Amateur Barrow Boy

AMATEUR BARROW BOY.
Three-minute Thriller By ERIC ALLEN.

It had been raining for one hour precisely by Det.-Sergeant Stockley's watch; and for an hour he had been standing on this corner growing more and more certain that something had gone wrong.
"Watch the shop," Kegworthy Jones, his superior at the Yard, had ordered. "Don't budge from this corner. I'll be here at eight, no later."
But now it was nearing nine, and where was Jones?
The inspector had been given a hot tip. Corby was to take delivery of the stuff at around seven o'clock.
"He'll bring the stuff to the shop here after he has picked it up," Keg had said. "If I let him. But I plan to be on the spot when he collects. I have to grab him with the stuff in his possession or it's no dice."
Now it was ten to nine by Stockley's watch...But as he peered at it a church clock began to strike the hour.
The last strokes were booming when he heard the car. It was a large saloon, not a squad car, that swished round the corner and stopped outside the shop.
Stockley drew back into a dark corner. He watched two men climb out of the car. One unlocked the door of the shop. The other opened the rear door of the car and hauled out a box.
"Give us a hand, Jake," Stockley heard him call.
Five times the men made the trip between car and shop. Five boxes. Say three hundred in each. Fifteen hundred brand-new Swiss watches - the consignment that Keg Jones had been just too late to intercept when it was landed from that French fishing boat. And it looked as if he had been too late this evening as well.
While young Stockley was turning this over, the door of the shop opened and Corby and the other man came out.

He heard the rattle of the padlock, then saw them scoot across the pavement to the car. What should he do? Try to hold them? But could he hold them...he, against the two of them?
Then the car was pulling out from the kerb...Too late now. As it swung round the corner Stockley heard the church clock strike the quarter.
Don't budge from the corner, Keg had said. And Keg Jones always meant what he said. There were times, though, thought Stockley, when a chap had to show some initiative.
First - get into the shop. Within five minutes Stockley was scrambling in through a window at the back. The boxes were in the passage that ran back from the shop. Strong wooden boxes, nailed down. And heavy.
It was then that Stockley had his great idea.
That afternoon he had noticed a hand barrow standing under a lean-to shed. And the gates of the yard could be opened easily enough from the inside.
Getting the boxes through the window and over the wall into the yard would be a job. But it could be done.
It took him the better part of an hour to prove it.
The church clock was striking a quarter past 10 as Stockley trundled the barrow with the boxes on it out of the yard.
The rain was pelting down harder than ever and the nearest police station was close on a mile away. But Stockley took hold of the handles of the barrow and began to push.
He had forgotten about the hill. Shoving up it almost finished him. The sharp dip down on the other side did so quite. It was fine at first, he was conscious only that he no longer had to push.
Then, suddenly, he saw that he had better start pulling. But too late. The barrow, with its heavy load, had its head. No question of holding it back - it was all he could do to hang on.
The barrow leading, Stockley rattling along behind like a can tied to a dog's tail, they shot by the red light at the bottom of the hill and halfway across the road.
He heard the crash and felt the jar, but he did not see the big saloon car swing wildly this way and that in a tremendous skid before fetching up with a smack against the kerb.
The barrow lost a wheel and one handle. The boxes were here, there and everywhere about the road. This Stockley took in as he hauled himself out of the flooded gutter. Then he saw the two men climb from the car.
He was walking towards them, hobbling, when he heard a second car coming. The car pulled up with a scream of brakes. A door was flung open...And then...
Keg Jones slammed the door of the squad car and ran across the road towards the big saloon. Suddenly he stopped short. Stared.
"What the devil are you doing here, Stockley?" he demanded. "Thought I told you to wait on that corner."
But Stockley ignored that. "Do you see whose car it is? Do you see? It's Corby..."
"Of course, it's Corby," said Keg Jones sourly. "How do you think I happen to be here - coincidence? He gave me the slip. I didn't get on to his tail till an hour ago."
The two men had strolled across to them. One, with a half-smoked stump of cigar in his gold-toothed mouth, gave a grin. "Hullo, Inspector. Fancy running into you."
"It wasn't me you ran into," said Jones. He jerked his thumb at Stockley. "It was him."
"Inspector," said Stockley urgently, "Corby was at the shop. I watched him unload the stuff.
Corby still grinned. "What shop? What stuff?"
"There it is," said Stockley. "In those boxes."
Keg Jones walked over to one of the boxes. "Come here, Stockley," he called. The box had burst open when it hit the road. He thrust a hand inside it. "Watches, did you say? Tell me the time by this." He pulled out a half-brick.
Corby broke into a roar of laughter. But Keg Jones looked thoughtful. "Hold it, Corby. Those are the boxes the watches were in." He turned to Stockley. "What time was he at the shop?"
"Nine o'clock precisely."
"Nine, eh?" And he didn't pick up the stuff until after eight. How long were they in the shop, Stockley?"
"Fifteen minutes."
"Fifteen minutes? Keg Jones made a sudden grab at Corby and caught him by the arm. "You couldn't have unpacked those watches, and then loaded the boxes up with bricks, all in 15 minutes. So you must have unpacked the watches in the car. Search it, Stockley. I'd try the back seat first."
And in the false bottom of the back seat Stockley found them - 1500 brand-new Swiss watches, each neatly wrapped in paper.
"I get it," Keg said. "You were tipped off that the sergeant was on that corner, eh, Corby? You meant him to see those boxes go into the shop. You figured he'd get hold of me. And while we were raiding the shop, of course, you would have got the stuff safely under cover.
"But you reckoned without our barrow boy, Corby. Matter of fact I reckoned without him myself."

THE END.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 24 March 1954, page 12