LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER 4

       Colin Lamb’s Narrative

      ‘Where do we go?’ I asked Dick Hardcastle.

      He spoke to the driver.

      ‘Cavendish Secretarial Bureau. It’s on Palace Street, up towards the Esplanade on the right.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      The car drew away. There was quite a little crowd by now, staring with fascinated interest. The orange cat was still sitting on the gate post of Diana Lodge next door. He was no longer washing his face but was sitting up very straight, lashing his tail slightly, and gazing over the heads of the crowd with that complete disdain for the human race that is the special prerogative of cats and camels.

      ‘The Secretarial Bureau, and then the cleaning woman, in that order,’ said Hardcastle, ‘because the time is getting on.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘After four o’clock.’ He paused before adding, ‘Rather an attractive girl?’

      ‘Quite,’ I said.

      He cast an amused look in my direction.

      ‘But she told a very remarkable story. The sooner it’s checked up on, the better.’

      ‘You don’t think that she—’

      He cut me short.

      ‘I’m always interested in people who find bodies.’

      ‘But that girl was half mad with fright! If you had heard the way she was screaming…’

      He gave me another of his quizzical looks and repeated that she was a very attractive girl.

      ‘And how did you come to be wandering about in Wilbraham Crescent, Colin? Admiring our genteel Victorian architecture? Or had you a purpose?’

      ‘I had a purpose. I was looking for Number 61—and I couldn’t find it. Possibly it doesn’t exist?’

      ‘It exists all right. The numbers go up to—88, I think.’

      ‘But look here, Dick, when I came to Number 28, Wilbraham Crescent just petered out.’

      ‘It’s always puzzling to strangers. If you’d turned to the right up Albany Road and then turned to the right again you’d have found yourself in the other half of Wilbraham Crescent. It’s built back to back, you see. The gardens back on each other.’

      ‘I see,’ I said, when he had explained this peculiar geography at length. ‘Like those Squares and Gardens in London. Onslow Square, isn’t it? Or Cadogan. You start down one side of a square, and then it suddenly becomes a Place or Gardens. Even taxis are frequently baffled. Anyway, there is a 61. Any idea who lives there?’

      ‘61? Let me see… Yes, that would be Bland the builder.’

      ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘That’s bad.’

      ‘You don’t want a builder?’

      ‘No. I don’t fancy a builder at all. Unless—perhaps he’s only just come here recently—just started up?’

      ‘Bland was born here, I think. He’s certainly a local man—been in business for years.’

      ‘Very disappointing.’

      ‘He’s a very bad builder,’ said Hardcastle encouragingly. ‘Uses pretty poor materials. Puts up the kind of houses that look more or less all right until you live in them, then everything falls down or goes wrong. Sails fairly near the wind sometimes. Sharp practice—but just manages to get away with it.’

      ‘It’s no good tempting me, Dick. The man I want would almost certainly be a pillar of rectitude.’

      ‘Bland came into a lot of money about a year ago—or rather his wife did. She’s a Canadian, came over here in the war and met Bland. Her family didn’t want her to marry him, and more or less cut her off when she did. Then last year a great-uncle died, his only son had been killed in an air crash and what with war casualties and one thing and another, Mrs Bland was the only one left of the family. So he left his money to her. Just saved Bland from going bankrupt, I believe.’

      ‘You seem to know a lot about Mr Bland.’

      ‘Oh that—well, you see, the Inland Revenue are always interested when a man suddenly gets rich overnight. They wonder if he’s been doing a little fiddling and salting away—so they check up. They checked and it was all O.K.’

      ‘In any case,’ I said, ‘I’m not interested in a man who has suddenly got rich. It’s not the kind of set-up that I’m looking for.’

      ‘No? You’ve had that, haven’t you?’

      I nodded.

      ‘And finished with it? Or—not finished with it?’

      ‘It’s something of a story,’ I said evasively. ‘Are we dining together tonight as planned—or will this business put paid to that?’

      ‘No, that will be all right. At the moment the first thing to do is set the machinery in motion. We want to find out all about Mr Curry. In all probability once we know just who he is and what he does, we’ll have a pretty good idea as to who wanted him out of the way.’ He looked out of the window. ‘Here we are.’

      The Cavendish Secretarial and Typewriting Bureau was situated in the main shopping street, called rather grandly Palace Street. It had been adapted, like many other of the establishments there, from a Victorian house. To the right of it a similar house displayed the legend Edwin Glen, Artist Photographer. Specialist, Children’s Photographs, Wedding Groups, etc. In support of this statement the window was filled with enlargements of all sizes and ages of children, from babies to six-year-olds. These presumably were to lure in fond mammas. A few couples were also represented. Bashful looking young men with smiling girls. On the other side of the Cavendish Secretarial Bureau were the offices of an old-established and old-fashioned coal merchant. Beyond that again the original old-fashioned houses had been pulled down and a glittering three-storey building proclaimed itself as the Orient Café and Restaurant.

      Hardcastle and I walked up the four steps, passed through the open front door and obeying the legend on a door on the right which said ‘Please Enter,’ entered. It was a good-sized room, and three young women were typing with assiduity. Two of them continued to type, paying no attention to the entrance of strangers. The third one who was typing at a table with a telephone, directly opposite the door, stopped and looked at us inquiringly. She appeared to be sucking a sweet of some kind. Having arranged it in a convenient position in her mouth, she inquired in faintly adenoidal tones:

      ‘Can I help you?’

      ‘Miss Martindale?’ said Hardcastle.

      ‘I think she’s engaged at the moment on the telephone—’ At that moment there was a click and the girl picked up the telephone receiver and fiddled with a switch, and said: ‘Two gentlemen to see you, Miss Martindale.’ She looked at us and asked, ‘Can I have your names, please?’

      ‘Hardcastle,’

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