A Coffin from Hong Kong / Гроб из Гонконга. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Keeping my voice calm with an effort, I said, “I may seem to you to be a dumb, stupid peeper, but you can’t really believe I would be that dumb and that stupid to knock off a client in my own office with my own gun even if she had all the gold in Fort Knox^[30] in her goddam handbag.”

He lit the cigar and blew a stream of rank smoke at me. “I don’t know: you might. You might be trying to play it smart, kidding yourself you had dreamed up a water-tight alibi,” he said, but there wasn’t much conviction in his voice.

“If I had killed her,” I went on, “I would have known the time she had died. I wouldn’t have given you an alibi for eight-thirty, I would have cooked one up for three o’clock.”

He shifted around in my chair while what he used as a brain creaked under pressure.

“What was she doing in your office at that hour in the morning?”

“Want me to guess?”

“Look, Ryan, we haven’t had a murder in this city for five years. I’ve got to have some story to give the Press. Any ideas you’ve got, I’ll listen to. You help us, I’ll help you. I could arrest you and toss you in the tank on the evidence I’ve got against you, but I’m giving you a chance to prove I’m wrong. Go ahead and guess.”

“Suppose she was from Frisco^[31] and not here? Suppose she had to talk urgently with me? Don’t ask me why or why she couldn’t talk to a private dick in Frisco: just suppose this happened. Suppose she decided to fake a plane and come here so she could talk to me and suppose she made up her mind about seven last night. She would know she couldn’t get here before I had left so she telephoned. Hardwick, having got rid of me, was waiting here to take the call. She told him she was flying here and would be here around three o’clock. He said it was okay and he would be here when she did arrive. When she arrived at the airport, she took a taxi and came here. Hardwick listened to what she had to say, then shot her.”

“Using your gun?”

“Using my gun.”

“The entrance to this building is locked at nine. The lock hasn’t been tampered with. How did Hardwick and the yellow skin get in here?”

“Hardwick must have arrived as soon as I had left and before the janitor locked up. He knew I was out of the way so he could sit right here and wait for the telephone call. When the time came for her to arrive, he went down and let her in. It’s a Yale lock. There’s no trouble opening it from the inside.”

“You ought to write movie scripts,” he said sourly. “Is this the yarn you’re going to tell the jury?”

“It’s worth checking. She would be easily spotted at the airport. The taxi-drivers out there would remember her.”

“Supposed it happened the way you say but instead of this unknown Hardwick, you were the one who told her you would wait for her?”

“He’s not unknown. If you’ll check with the Express Messenger Service you’ll find he sent me three hundred dollars. You can check I was outside 33 Connaught Boulevard from seven-thirty until nine. After that time, although I was there, only one car passed me around two o’clock, but I don’t know if the driver saw me or not. At six the milk delivery man will tell you I was still there.”

“I’m only interested in knowing where you were between one and four this morning.”

“I was outside 33 Connaught Boulevard.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Just to keep the record straight, let me see what you have in your pockets.”

I turned out my pockets, laying the odds and ends on the desk. He watched without interest. “If I had stolen her virtue,” I said, “I wouldn’t be carrying it around in my pocket.”

He got to his feet. “Don’t leave town. I only need a puff of wind to throw you in the tank^[32] as a material witness, so watch yourself.”

He walked out of my office, through the outer room and into the passage. He left both doors wide open.

I collected my possessions and returned them to my pockets, then I pushed the door shut and sat on my desk and lit a cigarette. Right now they hadn’t a water-tight case against me, but they did have something. A lot depended on what they turned up within the next few hours. Although Retnick was a bird-brain, I had a feeling the killer was framing me for the murder and would drop another clue in front of Retnick that could be a clincher. The disappearance of my gun could only mean the killer had shot her with it and it might turn up where Retnick would find it.

I slid off the desk. This wasn’t the time to sit around shaking my head at myself ^[33]. I had work to do.

I locked up the office and headed for the elevator. Against Jay Wayde’s glass-panelled door, I saw Retnick’s shadow. He was talking to Wayde, collecting evidence against me. With a sense of urgency, I rode down to the ground floor, walked by the two cops at the door, then crossed the street to where I had left my car. I got in and slammed the door.

I was now as jittery as a junkie. I had a sudden urge for a slug of whisky. Drinking before six o’clock wasn’t my usual routine, but this was something special. I slid across the bench seat and opened the glove compartment. As I reached for the bottle, my heart gave a big kick against my ribs and my mouth turned as dry as a sun-bleached bone.

