“We all went out one night to some frightful sort of suburban dancing place. We thought it would be such a scream.”
“And was it?”
“No, it was rather dull really. But he was there, and he fell for me and I thought he was rather a pet. That's all.”
“A simple story in words of one syllable. How long was he your pet?”
“Oh, about six months. But he was terribly, terribly boring. And such a prig. Imagine it, Harlequin darling. He got all cross and wanted bread and cheese and kisses. Are you laughing?”
“Hilariously.”
“He wasn't any fun. He was all wet.”
“My child, you are telling this story very badly. You made him drink and it upset his little tummy. You made him play high, and he said he couldn't afford it. And you tried to make him take drugs and he didn't like it. Anything else?”
“He was a little beast, Harlequin, really he was. He was out for what he could get.”
“Aren't you?”
“Me?” Dian was really surprised. “I'm terribly generous. I gave him everything he wanted. I'm like that when I'm fond of anybody.”
“He took what he could get but didn't spend it like a gentleman?”
“That's it. Do you know, he actually called himself a gentleman. Wouldn't that make you laugh? Like the middle ages, isn't it? Ladies and Gentlemen. He said we needn't think he wasn't a gentleman because he worked in an office. Too mirth-making, Harlequin, darling, wasn't it?”
She rocked herself backwards and forwards in amusement.
“Harlequin! Listen! I'll tell you something funny. One night Tod Milligan came in and I told him: 'This is Victor Dean, and he's a gentleman, and he works for Pym's Publicity.' Tod said: 'Oh, you're the chap, are you?' and looked too utterly murderous. And afterwards he asked me, just like you, how I got hold of Victor. That's queer. Did Tod send you out here to ask me?”
“No. No one ever sends me. I go where I like.”
“Well, then, why do you all want to know about Victor Dean?”
“Too mystery-making, isn't it? What did Milligan say to Dean?”
“Nothing much, but he told me to string him along. And afterwards, quite suddenly, he told me to give him the push.”
“And you did as you were told, like a good girl?”
“I was fed up with Victor, anyhow. And it doesn't do to get wrong with Tod.”
“No–he might cut off supplies, mightn't he? Where does he get it from?”
“Coke, do you mean? I don't know.”
“No, I suppose you don't. And you can't get him to tell you, either. Not with all your charms, Circe.”
“Oh, Tod! he doesn't give anything away. He's a dirty swine. I loathe him. I'd do anything to get away from Tod. But he knows too much. And besides, he's got the stuff. Lots of people have tried to chuck Tod, but they always go back again–on Fridays and Saturdays.”
“That's when he hands it out, is it?”
“Mostly. But–” she began to laugh again–“you weren't there tonight, were you? It was too amusing. He'd run short, or something. There was a hellish row. And that septic woman Babs Woodley was screaming all over the place. She scratched him. I do hope he gets blood-poisoning. He promised it would be there tomorrow, but he looked the most perfect idiot, with blood running down his chin. She said she'd shoot him. It was too marvellous.”
“Rabelaisian, no doubt.”
“Fortunately I'd got enough, so I gave her enough to keep her quiet, and then we thought we'd have a race. I won–at least, I should have, if it hadn't been for you. How did you happen along?”
“Oh, I just happened along. I always happen.”
“You don't. You only seem to happen occasionally. You aren't one of Tod's regular lot, are you?”
“Not at present.”
“Do you want to be? Because, don't. I'll get the stuff for you if you want it. But Tod's a beast. You'd better keep clear of him.”
“Are you warning me for my good?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What devotion!”
“No, I mean it. Life's hell, anyway, but it's worse if you get mixed up with Tod.”
“Then why don't you cut loose from Tod?”
“I can't.”
“Afraid of him?”
“Not so much of him. It's the people behind him. Tod's afraid too. He'd never let me go. He'd kill me first.”
“How fascinating! I think I must know Tod better.”
“You'd end by being afraid, too.”
“Should I? Well, there's a kick in being afraid.”
“Come down here, Harlequin, and I'll show you how to get a kick out of life.”
“Could you?”
“Try and see.”
