Free Young Petrella by Michael Gilbert

the outer door and departed. Estimated time, ten minutes. The loss was not discovered until Solly visited his safe that evening to bank the results of a highly successful afternoon at Hurst Park. Mungo Farnes, the pawnbroker, and Mr. Turner were both evening jobs. They were bachelors and both lived over their premises, but took an occasional evening out. In each case the Nipper had selected the correct evening, picked the lock of the outer door and, in the case of Farnes, who was a careful man, of the inner door also; gone straight to the place where the money was kept (in one case a desk, in the other a wall cupboard); picked the lock of this, and departed with the contents. At Lowson’s garage it had been easier still, since Mr. Lowson did not sleep on the premises, but entrusted his cash to a large, old-fashioned safe, the key of which he concealed, with great originality, by hanging it on a nail behind the door.
    “Any leads?” asked Sergeant Gwilliam. Two years had taught him a reluctant respect for Petrella’s flair.
    “Nothing definite,” said Petrella, and stopped himself yawning. He was desperately tired and had been needing that holiday more than he knew. “Just two thoughts. The first is that he hasn’t done anything very complicated yet in the way of lock-picking. He hasn’t tackled a safe – he either opens them with a key or leaves ’em alone. He hasn’t even tried his hand on a Yale lock. It’s just been simple three or four-lever locks which he’s opened with a couple of picks.”
    “Why do a thing the hard way if you can do it soft?”
    “Surely,” agreed Petrella. “All I meant was this. If he could open a really difficult lock, that would make him one sort of person. A professional. And we could get at him through Criminal Records. What I’m afraid of is that he’s an amateur. Suppose he’s a man who’s worked in some place they cut keys – or some little workshop where they make and repair ordinary locks. He’d know just enough about locks to open the simple sort with a bit of practice.”
    “He’s been getting plenty of practice lately,” agreed Gwilliam, sourly. “What’s your other bright idea?”
    “I just thought that if I’m right, the only way of catching him is to find the common denominator of Solly Moss, Mungo Farnes, Mr. Turner and Mr. Lowson.”
    “They’re all in a good way of business. And they’re all so damned silly they keep their cash on the premises.”
    “I didn’t quite mean that. I meant that if the Nipper is an amateur, he must have had some easy way of finding out all about these four people – and their money – and what they did with it, and what their habits were, and so on. A professional could buy information like that. An amateur would have to get it for himself.”
    “It’s a thought,” said Sergeant Gwilliam, doubtfully, “but it doesn’t seem to get us much closer to pulling him in, does it?”
    Petrella went out to have another word with Peggs.
    “Can you,” he said, “think of any sort of link between these four people? They’re all men, and they all run businesses. But I mean something more than that. Suppose they all belonged to the same club – or supported the same football team – or had their hair cut by the same barber—”
    “Solly hasn’t got any hair.”
    “Just an example.”
    “Yes. I take your point.” Peggs reached down for a small bottle, popped two white tablets out of it into a glass of water and swallowed them absent-mindedly. “Blown up like a balloon. It’s all that greasy stuff I serve. Supposing they all had the same postman?”
    “Would you talk to a postman about your private affairs? What about an insurance agent?”
    “Except that none of ’em wasn’t insured. That’s what they were beefing about.” Peggs swilled down the last white drop and said, “What about a Lodge?”
    “I don’t know much about Lodges,” admitted Petrella.
    “I don’t go for them myself,” said Peggs.