly come to a standstill when somebody shouted from the right hand side of the track. Both my fireman and myself looked over in the direction of the shout, and when we turned back into the cab of the engine we saw that a man had climbed on to the footplate on the other side of the train.
He held a heavy automatic in his hand and he ordered us to put our hands up and keep them there, otherwise he said he would shoot us like a pair of dogs. There was no doubt that he meant it. We should neither of us be able to recognise this man again. He was dressed in a long dark raincoat and had a ladies’ black lisle stocking pulled over his face with small slits cut for his eyes. This man remained in the cab.
A great deal of noise was going on, and out of the corner of my eye I saw fifteen or twenty men approach the train from the coppice on the right of the track. It was also obvious that a number of men appeared from the other side. Within a few seconds we heard the noise of two muffled explosions, which I now know to have been caused by the blasting off of the bullion car locks with nitro-glycerine.
After about four or five minutes another man, also masked and with a pistol in his hand, appeared and spoke to the first man, who thereupon told us to drive straight on immediately the signals gave us permission; that any attempt to do otherwise would mean our instant death. He then leapt from the cab and disappeared.”
A member of the bullion guard, which consisted of several men who were actually in the bullion van, corroborated the driver’s story.
We felt the train slow down and stop, he said, but naturally we were not very surprised at this, as we knew that the bullion train was a special and was not taking the usual route. We were astounded when the front near side and the rear off side doors of the bullion van were blown in and several men appeared. They were all dressed in long raincoats, masked and armed.
They told us that the slightest move on our part would mean our instant death. Simultaneously, a large number of men, working in two parties, one on each side of the train, proceeded to shift the gold bars by throwing the boxes out to the track where they were picked up and removed by other men. The whole business was carried out so quickly and efficiently that it had obviously been rehearsed until every member of the gang was perfect in his part.
When the van was cleared, the man evidently in charge of the gang told us that the bullion van would remain covered from the woods on each side of the track, and that any move on our part from the train after they had left would mean that fire would be opened immediately.
A minute after this we heard the sound of heavy lorries being driven away. I made a move towards one of the open doors of the van and was immediately fired at from the side of the track, the bullet missing my head by a few inches and embedding itself in the woodwork inside the van.”
This is the first time that a railway hold-up has ever taken place in this country, and it is this fact, together with the efficient organisation and element of surprise, which allowed the raid to be successfully carried out.
Police enquiries in the neighbourhood have elicited little information with reference to the mystery lorries which must have carted the gold away. Unfortunately for the success of these enquiries there is a large amount of night lorry traffic in this part of the country and such members of the public as are awake at that time are unlikely to notice such traffic.
Unluckily also the methods used in this robbery are unique and therefore do not point to being the work of any known criminal organisation in this country.
The police however are confident that the difficulties attendant on the disposing of such a large quantity of gold bars will provide definite clues which will lead to the apprehension of England’s first train robbers.
I turn over to the stop press, and I see this:—
Exclusive to the Daily Sketch. Further to Gold Robbery report on page 1, the Daily Sketch learns that Mr. Lemuel H. Caution, United States Federal “G” man, assigned to investigation into a rumour of an attempt being made to steal the gold in America before shipment, escaped in the early hours this morning by jumping overboard from a private yacht stolen in America in which he had been held prisoner, and from which he escaped at the risk of his life.
Interviewed at the Silver Grid Hotel, Southampton, at which he is staying, Special Agent Caution said:
There is no doubt in my mind that this plot to snatch the gold is an international one. I am certain that but for my escape from the ‘Atlantic Witch’ last night the gold bars would have been by this time on their way to some foreign destination. I am staying on here in readiness to assist the English police authorities if called upon to do so.”
Pirate Yacht Abandoned.
The s.s. “Washington Trader,” a Trans-Atlantic cargo boat wirelessed early to-day that a yacht answering the description of the “Atlantic Witch” was sighted in the early hours of this morning on fire and apparently abandoned.
This looks O.K. to me, an’ Herrick has got his report printed just like we fixed. There is nothin’ to be done now except to stick around and wait until he gets a line on something an’ wises me up to what is goin’ to be done.
