'I would like to say that it was intellectual curiosity, but I'm afraid it is just business. You can help me, I think.
She helped him enormously; and never once asked what these questions might mean.
'We haven't had that dinner with your Sergeant Williams, she said as she went away to make the young lovers look like amateurs and wish that they had gone on the land.
'If you wait for a week or so, Sergeant Williams and I may have a story to tell you.
'Splendid. I've earned it, I feel. I've been so good and discreet.
'You've been wonderful, he said, and went away out the back way into the lane with a slight recurrence of the jubilation that had floated him down the stairs at his entrance.
Armed with the information Marta had given him, he went to Cadogan Gardens and interviewed the housekeeper of some furnished flats.
'Oh, yes, I remember, she said. 'They ran about a lot together. Oh, no, she didn't stay here. These are bachelor flats; I mean, flats for one. But she was around a lot.
And by that time London was shutting up shop for the night and there was nothing more he could do until the police of Jobling, Conn., supplied him with the information he had asked for. So he went home early for once, had a light supper, and went to bed. He lay for a long time working it out in his mind. Working out the details. Working out the wherefore.
Toby Tullis had wanted to know what made Leslie Searle tick; and Grant, too, lying with his eyes on the ceiling, unmoving for an hour at a time, was looking for the mainspring of Leslie Searle's mind.
19
It was forty-eight hours before word came from Jobling, Conn., and half a dozen times in those forty-eight hours Grant was on the brink of going to that woman in Hampstead and dragging the truth from her by main force. But he restrained himself. He would deal with her presently. Her lies would be neatly laid out on a plate, and presented to her when the time came.
He would wait for that report.
And the report when it came proved worth waiting for.
Grant read it through in one swift eye movement, and then he sat back and laughed.
'If any one wants me for the rest of the day, he said to Sergeant Williams, 'I'll be at Somerset House.
'Yes, sir, Williams said, subdued.
Grant glanced at Williams's unwontedly sober features-Williams was a little hurt that Grant was playing a lone hand over this-and was reminded of something.
'By the way, Williams, Miss Hallard is very anxious to meet you. She has asked me if I would bring you to dinner one night.
'Me? said Williams going pink. 'What on earth for?
'She has fallen a victim to your reported charms. She asked me to arrange a night when you were free. I feel in my bones this morning that by Saturday both you and I will be in a state for celebration; and it would be appropriate if we celebrated with Marta, I think. Saturday any good to you?
'Well, Nora and I usually go to the movies on Saturday, but when I'm on duty she goes with Jen. That's her sister. So I don't see why she shouldn't go with Jen this week.
'When she hears that you are going to dine with Marta Hallard she'll probably start divorce proceedings.
'Not her. She'll wait up for me so that she can ask me what Marta Hallard was wearing, said Williams, the Benedict.
Grant rang to ask Marta if he could bring Sergeant Williams to meet her on Saturday night, and then went away and buried himself in Somerset House.
And that night he did not lie awake. He was like a child that goes to sleep because that way it will quickly be tomorrow. Tomorrow, the one small piece would fall into place and make the pattern whole.
If the one small piece happened not to fit, of course, then the whole picture was wrong. But he was pretty sure that it would fit.
In the short interval between putting out the lamp and falling asleep he ranged sleepily over the 'field'. When that one small piece fell into place tomorrow, life would be a great deal happier for a great many people. For Walter, naturally; Walter would have the shadow of suspicion lifted from him. For Emma Garrowby, with her Liz made safe. For Liz? Relief unspeakable for Liz. And relief for Miss Fitch-who might, he suspected, be a little sad, too. But she could always put it in a book. In a book was where the thing belonged.
Toby would have quite special reasons for self-congratulation, Grant thought; and laughed. And Serge Ratoff would be comforted.
Silas Weekley would not care at all.
He remembered that Marta had remarked on how 'nice' Leslie and Liz had been together. ('A natural pair, she said-but she could never have guessed how natural!) Was it just possible that Liz would be hurt when that one small piece fell into place tomorrow? He hoped not. He liked Liz Garrowby. He would like to think that Searle had meant nothing to her. That she would find nothing but happiness and relief in the vindication of her Walter.
What was it Marta had said? 'I don't think Walter knows anything about Liz, and I have an idea that Leslie Searle knew quite a lot. (Surprising, how Marta had seen that without any clue to the source of Searle's understanding.) But it did not matter very much, Grant thought, that Walter did not know very much about Liz. Liz, he was quite sure, knew all that was to be known about Walter; and that was a very good basis for a happy married life.
He fell asleep wondering if being married to someone as nice and intelligent and lovable as Liz Garrowby would compensate a man for the loss of his freedom.
A procession of his loves-romantic devotions most of them-trailed away into the distance as his mind blurred into unconsciousness.
But in the morning he had thought for only one woman. That woman in Hampstead.
Never, even at his most callow, had he gone to see any woman with an eagerness as great as the one that was taking him to Holly Pavement this morning. And he was a little shocked as he got off the bus and walked towards the Holly Pavement turning to find that his heart was thumping. It was a very long time indeed since Grant's heart had thumped for any but a purely physical reason.
Damn the woman, he thought, damn the woman.
Holly Pavement was a backwater filled with sunlight; a place so quiet that the strutting pigeons seemed almost rowdy. Number nine was a two-storey house, and the upper storey had been apparently converted into a studio. There were two push-buttons on the bell plaque with neat wooden labels alongside. 'Miss Lee Searle', said the upper one; 'Nat Gansage: Accessories', said the lower.
Wondering what 'accessories' were, Grant pressed the upper button, and presently heard her coming down the wooden stairs to the door. The door opened, and she was standing there.
'Miss Searle? he heard himself say.
'Yes, she said, waiting there in the sunlight, unperturbed but puzzled.
'I am Detective-Inspector Grant of the C.I.D. Her puzzlement deepened at that, he noticed. 'A colleague of mine, Sergeant Williams, came to see you in my stead a week ago because I was otherwise engaged. I would like very much to talk to you myself, if it is convenient.
And it had better be convenient, blast you, he said in his mind; furious at his racing heart.
'Yes, of course, she said equably. 'Come in, won't you. I live upstairs.
She shut the door behind him and then led him up the wooden stairs to her studio. A strong smell of coffee-good coffee-pervaded the place and as she led him in she said: 'I've just been having my breakfast. I have made a bargain with the paper boy that he should leave a roll for me every morning with the paper, and that is my breakfast. But there is lots of coffee. Will you have some, Inspector?
They said at the Yard that Grant had two weaknesses: coffee, and coffee. And it smelt wonderful. But he wasn't going to drink anything with Lee Searle.
'Thank you, but I have just had mine.