When the Gangs Came to London

London 1931
1

All this began on the day in 1929 when ‘Kerky’ Smith met his backer in the Beach View Café and put up a proposition. This was at the time when Big Bill was lording it in Chicago, and everything was wide open and the safe-deposit boxes were bursting with grands. But to cut into the history of these remarkable happenings the historian would probably choose the adventures of a lady in search of a job.

The girl who walked up the two steps of 147 Berkeley Square and rang the bell with such assurance and decision was difficult to place. She was straight of back, so well proportioned that one did not notice how much taller she was than the average. She was at that stage of development when, if you looked to find a woman, you discovered a child or, if prepared for a child, found a woman.

You saw and admired her shape, yet were conscious of no part of it: there was a harmony here not usually found in the attractive. Her feet were small, her hands delicately made, her head finely poised. Her face had an arresting quality which was not beauty in its hackneyed sense. Grey eyes, rather tired-looking; red mouth, larger than perfect. Behind the eyes, a hint of a mind outside the ordinary.

The door opened and a footman looked at her inquiringly, yet his manner was faintly deferential, for she might just as easily have been a duchess as one of the many girls who had called that day in answer to Mr. Decadon’s advertisement.

‘Is it about the position, miss?’ he dared to ask.

‘About the advertisement, yes.’

The footman looked dubious.

‘There have been a lot of young ladies here today.’

‘The situation is filled, then?’

‘Oh no, miss,’ he said hastily.

It was a dreadful thought that he should take such a responsibility.

‘Will you come in?’

She was ushered into a large, cold room, rather like the waiting-room of a Harley Street doctor. The footman came back after five minutes and opened the door.

‘Will you come this way, miss?’

She was shown into a library which was something more than an honorary title for a smoke-room, for the walls were lined with books, and one table was completely covered by new volumes still in their dust jackets. The gaunt old man behind the big writing-table looked up over his glasses.

‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Leslie Ranger.’

‘The daughter of a retired Indian colonel or something equally aristocratic?’ He snapped the inquiry.

‘The daughter of a clerk who worked himself to death to support his wife and child decently,’ she answered, and saw a gleam in the old