“There’s a policeman outside.”
“What? Oh, really? Noakes, I suppose. Splendid fellow, old Noakes. I wonder what he wants. Tickets for a concert, I misdoubt me.”
Alfred came in. “Sergeant Noakes, sir, would like to see you.”
“What’s it all about, Alfred?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure, sir. He says it’s important.”
“All right. Show him in, if I must.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The impressive things about Sergeant Noakes were his size and his mildness. He was big, even for a policeman, and he was mild beyond belief. When Mr. Period made him known to Nicola, he said: “Good afternoon, Miss,” in a loud but paddy voice and added that he hoped she would excuse them for a few minutes. Nicola took this as a polite dismissal and was about to conform, when Mr. Period said that he wouldn’t dream of it. She must go on typing and not let them bore her. Please. He insisted.
Poor Nicola, fully aware of Sergeant Noakes’s wishes to the contrary, sat down again and banged away at her machine. She couldn’t help hearing Mr. Period’s airy and inaccurate assurance that she was entirely in his confidence.
“Well,” Sergeant Noakes said, “sir…in that case…”
“Sit down, Noakes.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ve dropped in to ask if you can help me in a small matter that has cropped up.”
“Ah, yes? More social activities, Noakes?”
“Not exactly, this time, sir. More of a routine item, really. I wonder if you’d mind telling me if a certain name is known to you.” He lowered his voice.
“Leiss!” Mr. Period shrilly ejaculated. “Did you say Leonard Leiss?”
“That was the name, yes.”
“I encountered him for the first time this morning.”
“Ah,” said Sergeant Noakes warmly. “That makes everything much easier, sir. Thank you. For the first time…So you are not at all familiar with Mr. Leiss?”
“Familiar!”
“Quite so, sir. And Mr. Cartell?”
“Nor is Mr. Cartell. Until this morning Mr. Leiss was a complete stranger to both of us. He may be said to be one still.”
“Perhaps I could see Mr. Cartell?”
“Look here, Noakes, what the deuce are you talking about? — Nicola, my dear, pray stop typing, will you be so good? But don’t go.”
Nicola stopped.
“Well, sir,” Sergeant Noakes said. “The facts are as follows. George Copper happened to mention to me, about half an hour ago, that he’s selling a Scorpion sports model to a young gentleman called Leonard Leiss and he stated, further, that the customer had given your name and Mr. Cartell’s and Miss Cartell’s as references.”
“Good God!”
“Now, sir, in the Service there’s a regular system by which all stations are kept informed about the activities of persons known to be operating in a manner contrary to the law, or if not contrary within the meaning of the Act, yet in a suspicious and questionable manner. You might describe them,” Sergeant Noakes said with a flash of imagery, “as ripening fruit. Just about ready for the picking.”
“Noakes, what in heaven’s name — Well. Go on.”
“The name of Leonard Sydney Leiss appears on the most recent list. Two previous convictions. Obtaining goods under fake pretenses. The portry-parly coincides. It’s a confidential matter, Mr. Period, but seeing that the young man gave your name with such assurance and seeing he was very warmly backed up by the young lady, who is Miss Constance Cartell’s adopted niece, I thought I would come and mention it quietly. Particularly, sir, as there’s a complication.”
Mr. Period stared dismally at him. “Complication?” lie said.
“Well, sir, yes. You see, for some time Leiss has been working in collusion with a young female who — I’m very sorry, I’m sure, sir — but the description of this young female does tally rather closely with the general appearance of Miss Cartell’s aforesaid adopted niece.”
There was a long silence. Then Mr. Period said: “This is all rather dreadful.”
“I take it, sir, you gave the young man no authority to use your name?”
“Merciful Heavens — NO.”
“Then perhaps we may just have a little chat with Mr. Cartell?”
Mr. Period rang the bell.
Mr. Cartell behaved quite differently from Mr. Period. He contracted into the shell of what Nicola supposed to be his professional manner as a solicitor. He looked pinched. Two isolated spots of colour appeared on his cheekbones. Nicola thought he was very angry indeed.
“I am much obliged to you, Sergeant,” he said at last, “for bringing this affair to my attention. You have acted very properly.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Very properly. If I may suggest a course of action it will be this. I shall inform my sister of the undesirability of having any further communication with this person, and she will see that his acquaintance with Miss Mary Ralston is terminated. Copper, of course, must be advised at once and he may then, if he thinks it proper, decline any further negotiations.”
Sergeant Noakes opened his mouth, but Mr. Cartell raised a finger and he shut it again.
“I need not add,” Mr. Cartell said crisply, “that no undertaking of any kind whatever was given by Mr. Period or by myself. Permission was not asked, and would certainly have been declined, for the use of our names. It might be as well, might it not, if I were to telephone Copper at once and suggest that he rids himself of Leiss and the other car, which he left, I understand, to be repaired at the garage. I shall then insist that Miss Ralston, who I imagine is there, returns at once…What’s the matter, Noakes?”
“The matter,” Sergeant Noakes said warmly, “is this, sir. George Copper can’t be told not to make the sale and Miss Ralston can’t be brought back to be warned.”
“My dear Noakes, why not?”
“Because George Copper has been fool enough to let young Leiss get away with it. And he has got away with it. With the sports car, sir, and the young lady inside it. And where they’ve gone, sir, is, to use the expression, nobody’s business.”
Who can form an objective view of events with which, however lightly, he has been personally involved? Not Nicola. When, after the climax, she tried to sort out her impressions of these events she found that in every detail they were coloured by her own preferences and sympathies.
At the moment, for instance, she was concerned to notice that, while Mr. Period had suffered a shrewd blow to his passionate snobbery, Mr. Cartell’s reaction was more disingenuous and resourceful. And while Mr. Period was fretful, Mr. Cartell, she thought, was nipped with bitter anger.
He made a complicated noise in his throat and then said sharply: “They must be traced, of course. Has Copper actually transacted the sale? Change of ownership and so on?”
“He’s accepted Mr. Leiss’s car, which is a souped-up old bag of a job, George reckons, in part payment. He’s let Mr. Leiss try out the Scorpion on the understanding that, if he likes it, the deal’s on.”
“Then they will return to the garage?”
“They ought to,” Sergeant Noakes said with some emphasis. “The point is, sir, will they? Likely enough, he’ll drive straight back to London. He may sell the car before he’s paid for it and trust to his connection here to get him out of the red if things become awkward. He’s played that caper before, and he may play it again.”
Mr. Cartell said: “May I, P.P.?” and reached for the telephone.
“If it’s all the same with you, gentlemen, I think I’ll make the call,” Sergeant Noakes said unexpectedly.
Mr. Cartell said: “As you wish,” and moved away from the desk.
Mr. Period began feeling, in an agitated way, in his pockets. He said fretfully: “What have I done with my cigarettes?”
Nicola said: “I think the case was left in the dining-room. I’ll fetch it.”
As she hurried out she heard the telephone ring.
The dining-room table was cleared and the window opened. The cigarette case was nowhere to be seen. She was about to go in search of Alfred, when he came in. He had not seen the case, he said. Nicola remembered very clearly that, as she stood back at the door for Miss Cartell, she had noticed it on the window sill, and she said as much to Alfred.