I take a stroll around Southampton an’ buy myself a suit of clothes an’ some other kit with the dough that Herrick has given me, an’ I then put a long-distance from a call station through to the U.S. Embassy in London an’ report where I am an’ get their O.K. to get ahead with the job.
There is only one snag about this, an’ this is that the Second Secretary—who is a guy I know—says that I had better get down an’ amuse myself by writin’ my report for the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation which, if you ask me, is a dirty crack, because I do not like writin’ reports owin’ to the fact that English is not my hot point an’ when I do write a report I have a lotta trouble lookin’ up dictionaries. Anyhow I say O.K. an’ I go back to the Silver Grid.
I get myself a pad of writin’ paper an’ I borrow a dictionary off the guy who runs this dump, an’ I go up to my room an’ do I get one big surprise because sittin’ in front of the fire with a whisky an’ soda standin’ by him is Hangover an’ what is more he is sober.
He looks at me an’ he grins an’ waves his mitt.
“So what . . . you big slob,” he says. “I bet you didn’t expect to see me around here!”
Am I glad to see this guy. I reckon that this is the first time that I have shook hands with him in my life, but I gotta admit I do it. Then we have a little drink together, an’ he starts to talk.
“Listen, Lemmy,” he says. “I’ve felt plenty bad about you. I blew in here a couple hours ago on the Minnetonka, an’ directly I read the papers an’ saw that you was stuck here, did I run here or did I? I’ve been feelin’ plenty bad about you, Lemmy, because when I realised that if it wasn’t for me you might not have gone down to Connecticut an’ got aboard the Atlantic Witch, an’ when I saw how near you come to gettin’ yours from that Saltierra bunch I didn’t feel so good.”
I give him another drink. “Cut out the soft stuff, baby,” I tell him, “an’ spill the beans.”
“Here’s the way it was, Lemmy,” he says. “After I left you that night at Joe Madrigaul’s place I was keen to get a line on this business—I wanted to pull a fast one on you an’ see if I could weigh in with somethin’ that really mattered. So I go spielin’ around, an’ I contact old man Harberry Chayse who is a good old guy, an’ he tells me about this guy San Reima who he says has been seein’ visions about Willie the Goop’s bump-off. After a lotta hummin’ around he makes up his mind that he will have this seance aboard the Atlantic Witch, which, he says, is what this San Reima wants. He says that the job has gotta be done right away an’ that he is goin’ to write an’ ask you to come along because you are one of the suspects an’ he reckons that you know more than you are lettin’ on.
“So I get down an’ right then I write you that letter tellin’ you what he is goin’ to do so that you could make any arrangements you wanted because I reckoned that you would be keen on gettin’ down on this boat an’ seein’ what was breakin’.
“Late that evenin’ I go to see the old boy again, an’ it looks like in the meantime this dame Mirabelle Gayford has been along an’ put him right off the scheme. First of all she says what is the good of it, because even if San Reima does put his finger on some guy that ain’t evidence in a court, an’ secondly she says that Harberry Chayse will make himself look a sap doin’ a thing like that. So he says that he ain’t goin’ to do it.
“He also tells me that just after I saw him he has been on the wire to the Captain of the Atlantic Witch an’ given him instruction an’ that he will get through an’ cancel ’em. When he tries to do this he finds out that the Captain ain’t there an’ neither are the skeleton crew who are supposed to be aboard the yacht.
“I smell that there is something screwy goin’ on an’ I find that somebody has been callin’ all these guys on the telephone an’ sayin’ that Harberry Chayse wants ’em to report to some place at Long Island to take some other boat out. This stuff is all punk because I know that he ain’t done anything of the sort. I get down to Long Island, an’ see this Captain who is wandering around lookin’ for this boat that don’t exist an’ I then see that somebody has framed the yacht crew so as to get ’em away from the boat. Right then I put a long-distance call through to you at the hotel an’ they tell me that you have already left for Connecticut, so it looks like somebody is pullin’ some funny business, because I know that Harberry Chayse ain’t been in touch with you or sent you any letter to go down to the Atlantic Witch.
