“I could go round if you’d like,” Nigel went on. “Pass myself off as an inspector from the Yard. I’ve played the bloody part often enough, and the moustache would go well with the role. Or do you think that would just put the wind up him?”
“It might.”
“Or I could disguise myself as female, under forty, unmarried. Somehow I don’t think that would wash. You might do some sort of exploratory research, Evan. Inquiring about the position on behalf of a female relative, that sort of thing. Give you the feel of the man-”
Julia said, “Of course you’ve both overlooked the obvious.”
We looked at her.
“You ought to send an unmarried female under forty to find out exactly what’s going on. Fortunately I know just the girl. She’s had a bit of acting experience, she’s considered moderately attractive and intelligent, and she’s bloody adventurous.” She stood up, a thin smile on her freshly scrubbed face, a light dancing in her eyes. “I hereby volunteer my services,” she said.
So of course we both told her that it was a ridiculous idea, not to say dangerous, not to mention foolhardy. We pointed out that she might compromise herself in any of a number of ways and added that we could not possibly let her risk herself in such a fashion.
And, of course, three hours later I was looking through a tea shop window on Pelham Court, waiting for her to return from the offices of Penzance Export just across the street.
“It does restore a girl’s confidence,” she said. We were having lunch at a Lyon ’s Corner House a few blocks away from Penzance Export. “One regards oneself as utterly dependent upon the stray pence one ekes out playing chambermaids in bedroom farces, along with the meager income from a legacy and the generosity of one’s brother. At nights I often comfort myself with the thought that I could always turn brass if times went bad, but who would have me?”
“I would.”
“Oh?” She arched her eyebrows prettily. “You’ll be my first professional client, I promise you.” Her voice turned at once Cockney and sluttish. “Spare a couple of nicker for a short time, guv?” She laughed. “But I digress, don’t I? Mr. Wyndham-Jones has hired me. He seems partial to hyphenated surnames. A low type, I’m afraid. Speaks straight Mayfair, but Whitechapel shines through in spite of all his hard work.”
“And he hired you.”
“He certainly did.” She grinned suddenly. “I wish you could have been there, Evan. I wish Nigel could have been there. Whenever I’m on stage and he’s in the house I’m just dreadful, and this was the performance of my career. I did a Yorkshire accent” – she demonstrated this – “and I told him my old father had just died and I was quite alone in the world and new in London and I did so want to travel. I made myself the wide-eyed trusting sort, just a shade on the stupid side, but I tried to give the impression that I kept my own counsel and wouldn’t be inclined to confide in anyone.” She sighed. “It worked. I shall be leaving the country at the end of the week for a three-month journey through the Middle East. All of my expenses will be paid and I will receive three hundred pounds at the termination of the trip.”
“The Middle East. Phaedra’s card was from Baghdad.”
“Yes. The mission’s a lovely one. Shall I tell you about it? Mr. Wyndham Hyphen Jones will be posing as the leader of an archaeological expedition to Turkey and Iraq. An archaeological tour, really. But in actual point of fact, the six or seven girls accompanying him on this trek will not be his passengers but his employees. Or, more precisely, the employees of a we-cannot-mention-the-name mammoth oil company with interests in the area. It will be our vital task to Gather Important Information and Make Necessary Contacts. Isn’t that divine?”
“More divine than plausible.”
“Quite. I don’t suppose you’ve any idea what his real game is? He knows I’ve no money at all. I read thrillers, so all manner of horrid things have occurred to me, but nothing makes any sense.”
“Six or seven pretty but penniless girls. Maybe he’s a sex fiend.”
“Just a fiend, I think. I can generally tell when a man responds to me that way. For example, you do, don’t you?”
“Uh…”
“Why, you’ve gone tongue-tied! If it’s a comfort, I react the same way to you. But Mr. Hyphen – I watched him study me and decide I was attractive without taking the slightest personal interest in the fact. He might enjoy slitting my throat, but I’m afraid that’s the only way I could give him any pleasure.” She shivered, then grinned quickly. “Theatrical response indicating chills and palpitations. Mr. Hyphen strikes me as evil incarnate. Wait until you see him.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Will tonight do? I’ve a date to meet him at his flat.”
“What!”
“Color me resourceful. I’d already told him I was penniless, so I thought I’d press it a bit. I hit him up for a tenner on account. He allowed that he’d left his billfold in his other pair of trousers. Quite a transparent fellow – I don’t believe he has another pair of trousers, let alone a spare ten quid. I’m to meet him at his flat at half past eight this evening. He’ll have my ten pounds, along with an employment application for me to fill out.”
“You have the address?”
“ Old Compton Street in Soho.”
“You’re not going, of course.”
She rose. “Let’s go back to the flat, Evan. I’m going to Old Compton Street tonight, but my damned brother’s going to voice the same objections as you, and I’d as soon save time by arguing with both of you at once.”
The argument wasn’t much of a contest. She had logic on her side, and when Nigel turned out to be easily won over I couldn’t put up much of a fight. I’d planned on keeping the appointment for her, but there was really no reason to presume he would let me in. There was also the chance that he would have company, which would make the odds unfavorable for our side.
With Julia running interference for me, we hedged our bets neatly. She could signal to let me know that she was alone, and I could wait in the hallway, prepared to enter when he let her out. Nor would she be in any real danger; whatever his intentions, I’d be lying doggo in the hallway ready to kick the door in if she screamed.
Julia said, “But suppose he won’t talk?”
We looked at her.
“He might not, you know. It would be rather like going to his office and waving pictures under his nose, wouldn’t it?”
“Evan will have a gun, dear.” He turned to me. “I can pick you up one from the property department. It won’t shoot, but I don’t suppose you want to shoot anyone. I’ll guarantee that it looks menacing.”
“But if he refuses to talk, then what?”
“Then Evan will make him talk, love.”
“Oh, come now. That’s a line out of the movies. I could believe that of Mr. Hyphen, but Evan’s not a brutal sort.” She put her hand on my arm. “Are you?”
I remembered a man named Kotacek, a Slovak Nazi, a doddering invalid who had not wanted to tell me where he kept his lists of the worldwide membership of the Neo-Nazi movement. It took a while, but he told me. I never behaved more inhumanly before or since, but then I’d never been faced with a more inhuman man.
“Brutal?” I said. “Everybody’s brutal.”
“Oh, Evan, for God’s sake! Everybody’s brutal and each man kills the thing he loves and life is real and life is earnest. But you know what I mean.”
Nigel touched her shoulder. His guards’ moustache fairly bristled. “You go too much by manner, love,” he said quietly. “Brutal to him who brutal thinks. I’ve a feeling your Mr. Hyphen will tell Evan anything he wants to know.”
Chapter 3
Old Compton Street is no place to stand around waiting for something. It’s in that part of Soho that’s a cross between Greenwich Village and Tijuana – narrow streets jammed with Italian restaurants and strip clubs and pornography shops and prostitutes. I stood in front of a grim pub just across the street from the building where our hyphenated friend lived. I’d already determined that his apartment was in the front of the building on either the third or fourth floor, depending upon whether you looked at it from an English or American point of view. You had to climb three flights of stairs to get to it, anyway.