AFTERTHOUGHT
Gangsters' Mogg
J. WELLS & J. FORTUNE
A powerful organisation is at work in metro- politan London, making vast profits out of an unholy alliance with the denizens of the criminal netherworld. Using as a front a now defunct company of great respectability.
and headed by a mysterious figure with other 'business' interests in North America known simply as Big Roy. the organisation 1 can now reveal, is using the police and the machinery of British justice as pawns in a ruthless and gigantic game to snatch their rivals' empires. concentrating the whole weight of their multi-million dollar oneeAtion on the petty criminals of London's under- world. Their efforts have met with alarming success. This year already. according to 'narks' in the City who have been nersuaded to 'squeal'. the 'Firm' has made a tax loss exceeding the national debt of many a struggling South American banana republic. Unlike their more conservative rivals. still snooping at the keyholes of scoutmasters' huts and transvestites' afternoon urinking clubs, armed only with opera glasses and crude Brownies, these slick operators from 'across the Pond' (the other side of the Atlantic) prey on the public with modern taperecorders. Japanese telephoto tenses and motor cars. The technological superiority is beginning to show. Last week, with a sud- denness that left their rivals gasping, they
almost pulled off their biggest 'job' yet. Scotland Yard is still boggling at the giddy daring of it. and one underworld spokesman described it as 'a bleeding liberty' He went on: 'What's become of honour among news- paper proprietors? That is what I want to know. With all these straight' (decent. re- spectable) 'outfits moving in on the bent stuff (sordid, indecent activities). 'where's an honest informer to go when tie's got something hot to unload? If it goes on like this we'll have the Tablet' (a rival organisa- tion, hitherto known for its restraint. and its almost religious observance of he role) 'down on us next'.
The story is a dramatic one. put together from the shorthand notes taken at the time and on the spot by a team of unobtrusive lady secretaries. and begins in the Fruit De- partment at the Civil Service Stores. Mr Sidney 'Flasher' Froat, an unemployed burglar and tax inspector's runner. was standing at the yam 'n' lychees sandwich bar attempting to pick the pocket of a beri- beri sufferer, when he was approached by a man loaded with taperecorders and Japanese cameras, known in the seedy circles in which he moves. as Billy the Mogg. A whispered conversation followed, in which Mr From was ordered to take the escalator to the toffee shop.
There• filling their pockets with cream- liners, the two men discussed the difficulty of earning an honest living. Hours later. secretaries followed a trail of toffee papers to a telephone box on the corner Jf Smith- field Market. where the following conversa- tation was recorded. Mogg: 'I thought you might be interested in fitting me up' (planting information on me). Froat: 'Nah"Laughter). Mogg: 'If there's any blank what's done you a blanking mischief, what needs blanking seeing to. if you take my meaning ' (At this point the door of the telephone kiosk closed on Mogg's fingers). 'Cor blank'. Froat then asked to be told it again with-
out the blanks. Mogg complied, explaining that it was his intention to give a police- officer 'the full treatment'. He knew of at least two elderly police constables who regularly drove to addresses in the London area after work at night exceeding the official speed limit. Was there anything even more damaging that Froat could lay his hands on? Froat asked for more time, and Mogg made a threatening gesture with his fountain pen. 'I warn you, blank, this is mightier than the sword. When I shake this, Cabinet Ministers resign' Froat burst into tears. 'Don't you want a sweet shop?' Mogg went on, pressing home his point. 'Nice old lady in a blue overall handing out the Qualities?' Froat nodded. Softening, Mogg thrust out a hand- ful of Mackintosh's Crinoline Assortment. 'There's plenty more where that came from, you old blanker.'
'Okay, okay, Foureyes' Froat gulped. 'I have been thinking of turning Queen's evidence for some time . . Mogg gasped. 'For blank's sake don't do that! Do that and you'll have Big Roy turning in his Turkish Bath. We need you more than the Queen does. And financially you will he better off. Two sweet shops, then. And re- member, no hankypanky, or we'll get you in a "coloured"' (place you in such ludicrous company that your dignity will be permanently impaired). Froat: 'All right then, I am slipping behind with my payments to Chief Superintendent Sir Horace Purefoy, And I can't afford the train fare to his moated grange-style pad in three hundred acres of the loveliest corner of Roxburgh- shire that John Buchan ever set his eyes on. And now Lord Chief Justice Leberwurst wants a piece of the gravy' (a share of my earnings) 'and I am up shit creek' (without a paddle).
Froat was now weeping pitifully. 'Don't you realise that every time I do a blind box or a spastic statuette I get leant on for 95 per cent of it? Straight into the till at White's. Judges, bishops, privy councilors, admirals, carpet magnates, property de- velopers—you name 'em, I have to pay 'em.' Mogg's reaction was far from jocular. 'Well, blank me. Don't you know anybody a more petty that's leaning on you? Inspect sergeants, constables, that kind of a geez Froat: 'Wish I did. Most of them have forced out of business by biggies.' M 'Oh, blank the blanking newspaper bust The nobs are about as much use to me Peregrine Worsthorne at a miner's bet, I have to sit next to these blanks at din every blanking night of the blanking s. Ah well, back to blanking Pooter.'
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