There was a rustle among the leaves, and he slid down to stand beside her.
“Well?”
“Lift me up. I'm all cramped.”
He lifted her, and she felt his hands hard as iron under her breast. She was tall, and as she turned to look at him she could see the glint of his eyeballs, level with her own.
“Well, will I do?”
“For what?”
“For you?”
“For me? What are you good for, to me?”
“I'm beautiful.”
“Not so beautiful as you were. In five years' time you will be ugly.”
“Five years? I wouldn't want you for five years.”
“I wouldn't want you for five minutes.”
The cold daybreak was beginning to filter through the leaves; it showed her only a long, implacable chin and the thin curl of a smiling mouth. She made a snatch at his mask, but he was too quick for her. Very deliberately he turned her towards him, putting both her arms behind her back and holding them there.
“What next?” she demanded, mockingly.
“Nothing. I shall take you home.”
“You will? Ah, you will, then?”
“Yes, as I did once before.”
“Exactly as you did before?”
“Not exactly, because you were drunk then. You are sober now. With that trifling difference, the programme will be carried out according to precedent.”
“You might kiss me, Harlequin.”
“Do you deserve kissing? Once, for your information. Twice, for your disinterested effort to save me from the egregious Mr. Milligan. And the third time, because the fancy takes me that way.”
He bestowed the kisses like deliberate insults. Then he picked her up bodily, still holding her arms imprisoned, and dumped her into the back of the open car.
“Here's a rug for you. You'll need it.”
She said nothing. He started up the engine, turned the car and drove it slowly along the path. As they came abreast of the saloon, he leaned out and tossed the ignition key on to the knees of Spot Lancaster, happily snoring in his seat. In a few minutes, they had turned out from the wood into the main road. The sky was faintly streaked with the ghostly glimmer of the false dawn.
Dian de Momerie slid from under the rug and leaned forward. He was driving easily, slumped down in his seat, his black poll leaning carelessly back, his hand slack on the wheel. With a twist, she could send him and herself into the ditch, and he would deserve it.
“Don't do it,” he said, without turning his head.
“You devil!”
He stopped the car.
“If you don't behave, I shall leave you by the roadside, sitting on a milestone, like the bailiff's daughter of Islington. Or, if you prefer it, I can tie you up. Which is it to be?”
“Be kind to me.”
“I am being kind. I have preserved you from boredom for two solid hours. I beg you not to plunge us both into the horrors of an anti-climax. What are you crying for?”
“I'm tired–and you won't love me.”
“My poor child, pull yourself together. Who would believe that Dian de Momerie could fall for a fancy-dress and a penny whistle?”
“It isn't that. It's you. There's something queer about you. I'm afraid of y
ou. You aren't thinking about me at all. You're thinking of something horrible. What is it? What is it? Wait!”
She put out a cold hand and clutched his arm.
“I'm seeing something that I can't make out. I've got it now. Straps. They are strapping his elbows and dropping a white bag over his head. The hanged man. There's a hanged man in your thoughts. Why are you thinking of hanging?”
She shrank away from him and huddled into the farthest corner of the car. Wimsey re-started the engine and let in the clutch.
“Upon my word,” he thought, “that's the oddest after-effect of drink and drugs I've met yet. Very interesting. But not very safe. Quite a providential interposition in one way. We may get home without breaking our necks. I didn't know I carried such a graveyard aura about with me.”
Dian was fast asleep when he lifted her out of the car. She half woke, and slipped her arms round his neck.
“Darling, it's been lovely.” Then she came to with a little start. “Where have we got to? What's happened?”
“We're home. Where's your latch-key?”
“Here. Kiss me. Take that mask off.”
“Run along in. There's a policeman thinking we look rather disreputable.” He opened the door.
“Aren't you coming in?”
She seemed to have forgotten all about the hanged man. He shook his head.
“Well, good-bye, then.”
“Good-bye.”
He kissed her gently this time and pushed her into the house. The policeman, stumping inquisitively nearer, revealed a face that Wimsey knew. He smiled to himself as the official gaze swept over him.
“Good morning, officer.”
“Morning, sir,” said the policeman, stolidly.
