Free Game Without Rules by Michael Gilbert Page B

the top of the van. Then, very gently, an inch at a time, he edged forward until he could see the whole van.
    The man was standing beside the open door of the cab, one foot on the step. He was watching the track, and had one hand in his pocket. He looked remarkably wide-awake. Mr. Calder didn’t like it. A van suggested numbers.
    Half an hour passed slowly. Then there came the clink of shod feet against stone, and three other forms loomed.
    Rasselas, who was lying almost on top of Mr. Calder inside the hedge, stiffened, and his lips drew back from his long white teeth. Mr. Calder clamped a hand firmly down on his head.
    Two of the newcomers were carrying something heavy between them. It looked like an ammunition box. They opened the back of the van, pushed it in and climbed in beside it. The third man got up beside the driver. Under its own momentum the van rolled quietly down the track. As it reached the road, Mr. Calder heard the engine start up.
    Not being a man who believed in taking chances against professional opposition, Mr. Calder spent the remaining hours of darkness in the ditch.
    At a quarter to four, as the sky was whitening and the birds were starting to talk, he walked up the track and approached his cottage with caution. Rasselas moved beside him. They avoided the doors and went in by one of the side windows, which Mr. Calder opened with a long flat knife. Then, together, they made a very careful search. They both worked by sight but Rasselas had the additional faculty of smell to help him, and it was he who unearthed both of the booby traps. One was under the gas cooker, operated by the gas switch. The other was in the cistern of the lavatory, operated by the plug. Neither was exactly original but both, as Mr. Calder noted, had been very neatly and professionally done.
    He telephoned Mr. Fortescue at his home in Leatherhead and gave him the registration number of the van, and a brief account of what had happened.
    Mr. Fortescue, who sounded very wide-awake although it was still short of six in the morning, said, “Someone’s got on to you very quickly, haven’t they?”
    “I thought the same,” said Mr. Calder. “And another thing – they were trained men, working under discipline.”
    There was a long silence. Then Mr. Fortescue said, “When you come up to town you’d better come to the bank.”
    After breakfast Mr. Calder recovered his car and drove it back to the cottage. He was nearly out of petrol, but there was a can in his garage. When he pulled at the door it stuck, as it very often did. He gave it a sharp jerk. As he did so, the garage disintegrated and the door came out to meet him.
    When Mr. Behrens arrived at Swiss Cottage police station, he sensed that something had happened. The station sergeant showed him straight up to the CID room where he found Detective Inspector Larrymore in conference with a red-faced detective sergeant and a youngish, black-haired superintendent from the Special Branch.
    “What’s gone wrong?” said Mr. Behrens, pleasantly.
    “You’ve heard?” said Larrymore.
    “I’ve heard nothing,” said Mr. Behrens, “but you’ve all got faces like a wet Monday morning, and I’ve never known a station sergeant be affable before, so I guessed—”
    “I’m afraid,” said the Special Branch man, “that they’ve pulled a fast one on us. I got instructions from Commander Elfe late last night that a man might be released from here in the course of the morning, and that he was to be followed. I’ve got a two car team waiting outside.”
    “Then—?”
    “He was released at ten o’clock last night.”
    “What!”
    Larrymore said, “Two men turned up, with a car. They had full Dl5 credentials. They took over the prisoner. The man in charge ought to have checked back—”
    The red-faced detective sergeant went even redder, and Mr. Behrens guessed that he had been the man in charge and felt sorry for him.
    “It’s easy to be wise after the event,” he said.