They Never Looked Inside by Michael Gilbert

the corner of the office stood a camp bed. Hazlerigg had slept there every night since Folder 26 had opened. Folder 26 was the Yard’s unromantic name for the series of happenings, some of which Major McCann had just learned of.
    In so far as the folder had any exact location in space it was represented by the set of filing cabinets standing behind the Inspector’s desk. These were of a pattern peculiar to Scotland Yard, being small models in facsimile of the big cabinets in the basement which housed the millions of entries in the Records Department. The cards were identically slotted. So that if, for instance, one of Hazlerigg’s suspects left a fingerprint behind him the card on which it was filed could be put through the selector; and in an astonishingly small number of minutes a name would be put to its owner; provided of course that the owner was a previous customer.
    So far none of them had been, which didn’t make life any easier. In fact, life was far from easy, just at the moment. Hazlerigg had seen the Commissioner that morning. The Commissioner had been both kind and, considering all things, appreciative. He was known as a man who backed his heads of department to the limit. And he had the very rare and very great attribute of accepting responsibility without underwriting his risks.
    That morning he had calmly doubled the stakes. He had left Hazlerigg in no doubt as to the seriousness of the situation. And he had offered him commensurate powers. What he had given him was the nearest thing to a carte blanche since the British fifth column had been liquidated in the autumn of 1938. Which made it all very nice for Hazlerigg – if he succeeded. He turned again to the paper in front of him. It was a typed transcript of Major McCann’s interview with Gunner Andrews, duly taken down in the next room as it came over the tannoy speaker connected to the microphones under the wainscoting of that functional apartment.
    He was puzzled about Curly. It was possible, of course, that McCann had not noticed the slip, and in that case his failure to mention it was venial. It was equally possible that McCann had noticed it, and deliberately kept the information to himself. In order not to incriminate another of his men? Possibly. Or in order to follow the line himself. That was a more likely solution.
    The thought made Hazlerigg shudder.
    He had taken the precaution of putting a man on to the Major’s tail, but this did not really solve the problem. To shadow a suspect successfully twenty-four hours of the day, day after day, needed a minimum of six trained operatives. Even with his new powers he couldn’t throw men about on that scale.
    It was perfectly possible, for instance, that even if McCann meditated independent action he might not put his plans into operation immediately. He might wait for a week. He might take a month’s holiday in the country first. “Take someone to help you,” he had said to Crabbe, “and watch him for the rest of the day. If he seems to be doing anything in the least bit odd, phone me straight away, and I’ll think about making a permanent job out of it.”

II
     
    McCann had lunch at the Corner House and then walked home across Regents Park. He found that thinking was easier if he kept moving. The first thing, of course, was to get hold of Sergeant Dalgetty. He would write to him. Meanwhile he would formulate a plan of campaign. Several ideas, remarkable equally for their audacity and impracticability, were considered and discarded before the simple solution forced itself on him. He quickened his pace, causing Sergeant Crabbe acute distress, and arrived home with a splendid appetite for tea.
    After tea it struck him that Sergeant Dalgetty might have a telephone and he tried out the idea on Directory Inquiries; without any success, however; so he wrote a post card suggesting a rendezvous in Shepherd’s Market on the evening of the day after next, borrowed a stamp from his sister, posted the