“Moffatt, Moffatt,” said his lordship, reprovingly, “you will never get promotion. If you don't know me, you should know the car.”
“Good lord, your lordship, I beg your pardon. Didn't somehow expect to see you here.”
“Not so much of the lordship. Somebody might be listening. You on your beat?”
“Just going home, my–sir.”
“Jump in and I'll drive you there. Ever see a fellow called Milligan round this way?”
“Major Tod Milligan? Yes, now and then. He's a bad hat, he is, if ever there was one. Runs that place down by the river. Mixed up with that big drug-gang as Mr. Parker's after. We could pull him in any day, but he's not the real big noise.”
“Isn't he, Moffatt?”
“No, my lord. This car's a treat, ain't she? Shouldn't think there's much catches you on the road. No. What Mr. Parker wants is to get him to lead us to the top man of all, but there don't seem to be much chance of it. They're as cunning as weasels, they are. Don't suppose he knows himself who the other fellow is.”
“How's it worked, Moffatt?”
“Well, my lord, as far as we've been told, the stuff is brought in from the coast once or twice a week and run up to London. We've had a try at catching it on the way more than once, that is to say, Mr. Parker's special squad have, but they've always given us the slip. Then it'll be taken somewhere, but where we don't know, and distributed out again to the big distributors. From them it goes to all kinds of places. We could lay hands on it there–but lord! what's the use? It'd only be in another place next week.”
“And whereabouts does Milligan come into it?”
“We think he's one of the high-up distributors, my lord. He hands it out at that house of his, and in other places.”
“In the place where you found me, for instance?”
“That's one of them.”
“But the point is, where does Milligan get his supplies?”
“That's it, my lord.”
“Can't you follow him and find out?”
“Ah! but he don't fetch it for himself, my lord. There's others does that. And you see, if we was to open his parcels and search his tradesmen and so on, they'd just strike him off their list, and we'd be back where we was before.”
“So you would. How often does he give parties in that house of his?”
“Most evenings, my lord. Seems to keep open house, like.”
“Well, keep an eye open on Friday and Saturday nights, Moffatt.”
“Fridays and Saturdays, my lord?”
“Those are the nights when things happen.”
“Is that so, my lord? I'm much obliged to you. We didn't know that. That's a good tip, that is. If you'll drop me at the next corner, my lord, that'll do me champion. I'm afraid I've took your lordship out of your way.”
“Not a bit, Moffatt, not a bit. Very glad to have seen you. And, by the way, you have not seen me. Not a question of my morals, you understand, but I've a fancy that Major Milligan might not approve of my visiting that particular house.”
“That's all right, my lord. Not being on duty at the time, I ain't bound to put it in a report. Good morning, my lord, and thank you.”
CHAPTER X
DISTRESSING DEVELOPMENTS OF AN OFFICE ROW
“All very well for you to talk, Bill Jones,” said Ginger Joe, “but bet you sixpence if you was called as a witness in a case, you'd get into a 'owling mess. Why, they might ask you what you was doin' a month ago and what'd you know about that?”
“Bet you I'd know all right.”
“Bet you you wouldn't.”
“All right, bet you anything I would.”
“Bet you if I was a 'tec–”
“Cor lumme, you'd be a good 'tec, you would.”
“Bet you I would, anyhow.”
“'Oo ever 'eard of a carrotty-'eaded 'tec?”
This objection appeared to Ginger to be irrelevant. He replied, however, automatically:
“Bet you I'd be a better 'tec 'or you.”
“Bet you you wouldn't.”
“Bet you if I was a 'tec and arst you w'ere you was when Mr. Dean fell downstairs, you wouldn't 'ave no alleybi.”
“That's silly, that is,” said Bill Jones. “I wouldn't want no alleybi for Mr. Dean falling downstairs, 'cause it was accidental death.”
“All right, Suet-face. I was only sayin', supposin' I was a 'tec an' I was investigatin' Mr. Dean's fallin' downstairs, and I arst you wot you was a-doin' of, you wouldn't be able to tell me.”
“Bet you I would, then. I was on the lift, that's where I was, and 'Arry could prove it. So just you stick that in your silly face and shut up.”
