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.Guns all over the place, don’t you know.”Joe got to his feet.This was turning into a pantomime flourish of thigh-slapping derring-do.Chapter four in a Boys’ Own Paper story.The thought of three shotguns, two rifles and at least three revolvers in the hands of eight men who’d never been introduced, being loosed off in the confines of a wooded valley made his blood run cold.Time to knock the board over again.“Stop right there!” he commanded.“Marcus—go and make your deviation arrangements with the local Plod by all means—we can use every spare minute.While you’re at it, book two places in the cells then get back here and I’ll tell you what we’re really going to do.Oh, and tell Pearson I need to have a word with him.”CHAPTER 17“Well, well! Why am I not surprised to hear that?” Inspector Orford purred into the telephone.He looked with satisfaction at the registration number on his pad and wrote down the address he’d just been given.“Ta, Daisy, love! Can you send me written confirmation of that?”His triumph was swiftly modified by a look of concern.Better safe than sorry.Guessing what Sandilands would have done next, he picked up the phone again.“Get me Companies House, miss … Oh, good morning.Scotland Yard here.We need some information on the owners and directors of a London firm—could you oblige …?”Startled at what he’d uncovered, the inspector asked for a repetition of the names he’d just been given.On a second hearing, the names were just as alarming.Two of the names were known to him.Shell burst, that! Among the “untouchables” of society.A third was a foreigner whose face he’d seen in the papers last week.He began to see why the Assistant Commissioner had been breathing down his neck on this one.He was only surprised they hadn’t called in the Household Cavalry.Ants’ nest!Orford thought for a bit.He was going in, one way or another.There was only one way to attack an ants’ nest and that was with a very long stick.As he bustled out of the inspectors’ room to pick up a sergeant and start his poking, a messenger arrived with a chit from the front desk.He read it swiftly.An update on the missing girls of London.Front desk had been very good about sending him the latest.Here was a note of yet another loved one whose absence had only just been noticed after five days.This one made him whistle between his teeth.Marie Destaines, aged twenty-two, five foot two, dark hair and eyes.Reported missing by her granny.A Mrs.Clarke from Stepney had been expecting a visit yesterday but the girl had not turned up.She’d last paid a visit the previous Monday night when she’d stayed over, saying she’d be back the following Friday.Worried granny requested a visit from an important policeman who could investigate a delicate matter and enquire into the girl’s present whereabouts.Orford tucked the sheet into his pocket.“No reply.I’ll deal with this personally,” he told the messenger.He rustled up a detective sergeant he knew to be a bright lad and on the ball and asked him to parade for duty with briefcase, clipboard and dirty macintosh in ten minutes time.“I’ll brief you in the taxi on our way there,” he told Sergeant Dobson, having inspected his appearance and found him perfectly acceptable.“Ever been to Harley Street? Nor have I.We’re backdoor trade today, I’m afraid.We’ll be starting and finishing in the kitchens, which is the best we can do for two blokes with no warrant and no clout.A surprise visit from the Public Health Department inspectors is just about the only excuse you can come up with for getting into these places unannounced.I keep two official passes at the ready.Funny that—say you’re from the Yard and folk slam the door in your face.Say you’ve been sent to inspect their U-bends and they fling it open and put the kettle on.There’s your badge.You’re Officer (Second Class) Albert Fish today.”Officer Fish put on a good show, Orford reckoned.Clipboard at the ready, smell-of-gas face on, he’d distracted the kitchen staff with a series of penetrating questions and demands to check for himself the state of their ovens and their drains.While he was so occupied, Orford had cruised about the kitchens looking inscrutable.He’d asked the cook to supply him with a copy of the menus prepared for the patients over the last week.He checked from Sunday through to Thursday but came up with little more substantial than ham salad and tinned fruit.Jokily, he pulled a face at the cook.“Cor! This lot isn’t likely to test your culinary skills, madam! Don’t they ever let you cook something a chap could get his teeth into—a nice roast? Shepherd’s pie?”The cook laughed.“You’ve forgotten where you are! All ladies here.And mostly on diets.Only healthy food on offer.”“I suppose that makes sense.I shall enter … ‘diet varied, delicate and appropriate to consumers,’ shall I?”“WELL, THAT DIDN’T get us very far in any direction.Up and down the U-bend and back where we started.” The sergeant was disappointed not to be hauling someone off in cuffs.“There’s times, laddie, when a nil return is just as significant as a positive.This is one of them.We drew a blank there for the pie.Eliminated.Wherever our dead girl had her last meal it wasn’t in that chop shop.It all goes to build a case.That Sandilands will know what to do with the results.We’re here to do the steady police work that puts the building blocks in his hands.Next up—a grieving gran.Take your raincoat off and put on a sympathetic smile.We’re off to Stepney.”They were welcomed into the small terraced house and put to sit in the parlour while Mrs.Clarke went off to make a cup of tea.As soon as they heard the tap running, Orford was on his feet examining the row of silver-framed photographs on the mantelpiece.He picked up one and silently showed it to the sergeant who pulled a face and nodded gravely.Mrs.Clarke revealed her anxiety by her strained chatter.When they had settled to their tea, she offered them the photograph Orford had just noted.“This is Marie.Doesn’t do her justice.She has lovely rich dark hair and brown eyes.Gets those from her father.French,” she confided.“Went home to join up with the French army in nineteen fourteen when Marie was three.Never seen hide nor hair of him since.I brought the child up while her mother went out to work.When we discovered she had a talent for dancing I sold the house next door—these two were both left to me by my father—and I invested the cash in her career.It’s not cheap.All those lessons and all the dresses.She didn’t let us down.She did well.So well I hardly saw her for years at a time.Always touring abroad.Her mother died five years ago but she’d have been proud … Whenever Marie is back in London, she always stays with me, not in the digs the company provided.”“Which company is she appearing with, Mrs.Clarke?”“The Covent Garden lot.They start at the end of the month.She’s in rehearsals at the moment.” Her face clouded and she hesitated before continuing.“Well, she was in rehearsals.She left.”“Left? Just like that? When was this?”“Monday.She had a row with the man in charge.She was always having rows with someone in the company—it’s part of the life.But this time I think it was serious.She resigned.Walked out.”“So the company wouldn’t have realised she’d gone missing? They wouldn’t have raised the alarm.As far as they were concerned, she’d packed her bags and left.”“That’s right.” She hesitated.“She told me she’d left but … I don’t know … she may have been sacked.I suppose they’d have to, really, wouldn’t they … in the circumstances?” She fell silent and fiddled with her teacup [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]