A Thief in the Night Read Free Page B

in mind … an old friend. In fact I’ve had a word with her already about working with us.’ Harry absent-mindedly picked up the last half scone on his plate and nibbled at it, lost in thought for a moment. ‘First, I’ll check my records for forgery in the art market, perhaps going back a year. I have the name Metlem in my head.’
    ‘No. He died. Drowned in the Thames,’ George said, with a triumphant smile.
    ‘Right, so once again your memory is superior to my index cards! I’m not impressed. It’s rather dismally tragic that one so young should have such petty childish victories of fact,’ Harry said, adding, ‘I’ll look at the cards and then I’m away to the theatre, George. This is a job for Eddie. We need the police involved from the start.’
    Lord George sat down and, grasping the Daily Graphic and stretching out his legs, settled down once more in the comfortable leather armchair. ‘I’ll think about how to trap our little forger,’ he murmured to himself.

    The door of Pentonville Prison opened, by the side of the massive entrance gates, and in the early sunshine a large, fleshy man stepped out, carrying a hessian sack in which were all the possessions he had in the world. He blinked, and screwed up his eyes, then lifted the sack over one shoulder as a warder called out behind him, ‘No coming back, Tosher. We’re sick of you ’ere.’
    ‘No more than I am of you … if you ever see me again, it’ll be in a coffin!’
    He was tall, still quite young, in his late twenties, and had once been solid, muscled and athletic, but now he was ruined by the two years of hard labour he had endured. He had a pot belly, and the rest of him was full and fat. His face was pale and he walked slightly bent.
    There was but one person waiting for him: a short, stocky, middle-aged man in expensive clothing. He wore a woollen jacket, fastened high, with a collarless check waistcoat beneath; a light green silk cravat and black striped trousers showed the world that he was well-off. A distinctive feature, standing out for anyone to see, was his glass eye and a ridge of scar tissue on the temple: evidence that he had seen some kind of accident or had been to war.
    ‘Tosher! Very fine to see you my young friend … out in God’s own light at last hey? Oh, it’s been such an age!’
    The younger man did not smile. He grimaced and declined to shake hands with the other.
    ‘What’s the matter? What have I done? I thought we were friends … and I have work for you, how’s that? I trust they let you have drawing materials in that hell hole?’
    The younger man nodded. ‘Yes … some of the warders were fine with that … and the chaplain allowed me time to paint. That was the only consolation in there. Fact is, Ned, they know how to break a man.’ He bent forward, a sob rising in him; he wept like a child and dropped the bag. ‘Ned … Ned, I’m never going back in there! I’m going right, decent, I am, I swears it.’
    ‘Well, Tosher, I can reassure you that the work I have for you is no more than painting! Yes … a studio and honest work with your brush. How does that sound?’
    ‘I’ll believe it when I see it Ned.’
    ‘Well, we’ll be rich, my young friend … rich. I have not been idle while you languished in that castle of pain! Though you have not been starved I perceive!’
    ‘I ate more than my share … you have to fight to stay on top in there.’
    ‘So you can take it my old mate … dog eat dog, eh?’
    ‘Never, Ned … never back in there. I’ll die else … I’ll leave this world of sorrow.’
    Ned Byrne took all this in his stride and led the way to a beer shop to give his friend some courage, in the shape of a glass of porter. His mind was a grinding machine of plans and projections; he was finding a way to bring Tosher Killane back into the fold. Clients were waiting. There was no time for sentiment.

    The Green Room at The Savoy was accustomed to visits from Professor Harry Lacey,