Read Online Young Petrella by Michael Gilbert - Free Book Online Page B

Now the Mayor sees an opportunity of taking it out on Barstow, so he’s jumped in with both feet.”
    “And the Super jumped on you?” suggested Gwilliam, who had known his Chief Inspector for a very long time.
    “Between these four walls, yes,” said Haxtell. “Though the interview wasn’t remarkable for any really constructive suggestions.”
    “It’s a devil of a problem,” said Gwilliam. “Look at it how you will. I suppose it’s no good telling these shopkeepers and people that it’s largely their fault for keeping so much cash around the place.”
    “No good at all,” said Haxtell. “You know what they’d say: ‘What are the police for? What do we pay all these rates for?’”
    “Another thing,” said Gwilliam. “It can’t be a fluke that the Nipper always gets into the office or shop or whatever it is, when it’s empty. No doubt he cases each job carefully, but if people would only be a little more discreet. . .”
    “A lot of it’s their fault,” agreed Haxtell. “But we shan’t make ourselves any more popular by saying so. Our job’s to catch him. You can take one man – Petrella I suggest – off all outside duty and tell him to concentrate on it. He knows a bit about locks. It’s just up his street.”
    So it caused trouble for Detective Constable Petrella, too. Following a sharp attack of flu, the result of an all-night watch in damp clothes, he had been on the point of asking for a holiday, his first in almost two years. He was going to visit his father, in Barcelona. After that, his plans were vague.
    He listened sadly to what Gwilliam had to say, cancelled some tentative reservations, and sat down to serious study of the Nipper.
    It was “Square” Peggs, the proprietor of the All-Night Café in Exeter Street who had first christened him “Nipper”. “He nips in, nips what he wants, and nips out again.”
    In the last six months, since his work had become identifiable, the Nipper had visited Solly Moss, the turf accountant; Mungo Farnes, the pawnbroker; Mr. Turner, who kept the big greengrocer’s shop on the corner of the High Street; and Mr. Lowson’s garage and repair shop.
    He had taken nothing but money. How much he had taken from each was part of the mystery; but the police, scaling down the estimate of the outraged proprietors in the light of experience, came to the conclusion that it was not less than fifteen thousand pounds in all.
    “If he keeps it up for a year,” said Peggs, “he’ll make himself twenty thousand nicker. Then maybe he’ll retire.”
    Petrella was fond of Peggs. He liked him for his cynicism, his philosophy and his lack of conventional morality. Also, he had found out a long time ago that nothing much happened in Highside without Peggs knowing about it.
    “He’ll be after your stocking next,” he suggested.
    “If he knew where I kept it,” agreed Peggs.
    “Which is an admission,” said Petrella, “that you do keep your spare cash somewhere round the place. Why the devil don’t you bank it?”
    “Might just as well give it away – to the tax collector,” said Peggs. It was, as Petrella knew, a widely held idea.
    “What you want to do,” said Peggs, “is catch him, and put him away for a long stretch.”
    “Tell me who he is, and we’ll tab him fast enough.”
    “If I knew,” said Peggs, frankly, “I’d tell you. No honour among thieves here. He’s a perishing little menace.”
    So Petrella took a bulky folder home with him, that night and many nights. And studied, in every possible light and from every possible angle, the depredations of the Nipper.
    His methods, in outline, had the simplicity of genius. He had visited Solly Moss’s office at half past one, when Solly and his two clerks were out at lunch. He had picked, with speed and efficiency, the mortice lock on the office door, looked into all the desk drawers until he found the safe key, opened the safe, removed the cash, closed the safe, replaced the key, relocked