THE ONE-TWO PUNCH

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 74, 29 March 1938, Page 19

THE ONE-TWO PUNCH

Short Story

U A I say, £~\ watching Alf limiting -in- his

pockets for a pcncil to help him pick t lie "winner of the three-thirty, "absent-mindedness. Alf, causes an awful lot of trouble."

"\es, Sam." says Alf. "the matches are on the table if that's what you want for your pipe."

Which is the way he always takes a pleasant remark, snapping it back nt me. so to speak, especially if he's nothing else to do but wait f<>r another train so as to be ready to tell me when to go and take the tickets. "What. I menu." I adds, "is. did 1 ever tell you how a. 1 >it of absent-mind-edness on my part caught the bloke who pinched l.ady llaymarket's diamonds? The trouble he got was seven yea is." ".\'o," says Alf, "you didn't. Bui. what a tip? Seven of Diamonds in the three o'clock instead. J low about a bob each way, Sam?" "Bob each way nothing." I tell him. "You keep your bobs and your bobs'll keep you. That's what my missus says, and she's right for once, though it was because I thought she was going wrong that I came all over absent-minded."

It was just before we were married. I explain to Alf. and naturally I was feeling a bit worried. I was taking the tickets one morning, and there was quite a crowd at the barrier all thinking they were going to miss the train and pushing

At the back there's a girl I think's like my Nancy, talking to a smart fellow, who seems a bit too fond of her

for my liking, and even if it's not her a bit too fond of her for public exhibi tion.

And T'm looking at her to see if it is my Xancy and forgetting myself like, and when 1 look down 1 find I'm .holding on to a bloke's ticket and he's holding on to the other end and looking at the train and over his shoulder and back again, and when I let go he's off up the platform like a greyhound with the hare after him.

He is a tall, fair chap in a grey suit, and as lie goes off I sec lie's carrying a reddish-brown attache case.

"I'linnv," T thinks, "most peoplc'll make a complaint without a reason, and here's a chap got a reason and says nothing."

But I'm not quarrelling with luck, especially as I see it wasn't Nancy after all. but a little bit of a thing that should have known better, so 1 pull myself together and get 011 with the job.

Well, the crowd goes through, several people with platform tickets seeing off their friends like, and when the train goes out they come back, and among them the man in the grey suit. He hands me a platform ticket. I looks at it. see it is the right date, and that it's punched proper, and lets him go through. It is none of mv business if he changes his mind, though I wonder how he got the platform ticket.

But then I see lie has got 110 reddish case, so I says to myself: "Sam Hathaway, Sam. you've been caught dreaming once this morning perhaps it's not the same bloke at, all." But I think no more about it. Don t, look for trouble always was my motto.

About half an hour later up come two detectives. There's been a burglary, they say, and it looks like being the work of a bloke they call " 1 ailor Jimmy," because he always looks like one of these things in a shop window.

But this Jimmy must have an accomplice, they explain, who is getting rid of the stuff for him, and they have an idea one or other or both of them has caught a train from the station.The clerk in the booking-oflice has told them something about seeing somebody like this '•Jimmy'*" taking a ticket, though he can't remember where to. Anyway, he hasn't time to look at customers when there are excursions and what-nots to be issued.

Very high and mighty they are. and they are going to 'phone to all over the place and have him stopped if I can remember where he went. As if it's likely, what with one person and another getting 011 the train and all wanting to tell me that they know better where to change than I do.

Anyway, T tumble to the fact that the person they are really after must be the bloke in the grey suit, so I tell them that they can 'phone wherever thev like, but lie won't be there.

"What do you mean by that?" says one of the detectives, who tells me he is an inspector, though he looks more like a common sergeant. "You said you saw this fellow in the grey clothes come on the platform."

I answer, "but I also saw him

"Yes conip off."

'"Whv the Hesperus didn't you say so?" says the inspector.

"You didn't ask me.'' I tell him. "Was he alone?" asks the inspector. "As far as I know," I say. "Alone, coming and going." So the inspector and his pal start making arrangements and discussing between them how they are going to chase up this "Tail-u Jimmy*' in all the city when all the city reckons it dresses like the tailors sav it should.

"If roil don't mind me hutting in." I add. after they have pot to the state where they are not quite sure which is the right war to begin and are fight-

By SANFORD LOCK

ing about it, though the inspector has most of his own way, being the senior. "'lf you don t mind, there's something that went on to that platform that never came off." "What's that?" they ask. "A reddish-brown attache ease."' I explain. "A man with a ticket to Melford took it 011, but he came off again without it. Four platform tickets I punched to go on and four came off. but that don't mean it was the same four people came off." ou think Jimmy handed over lii« ticket and the case to an accomplice who came on with a platform ticket?" the inspector asks, and goes off down the platform to see if anyone saw him talking to anybody.

W lion lie comes lrark he tells me that nil he's been ahle to find is a porter, who might have been you, Alf. who remembers hopefully opening the floor of an empty first-class carriage for someone like this "Jimtnv."

He saw him get into the carriage and park his case in a corner seat and pet out again as though he was going to buy a paper. But he didn't see him speak to anyone. And with that the inspector reckons he's come to the end of it. so 1 tell him what I've been figuring out.

'"Sii|*j>ose," I says, "suppose this Miitmiy' just puts the ease down in a carriage as though it's to book a seat, and the diamonds and the train ticket are inside the ease. Then he doesn't come back. He just walks a bit further up to where his pal has dropped his platform ticket for him to pick up. And then the pal takes his place in the train."

"Then we must 'phone Melford to stop a man with a reddish-brown case."

"If the man's sensible," I tell him. "he'll have thrown the ease away after putting tlie diamonds in his pocket."

"Then we're no further." almost wails (he inspector. "We've got no description of the man and we can't search everyone. It's only surmise, anyway."' "Maybe, I tell him. "Surmise or no surmise, but you can 'phone to Melford and tell them to stop the man with a double clip in his ticket, a sort of one-t wo punch." "A what':" they say. "A one two punch, double clip. I punched that •limmv's ticket twice over, what with having my mind on other tilings anil catching his glove in the clippers the first time, though he never noticed to complain.

"Two separate nicks, side by side they were, and maybe if you find the Tim 11 with the ticket that was punched twice, he'll tell you where to find the other and maybe the nick in the glove'll prove something."

Which it did. Alf. when they had them up at the Old Bailey.