“Of course,” Mr. Merryweather said, beaming, “By all means take
him along with you.”
“We’ll go back to my hotel,” I said to Littlejohns. “I’d like you to
have details of this case.”
He nodded, muttered again under his breath, opened the door for
me.
We walked to the elevator, rode down to the ground-level in
silence.
I waved to a taxi, ushered Mr. Littlejohns in and as I was about to
follow, something — intuition, instinct, something- made me turn
quickly and look behind me.
The young runt who had tried to dent my skull and who had
followed me in the Standard was standing in a doorway watching me.
For a second our eyes met, then he spat on the pavement, sauntered
off in the opposite direction.
Chapter VII
HENRY LITTLEJOHNS looked as out of place in the Savoy as a
snowman in the middle of August. He sat on the edge of a chair, his
bowler hat resting on his knees, a sad expression on his face.
I told him about Netta, took him through every detail of the story,
concluded with the burning of Anne’s body.
Throughout the recital, he sat motionless. The sad expression
remained on his face, but I could tel by the intent look in his eyes that
he wasn’t missing a thing.
“A very interesting story,” he said when I had finished. “It calls for
a most searching investigation.”
I said I thought he was right, and what did he think of the set-up
now that I had given him the facts?
He sat chewing his moustache for a moment or so, then looked
up.
“I think Miss Scott’s alive,” he said. “The fact that her clothes are
missing, the body stolen to prevent identification and that you think
you saw her yesterday seems proof enough to me. If she is alive, then
we shall have to discover who the dead woman was in Miss Scott’s
flat. We shall also have to find out whether Miss Scott had anything to
do with her death; whether it was murder or suicide, whether there
was anyone else implicated. It seems to me that if Miss Scott arranged
for the dead woman to be mistaken for her, she must have an urgent
reason for going into hiding. That’s another thing we must discover.
The fact that she didn’t take the money nor the diamond ring,
although she had time to pack her clothes, would point to a third
party being present whom she did not trust and from whom she was
anxious to conceal the fact that she had such valuables in the flat. We
must find out who that third party was.”
“You worked all that out in a few minutes,” I said, regarding him
thoughtfully. “I worked it out too, only I took a little longer, but
Corredan hasn’t got around to it yet. Now why? Why should Carridan
still insist that Netta committed suicide?”
Littlejohns allowed himself a bleak smile. “I have had some
experience of Inspector Corridan,” he said. “He is a most misleading
man. I suggest from my knowledge of his methods that he has arrived
at this conclusion but he is not letting you know that he has done so.
It may be, sir, that he considers you’re implicated in this case, and is
allowing you to think he has hold of the wrong end of the stick in the
hope you will be over-confident and commit yourself. The Inspector is
a deep thinker, and I wouldn’t underestimate his abilities for a
moment.”
I gaped at him. “Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “That idea never
occurred to me.”
For a moment Littlejohns relaxed sufficiently to look almost
human. “The Inspector, in spite of what Mr. Merryweather says, is a
brilliant investigator. He has caught more criminals by pretending to
know nothing when he has known the ful facts than any other of the
Yard’s personnel. I should be most careful what you say or do as far as
he’s concerned.”
“Okay, I’ll remember that,” I said. “Now the next step is to dig and
keep digging until we find something important to work on. I’m sure
you’re right about Netta. She’s alive and she’s arranged with Cole to
identify this dead woman as herself. That explains why the body was
kidnapped. They are keeping the body away from me. Will you go
down to Lakeham right away and keep an eye on Mrs. Brambee’s
cottage? Look out for Netta. I think she’s hiding there. I’ll do what I
can up here and in a couple of days or so we’ll get together and see
how far we’ve got.”
Littlejohns said he’d go to Lakeham immediately, left with a much
more sprightly step than when he had come.
The rest of the day I worked at my first article on Post-War Britain
for the United News Agency. I had already obtained a considerable
amount of material for the article so I was able to settle in my room
and make my first rough draft. I became so absorbed in my work that
the problem of Netta and her sister ceased to nag me. By six-thirty I
had completed the draft, and decided to leave it until the next day
before polishing and checking my facts.
I rang for the floor waiter, lit a cigarette and sat before the open
window looking down on the Embankment. Now that I had put the lid
on my typewriter, Netta took over my thoughts. I wondered what
Corridan was doing. The more I thought about Littlejohns’s theory the
more sure I was that Corridan knew that Netta hadn’t committed
suicide, and that I might be hooked up in the case in some way.
