Julie Norcombe, like almost everyone who could read a newspaper in those days, had heard of the Saint, and had a general idea of what he stood for; but it had never occurred to her that he might take an interest in her problems, weak and defenceless though she certainly felt. It seemed she had spent most of her twenty-two years of life worrying about one thing or another. Was she too thin? Was she pretty or ugly? What would her mother say if she did this, or didn’t do that?
On one particular night, however, she had something nice and solid and specific to worry about, and not just something that could be put down to what even she recognised as an irrational lack of self-confidence. Only two days before, she had taken the first great breathless leap from the maternal nest in Manchester and come down to London to stay with her brother, Adrian. The idea was that she could live in his Chelsea flat until she could test her wings and see what she wanted to do. Adrian, four years older than she, was no paragon of strength and stability, but he was conscientious and reliable, and she thought that he really cared about her.
So it was not like him to worry her by simply disappearing within forty-eight hours of her arrival. He had received a telephone call late in the afternoon requesting him to see a dealer about an order for one of his paintings. Adrian had not wanted to go, even though he was naturally pleased at the prospect of a sale, because he had been working all day in his studio at the back of the flat and was tired. He had had a quick tea and then left her, promising to be back within an hour or two.
But he had not come back in two hours, or three, or even six. Julie had grown at first uneasy, then frightened, not only for Adrian but for herself. In her mother’s vivid diatribes, London would have fitted appropriately and unobtrusively somewhere between the eighth and ninth levels of Dante’s underworld, so replete was it with thuggery, thievery, chicanery, arson, and rape... not to mention an atmosphere of general debauchery that would have corroded the soul of John Calvin himself.
Adrian Norcombe did not drink. In fact he had none of the vices traditionally associated with artists. He was neat and clean, trimmed his beard every morning, hung up his clothes, washed his dishes (until his sister took over that chore for him), and was punctilious about keeping appointments on time. It was totally unlike him to be late. No business haggling could have kept him so long. His sister was literally in tears at round three in the morning, and she practically ran to the door when she heard the shoes clapping and scraping on the steps outside. There was a chain lock, which allowed her to look out without exposing herself to one of the assaults so picturesquely predicted by her mother.
To her horror, it was not Adrian who stood outside the door, but three grim-looking men against the background of an equally grim-looking black car.
“Oh!” It was half gasp, half cry, as she slammed the door shut again and fumbled to throw the bolt.
Knuckles rapped insistently on the wood.
“Miss, open up please. Miss?”
“Go away or I’ll call the police.”
“We are the police. Special Branch officers. About your brother.”
Julie now had to struggle to free the bolt again. But she stopped short of removing the protection of the chain. She peered out at the shadowy faces.
“What’s happened to my brother? How do I know you’re who you say you are?”
From outside, her own face, back-lighted by the yellowish glow from inside the flat, looked gaunt, her eyes abnormally large, as if she had been starved by something more extreme than post-war rationing. But when she stepped back a little into the room to study the card that one of the men had slipped to her over the door chain, and the light fell more evenly on her features, even the least discerning visitor would have observed that she was quite a beautiful young woman.
She peered out at the men once more for a moment, and then slipped the chain from its catch and opened the door. They came in quietly, removing their hats, already looking round the room with mechanical thoroughness.
“What’s happened to him?” Julie asked, putting her hand against the back of an armchair for support in case the answer was too shattering. “Has he been in an accident?”
“Before we discuss this, I’d like to be certain who you are,” the spokesman for the Special Branch officers said. “Presumably you’re his sister.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have some identification?”
The other two men had begun moving systematically round the living-room, occasionally picking something up and putting it down again. Julie wondered if they should be doing that without asking her permission or producing a warrant or something, but she was too timid to protest. She got her purse and satisfied the officer that she was indeed Julie Norcombe.
“Please tell me,” she begged. “What’s happened? Do you know where he is? He’s been gone for hours.”
“I’m afraid I have some rather unpleasant news for you, Miss Norcombe. Your brother has been arrested.”
The girl had to go further than to lean on the chair. She sat down in it like a puppet whose strings had suddenly been released. Nobody in her family had ever been arrested for anything. They had never even known anybody who had ever been arrested. The whole idea was as alien as a round of beer at a Temperance luncheon.
“He couldn’t be,” she protested. “Adrian would never do anything wrong.”
“How do you know that?” the officer asked her, as his colleagues continued probing about the room.
“Because I know him,” she answered. “He’s my brother, isn’t he? He’s just not the kind to break the law. What is he supposed to have done?”
“Have you noticed anything strange about your brother’s movements lately? Any changes in his habits or schedule?”
She wished that the man would answer her questions before asking more of his own, but she replied hesitantly: “I wouldn’t know, would I? I’ve only been here since Tuesday.”
“This past Tuesday... two days ago?”
“Yes.”
The officer nodded as if she had confirmed something he already knew.
“Did you notice anything different about him? Say, compared to what he was like the last time you visited him here?”
“I’ve never visited him here before. He’s always come up to Manchester.”
The spokesman jerked his head towards the other two men.
“You don’t object if we have a look round, do you? It’s necessary.”
“Well, if it’s necessary...”
Julie determined that she would at least follow these detectives — even if they wouldn’t tell her anything, she might get an idea what they were after. They went down the hall past the bedroom and bath to the rear of the flat, where Adrian’s studio adjoined the kitchen. She was very glad she had done such a thorough job of cleaning the kitchen after tea; nobody could seriously suspect a man with such a clean kitchen of committing a crime.
“Can I do anything to help?” she asked.
“Just continue giving us your co-operation,” said the officer in charge. “Do you have other relatives living in this area?”
“No, Adrian is the only one. All the rest are in Yorkshire. Except for some on the Isle of Man; that’s on my mother’s side, but only cousins. And then there’s...”
“But in other words, there are none in London.”
Julie shook her head.