In the glove compartment lay my .38 police special and a lizard-skin handbag.

I sat staring, feeling a chill crawl up my spine. As sure as I was breathing, this handbag belonged to the dead Chinese woman.

3

At the back of police headquarters there is a large yard surrounded by an eight-foot high wall. Here, the police park their patrol cars, the riot squad trucks and the fast cars that rush experts to any emergency.

On one of the walls is a big notice that says in large red letters against a white background this park is for police vehicles only.

I swung my car through the open gateway and parked carefully beside a patrol car. As I cut the engine, a cop appeared from nowhere, his red Irish face showing violent fury.

“Hey! What’s the matter with you? Can’t you read?” he bawled in a voice that could be heard two blocks away.

“Nothing’s the matter with me,” I said as I removed the key from the ignition, “and I can read – even the long words.”

I thought he was going to explode. For a long moment he opened and shut his mouth while he struggled to frame words violent enough for the occasion.

Before he could give utterance, I said, smiling at him through the open window of my car, “Detective Lieutenant Retnick, the Mayor’s brother-in-law, told me to park here. Take it up with him^[34] if you feel badly about it, but don’t blame me if you get yourself kicked humpbacked.”

He looked as if he had suddenly swallowed a bee. For two long seconds he glared at me, his mouth working, then he stalked away.

I sat staring into space for perhaps twenty minutes, then a car came into the yard and parked within ten feet of me. Retnick got out and started towards a door that led into the grey stone building that was police headquarters.

“Lieutenant…”

I didn’t raise my voice but he heard me. He looked over his shoulder at me. He stiffened as if someone had goosed him with a branding iron, then he came over fast.

“What do you imagine you are doing here?” he demanded.

“Waiting for you,” I said.

He considered this, staring intently at me. “Well, I’m here – now what?”

I got out of the car.

“You searched me, Lieutenant, but you forgot to search my car.”

He became very still, breathing heavily through his pinched nostrils, his hard watchful eyes alert.

“Why should I search your car, shamus?”

“You wanted to know what the yellow skin, as you call her, had in her handbag that had tempted me to shoot her in my office with my gun. You didn’t find it in my office nor in my pockets. I should have thought a really keen cop would have checked my car to make sure I hadn’t hidden the motive for murder there. So I’ve brought the car along just in case you wanted to be a really keen cop.”

His face tightened with fury.

“Listen, you son-of-a-bitch,” he mouthed. “I don’t take smart talk from a cheap peeper. I’ll get Pulski to handle you! He’ll take the shine off your wit! You’re too goddam smart to stay in one piece!”

“Better look in the car first before you feed me to your meat-grinder, Lieutenant. Look in the glove compartment. It’ll save time.”

I stepped away from the car, letting the car door swing open.

His eyes smouldering, Retnick leaned into the car and yanked open the glove compartment. I watched his reactions. His fury died. He didn’t touch either the gun or the handbag. He looked for a long moment, then turned to me.”Is that your gun?”

“Yes.”

“Her handbag?”

“It adds up, doesn’t it?”

He studied me, puzzled.

“What the hell’s this? You ready to make a statement admitting you killed her?”

“I’m laying the cards face up as they’re dealt to me,” I said. “I can’t do more than that. It’s up to you what you make of it.”

He bawled to the cop guarding the gate. When the cop came over, Retnick told him to get Pulski fast.

While we waited, Retnick again looked at the gun and the handbag without touching them. “I wouldn’t give two bits^[35] for your chance of survival now, shamus,” he said. “Not two bits.”

“I wouldn’t give two bits myself if I hadn’t come here to show you what I found,” I said, “but since I’ve come, I’ll gamble two bits but no more.”

“Do you always lock your car?” he asked, staring at me as his brain creaked into action.

“Yes, but I have a duplicate key in the drawer where I keep my gun. I didn’t look but I bet it isn’t there now.”

Retnick scratched the side of his face with a rasping sound. “That’s right. When I looked for the gun, I didn’t see any key.”

Pulski came pounding across the yard.

“Give this car the works^[36]”, Retnick said to him. “Check everything. Careful how you handle the gun and the handbag. Better let Lacey look at the gun. Get moving.”

He nodded to me and we walked across the yard, up the three steps, through the doorway into a dimly-lit white-tiled passage that smelt the way all cops houses smell.