“Oh, you was on the lift, was you? 'Ow d'you know that was when it was?”
“When wot was?”
“When Mr. Dean fell downstairs?”
“'Cos the first thing I 'ears when I comes off of the lift is Mr. Tompkin a-telling Sam there all about it. Didn't I, Sam?”
Sam Tabbit glanced up from a copy of Radio for Amateurs and nodded briefly.
“That don't prove nothing,” persisted Ginger. “Not without you know 'ow long it took Mr. Tompkin to shoot 'is mouth off.”
“Not long it didn't,” said Sam. “I'd just come out of the Big Conference room–takin' tea to Mr. Pym and two clients, I was–Muggleton's, if you want ter know–and I hears an awful screeching and I says to Mr. Tompkin, 'Coo, lumme!' I says, 'wot's up?' An' he says as Mr. Dean's fallen down and broke 'is neck an' they've jest rung up for a doctor.”
“That's right,” added Cyril, who was the boy in attendance on the Executive and the Switchboard. “Mr. Stanley comes running along full pelt into our place and says, 'Oh, Miss Fearney, Mr. Dean's fell downstairs and we're afraid he's killed himself and you're to telephone for a doctor.' So Miss Fearney tells Miss Beit to put the call through and I hops out quick through the other door so as Miss Fearney can't see me–that's the door behind Mr. Tompkin's desk–and I says, 'Mr. Dean's tumbled down and killed hisself,' and he says, 'Run and see what's happened, Cyril.' So I runs and I see Sam jest a-comin' out from the Big Conference room. Didn't I, Sam?”
Sam agreed.
“And that's when I heard the screeching,” he added.
“Who was a-screeching?”
br /> “Mrs. Crump was a-screeching in the Executive. Said she'd just seen Mr. Dean fall down and kill hisself and they was a-bringin' 'im along. So I looked into the passage and there they was, a-carryin' of him. He did look awful.”
“And that was when I come up,” said Bill, sticking to the point at issue. “I hears Mr. Tompkin telling Sam about it, and I runs after Sam and I calls to Mr. Tompkin as they're a-bringing him through, and he comes and looks on too. So they takes him into the Board-room, and Miss Fearney says, 'What about telling Mr. Pym?' and Mr. Tompkin says, 'He's still in the conference,' and she says, 'I know he is. We don't want the clients to hear about it.' So Mr. Tompkin says, 'Better telephone through to him.' So she does and then she gets hold of me and says, 'Bill, get a sheet of brown paper and run along to the Board-room and tell them to put it over the glass door,' and just as I was a-going, Mr. Atkins comes along and says, 'Is there any dust-sheets?' he says. 'He's gone,' he says, 'and we got to have somethink to put over him.' And Miss Fearney says, sharp-like, 'Dust-sheets is nothing to do with this department,' she says, 'what are you thinking about? Go up and ask Mrs. Johnson.' Coo! that was a set-out, that was.” Bill grinned, as one who looks back to a grand gala-day, a brilliant green oasis in a desert of drudgery. Then he remembered once more what the dispute had been about.
“So where's your blinkin' alleybi?” he demanded, sternly. “Where's yours, Ginger, if it comes to that?”
By such methods, serpentine but effective, Ginger Joe pursued his inquiries. The eyes of the office-boy are everywhere, and his memory is retentive. Five days of inquiry brought the whole inside staff of Pym's under review–all that was necessary, since the day of Dean's death had not been the day that brought the Outside Publicity men into the office.
Out of the ninety-odd inside members of the staff, only ten remained unaccounted or partially unaccounted for. These were: in the Copy Department:
Mr. Willis. He had arrived from the outside staircase about five minutes after the accident, had gone straight through the hall, up the stair to the Dispatching and so into his own room, speaking to nobody. About a quarter of an hour later, he had gone to Mr. Dean's room and, not finding him, had gone back to the typists' room. Here, on asking for Mr. Dean, he had been greeted with the news, which appeared to startle and horrify him. (Witness: the boy George Pyke, who had heard Miss Rossiter telling Mrs. Johnson all about it.)