Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“Did anyone else—anyone I haven’t mentioned—visit upstairs while Mr. Devenish was here?”
“One evening ’e brought a bloke round.”
“What was his name?”
“Can’t remember. I only seen ’im once or twice.”
“Clark. It was Clark.”
“With an E or without?”
The girl looked blank.
“It wasn’t Clark anyways,” said the other. “It begun with R.”
“It didn’t, neither. Clark it was.”
With or without an E, Clark was one of the commonest surnames in England, if it actually was the man’s name. “Do you happen to know his christian name?”
The maids looked at each other and shook their heads.
“All I remember is, it was kind of funny. We ’ad a good giggle, didn’t we, Nance?”
“Not John or Jim or Joe,” the other agreed. “I just read it on ’is card once, when he first come here, and it went right out of my head.”
A man possibly called Clark with an unusual first name: The police had more than enough leads to follow without starting that wild-goose chase unless as a last resort. Devenish might have lacked any intimate friends but he had had a damnably vast acquaintance.
Alec wondered how Piper was doing. It was time to move on. They could always come back. He thanked the girls and ushered them into the back room.
Miss Zvereva dismissed the servants upstairs.
“Did Mr. Clark give you any business?” Alec asked casually.
“Clarrrk? No. He was friend of Teddy.”
“So he won’t be in your order book. Do you happen to remember his first name?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. I have no interest. I will make list from order book and send to Scotland Yard, yes?”
“To Detective Sergeant Piper, if you please, madam.”
“Very well. I hope you will not need to come again,” she said as she showed them out through the shop.
“Can’t promise,” the sergeant said cheerfully.
The door closed behind them. “You sound pretty chipper,” said Alec. “Don’t tell me the Russian gave you something useful?”
“Not him. Not a word. He refused to speak English at all, and going by what Miss Zed said, which I had to, all he said in Russian was ‘I don’t know.’ Did the maids have anything helpful to say?”
“A partial name, possibly misremembered, of yet another friend of Devenish, if anyone he ever associated with can be called a ‘friend.’ All we seem to be getting is an ever-growing list of names.”
“We’ll weed ’em out, Chief. Look, why don’t you go home and see if Mrs. Fletcher’s got any more names for us—”
“Just what we need!” Alec groused. “Not to mention that I told her not to do any more digging.”
His insubordinate subordinate grinned. “And have a bit of dinner. You’ll feel better after. I’ll go do some digging of my own. If I find anything, I’ll ring up. Otherwise, you could take the evening off for once.”
“Who’s the chief here? All the same, I think I will. I feel as if I’m coming down with something. I’ll take you back to the Yard and have a word with Mackinnon if he’s there.”
* * *
Alec reached home just in time for dinner. The rest of the evening’s interviews had been parcelled out between Mackinnon and another couple of men, and Piper was sorting out the reports that had come in during the day.
“I may have to go back to the Yard,” he warned Daisy.
“Oh, darling! You’ve hardly had a moment to take a breath since you got back from Bristol. You look exhausted.”
“You work too hard, Daddy,” Belinda admonished.
“Persuade the crooks to lay off, pet, and I will too.”
He felt much better after a good, peaceful meal, listening to Belinda’s chatter about the shopping she and Daisy were going to do the next day in preparation for the beginning of the summer term.
“And tennis whites,” she added to her mental list. “I’m getting quite good at tennis, Daddy. I do hope you’ll be able to come for sports day this year.”
“I do try, Scouts’ honour.”
“Perhaps this will be the lucky year.”
If he were promoted to superintendent …
Belinda went off to bed and still no call had come from the Yard.
“Whisky?” asked Daisy.
“A small one. I’ll get it. What would you like, love?”
“I’ll have a Drambuie.”
“The house seems very quiet without your young cousins.”
“Doesn’t it! So peaceful I keep wondering what they’re up to. Cousin Edgar wired that they all arrived safely. I hope Mrs. Gilpin has, too. I expect her sister would have wired if she hadn’t.”
“She’s gone?”
“Yes. You didn’t want to see her before she left, did you?”
“Not really, assuming she had no returning memories to report.”
“I wouldn’t have sent her if she did. There was a wire from Phillip as well. He’s had to rush off to deal with some emergency in the North—Sunderland’s in the North, isn’t it? A factory up there is having difficulties with a new kind of windshield glass that Mr. Arbuckle wants them to make.”
“And why exactly did Petrie feel the necessity of informing you about his troubles with windshield glass? You weren’t planning another nightclub outing, were you?”
“Of course not, darling. He was going to come round here this evening to tell you something he found out about Teddy.”
“Don’t tell me he’s been sleuthing on his own!”
“Not deliberately. He was at his club, the RAC, last night—”
Alec groaned. “His club! Devenish was a member?”
“Apparently.”
“I must be tired. I never even thought of checking for club membership. It would be a last resort, if I had thought. It’s damn difficult to get them to disgorge any information whatever about their members, almost as bad as solicitors and doctors. What did Petrie find out?”
“I don’t know. That’s why he was going to drop in tonight. He just said everyone there was talking about Teddy but he didn’t want to tell me on the telephone or in the presence of his sister and Lucy and Angela.”
“Lucy and Angela? Teddy’s sister Angela? Great Scott, Daisy, what the deuce did—”
“It’s not really relevant, darling, and it was quite harrowing. I’d rather not go into details.”
“All right, I’ll trust your judgement.”
“For once.”
“When is Petrie coming back to give us the benefit of his discovery?”
“He managed to write a long telegram without ever mentioning that, nor how to get in touch with him.”
“Heaven preserve us from amateur meddlers! Since I have no idea of the length of his absence nor the significance of his knowledge, I don’t feel inclined to ask the Sunderland police to make the rounds of glass manufacturers hunting for him.”
“Gosh no. He may turn up back in London tomorrow.”
“He’s driving?”
“Can you imagine that car fanatic taking the train?”
“Frankly, no. I daresay he’ll be exceeding the speed limit all the way, and I’ll be called upon to bail him out because he claims to have essential information I need.
” Alec set down his empty glass and stretched.
“I think I’ll get an early night while I can and get up bright and early in the morning.
Ernie’s not likely to ring so late. Coming up? ”
Arm in arm they went upstairs.