101 Mystery Stories

77 Who Has Seen the Wind? Michael Gilbert

To Superintendent Haxtell, education was something you dodged at school and picked up afterward as you went along.

“All I need in my job,” he would say, “I learned in the street.”

And he would glare down at Detective Petrella, whom he had once found improving his mind with Dr. Bentley’s Dissertation on Fallacies at a time when he should have been thumbing his way through the current number of Hue & Cry.

Petrella was, of course, an unusual Detective Constable. He spoke three languages — one of them was Arabic, for he had been brought up in Egypt; he knew about subjects like viniculture and the theory of the five-lever lock; and he had an endlessly inquiring mind.

The Superintendent approved of that. “Curiosity,” he said. “Know your people. If you don’t know, ask questions. Find out. It’s better than book learning.”

Petrella accepted the rebuke in good part. There was a lot of truth in it. Most police work was knowledge — knowledge of an infinity of small everyday facts, unimportant by themselves, deadly when taken together.

Nevertheless, and in spite of the Superintendent, Petrella retained an obstinate conviction that there were other things as well, deeper things and finer things: colors, shapes, and sounds of absolute beauty, unconnected with the world of small people in small houses in gray streets. And while in one pocket of his old raincoat he might carry Moriarty’s Police Law, in the other would lie, dog-eared with use, the Golden Treasury of Palgrave.

“She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies,” said Petrella, and, “That car’s been there a long time. If it’s still there when I come back it might be worth looking into.”

He was on his way to Lavender Alley to see a man called Parkoff about a missing bicycle. It was as he was walking down Barnaby Passage that he forgot poetry and remembered he was a policeman.

For something was missing. Something as closely connected with Barnaby Passage as mild with bitter or bacon with eggs. The noise of the Harrington children at play.

There were six of them, and Barnaby Passage, which ran alongside their back garden, was their stamping ground. On the last occasion that Petrella had walked through it, a well-aimed potato had carried away his hat, and he had turned in time to see the elfin fact of Mickey Harrington disappear behind a row of dustbins. He had done nothing about it, first because it did not befit the dignity of a plainclothes detective to chase a small boy, and secondly because he would not have had the smallest chance of catching him.

Even when not making themselves felt, the Harrington family could always be heard. Were they at school? No, too late. In bed? Much too early. Away somewhere? The Harrington family rarely went away. And if by any chance they had moved, that was something he ought to know about, for they were part of his charge.

Six months ago he had helped to arrest Tim Harrington. It had taken three of them to do it. Tim had fought because he knew what was coming to him. It was third time unlucky and he was due for a full stretch.

Mrs. Harrington had shown only token resentment at this sudden removal of her husband for a certain nine and a possible twelve years. He was a man who took a belt to his children and a boot to his women. Not only when he was drunk, which would have been natural, if not forgivable, but with cold ferocity when sober.

Petrella paused at the corner where the blank walls of Barnaby Passage opened out into Barnaby Row. It was at that moment that a line of Rossetti came into his head. Who has seen the wind? he murmured to himself. Neither you nor 1.

A casement rattled up and an old woman pushed out her head. “Lookin’ for someone?”

“Er, good evening, Mrs. Minter,” said Petrella politely. “I wasn’t going to — that’s to say, I wondered what had happened to Mrs. Harrington. You can usually hear her family.”

“Noisy little beggars,” said Mrs. Minter. But she said it without feeling. Children and flies, hope and despair and dirt and love and death: she had seen them all from her little window.

“I wondered if they’d gone away.”

“They’re home,” said Mrs. Minter. “And Mrs. Harrington.” Her eyes were button-bright.

As Petrella turned away he heard the window slamming down and the click of the catch.

He climbed the steps. Signs of calamity were all about him: the brass dolphin knocker unpolished, the steps unwhited. A lace curtain twitched in the front window, and behind the curtain something stirred.

Petrella knocked. He had lifted the knocker a second time when it was snatched out of his hand by the sudden opening of the door, and Mrs. Harrington stood there.

She was still the ghost of the pretty girl Tim Harrington had married ten years before, but life and rough usage had sandpapered her down to something finer and smaller than nature had ever intended. Her fair hair was drawn tightly over her head and all her girl’s curves were turning into planes and angles.

Usually she managed a smile for Petrella, but today there was nothing behind her eyes but emptiness.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

“Well... yes, all right.”

