Dark Side of the Street - Jack Higgins [8]
Each box was numbered neatly in white paint. He pushed the handle on number ten into the off position and returned to the corridor.
He knocked on the door of the wages office and waited. This was the crucial moment. According, to his information, the staff went to lunch between noon and one o'clock leaving only the chief cashier on duty, but nothing was certain in this life--he had learned that if nothing else in seven years of working for the Bureau and there were bound to be days when someone or other decided to have sandwiches instead of going out. Two he could handle--any more than that and he was in trouble. Not that it mattered--it all came down to the same thing in the end and he smiled wryly. On the other hand it might be amusing to see just how far he could go.
A spyhole flicked open in front of him and he caught the glint of an eye.
"Mr. Crabtree?" Chavasse said. "I'm from Maintenance. There's been a partial power failure on this floor and I'm checking each office to find the cause. Is everything all right here, sir?"
"Just a moment." The cover of the spyhole dropped into place. A moment later there was the rattle of a chain, the door opened and a small white haired man peered out. "The lights don't seem to be working at all. You'd better come in."
Chavasse stepped inside, noting in that first quick moment that they were alone and Crabtree busied himself in locking and chaining the door again. He was perhaps sixty and wore neat goldrimmed spectacles. When he turned and found the muzzle of a .38 automatic staring him in the face, his eyes widened in horror, his shoulders sagging so that he seemed to shrink and become visibly smaller.
Chavasse stifled a pang of remorse and tapped him gently on the cheek with the barrel of the automatic. "Do as you're told and you'll come out of this in one piece--understand?" Crabtree nodded dumbly and Chavasse produced a pair of handcuffs from a pocket in his overalls and gestured to a chair. "Sit down and put your hands behind you."
He handcuffed Crabtree quickly, secured his ankles with a length of cord and squatted in front of him. "Comfortable?"
The cashier seemed to have made a remarkable recovery and smiled thinly. "Relatively."
Chavasse warmed to him. "Your wage bill here runs you between forty and fifty thousand pounds depending on the amount of overtime worked. What's the figure this week?"
"Forty-five thousand," Crabtree replied without the slightest hesitation. "Or to put it another way, just over half a ton dead weight. Somehow I don't think you're going to get very far."
Chavasse grinned. "We'll see, shall we?"
There was money everywhere, some of it stacked in neat bundles as it had come from the bank, a large amount already made up into wage packets in wooden trays. The strongroom door stood open and inside he found a trolley with canvas sides containing several large money bags which, from their weight, held silver and copper. He removed the bags quickly, wheeled the trolley into the office and pushed it along the line of desks, sweeping in bundles of banknotes and wage packets together. Crabtree was right--it added up to quite a load yet it took him no more than three minutes to clear the lot.
He pushed the trolley to the door and Crabtree said, "I don't know if you're aware of it, but we do a great deal of work for the RAF here so our security system's rather special."
"I got in, didn't I?"
"But not while you were pushing half a ton of banknotes in front of you and it's impossible for any vehicle to get through that gate until it's been thoroughly checked. Something of a problem, I should have thought."
"Sorry I haven't time to discuss it now," Chavasse said. "But don't fail to buy an evening paper. They've promised to print the solution for me."
He produced a large piece of sticking plaster and pasted it over the cashier's mouth before he could reply. "Can you breathe all right?" Crabtree nodded, something strangely like regret in