they could frame me.’
Locksley took another gulp of whisky and looked round the room for a minute without speaking. Then he said somewhat cautiously:
‘This is a very nice place you’ve got here. You’ve done nicely for yourself, Johnny.’
Johnny grinned again.
‘Meaning where did I get the doh-ray-me? Do we have to go into all that? Maybe you’d like to see a signed statement from my accountants.’
‘No, no, of course not.’ Locksley looked distinctly uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, Johnny, but we’re all a bit nervy about this business. There hasn’t been anything this big for some years now, and I dare say one or two of us will be out of a job by the time it’s over.’ He leaned forward in his chair and looked directly at his host.
‘Are you quite sure you haven’t any ideas about it, Johnny?’
Johnny Washington flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette.
‘To tell you the honest truth, old man, I’ve hardly given it a thought. I’ve been concentrating on rusticating these past few months.’
Locksley took out his wallet and passed over the visiting card, with the copperplate inscription.
‘Can’t you think whose work that’s likely to be?’ he demanded seriously.
Johnny flicked the card with his fingernail.
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ he said.
‘You’ve never had any cards like that yourself?’
Johnny shook his head.
‘I’ve never bothered about visiting cards—always thought they were kinda old-fashioned.’
‘You haven’t sent anyone a present with a card like that enclosed?’
‘No; in that case I’d use my own handwriting.’ He paused for a moment, then asked: ‘If you’ve come here to collect my fingerprints to see if they tally with those on the card, go right ahead, brother.’
Locksley gloomily shook his head, and took another drink. ‘There aren’t any “smudges” on the card; at least there weren’t when I found it,’ he said. ‘That’s what made me suspicious. If you’d wanted to advertise the job as your work, you wouldn’t have taken the trouble to bother about fingerprints.’
‘Nor would I have bothered to tear up that card,’ ruminated Johnny. ‘And if I had really wanted to get rid of the card I wouldn’t have been such a mug as to leave it lying around in a trash basket.’
‘It might have led us on a pretty involved false trail if you hadn’t happened to have that alibi,’ said the superintendent. ‘I’d have had to set a couple of men on to tail you night and day.’
Johnny laughed and passed the card back to Locksley, who replaced it in his wallet.
‘This gelignite gang interests me,’ said Johnny Washington, wriggling his toes inside his slippers. ‘I always like meeting people with new ideas. Tell me more about the set-up, that’s if it isn’t top secret.’
Locksley filled in the details of the chain of robberies very rapidly, but there was little that was new to Johnny, who had read most of the accounts in the newspapers. When Locksley had finished, Johnny poured the remainder of the whisky into his guest’s glass.
‘About this night watchman at Gloucester,’ he murmured. ‘Did you see him before he passed out?’
‘Yes,’ said Locksley. ‘He was an old lag named Hiller, and he’d had a heavy dose of chloroform; too much for his heart.’
‘Then he didn’t say anything?’
‘Well, he did come round just before the end, and he whispered two words quite distinctly—“Grey Moose”. For a minute I thought perhaps he might be talking nonsense, then I remembered.’
‘What did you remember?’
‘Just after the gang pulled the Oldham job, we picked up a man named Smokey Pearce, run over by a lorry on the Preston road. Just before he died, he said the same two words.’
‘Grey Moose,’ repeated Johnny thoughtfully. ‘It might mean anything … some sort of password maybe …’
‘It doesn’t suggest anything to you?’ queried Locksley, eyeing him closely.
‘Not a thing—except that I seem to have seen the words somewhere—can’t call it to mind right now. It might be some sort of trade name.’
‘We’ve been into all that,’ nodded Locksley. ‘But you’ll agree that when two dying men say the same thing it must have some sort of significance, specially as they were both suspected of being linked with the gelignite gang.’
‘You got something there,’ agreed Johnny thoughtfully. ‘I wish I could help you, brother, but I guess I’ve had enough of the crime racket to last me for a while. All I want to do is mooch around, a little fishing, a trip to Town once in a way, a lot of relaxing and a drink at the local … and that reminds me; we better get going if we don’t want to be shut out.’
He fumbled for his shoes and put them on with a certain amount of effort.
‘How far is this pub?’ asked Locksley.
‘It won’t take us five minutes in the car,’ Johnny told him. ‘I think you’ll like the Kingfisher—it’s a fairly old inn—oak beams and all that—dates back quite a way. We Americans are always suckers for tradition.’
‘You’re also suckers for Scotch whisky,’ said Locksley with a faint smile as they went out.
Johnny’s car was an enormous American roadster, but the engine seemed to be cold, and missed on two of its cylinders all the way to the inn.
‘I guess the plugs are getting clogged up,’ frowned Johnny as they drew up in front of the Kingfisher Inn. ‘I’d better run her round to the back and take a quick look at ’em. It won’t take a minute; you go in and order the drinks—be sure to tell Bache they’re on me.’
Locksley got out and Johnny ran the car into the little car park at the back of the inn, where he manœuvred it until the bonnet was exactly under the solitary electric light. Then he took out the offending plugs and carefully cleaned and replaced them. He was a little longer than he had anticipated because an elusive blob of grease on one of the plugs was more than usually obstinate.
He had replaced the bonnet and was just about to switch off all the lights, when there was a shout from inside the Kingfisher. Then a door opened and there was a sound of running feet. Washington immediately recognized the diminutive figure of Harry Bache, the landlord of the inn.
‘I thought it was your car, Mr Washington,’ he gasped breathlessly.
‘Anything wrong, Harry?’ asked Johnny noting his obvious distress.
‘Was that feller with you—the bloke what just come in?’
‘Yes,