She made no move. Only when Petrella actually stepped toward her did she half turn to let him past her, up the dark narrow hall.

“How are the children?” he asked — and saw for himself. The six Harrington children were all in the front room, and all silent. The oldest boy and girl were making a pretense of reading books, but the four younger ones were just sitting and staring.

“You’re very quiet,” he said. “Has the scissor man come along and cut all your tongues out?”

The oldest boy tried out a grin. It wasn’t a very convincing grin, but it lasted long enough for Petrella to see some freshly dried blood inside the lip.

I can smell tiger, he thought. The brute’s here all right. He must have made his break this afternoon. If it had been any earlier, the news would have reached the station before I left it.

“I’d like a word with you,” he said. “Perhaps you could ask the children to clear out for a moment.” He looked at the door which led, as he knew, into the kitchen.

“Not in there,” she said quickly. “Out into the hall.”

Now that he knew, it was obvious. The smallest boy had his eyes glued to the kitchen door in a sort of dumb horror.

They shuffled out into the hall. Petrella said softly, “I’m not sure you shouldn’t go too. There’s going to be trouble.”

She looked at him with sudden understanding. Then she said, in a loud rough voice, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’ve got anything to say, say it and get out. I got my work to do.”

“All right,” said Petrella. “If you want to play it that way.”

He was moving as he spoke. The door to the kitchen was a fragile thing. He ran at it, at the last moment swinging his boot up so that the sole of his heavy shoe landed flat and hard, an inch below the handle.

The door jumped backward, hit something that was behind it, and checked. Petrella slid through the opening.

Tim Harrington was on his knees on the floor. The door edge had cut open his head, and on his stupid face he had the look of a boxer when the ring gets up and hits him.

Petrella fell on top of him. He was giving away too much in weight and strength and fighting experience for any sort of finesse. Under his weight Harrington flattened for a moment, then braced himself, and bucked.

Petrella had his right arm in a lock round the man’s neck, and hung on. Steel fingers tore at his arm, plucked it away, and the lumpy body jerked again, and straightened. Next moment they were both on their feet, glaring at each other.

In the front room the woman was screaming steadily, and a growing clamor showed that the street was astir. But in the tiny kitchen it was still a private fight.

Harrington swung on his heel and made for the window into the garden. For a moment Petrella was tempted. Then he jumped for the big man’s legs, and they were down on the floor again, squirming and fighting and groping.

There was only one end to that. The bigger man carried all the guns. First he got Petrella by the hair and thumped his head on the linoleum. Then he shambled to his feet and, as Petrella turned onto his knees, swung a boot.

If it had landed squarely, that would have been the end of Petrella as a policeman, and maybe as a man as well; but he saw it coming and rolled to avoid it. And in the moment that it missed him, he plucked at the other foot. Harrington came down and in his fall brought the kitchen table with him. A bowl of drippings rolled onto the floor, spilling its brown contents in a slow and loving circle. Petrella, on his knees, watched it, fascinated.

Then he realized that he was alone.

His mind was working well enough to bring him to his feet but his legs seemed to have an existence of their own. They took him out into the front room, which was empty, and then into the hall.

He was dimly aware of the children, all staring at him, all silent. The door was open. In the street footsteps, running.

“You won’t catch him now,” said Mrs. Harrington.

He turned his head to look at her, and the sudden movement seemed to clear his brain. “I’m going after him,” he said. “Ring the police.”

Then he was out in the street, and running. Mrs. Minter shouted, “Down there, Mister,” and pointed. He stumbled, and righted himself. Harrington was already disappearing round the corner. Petrella shambled after him.

When he got to the corner there was one car in the road ahead of him and no one in sight. The car was moving, accelerating, a big blue four-door sedan. Too far away to see the license number.

“Gone away!”

A second car drew up behind him, and a voice said politely, “Is there anything wrong?”

Petrella became aware that he was standing, swaying, in the middle of the road. Behind him, its hood inches from his back, was a neat little sports car in two shades of green, driven by a fat young man with fair hair and a Brigade-of-Guards mustache.

“Police,” said Petrella. “Got to get that car. It’s stolen.”

The blue sedan was turning into High Street now. “Move over. I’ll drive.”