We tramped down a corridor, up a flight of stairs, down a corridor and into a room the size of a hen coop. There was a desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet and a window. It was as cosy and as comfortable as an orphanage’s common room.

Retnick waved me to an upright chair while he eased his way around the desk and sat in the chair behind it.

“This your office?” I asked interested. “I’d have thought you being the Mayor’s brother-in-law, they would have fitted you up with something more plush.”

“Never mind how I live: concentrate on your own misfortunes,” Retnick said. “If that’s the gun that killed her and that’s her handbag, you’re as good as dead.”

“Do you think so?” I said, trying to make myself comfortable on the upright chair. “You know for ten minutes, maybe even longer, I struggled against the temptation of ditching the gun and the handbag in the sea and if I had ditched them, Lieutenant, neither you nor all the bright boys who take care of the law in this city would have been any the wiser^[37], but I decided to give you a break.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I didn’t ditch them because they had been so obviously planted in my car. It all adds up to a plant – the whole set-up. If I had ditched them, you might not be able to break the case.”

He cocked his head on one side: he was good at doing that.

“So I have the gun and the handbag: what makes you think I’m going to break this goddam case?”

“Because you’re not going to concentrate on me, you’re going to look for the killer and that’s what he doesn’t want you to do.”

He brooded for a long moment, then he took out his cigar case and offered it to me. This was his first friendly act during the five years I had known him. I took a cigar to show I appreciated the gesture although I am not by nature a cigar smoker.

We lit up and breathed smoke at each other.

“Okay, Ryan,” he said. “I believe you. I’d like to think you knocked her off, but it’s leaning too far backwards. I’d be saving myself a hell of a lot of trouble and time if I could believe it, but I can’t. You’re a cheap peeper, but you’re not a fool. Okay, so I’m sold. You’re being framed.”

I relaxed.

“But don’t count on me,” he went on. “The trouble will be to convince the D.A.^[38] He’s an impatient bastard. Once he knows what I’ve got on you, he’ll move in. Why should he care so long as he gets a conviction?” There didn’t seem anything to say to that so I didn’t say it.

He stared out of the window that gave onto a view of the back of a tenement building with badly washed laundry hanging on strings and baby carriages on balconies.

“I’ve got to dig around before I can make up my mind about you,” he said finally. “I can book you as a material witness or I can ask you to stick around voluntarily. What’s it to be?”

“I’ll stick around,’’ I said.

He reached for his telephone. “I want you,” he said when a voice sounded over the line.

There was a pause, then the door pushed open and a young plain-clothes man came in. He was the eager-beaver^[39] type. I could see, so far, police work hadn’t soured him. He looked at Retnick the way a friendly dog looks for a bone.

With an expression of distaste, as if he were introducing a poor relation, Retnick waved to me.

“This is Nelson Ryan: a shamus. Take him away and keep him amused until I want him.” He looked at me. “This is Patterson. He’s just joined the force: don’t corrupt him faster than he need be.”

I went with Patterson down the corridor and into another small room that smelt of stale sweat, fear and disinfectant. I sat down by the window while Patterson, looking puzzled, squatted on the edge of a desk.

“Relax,” I said. “We’ll probably be here for hours. Your boss is trying to prove I murdered a Chinese woman and he hasn’t a chance to prove it.”

His eyes bugged out as he stared at me.

Trying to put him at ease, I offered him the half-smoked cigar Retnick had given me. “This is a museum piece. Would you like to have it for your collection? It’s Retnick’s. You have a museum?”

His young, eager face turned to stone. He looked almost like a cop. “Listen, let me tell you something. We don’t like…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, waving my hand to cut him short. “I’ve heard that one before. Retnick tells it better. I stir up the dust. I get in your way. I bother you boys. Okay, so what? I make a living the same as you. Can’t I kid you a little^[40] or are you that sensitive?”

I grinned at him, and after a moment’s hesitation, he relaxed and grinned back. From then on we got along fine.

Around lunch-time a cop brought us a meat pie and some beans which we ate. Patterson seemed to think the pie was pretty good, but then he was young and hungry. I toyed with mine and sent most of it back. After this so-called lunch, he got out a deck of cards and we played gin rummy for matches. After I had taken a whole box off him, I showed him how I was cheating him. This seemed to shock him until I offered to teach him how it was done. He made a very enthusiastic pupil.

