They Never Looked Inside by Michael Gilbert Page A

card (as duly observed by Detective Walkinshaw) and went to the local cinema. None of this seemed very suspicious to Sergeant Crabbe and his assistant, nor (when reported by him) to Hazlerigg, who duly called them off, which, of course, was the biggest mistake he had made so far.
    Two days later McCann had met Sergeant Dalgetty in the bar of one of the many pleasant Shepherd’s Market hostelries. He wished that he could take the Sergeant into his confidence but felt unable to abuse the trust which Inspector Hazlerigg had placed in him.
    Clearly no middle course was possible. Either he handed over his information to the police or he acted on it by himself.
    Sergeant Dalgetty had been obliging enough to walk part of the way home with him and point out the doorway into which he had seen Curly White disappear. They hadn’t lingered to inspect it. It was the north-west corner of the Square, where Flaxman Street ran into it, opposite the triangular corner formed by the 1940 Blitz and enlarged by a V2 in the last week of the war.
    Next morning McCann walked past the house again, and stopped this time to light his pipe – sheltering in the porch as he did so. It was an Early-Georgian affair. Obviously it had once been a gentleman’s residence and it still retained a frontage of some taste and elegance. But equally obviously it had come down in the world, and was now tenanted by no less than five firms who were willing to pay twice the normal rent in order to put Berkeley Square on their notepaper.
    The Major scanned the indicator board rapidly. Starting from the third floor he had his choice of Saxifrage Lamps (London Agency); Leopold Goffstein, furrier; The Cherubim Employment and Domestic Agency; and on the ground floor, visible from where he stood, the offices of Messrs. Knacker & Bullem, Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths. The basement was given over to the Winsome Press (“Books of Curious and Artistic Interest”).
    It took the Major several minutes to get his pipe going to his satisfaction, and during that time no one came or went in the quiet passage. Messrs. Knacker & Bullem’s Inquiry door remained unopened. No prospective employers plodded up the narrow steps leading to the first floor offices of the Cherubim Employment and Domestic Agency. (They had probably all given up trying long ago.)
    McCann rapidly jotted the names down in his notebook, against future reference, and passed on.
    He was on his way to visit his old friend Glasgow, at the Leopard, but a thought now occurred to him, and he directed his steps westward, and half an hour later was entering the doors of the Law Society, an august and sociable body which not only possesses one of the finest reference libraries in London, but is not unduly particular as to who makes use of it.
    He located Messrs. Knacker & Bullem in the Law List and ascertained, amongst other items of information, that the existing partners were a Mr. Browne, a Mr. Greene and a Mr. White. Leopold Goffstein was featured in the Directory of Directors. He appeared to have controlling interests in several Fur Firms and was on the board of three Turning and Pressing businesses and Megalosaurus Milk Bars Ltd. Saxifrage Lamps were a Birmingham firm and looked solid. The Authors’ and Artists’ Year Book dealt with the Winsome Press, but in a somewhat reserved way. It gave a list of their publications for the year, consisting mainly of translations from the Silvery Latinists and illustrated versions of French writers who, until the directors of the Winsome Press selected them for the English speaking public, had lingered in a well-deserved obscurity. Of the Cherubim Domestic and Employment Agency he could find no written trace.
    It is interesting to compare, in the light of after events, the results obtained by systematic police work and the fruits of beginner’s luck and to reflect that McCann’s notebook contained at that moment more accurate and relevant information on the activities