“Hop in,” said the young man. “You don’t look too fit. I’d better do the driving. It’s a tricky little bus, this, till you get the hang of it.”

“All right,” muttered Petrella. “but quick.”

The young man took him at his word. The little car jumped forward like a horse at the touch of a spur. They cornered into High Street, under the nose of a bus, and shot down the middle of the crowded road.

The young man hardly seemed to have moved in his seat. He handled his car like a craftsman, insolently exact, both careful and careless at the same time.

“Right fork ahead. He’s going up to the Heath, I think.”

“His neck’ll be for sale if he does much more of that,” said the young man calmly. The blue sedan had pulled out, charged past a bus, and only just got back again ahead of the oncoming truck.

“I say,” said Petrella, “you can drive.”

“Done a good deal of it,” said the man. “Rally stuff mostly, a bit on the track. Name of Blech.”

Petrella placed him then.

Time came, and time went, and they were off the Heath and making for the maze of small streets which fills the triangle between Hampstead, Regent’s Park, and Camden Town.

“I’m a bit too light to ram him,” said Blech. “No need, really. All we have to do is keep in sight. He’ll do himself soon.”

It happened as he was speaking. The road went up in a hump over the Canal. The blue sedan hit the rise so fast that it almost took off, came down threshing and screaming, went into a long sideways skid, hit the low parapet, and toppled over.

Blech came neatly to a halt, and Petrella was out, and running again.

The blue car was standing on its nose in three feet of water and mud, sinking ponderously. Petrella got the rear door open, and pulled. Behind him, Blech pulled. As the car fell away, the bulk of Tim Harrington tumbled back on top of them.

Petrella seized him by the hair and hammered his head on the towpath.

He felt a restraining hand on his arm, and the mists cleared again for a moment. “I think,” said Blech, “that you’re being rather too — er — vigorous with him. What he wants is first aid, really.”

“Sorry,” said Petrella. “Not thinking very straight. Fact is, I think I’m bit concussed myself.”

“That makes two of you. If you helped, we might get him into my car.”

They did this, between them. The street slept in a timeless summer’s evening doze. From first to last no other person appeared on the scene.

“Where to now?”

Petrella tried to think. Harrington was out cold. There was a big purple bruise on one side of his forehead, and an occasional bubble formed in the corner of his open mouth. He was a hospital case. But no hospital would take him in without explanations. Nor would any other police station.

“Home,” he said. “The way we came. It’ll be quicker in the long run.”

They drove home decorously, back up onto the Heath, and west, with the setting sun in their eyes. For a few seconds Petrella dozed. That wouldn’t do. No time to sleep. Job not finished. Better talk and keep awake.

“It’s very good of you,” he said, “to take all this trouble.”

“Enjoyed it,” said Blech. “What is he?”

“He’s an escaped convict,” said Petrella. “Named Harrington. Not exactly a pleasant character.”

“How did you cotton on to him?”

How had he? It was so many years ago. A great gale was singing through his head, a mighty diapason of sound that came and went. “It was Rossetti put me on to him,” he said, as the gale dropped for a moment.

“Rossetti? The Blessed Damozel—”

“Not Dante Gabriel, Christina. Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads The wind is passing by. Fork left here.”

“That’s nice,” said Blech. “Is there any more of it?”

“Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling The wind is passing through.” That was it. Hang trembling. It was the children that had made him certain. Sitting there like drugged mice.

“I must remember that,” said Blech. “Here we are, I think. You’d better get some help to carry out our passenger. And then you ought to lie down, I think.”

Superintendent Haxtell reckoned that he was beyond surprise, but the events of that evening tried him hard. First, there came two stalwart constables, supporting the drooping figure of a convict of whose escape in transit from one prison to another he had only just been notified; secondly, a diffident figure, whose face he vaguely recognized from the columns of the popular press; and, bringing up the rear, his shirt tom open to the waist, his face rimmed with blood and dried dripping, Detective Petrella.

When he had sorted things out a bit, he sat down to make his report.

Plainly it was a case that reflected the greatest credit on all concerned. And a lot of it must, and should go to Petrella. And, according to Petrella, Blech had behaved very well. A foreigner, but a good chap. So far so good.

But what the Superintendent couldn’t make out was exactly what credit was to be given to a person named Rossetti. Sounded like some sort of Italian. Some further inquiries needed there. His pen scratched busily...