Around eight o’clock the same cop brought more meat pie and more beans. We ate the stuff because by now we were so goddam bored we would have eaten anything just for the hell of it. We played more gin rummy and he cheated so well he took a whole box of matches off me. Around midnight, the telephone bell rang. He picked up the receiver, listened, then said, “Yes, sir,” and hung up. “Lieutenant Retnick is ready for you now,” he said getting to his feet.

We both felt the way people feel when the train at last steams out of the station and they can stop talking the way people talk when seeing people off at a station.

We went down the corridor to Retnick’s office. Retnick was sitting at his desk. He looked tired and worried. He waved me to a chair and waved Patterson away. When Patterson had gone, I sat down.

There was a long pause as we stared at each other.

“You’re a lucky guy, Ryan,” he said eventually. “Okay, I didn’t think you killed her, but I was goddam sure the D.A. would have thought so if I’d turned you over to him. Now I can persuade him you didn’t do it. Consider yourself a lucky son-of-a-bitch.”

I had been in this building for fifteen hours. There had been times when I had wondered if I had played my cards right. I had had moments of near-panic, but now hearing what he said, I relaxed, drawing in a deep breath. “So I’m lucky,” I said.

“Yeah.” He slid down in his chair and groped for a cigar. Then realising he had a dead one between his teeth, he took it out, sneered at it and dropped it into the trash-basket. “I’ve had practically the whole of the force working on this thing for the past fourteen hours. We’ve turned up a witness who saw you in your car at two-thirty this morning on Connaught Boulevard. The witness happens to be an attorney who hates the D.A.’s guts and he had his wife with him. His evidence would blow a great big hole in any case the D.A. might have cooked up against you. So, okay, you didn’t kill her.”

“Would it be nosey to ask if you have any idea who did kill her?”

He offered me his cigar case: this time I could afford to refuse. As he put the case back in his pocket, he said, “It’s too early yet. Whoever he is, he’s played it neat. No clues: no nothing so far^[41].”

“Didn’t you get a line on the Chinese woman?”

“Oh, sure, that wasn’t hard. There was nothing but the usual junk a woman carries in the handbag, but we got her spotted at the airport. She came from Hong Kong. Her name is Jo-An Jefferson. Believe it or not, she’s the daughter-in-law of J. Wilbur Jefferson, the oil millionaire. She married the son, Herman Jefferson, in Hong Kong about a year ago. He was recently killed in a car smash and she brought his body back for burial.”

“Why?” I asked, staring at him.

“Old man Jefferson wanted his son buried in the family vault. He paid this girl to come over with the body.”

“What’s happened to the body?”

“It was picked up at the airport by a mortician at seven o’clock this morning, acting on orders. It’s at his parlour waiting interment.”

“You checked that?”

He yawned, showing me half his false teeth.

“Listen, shamus, you don’t have to tell me my job. I’ve seen the coffin and inspected the papers: everything’s in order. She flew in from Hong Kong, arriving here at one-thirty. She took a taxi from the airport to your office block. What beats me is why she came to see you immediately she arrived and how her killer knew she was coming to see you. What did she want with you?”

“Yeah. If she was from Hong Kong, how would she know I existed?” I said.

“Your idea she telephoned for an appointment around seven after you had left your office is out. She was in the air at that time. If she had written, you would have known about it.”

I thought for a moment.

“Suppose Hardwick met her at the airport? He called me from the airport at six. Suppose he waited for her to arrive and told her he was me. Suppose he went on ahead while she was clearing the coffin through the authorities and slipped the lock on the outer door. A lock isn’t too hard to slip and then waited for her to join him.”

He didn’t seem to like this idea much: nor did I.

“But what the hell did she want with you?” he demanded.

“If we knew that we wouldn’t be asking each other questions. How about her luggage? Did you locate it?”

“Yeah. She checked it in at the left-luggage office before leaving the airport: one small suitcase; nothing in it except a change of clothes, a small Buddha and some joss sticks. She certainly travelled light^[42].”

“Have you talked to old man Jefferson yet?”

He pulled a face. “Yeah, I’ve talked to him. He acted as if he hated my guts. I think he does. That’s the hell of marrying into an influential family. My brother-in-law and Jefferson get along like I get along with a boil on my neck.”

“Still it has its compensations,” I said.

He fingered his pearl stick-pin.

“Sometimes. Anyway, the old goat didn’t let his hair down. He said he wanted me to catch the man who had killed his daughter-in-law, otherwise there would be trouble.” He stroked his beaky nose. “He draws a lot of water in this city.^[43] He could make trouble for me.”

