The preliminaries were gone through and Bixley represented. The Clerk of the Court addressed the magistrate. Gently was called. He gave sparse details of the charge, referring to the episode at Castlebridge; asked the Court for a remand in custody pending further investigation. Bixley’s solicitor rose, made a formal objection. Gently answered it. The remand was granted. It all took exactly five minutes. And during that elapse of time Deeming hadn’t taken his eyes off Bixley.
‘So far, so good,’ Setters said, as they went down the steps from the courtroom. ‘Me, I’m still a bit surprised it’s gone off so quietly. I thought we’d have seen his pals around, but no, only friend Dicky. What was he saying up there that pleased him so much?’
Gently shrugged. ‘He was trying to sell me a line about Bixley.’
‘It’s his aim in life,’ Setters said. ‘He was selling me some last night. I was praying I’d find that dope there all the time we were searching. I don’t live clean, that’s my trouble. But I’d love to see Dicky in the dock.’
He went with Baynes back to the Wolseley which had brought Bixley to the court. Gently returned to his Rover, prepared to follow the police car. When it came out of the side lane he could see Bixley in the back between Baynes and another detective constable. Gently fitted in behind it. They drove out of the square and into Tungate Street.
And in Tungate Street they saw the motorcycles, six, spread out and charging towards them.
From then on it went too fast to make a coherent picture.
Gently braked, nearly hit the Wolseley, and finished up with one wheel on the kerb. Other motorcycles were coming from behind them, they jam-packed the narrow street. Black-clad figures locked machines together and ran shouting towards the Wolseley. A brick crashed through one of its windows. A door was pulled open, a man dragged out. Setters, a flailing fury, came jack-in- a-boxing into the fight. Baynes was struggling in the back with Bixley, he was trying to get some cuffs on to him. Gently launched out of the Rover. He downed a couple of assailants who set on him. As he got to the Wolseley he heard a cry from Baynes and saw Bixley come out holding a bloodied flick-knife. He saw Gently. He came at him. His mouth was dragged down at one corner. His eyes were flinching and small, the brows knotted, twitching. He didn’t say anything. He came at Gently. He held the blade pointing at Gently’s stomach. He lunged. Gently struck down the blade. Then he nearly decapitated Bixley with the side of his hand.
Bixley folded with a choking shriek and the knife went shimmying along the tarmac. Gently kicked it under the car, began hauling attackers from the man who was down. Baynes staggered out of the car, his arm bloody, stood with his back to the car and kicked. Setters was chopping away near the bonnet. He was shouting something about the radio. The man down got to his feet. There were several attackers on the floor. Suddenly, it seemed, the fighting wavered, the shouting stopped, there was a hush. The black-leathered gang drew off in a group, stood panting together, staring at the policemen. They saw the blood rippling down Baynes’s arm. They saw Bixley writhing and choking. They looked surprised and at a loss, couldn’t determine what to do.
‘Yuh, get Sid,’ one of them said. The voice sounded like Hallman’s. All of them were wearing black stocking-masks with leather helmets and goggles. ‘Yuh, get Sid and let’s get out of here.’ But a curious paralysis seemed to have come over them. They kept panting, standing close, some of them crouching as though expecting an attack. Gently picked up Bixley, slung him into the back of the car. Nobody moved to prevent him. They merely watched with rounded eyes. He went to the nearest pair of motorcycles, ripped the leads from the plugs. Still they watched him, motionless. And they watched Baynes’s arm.
Then Baynes collapsed. He did it so quietly that it looked like a slow-motion film shot. He swayed forward a little, then his knees went, then he flopped lazily to the street. It acted as a trigger. There was a commotion. They rushed in a panic for the bikes. Setters burst at them with a roar, kicking down bikes and clumping heads. In a moment they were fighting again, but now it was a disorganized, divided fighting, with the attackers on the run and trying to get their bikes started. At the same time reinforcements arrived. A patrol car came squealing in from the square. From the other direction a whistle was sounding, a uniform man pounded earnestly up the street.
‘Stop them — stop them!’ Setters was bawling. ‘Use force — don’t let them go!’
One of them had got a motorcycle going but he swerved round the constable and came off. Others were abandoning their machines, they were trying to dodge away up a side-turn. Four uniform men jumped out of the patrol car, came running in an extended line. One of the fugitives tried to break through it and was felled for his pains. Setters commanded the side-turn, Gently and the other two completed the cordon. They’d trapped eight of them out of twelve, and all the bikes had been left behind. Eight scared, gasping, gang-boys, three of them down on the ground. They huddled together sheep-like. Blood was showing through some of their masks.
‘Right!’ Setters panted. ‘We’ll have them handcuffed in pairs. Simpson, you see to Baynes, the poor swine has been knifed.’
The cordon closed in. It shouldered the fugitives into a tight circle. Hallman ducked and started to bolt for it, but Gently’s hand settled on his collar. He was hoiked back whimpering, the cold steel snapped on his wrist. The others didn’t give any trouble. One of them could scarcely stand.
In the back of the Wolseley Bixley still lay gagging and groaning.
Beside the Wolseley Simpson was slitting Baynes’s sleeve to reveal an ugly, gashed wound.
Setters hissed. He was trembling.
‘Christ,’ he muttered, ‘that chummie’s lucky. I’d have hit him, I would. I’d have bloody well killed him.’
‘Keep an eye on my car,’ Gently said. ‘There’s a call I want to pay.’
‘I’d have killed him,’ Setters muttered. ‘I’d have beat his brains out on the kerb.’
Gently hurried back up Tungate Street, across the market square to the guildhall. The uniform man on the door was kicking his heels, but he clicked them together when he saw Gently.
‘Has Deeming left?’ Gently demanded.
‘Deeming…? No, sir,’ the man said.
Gently hurried on up.
In the courtroom they were fining a housewife for having a defective rear light on her bicycle. Mrs Bixley had left the public gallery, Deeming was sitting there alone. He turned to give Gently a grin.
‘Come out here,’ Gently said to him.
‘Like that’s an order?’ Deeming grinned.
‘It’s an order,’ Gently said.
Deeming rose, stretching himself leisuredly. ‘It’s getting tame, anyway,’ he said. ‘Sid and the gent who was indecent were like the star turns this morning.’
‘Come out here on the landing.’
‘Sure, sure,’ Deeming said. ‘I always like to oblige a screw. But you’re sweating, man. What’s the action?’
The courtroom door closed behind them. Gently shepherded Deeming along to the end of the landing. He stood him under one of the bulbs, gave him a long, silent look.
‘Mysteriouser,’ Deeming grinned, ‘and mysteriouser, this gets. What’s all the steam and puff about? Like perhaps you thought I wouldn’t be here?’
‘We’ve still got Sid,’ Gently said.
‘Congratulations,’ Deeming said.
‘And eight of the others,’ Gently said. ‘And all twelve of their bikes.’
‘I’ll catch on,’ Deeming said. ‘Don’t tell me, just keep on talking.’
‘Sid had a knife,’ Gently said. ‘He put it into one of Setters’s men.’
The grin went off Deeming’s face. ‘I don’t like that bit,’ he said. ‘Where would Sid get a blade from?’
‘I’d like to know,’ Gently said.