Free The Doors Open by Michael Gilbert Page A

guests are leaving us.”
    “You want to let ’em both go?” said Tony.
    “In the circumstances, yes,” said Luciano. He glanced again out of the window. “We must not keep the Inspector waiting – such a cold night.”
     
     
    2
     
    Outside in the street stood a short, square-rigged man in a blue overcoat. He regarded them impassively.
    “Thank you very much, Inspector,” said McCann,
    “Any trouble, sir?”
    “None at all,” said McCann with a grin, “once they spotted you.”
    “Ah,” said the Inspector. “They’re very good boys – when I’ve got my eye on them. But once take it off, and there’s no saying what they’ll get up to.”
    “Thank you, anyway,” said McCann again. “And Kitty told me to ask if you’d forgotten the way to The Leopard.”
    “Not much,” said the Inspector. “I’ve been busy. But I’ll come round and see you tomorrow. I’d like to hear a little bit more about – that.”
    He jerked a thumb at the now darkened and innocent-looking frontage of the Mogador.
    “I think I’ll just run this young man home,” said McCann. “I’ve got my car here.”
    Nap, who was beginning to feel a little tired of being treated like a pantomime extra, said, “It’s quite all right, thank you very much; if it’s any trouble I can quite easily walk.”
    “Not half you couldn’t,” said Inspector Roberts genially, glancing down the street. “As far as the next corner, I expect – with luck.”
    Nap gave it up. He climbed without further protest into the back of McCann’s ancient saloon car and Inspector Roberts packed in on top of him, saying, “You might drop me off at the West End Central Police Station if you don’t mind.”
    “Right” said McCann. “Let’s go.”
    Midnight was striking from St Clement’s-le-Strand when they reached the gates of the Inner Temple. Nap saw from the light in the window that Paddy was waiting up for him. He himself was beginning to feel surprisingly wide awake, and with it came a consciousness that he had been more than a little ungracious to his rescuer.
    “Look here,” he said. “I haven’t started to thank you for what you did tonight.”
    “Then oblige me,” said McCann hastily, “by not starting.”
    “Don’t be alarmed,” said Nap. “I’m not going to be embarrassing. What I was going to say was, why not come in and have a drink? There are roughly a million questions I want to ask you. That’s to say, if you don’t mind – it’s a bit late.”
    “Fine,” said McCann. “I’m a late bird. Most publicans are. It’s the demoralizing effect of not having to get up before ten o’clock in the morning: Lead on.”
    They found Paddy stretched in front of the fire reading market reports.
    “Where the hell have you been?” he said. “Do you know I was on the point of ringing up the police.”
    “Then you were on the point of doing something dashed sensible,” said Nap. “This is Major McCann, my guardian angel. McCann – Yeatman-Carter. Be a good chap, Paddy, and get out that last bottle of John Haig. I think I put it in the washing basket for safety, but it may be in the broom cupboard under the stairs. Grab a chair, Major, whilst I get some glasses.”
    The appropriate rites having been performed, Nap proceeded to give both men a summary of the events leading up to that evening.
    McCann said, “I’ll keep my questions till the end. But I think you had some points you wanted clearing up first. Fire away.”
    “Who’s Lucy?” said Nap briefly. “Who’s Birdy? And what is the racket at the Mogador?”
    “One thing at a time. ‘Lucy’ is Luciano Capelli, a Neapolitan by birth, though he took out English nationality back in the early thirties – that was before Mussolini started banging the drum and the FO got so cagey about Wops. I am told that under the compulsion of conscription he even served his new King and Country during the recent hostilities – for one discreditable year in the Army Catering