“He wasn’t helpful?”

“He certainly wasn’t.”

“How about the Express messenger who delivered the three hundred bucks to me? He could have seen the killer.”

“Look, shamus, you’re not half the ball of fire you think you are. I checked on him: nothing. But this is interesting: the envelope containing the dough was handed in at four o’clock at the Express headquarters which as you know is across the way from you. None of the dim-witted clerks can remember who handed it in, but the instructions were to deliver it to you at six-fifteen.”

“You checked Herron Corporation to see if Hardwick works there?”

“Yeah. I’ve checked every goddam thing. He doesn’t work for them.” He yawned, stretched, then stood up. “I’m going to bed. Maybe tomorrow I’ll strike something. Right now I’ve had enough of it.”

I got up too. “It was my gun that killed her?”

“Yeah. No prints: nothing on the car. He’s a neat bird, but he’ll make a mistake… they always do.”

“Some of them.”

He looked sleepily at me.

“I’ve done you a good turn^[44], Ryan, you try to do me one. Any ideas you get, let me know. Right now I need ideas.”

I said I wouldn’t forget him. I went down to where I had left my car and drove fast back to my apartment and to my bed.

I got to the office the next morning soon after nine o’clock. I found a couple of newspaper men parked outside my door. They wanted to know where I had been all yesterday. They had been trying to get to me to hear my side of the murder story and they were irate they hadn’t been able to find me.

I took them into my office and told them I had spent the day at police headquarters. I said I knew no more about the murder than they did, probably less. No, I had no idea why the Chinese woman had come to my office at such an hour nor how she had got into the building. They spent half an hour shooting questions at me, but it was a waste of their time. Finally, disgruntled, they went off.

I looked through my mail and dropped most of it into the trash-basket. There was a letter from a woman living on Palma Mountain who wanted me to find the person who had poisoned her dog.

I was typing her a polite letter telling her I was too busy to help her when there came a knock on my door. I said to come in.

Jay Wayde, my next-door neighbour, came in. He looked slightly embarrassed as he came to rest a few feet from my desk.

“Am I disturbing you?” he asked. “It’s not my business really, but I wondered if they had found out who killed her.”

His curiosity didn’t surprise me. He was one of those brainy types who can’t resist mixing themselves up with crime.

“No,” I said.

“I don’t suppose it helps,” he said apologetically, “but thinking about this, I remember hearing your telephone bell ring around seven o’clock. It rang for some time. That was after you had left.”

“My telephone is always ringing,” I said, “but thanks. Maybe it might help. I’ll tell Lieutenant Retnick.”

He ran his hand over his close-cropped hair.

“I just thought… I mean in a murder investigation every little thing can be important until it is proved otherwise.” He moved restlessly. “It’s an odd thing the way she got into your office, isn’t it? I guess it has been a bit difficult for you.”

“She got into my office because the killer let her in,” I said, “and it hasn’t been difficult for me.”

“Well, that’s good. Did they find out who she was?”

“Her name is Jo-An Jefferson and she’s from Hong Kong.”

“Jefferson?” He became alert. “I know a friend named Herman Jefferson who went out to Hong Kong: an old school friend.”

I tilted back my chair so I could put my feet on the desk.

“Sit down,” I said. “Tell me about Herman Jefferson. The Chinese woman was his wife.”

That really shook him. He sat down and gaped at me. “Herman’s wife? He married a Chinese?”

“So it seems.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!”

I waited, watching him. He thought for a moment, then said, “Not that it shocks me. I’ve heard Chinese girls can be attractive, but I can’t imagine his father would be pleased.” He frowned, shaking his head. “What was she doing here?”

“She brought her husband’s body back for burial.”

He stiffened. “You mean Herman’s dead?”

“Last week… a car accident.”

He seemed completely thrown off balance. He sat there, staring blankly as if he couldn’t believe what he had heard.

“Herman… dead! I’m sorry,” he said at last. “This will be a shock to his father.”

“I guess so. Did you know him well?”

“Well, no. We were at school together. He was a reckless fella^[45]. He was always getting into trouble: fooling around with girls, driving like a madman, but I admired him. You know how kids are. I looked on him as a bit of a hero. Then later, after I had gone through college, I changed my views about him. He didn’t seem to grow up. He was always drinking and getting into fights and raising general hell^[46]. I dropped him. Finally, his father got tired of him and shipped him out East. That would be some five years ago. His father has interests out there.” He crossed one leg over the other. “So he married a Chinese girl. That certainly is surprising.”

