“Yes,” he admitted.
“A bobby was shot, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Then you won’t hear anything from me, sweetheart. When they get mad enough to shoot bobbies, little Lucrece is going home to play with her dolls. Yes sir!”
Martineau grinned at her, and picked up his hat. “You’re a waste of a good man’s time,” he said, still smiling.
Her own smile was mischievous. “Maybe you didn’t adopt the right method of interrogation,” she replied.
4
The inquiries of Martineau and his subordinates revealed that at the time of the Underdown crime Don Starling had been working for a living. At least, he had been holding down a job. By means of forged references he had stepped into the humble position of assistant cellarman at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in Lacy Street, and he had worked there for three weeks. The fact that he was working at all was regarded by the police as a matter for suspicious inquiry. They found that he had slipped away from work to take part in the raid, and, no doubt according to plan, had slipped back again after the crime without his five minutes’ absence being noticed. They guessed that he had taken the job to provide himself with an alibi, and, maybe, with a hiding place for the loot. They searched the cellars of the Royal Lancaster from end to end, and back again. None of the stolen jewelry was found.
The stolen Ford used in the raid was found in the alley where it had been abandoned. The alley gave access to Little Sefton Street, and ran through into busy Lacy Street. The back of the Royal Lancaster was in Little Sefton Street, and so was Furnisher Steele’s shop, where Starling had once “done a job.” Remembering that, one or two detectives looked doubtfully at the furniture shop. But old Steele was known to be an honest man, and, moreover, young Devery had just started courting his granddaughter.
From the point where the car was abandoned, all trace of the thieves was lost until Starling was picked up at his sister’s home. He resolutely continued to withhold all information, and in spite of patient and protracted inquiries, the police found no other suspect and no more evidence. They were beaten with the job.
The stolen jewelry was valued at £8,843, a sum large enough to upset the City Police recovery average. It also worried the insurance company who had to bear the loss. The company sent an investigator. He did no better than the police.
Since no accomplices were arrested, and none of the loot recovered, the obdurate Starling “copped it for the lot.” He was tried and remanded in custody until the Granchester Assizes. At the Assizes his trial lasted less than an hour: the direct evidence was overwhelming. Before deciding on the sentence, the judge looked at Starling long and thoughtfully, seemingly unconscious of the truculent way in which the latter stared back. There were many things for His Lordship to consider, and these included a Browning pistol, a crippled police sergeant, the sum of £8,843 in property not recovered, the prisoner’s record, and his unrepentant demeanor. At last he spoke, to inflict consecutive sentences in terms of years which the most illiterate old layabout in the public gallery could easily tot up to fourteen.
Fourteen years. Starling took the blow without wincing. But he may have thought it was rather severe, because he bowed ironically and said: “I thank you, my lord.” This indomitable but silly gesture (by one who was normally ill-mannered) made His Lordship’s lip curl. It also brought pleased expressions to faces in the Press Box.
Then Starling really made the headlines by turning toward Martineau-who had given the details of his record-and coldly stating that he would certainly kill him at the first opportunity. Martineau politely smothered a yawn as he appeared not to hear the threat. It was all pie for the reporters.
Starling was sent to the Island, where he had never been before. There he found that he was among characters as tough as himself. He was sufficiently daunted to keep quiet and obey orders until he was familiar with prisoners, prison officers and prison routine. When he had served some six months of his sentence he became aware that a big break-out was being planned. He also guessed that the prison authorities would hear about it, because some of the would-be escapers were too talkative. He declined to have any connection with the matter.
In due time the conspirators were sought out by prison officers. They were punished and separated. Then someone-probably the real informer-started a rumor that Starling was the man who had “come copper.” One day he happened to be alone in a prison workshop and four fellow prisoners quietly entered and attacked him. He took a bad beating, but true to his code he did not complain. He waited, with the intention of taking his revenge in his own good time.
A senior prison officer noticed his condition, and questioned him about it. He refused to say who had attacked him, but admitted that he was suspected of having been an informer. The officer, who knew more about prison life than any old lag, took a serious view of the affair. His concern resulted in Starling’s transfer to Pontfield Prison in Yorkshire.
The move pleased Starling. Life was easier at Pontfield than Parkhurst. It was also an easier place to escape from. And it was less than fifty miles from Granchester.
So Starling remained a model prisoner. He did as he was bidden, spoke civilly to one and all, and bided his time. He had no trade of his own, and he was put to work as a laborer on a building job: some new baths and showers for the prisoners. When the baths were completed, the gang started to lay the foundations of a big new office building quite near to the perimeter wall.
There is usually no great hurry in prison work: all the men-including the officers-have time on their hands. As the office building went up, Starling spent his second winter in prison without seeing an opportunity to escape. It was not merely a matter of getting out; he had to get away. It did not occur to him to get into contact with friends who would try to help him. When he escaped, he would do it alone. He would be beholden to no man.
From the second story of the new building, the prisoners could see the trains go by on the London-to-Leeds line. One of Starling’s workmates, a convicted mail thief who fretted about his wife, was disturbed by the trains.
“That bloody engine driver’ll be able to wave to my Missis,” he said once. “My ’ouse is right at the side o’ t’line, not five mile from ’ere.”
“Which way?” Starling asked casually.
“That way,” said the man, pointing. “Nearly due north. Five mile, an’ the wife can only find time to come an’ see me once every Flood.”
“Well, who wants to come to this place any more than they’re forced?”
“I’m ’er ’usband, aren’t I? She should want to see me. Heck! If I could get outer ’ere I could be ’ome in less nor an hour. Me own fireside, an’ a nice wife waitin’. Eeh!”
“They’d have you before you’d gone a mile, or else you’d lose your way,” said Starling, with just the right touch of derision.
“They wouldn’t,” snapped the mail thief. “An’ ’ow could I get lost, follerin’ t’line? I could walk ’ome in a fog.”
Starling carefully concealed his interest, but he was ready to listen whenever the man wanted to talk about his home and his wife. By adroit, seemingly uninterested questions he learned how he could literally find the little house in a fog. The first house in the first estate of council houses on the left of the line! Only five miles! A friend’s house, with a young woman living alone! The thought of it was an intoxicant. He was almost smothered by the pleasure of it.
“An’ I can get in wi’out wakin’ t’ neighbor’ood,” the mail thief boasted one day. “I’ve got a key ’id. I allus keep one ’id, just in case.”
“You’ll get your house broke into,” said Starling. “Sneak-inmen know just where to look for keys. On a string inside the letter box, under a stone near the door, on a ledge above the door, hanging on a nail somewhere inside the shed…”