The floor waiter, who was fast beginning to learn my habits,
arrived at this moment with a double whisky, water and ice bucket. I
added a little water and ice to a lot of whisky, stretched out more
comfortably in the arm-chair. Now what, I asked myself, was I going to
do to help solve the puzzle of the missing body? As far as I could see
there were three things I could do that might lead to something: first,
I could find out all I could about Julius Cole. If the girl who had died in
Netta’s flat was not Netta, then Julius Cole was in this business up to
his neck. It would obviously pay to keep an eye on him. Then there
was Madge Kennitt, the occupier of the first-floor flat. She might have
seen something. I had to find out if anyone had called the night the
girl died. I had a hunch that Netta wasn’t involved in this business, but
had, in some way, been implicated against her will. If that was so a
third person had been in the flat on that night. Madge Kennitt might
have seen him or her. Final y, I could visit the Blue Club, and try to find
out if Netta had any special friends among the hostesses, and if she
did, and if I could locate her, to find out from her anything about
Netta that might give me a lead.
By the time I had finished my whisky, I had decided to visit the
Blue Club. I took my shower, changed into a dark suit and wandered
downstairs for an early supper in the almost deserted grill-room.
I arrived at the Blue Club a few minutes to nine o’clock, too early
for the main crowd, but late enough to find the cocktail bar full.
The Blue Club was a three-store
y building half-way up Bruton
Mews behind Bruton Place. It was a shabby, faded-looking place, and
you could pass it without knowing it was there. But inside you
stepped from a cobbled dreary Mews, into a miniature palace of
rather overpowering luxury.
The cocktail bar was on the same floor as the dance room. I
wandered in, glanced around, failed to see a vacant seat so I crossed
to the bar, propped myself up.
Sam, the barman, recognized me, gave me a broad welcoming
smile.
“Hi, Sam,” I said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, Mr. Harmas,” he said, polishing a glass and setting it
before me. “Nice to see you again. You al right?”
“Pretty good,” I said, “and how’s your girl friend?”
Sam had always confided to me about the ups and down of his
love-life, and I knew he expected me to inquire what the latest
position was.
“I get discouraged sometimes, Mr. Harmas,” he said, shaking his
head. “That girl of mine has a split mind. One part of it says yes, the
other no. As they both operate at once, I’m kept on my toes
wondering whether to retreat or advance. It’s getting bad for my
nerves. What will you drink, sir?”
“Oh, a Scotch,” I said, glanced around the room.
I could see the crowd wasn’t the kind that’d interest me. The girls
were tough, showily dressed and on the make. The men were smooth,
looked as if they’d escaped military service, and had too much
doubtfully earned money to spend.
“Things have changed a lot, haven’t they, Sam?” I said, as I paid
twice as much for my drink as I pay elsewhere.
“They have, sir,” he agreed, “and a great pity, too. I miss the old
crowd. This bunch’s just trash. They give me a pain to waste liquor on
them.”
“Yeah,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “I miss the old faces, too.”
We chatted for a few minutes about the past, and I told him what
I was doing here, then I said, “Sad about Netta. You read about it, I
guess?”
Sam’s face clouded. “I read about it. It beats me why she did it.
She seemed happy enough, and she was doing fine here. She had
Bradley eating out of her hand. Any idea why she did it?”
I shook my head. “I’ve only just arrived, Sam, I reminded him. “I
saw the thing in the newspapers, but I was hoping you could tell me
what was behind it. Poor kid. I’ll miss her. What are the other bims
like here?”
Sam pulled a face. “They’ll take the hide off your back if they
thought they could make it into a pair of gloves,” he said gloomily.
“They have a one-track mind—if you can cal what they’ve got minds.
I’d lay off ‘em if I were you, except Crystal. You should meet Crystal.
She’s quite an experience. I’ll fix it if you’re looking for a little female
society.”
“She’s new here, isn’t she?” I asked, not recal ing the name. He
grinned. “New and fresh,” he said. “Came about a year ago. Can I fix
you another drink?”
“Go ahead,” I said, pushing my glass towards him, “and buy one
for yourself. She wasn’t a friend of Netta’s, was she?”
“Well, I don’t know about being friends, but they sort of got on
together. The other dames didn’t appeal to Netta. She was always
fighting with them, but Crystal . . . well, I don’t think anyone would
fight with Crystal. She’s a real dizzy blonde.”
“She sounds what I’ve been looking for. Dizzy blondes are up my
alley. Is she a looker?”
Sam kissed his fingers, wagged his head. “She’s got a topography
like a scenic railway, and every time she comes into the bar the ice
cubes go on the boil.”
I laughed. “Well, if she’s free and would like a big guy with hair on
his chest for company, shoo her along.”
“She’ll like you,” Sam said. “She’s crazy about big muscular men;
she tells me her mother was frightened by a wrestler. I’ll get her.”
