“It’s on so tight that it’s stuck,” said Gideon. “Lem, tell Central to act as if it were an anti-vice week. Have uniformed chaps concentrated in Piccadilly Circus, and plainclothesmen in Soho. We’ve been looking for a motive, and now we have it.”
“What motive?” shrilled Lemaitre.
“They’ve caused those disturbances as a distraction,” Gideon said. “They’ve intended to make us concentrate on Piccadilly — as we have. There’ll be another distraction before long, and maybe others. One night, while we’re busy coping—”
“Other members of the club will be staging raids in the side streets!” cried Lemaitre.
It happened again three nights later.
This time a knot of seven youths suddenly started fighting and cursing outside the Criterion. Almost at once police whistles shrilled and the police appeared as if from nowhere.
Behind the Circus, in those narrow Soho streets, other youths seemed to erupt from dark doorways. They raided restaurants and theaters, stole the day’s receipts, and rushed out — into the arms of waiting police.
“But what made you twig it?” Lemaitre demanded.
“It took me too long really,” said Gideon. “I was sure no one would cause trouble in the Circus unless they intended to risk being caught. They were too slick in getting away to be just drunks or young savages. I simply went on from there.”
Your Days Are Few
by Richard O. Lewis[3]
Peter Ambrose was an ambitions, aggressive man — the kind that makes enemies. So it was not at all unusual that he began to receive threatening letters. Warnings? Perhaps — but then the anonymous enemy put teeth in the threats…
Peter Ambrose handed the letter across the desk to Chief of Police Weber. Weber glanced at it and looked up, frowning. “Another one?”
Ambrose nodded. “I got it in the mail this afternoon and brought it right over. I didn’t even bother to open it.” He was a dark-haired man, clean-shaven, manicured, dressed in a tailored suit — an aggressive type of businessman that was grudgingly respected by men and openly admired by some women.
Weber stroked his long chin thoughtfully as his eyes went back to the letter. He was a tall lean man who looked as if he had spent much time worrying about the problems of other people. The address — Ambrose Peter J 2010 W Euclid — had obviously been clipped from a telephone directory before being pasted into place. He slit the envelope carefully and shook out the single bit of white paper. “Your days are few,” he read aloud. “Your end is near at hand.” The words had been cut from a newspaper and, like the address, been pasted into place.
“Could be the work of some kid,” Weber said. “Or someone playing a practical joke.”
“Maybe,” said Ambrose, his square face set into hard lines. “And maybe not!”
Weber let the paper fall from his fingers. “There is really not much we can do about it, one way or another,” he said. “The stamped envelope is the standard type that can be bought in any post office. The scrap of paper could have been torn from any memo pad or piece of typing paper. The letter could have been dropped into any mailbox anywhere in town.”
“But there must be something to go on!” Ambrose insisted. “A clue of some kind!”
“If we get any clue at all,” said Weber, “it will have to come from you.”
“Me?”
“Right. If someone is threatening your life, then that person must have a reason — real or imaginary — for wanting you out of the way. You must have had some unfortunate associations with him quite recently. If so, then you must know the identity of that person.”
“Look!” said Ambrose, his face flushing. “You know as well as I do there are a lot of people who would like to see me out of the way — ever since I began the Lostcreek Park development! There are always those who stand in the way of progress.”
Weber nodded. He was well aware of the furor the Lostcreek venture had created among some of the citizenry. Lostcreek Park was a narrow strip of land that, until recently, had been owned by the city. It wasn’t much of a place, really — a strip of wilderness with a few weedy footpaths among the trees and shrubs, a tiny stream that went nowhere, and a miniature waterfall. Surrounded by sedate, mansionlike homes of an earlier era, the little plot had lain there for years, all but forgotten.
Ambrose had seen his chance, gained legal title to the strip, and was now in the process of clearing it and building boxlike houses for people of low or middle income. Too late, the homeowners surrounding the property saw what was happening. Their quiet, meandering avenues would soon be turned into noisy thoroughfares carrying factory workers to and from their jobs at all hours of the day and night, and the entire area would become vulnerable to hordes of screaming children. They rose up in protest, but there was little they could do. No zoning laws or building restrictions had ever been established there, for, up until now, none had been needed.
“I have a legal right to develop that site,” Ambrose said defiantly. “And I have a right to sell to whoever wishes to buy.”
“I doubt if anyone in that part of town is actually trying to get rid of you,” said Weber. “More likely, someone is just trying to frighten you off.”
It was late that afternoon when Ambrose finally drove out to the development area and stopped his car in front of the field office he had built there. To the south of him several houses had already been completed and a few more were under construction. North of him a rock ledge had been blasted away.
He entered the office, sat down at the desk, and stared into space. He had stuck his neck out. That was for certain. With his wife’s inheritance, his own savings, and all the credit he could get, he had made the big plunge. Unexpected lawsuits had taken their toll, and now he was strapped. Unless he could get hold of some cash soon, he would have to halt construction until he was able to sell the finished houses at a profit to recoup his capital. That would mean that he would have to go plodding along, selling one house before building another, and not really getting anywhere. At least, not getting anywhere as fast as he wanted to.
Plodding was not a part of Peter Ambrose’s nature. The advent of two new factories in town would soon create a wave of prosperity. Peter Ambrose intended to ride the crest of that wave, make a killing, then roll rapidly higher to even greater things. And he was determined to let nothing stand in his way.
The telephone on his desk jangled. Even before he picked up the instrument he knew who the caller would be — his wife, Alice.
“Yes?” he said.
“It’s nearly six o’clock,” said Alice. “Time for me to leave. I thought I’d call and remind you that dinner is in the oven. You sometimes forget—”
“I’m not hungry,” he said.
“But you should eat something!” she insisted. “Maybe I should stay home — that is, if you want me to—”
“No, no,” he said. “You go ahead. I’ve got work to do when I get home, will be busy for hours.”
“I cleaned your desk for you,” said Alice. “I polished it real nice and put everything back exactly the way it was—”
“Fine, fine,” said Ambrose. “Now, you run along.” And he hung up.
For the first two years of their married life they had lived in the neighboring town of Plainsville, and Alice had joined a bridge club composed of four other women of her own age. Each Friday night they had enjoyed a 6:30 dinner, followed by two hours of cards and gossip. When the larger city of Newton had lured Peter into moving there in search of greater opportunities, Alice Would have gladly given up the bridge club, but Peter had urged her to continue. “You need a night out once in a while,” he had told her. Now, more than once, he had been glad that he had insisted she make the weekly drive to Plainsville on Friday nights…