“Still nothing,” Spade said. “Maybe he did the ten-thousand-out-five-thousand-back trick with his bank, but that was easy. Then he got this feeble-minded blackmailer in his house, stalled him along until the servants had gone to bed, took the borrowed gun away from him, shoved him downstairs into his car, took him for a ride — maybe took him already dead, maybe shot him down there by the bushes — frisked him clean to make identification harder and to make it look like robbery, tossed the gun in the water, and came home—”
He broke off to listen to the sound of a siren in the street. He looked then, for the first time since he had begun to talk, at Ferris.
Ferris’s face was ghastly white, but he held his eyes steady.
Spade said, “Eve got a hunch, Ferris, that we’re going to find out about that red-lighting job, too. You told me you had your carnival company with a partner for a while when Eli was working for you, and then by yourself. We oughtn’t to have a lot of trouble finding out about your partner — whether he disappeared, or died a natural death, or is still alive.”
Ferris had lost some of his erectness. He wet his lips and said, “I want to see my lawyer. I don’t want to talk till I’ve seen my lawyer.”
Spade said, “It’s all right with me. You’re up against it, but I don’t like blackmailers myself. I think Eli wrote a good epitaph for them in that book back there — ‘Too many have lived.’ ”
The Question Mark
by Margery Allingham
The London private investigator at work: Albert Campion vs. the queer thief who looked like a question-mark.
When Miss Chloe Pleyell became engaged to Sir Matthew Pearing, K.C., Mr. Albert Campion crossed her name off his private list entitled “Elegant Young Persons Whom I Ought to Take to Lunch” and wrote it in neatly at the foot of his “People I Ought to Send Christmas Cards to” folder.
He made the exchange with a smile that was only partially regretful. There had been a time when Miss Pleyell had seemed to him to have a lightheartedness all her own, but once or twice lately it had occurred to him somewhat forcefully that lightheadedness might be a more accurate description. Without the slightest trace of malice, therefore, he wished Sir Matthew, who was a monument of humorless pomposity, joy of his choice.
He was still wishing him every happiness, albeit a trifle dubiously, as he stood in the big old-fashioned office at the back of Julius Florian’s Bond Street shop and watched the astute old silversmith persuading Chloe to decide whether Mr. Campion should signify his goodwill on her marriage with the Adam candlesticks or the baroque epergne.
Chloe was in form. She sat on the edge of the walnut desk, her cocoa ermine coat slipping off her shoulders and her small yellow head on one side. Her eyes were narrowed, their vivid blue intensified by the tremendous mental effort involved in the choice.
Mr. Florian appeared to find her wholly charming. He stood before her, his round dark face alight with interest, all the more remarkable since they had been in the shop for the best part of three quarters of an hour already.
“The epergne is exquisitely fashionable now,” murmured Chloe, “and I adore it. It’s so magnificently silly. But the Adam things will be there always, won’t they, like a family butler or something?”
Old Florian laughed.
“So truly put,” he observed with a little nod to Mr. Campion. “Which shall it be then? The fashion of the day or the pride of a lifetime?”
Miss Pleyell sighed heavily.
“The fashion,” she said resignedly. “I know I shall regret it, but I can’t help it. It’s just my destiny or my character; I can’t bother to decide which. Besides, I hate introspective people. I’ll have the epergne, Mr. Florian. And you’re an angel to give it to me, Albert. Every time I look across it at poor Matthew sitting at the other end of the table I shall think of you.”
“That’ll be nice for both of us,” said Mr. Campion cheerfully, and Florian, who was a past master of practical psychology, swept the candlesticks hastily out of sight.
Chloe slid off the desk and drifted to the side table, where the epergne stood holding out its little silver baskets on slender curling arms. The silversmith trotted after her.
“A lovely thing,” he said. “Fine early George the Third, eight sweetmeat baskets hand pierced and chased, gadroon edges, ball feet. It is a very beautiful thing. A ve-ry beau-ti-ful thing. I can tell you its entire history. It was made for Lord Perowne and remained in that family for seventy-two years, when it was purchased by a Mr. Andrew Chappell, who left it to his daughter who lived at Brighton and—”
Chloe’s laugh interrupted him.
“How sweet!” she said. “Like a dog. Having a pedigree, I mean. I shall call it Rover. All my furniture’s going to have names, Albert. I’ve got a stupendous sideboard from Matthew’s uncle, the judge. I’m going to call it Maude. After his dead wife,” she added patiently as he merely looked bewildered.
“Charming thought,” said Mr. Florian, also a little at sea.
Chloe glanced at him sadly and he coughed.
“When one buys a fine piece of silver one usually likes to know something of its history,” he said stiffly.
Miss Pleyell’s brain struggled with the information and came out on top.
“Oh, of course, in case it’s stolen,” she said brightly. “I never thought of that. How fascinating! Tell me, do you deal much in stolen stuff, Mr. Florian? By accident, I mean,” she added belatedly as the small man’s face grew slowly red and then more slowly purple.
Campion hurried to the rescue.
“Miss Pleyell thirsts for sensational information,” he murmured, scowling at her. “The police lists protect you from all disasters of that sort, don’t they, Mr. Florian?”
The silversmith regained his poise and even his smile.
“Ah yes,” he said graciously. “The police lists are very interesting. I’ll show you one.”
He touched a bell on his desk, and went on talking in his slow, slightly affected voice.
“Whenever there has been a robbery, the police circularize the trade with a list of the missing valuables. Then, if the thief or his agents are foolish enough to attempt to dispose of the haul to any reputable firm, they can be — ah — instantly apprehended.”
“How lovely!” said Chloe with such emphasis that Campion glanced at her sharply, only to find her gazing at Mr. Florian with an eager interest in her china-blue eyes which was utterly disarming.
The silversmith thawed visibly, and by the time his clerk reappeared with the folder he was beaming.
“I don’t show these to everybody,” he said archly, his black eyes twinkling at Chloe. “Here’s a list of things taken from a mansion in Surrey. And here’s another very curious thing. These are the valuables taken from the Hewes-Bellewe house in Manchester Square. No doubt you read of the burglary? I found it particularly interesting because I’m familiar with Lady Hewes-Bellewe’s collection of silver. Most of these pieces have been through my hands from time to time for special cleaning and minor repairs.”
“Fascinating,” murmured Chloe, glancing down a column of technicalities with what was only too obviously an uncomprehending eye. “What’s an early silver muffineer with BG, LG?”
“A sugar sifter with a blue glass lining.” Mr. Florian seemed delighted to explain, and it occurred to Mr. Campion that a lot of beauty went a remarkably long way. “That’s a very interesting piece,” the silversmith went on. “I had it here once when we gave a little loan exhibition of rare silver. It has a charming design of ivy leaves, hand pierced, and on one of the leaves a little putto in a boat has been engraved. Engraving with hand piercing is comparatively rare, and I told Lady Hewes-Bellewe that in my opinion the putto must have been the brilliant work of some eighteenth-century amateur. What a tragedy to think it’s gone!”