I had finished my drink by the time he returned. He nodded,
winked.
“Two minutes,” he said, began to mix a flock of martinis.
She arrived a good ten minutes later. I spotted her before she
spotted me. There was something about her that amused me. Maybe
it was her big cornflower blue eyes or her snub nose. I don’t know,
but you had only to take one look at her and you were pretty sure she
was the girl who originated the phrase “a dumb blonde.” She was all
Sam had said. Her figure made me blink: it made the male section in
the room blink too.
Sam waved, and she came over, looked at me, and her eyelids
fluttered.
“Oh!” she said. Then: “Oh, Boy!”
“Crystal, this is Mr. Steve Harmas,” Sam said, winking at me. “He
cuts the hairs on his chest with a lawn-mower.”
She put her hand into mine, squeezed it.
“There was a tea leaf in the bottom of my cup that looked just like
you,” she confided. “I knew I was going to have fun to-night.” She
looked anxiously at Sam. “Have any of the girls seen him yet?”
“You’re the first,” he returned, winking at me again.
“What a break!” she exclaimed, turning back to me. “I’ve been
dreaming about a man like you ever since I’ve had those kind of
dreams.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” I said, kidding her. “Maybe I’d better have a
look at the other girls. I’m kind of selective.”
“You don’t have to look at them. They’re only called girls to
they think a brassiere is a place to eat. Come on, let’s have fun.”
“What kind of fun can we have in this joint?” I asked. “It’s too
crowded for my kind of fun.”
Her blue eyes popped open. “Oh, I like lots of people. My father
says a girl can’t come to any harm so long as she stays with a crowd.”
“Your father’s crazy,” I said, grinning. “Suppose you fell in with a
crowd of sailors?”
She thought about this, frowning. “I don’t think my father knows
anything about sailors,” she said seriously. “He stuffs birds and
things.”
“You mean he’s a taxidermist?”
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her blonde curls, “He can’t drive.”
“Let’s skip your father,” I said hurriedly. “Let’s talk about you.
How about a drink?”
“I could go for a large gin with a very little lime if the gin was large
enough,” she said, brightening. “Do you think I could have that?”
I nodded to Sam, pulled up a stool, patted it. “Park your weight,” I
said. “How do you like it here?”
She climbed up on the stool, sat down, rested her smal hands on
the bar. “I love it,” she told me. “It’s so sinful and nice. You’ve no idea
how dull it is at home. There’s only father and me and all the animals
that need stuffing. You’d be surprised at the animals people bring to
father. He’s working on a stag some crank wants to keep in his hall.
Can you imagine having a stuffed s
tag in your hall?”
“You could always hang your hat and umbrella on its antlers,” I
said, after giving the matter thought.
She drank some of the gin. “You’re the kind of person who makes
the best of everything,” she said. “I’ll tell father about that idea. He
might make money out of it.” She sipped more gin, sighed. “I love this
stuff. Now I can’t get a two-way stretch, it’s the only thing that holds
me together.” An idea struck her, and she grabbed hold of my arm.
“Did you bring any silk stockings over with you?”
“Sure,” I said. “I have half a dozen pairs of nylons at my hotel.”
She clenched her fists, shut her eyes.
“Six pairs?” she repeated in a hoarse whisper.
“That’s right.”
“Oh, dear,” she said, shivered. “You weren’t thinking of giving
them to anyone, were you? They couldn’t be lying in your old room
unattached so to speak?”
“I brought them for someone,” I said quietly.
She nodded to herself. “I might have guessed it,” she said, sighed.
“Well, never mind. Some girls have all the luck. Some get them, others
just dream about them. You certainly made my heart go pit-a-pat for a
moment. But I shall get over it.”
“I brought them for Netta Scott,” I explained. “She was a friend of
mine.”
Crystal turned quickly, her eyes showed surprise. “Netta? You
knew Netta?”
“Sure. “
“And you brought the stockings . . . but, she’s dead. Didn’t you
know?”
“Yes, I know.”
“Then you haven’t anyone to give . . .” She caught herself up,
actually blushed. “Oh, I am awful! Poor Netta! I always get depressed
when I think of her. I feel I could cry right now.”
“If you want those stockings you can have them,” I said. “Netta
can’t use them, so they’re unattached as you put it.”
Her eyes brightened. “I don’t know what to say. I’d love them-
they’d save my life, but knowing they were for Netta . . . well, it does
make a difference, doesn’t it?”
“Does it?”
She thought, frowning. I could see she would always find thought
difficult: she just wasn’t the thinking type.
“I don’t know. I suppose not. I mean . . . well, where are they?”
“At my hotel. Shall we go over and get them?”