This is the second book written by Gilbert, and it again features Inspector Hazlerigg. Only this story places Hazlerigg on his home turf in London. We get to meet various people he works with--all competent (Gilbert doesn't go for knocking the police in his novels--all are reliable and quick-thinking and none are on the take) and work together like a well-oiled machine. We also meet for the first time Major McCann, the Scottish ex-soldier we met in Death Has Deep Roots. I wrote in that blog that it was unclear why he was part of the investigation or what exactly his relationship with the father/son Rumbold lawyer team is. Well, this story makes clear how McCann goes from having too much time on his hands as an ex-soldier to working 20 hour days for Scotland yard as an emissary to the British military. (The next book I have set out to read is The Doors Open which, according to the brief blurb on the back of the book, features "Nap" Rumbold, Rumbold the Younger. So once we get through that book, the whole gang will be assembled and their connections in Death Has Deep Roots will makes sense retroactively.)
This book was published in 1948 and was set in that time period, so WWII is officially over and soldiers are being de-mobbed and so are hanging around in London with no good job prospects and too much time on their hands. Gilbert makes pretty clear how bad the economy in London was at that time: a lot of businesses and houses blown to bits leaving the supply chains unreliable and finding a place to live nearly impossible. As a result, a lot of people are alive only because they are selling on a sort of gray market--selling goods and services in the wee hours without a license (not just selling alcohol and "cigarettes" made of random dried greenery but also selling meals, bakery, clothing, running a hair salon that only receives clients between 2 am to 4 am, renting rooms to tenants in odd spaces in attics and basements--spaces that are unsuitable for housing and so in violation of codes. Into all this sort of petty larceny you have the big time swindlers who are in the game for serious money, and who don't take kindly to people nosing around--it is this sort of racket that interests our Inspector Hazelrigg.
I'm going to be honest: I don't completely understand exactly what the racket this novel concerns is. I do know that there is a seriously evil person at the top of a pyramid (who has at least 5 aliases) and under him a handful of guys (none of whom know each other and each of whom answers to, let's use one of his aliases Mr. Brown, only by telephone). Each of those guys recruits a team of guys whose job is to sit in various diners in the final hour before closing. They wait for a young men (17 to early 20s, desperate for money and willing to engage in risk) to sit with them to be given an assignment. These assignments amount to breaking into business safes and stealing whatever is there: money, bonds, jewelry, anything. Once they have the goods they drop it off at an appointed abandoned building. If the thieves have been tailed, the stuff is simply left to be found by the cops. If the kids get away clean, someone else swings by to make a pick up and up the chain it goes.
The real secret of this operation is that it uses these low-level theives a few times--they are, effectively, disposable, so there is no risk of them ever learning too much about the operation. And, since the business brings in unimaginable wealth, they don't sweat small losses because some guy happened to be at work late and interrupted an attempted breaking and entry. All wins, no losses.
So far, this all sounds like a pretty typical mobster sort of operation, just one that has available a lot of desperate and damaged soldiers who are willing and able to break and enter. But this is where it gets really strange and beyond my understanding: The real prizes are jewelry but NOT to sell as that would be too risky. Instead, the idea is to collect precious metals and jewels and melt them down and turn the gold into solid bars. But that's not all! Those bars are divvied up into small piles (say, 5 or 10 bars), and hidden inside military equipment, like canteens. THEN, the canteens are given to a random soldiers waiting to be sent back to France for various clean up tasks. (British soldiers who stayed in the military for the paycheck were sent back to France, Italy and Germany to help hold things together while cities were being looted--plots of other Gilbert books.) These soldiers gather in London and then get sent over to France on boats and from there, sent on trains to various locations. While in the port in France, they had to hang around for a few hours or days, awaiting orders. And that time spent waiting around is the perfect times for someone who is part of a massive black market racket to give these guys £20 for the "canteen" they carried over on the boat for a "friend." They soldier thinks he's bringing over cigarettes--strictly speakig not allowed but everyone is doing it--when in fact he is participating in a massive international black market scheme.
But who is buying all this gold? APPARENTLY there were still people throughout Europe who used to be titled (Countesses, Marcheses, Czarinas, or whatever) who sewed baubles and bling into their clothes as they escaped from being killed by communists and anti-royalty Nazis. And now they want money--lots of it. But since the politics is still anti-royalty throughout Europe, they do not want to be associated with the loot of a thousand slave mines. So they sell their wares to men connected to Mr. Brown (though never Mr. Brown himself--no one sees that guy) in exchange for gold bars which are always be useful in any situation. THEN, and this is the cherry on top, they sign a notarized paper that testifies they sold the item in question 10 years earlier to a "friend who is a jeweler" in London BEFORE THE WAR BROKE OUT. Of course this document is fraudulent, but what auction house in London can be arsed to verify a notarized certificate from some backwater town in bombed out Hungary? They don't REALLY want to find out that the jewels they are selling for 10s of millions of pounds had been acquired illegally. They just want a piece of paper they can use as a shield in case a lawyer starts poking around. And how do the rubies and emeralds get out of Italy and into London? In the canteens of British soldiers being sent back home who have been asked to take "cigarettes to a friend" who will meet them in the port in London. So easy!
I guess it makes sense. But I think it's one of those things that you had to be there to really appreciate. It's hard to care that ex-royalty (at least in Germany there were no real royalty post-WWII as one of the first things Hitler did was make all royal titles illegal) are in a bind because they can't unload a ton of jewelry that other people died to supply them with. And it's hard to care that people are sneaking stuff into London to sell at inflated prices at fancy-pants auctions houses without paying import taxes....And it's hard to care that little old ladies are giving other old ladies hairdos at 2 am because they can't afford to renew their hairdresser's license...
So is this a good book? Well, as always, the characters are engaging and the dialog snappy. Was I happy when the good guys caught The Bad Guy? Yes, because the good guys are pleasant company and The Bad Guy (Mr. Brown) really was unpleasant. But what I really want to know is his backstory. And how does one go about setting up such a business? Is he like the arctic shrew Mr. Big in Zootopia who immigrates to the big city as a young shrew and ruthlessly clawed his way to the top, running the biggest mobster organization in the city all while listening to the velvety pipes of Jerry Vole? We'll never know.
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