“It happens,” I said.

“He died in a car accident? He was always getting into car smashes. I wonder he lasted as he did.” He looked at me. “You know to me this is damned intriguing. Why was she murdered?”

“That’s what the police are trying to find out.”

“It’s a problem, isn’t it? I mean, why did she come here to see you? It really is a mystery, isn’t it?”

I was getting a little bored with his enthusiasm.

“Yeah,” I said.

Through the wall, I heard a telephone bell start ringing. He got to his feet. “I’m neglecting my business and wasting your time,” he said. “If I can remember anything about Herman that I think might help, I’ll let you know.”

I said I’d be glad and watched him leave, closing the door after him.

I sank lower in my chair and brooded over what he had told me. I was still sitting there, twenty minutes later, still brooding and still getting nowhere when the telephone bell jerked me out of my lethargy. I scooped up the receiver.

“This is Mr. J. Wilbur Jefferson’s secretary,” a girl’s voice said: a nice, clear voice that was easy to listen to. “Is that Mr. Ryan?”

I said it was.

“Mr. Jefferson would like to see you. Could you come this afternoon at three o’clock?”

I felt a sharp stirring of interest as I opened my date book and surveyed its blank pages. I had no appointment for three o’clock this afternoon: come to that^[47], I had no appointment for any day this week. “I’ll be there,” I said.

“It is the last house, facing the sea on Beach Drive,” she told me. “Beach View.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Thank you.” She hung up.

I held the receiver against my ear for a brief moment while I tried to recapture the sound of her voice. I wondered what she looked like. Her voice sounded young, but voices can be deceptive. I hung up. My morning passed without incident. I envied Jay Wayde whose telephone seemed to be constantly ringing. I could also hear the continuous clack-clack of a typewriter. He was obviously a lot busier than I, but then I had the mysterious Mr. Hardwick’s three hundred dollars to keep me from starving anyway for a couple of weeks.

No one came near me, and around one o’clock I went down to the Quick Snack Bar for the usual sandwich. Sparrow was busy so he couldn’t bother me with questions, although I could see he was itching to be brought up to date on the murder. I left with the rush hour still in full swing^[48], aware of his reproachful expression as I left without telling him anything.

Later, I drove out to Beach Drive, the lush-plush district of Pasadena City. Here, rich retired people lived with their own private beaches, away from the crowds that invaded the city during the summer months.

I reached the gates of Beach View a few minutes to three o’clock. They stood open as if I were expected and I drove up a forty-yard drive, bordered on either side by well-kept lawns and flower-beds.

The house was overlarge and had an old-fashioned air. Six broad white steps led up to the front entrance. There was a hanging bell-pull and the front door was of fumed oak.

I pulled the chain and after a minute or so, the door opened. The butler was a tall gloomy-looking old man who stared impassively at me; raising one busy eyebrow inquiringly.

“Nelson Ryan,” I said. “I’m expected.”

He moved aside and motioned me into the dark hall full of heavy dark furniture. I followed him down a passage and into a small room containing a few uncomfortable-looking chairs and a table on which lay some glossy magazines: a room that had the atmosphere of a dentist’s reception-room. He indicated one of the chairs and went away.

I stood around for about ten minutes, looking out of the window at the view of the sea, then the door opened and a girl came in.

She was around twenty-eight to thirty, slightly taller than average: dark, nice to look at without being sensational. Her eyes were slate blue, intelligent and remote. She had on a dark blue dress that merely hinted of her well-shaped body. The neckline was severe and the skirt length modest.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Ryan,” she said. Her smile was slight and impersonal. “Mr. Jefferson is ready for you now.”

“You are his secretary?” I asked, recognising the clear, quiet voice.

“Yes. I’m Janet West. I’ll show you the way.”

I followed her out into the passage and through a green baize door into a big old-fashioned but comfortable lounge lined with books and with double windows opening onto a secluded walled garden full of standard rose trees that were giving of their best.

J. Wilbur Jefferson was reclining on a bed-chair, fitted with wheels. He lay in the shade just outside the double windows: an old man, tall, thin and aristocratic with a big hooked nose, skin as yellow as old ivory, hair like white spun glass and thin fine hands heavily veined. He was wearing a white linen suit and white buckskin shoes. He turned his head to look at me as I followed Janet West into the garden.

“Mr. Ryan,’’ she said, drawing aside and motioning me forward, then she went away.