"That's my business. And why are you so goddamn interested, anyway?"
Solo took four five-pound notes from his pocket and laid them on the bar. "I'm just naturally curious," he said, "and I always pay for my whims."
"Well, it's no secret." She picked up the notes and put them in her shabby handbag. "I got it from the holy joe in Newport Street. You know, the old geezer who runs the New Beginnings lark."
"Was he trying to reform you?"
She laughed shortly. "In bed?"
Blodwen asked, "But what made you think your friend gave it to me?"
"Scalesi? He's no friend of mine. Not anymore," she said bitterly. "He beat the hell out of me and went off with everything he could lay his filthy paws on. The luck-piece was part of it."
"He sounds charming," Solo said. "When did this happen?"
"A couple of months ago. I've never laid eyes on him since."
"What does he look like?"
She opened her handbag, sorted through a conglomeration of letters, lipstick, compact, comb and other feminine junk and came up with a cracked, grubby snapshot. It had been taken on Brighton Pier and it showed a flashily good-looking young thug dressed in leather jacket and skin-tight jeans.
She said, "That's him. Keep it if you want to. Gawd knows he gave me plenty to remember him by — to my dying day."
Solo put the picture in his wallet. He put a pound note on the bar and said, "Have one for the road. Sorry we have to rush away."
She said indifferently, "Be seeing you around," and rapped on the counter for service.
Merle was at her post in the doorway when they returned to the house in Berwick Street. She looked relieved when she saw Blodwen step from the taxi.
"I've been worrying myself sick," she greeted her. "I thought they must've put you away. I warned you not to tangle with Louise, didn't I? She's murder, that bitch."
"It wasn't too bad," Blodwen said. "Cost me two quid. Come up to the flat. We want to talk to you."
She left Solo and Merle together in the sitting room and went into the kitchen to brew coffee.
Solo asked, "What do you know about a man called Scalesi?"
"I've heard Louise talk about him. She was living with him," Merle said. "I never saw him, though."
He showed her the snapshot, and she said, "You know the nicest people. That's not Scalesi. It's a lousy young tearaway called Pietro Bambini. You want my advice, you'll steer clear of him. He's a mad dog."
"You mean he's insane?"
"I mean he's crazy. He beats people up for the fun of it. He likes to see blood. Real professionals won't work with him. He scares them stiff. They know one day he'll do a 'topping' job — you know, murder — they don't want to be around when it happens."
Blodwen came in with the coffee. She asked, "Where does this charmer hang out? We'd like to meet him."
"Meet him?" she repeated. "Are you out of your mind? Didn't Louise tell you what he done to her?"
She grew suddenly cautious. "Look, who are you two, anyway? I don't like all these questions, and I thought there was something screwy about you from the first. What are you up to?"
Solo said, "We're not police, if that's what is worrying you. We represent an international organization known as U.N.C.L.E., with headquarters in New York." He showed her his identification card. "You can do a big service to your country and to the world if you help us."
"You could've come clean in the first place," she grumbled. "I've read about U.N.C.L.E. in one of the magazines. Some kind of secret service, isn't it?"
"Near enough," Solo admitted.
"Yeah. Well, just because I'm in my business don't mean I'm not a good citizen. I pay my bills and taxes, don't I? What do you want from me?"
"Tell us about Bambini."
"Him I don't want no part of," she said emphatically. "He's poison, and I still say keep away. If he thought I'd ratted on him, he'd cut my heart out."
"We'll see you're protected," Blodwen promised. "Just tell us where we can find him."
"Who knows," she said. "He's in and out of the Gloriana most evenings, though I haven't seen him lately. He drives a car for that Chinese dame who owns the place."
"Anna?"
"Yes, that's her. It's a big black job, very classy. She keeps it in a mews garage off Tottenham Court Road. Bambini lives in a room over the top." She gave them the address.
Solo said, "Thank you. Now, just one more thing. Did you ever go into the kitchens at the Gloriana?"
She looked surprised. "Yes, one or twice. Why?"
"Have they got a refrigerator there?"
"They've got a cold storeroom," she said, "big enough to hold an ox."
"I thought they might have." He nodded. "Things are beginning to add up nicely."
Chapter Twelve
The mews was off Stephen Street, not far from the junction of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. If was a cul-de-sac about one hundred and fifty yards long which at one time had housed the carriages of noble families. Now the stables had been converted into lock-up garages with apartments above.
Illya drove to the far end of the mews, made a U-turn and parked with the front of the Cortina facing into Stephen Street. He remained sitting behind the wheel while Solo got out and walked back, looking for the number Merle had given him. He found it halfway down the right-hand side: a pair of green-painted garage doors with a smaller door beside them.
He pressed the doorbell on the small door and waited. There was no response. He took out a bunch of keys and tried the lock on the garage doors. At the third attempt it clicked. He swung the doors wide enough to admit his body, then pulled them shut behind him.
Enough daylight filtered through the grimy windows for him to see that the car was a black Humber Hawk. The front bumper was decorated with a row of automobile club emblems, but on the near side there was a gap that showed up like a broken tooth. Examining the bracket with his flashlight, Solo could see that the missing emblem had been torn violently from its place.
The leather upholstery of the seats was clean. There was nothing but a road map and a spare lamp bulb in the glove compartment on the dashboard. The pockets in the car doors were empty.
Solo went to the back of the car and unlocked the trunk. The flashlight beam illumined a crumpled length of burlap and a jack. There were dark stains on the burlap that could have been oil or blood.
Solo took out his pocketknife, cut a small piece from the stained material and tucked it into an envelope. He closed the trunk quietly, then went out and let the doors click shut.
"Any luck?" Illya asked as the Cortina moved out into Stephen Street.
"I don't know," Solo said, "but I think it's time we had words with Solly Gold."
The hands of the clock over the Law Courts were pointing to half-past seven when they went into the Wig and Pen Club in the Strand.
The Wig and Pen is housed in the only building in the Strand that can claim to have survived both the Fire of London in 1666 and the Fire Blitz in 1940-41. There is no elevator to the penthouse restaurant because the three-hundred-year-old staircase, the only one of its kind, is protected under the Ancient Monuments Act. Despite the recent invasion of expense-account types from advertising and public relations, the club retains much of its original character as a rendezvous for barristers and top newspapermen.