by Joyce Porter
‘Where’s the gentlemen’s lavatory?’
The underling cowered back. ‘The gents, lady? Well, it’s in the basement but you can’t …’
But the Hon. Con, only too demonstrably, could. Her mission was too urgent for false modesty as one poor gentleman, already suffering more than his fair share of troubles in a certain direction, found to his dismay. He had remarkably good eyesight for his age and, when the Hon. Con burst into the white-tiled bastion of masculine privilege, it only took him fifteen seconds to recognize her for what she was. Those heedless fifteen seconds were to haunt him for the rest of his life, quite unnecessarily so, as it happens, for the Hon. Con had eyes for nothing except Jack the John.
Jack the John rose with commendable efficiency to the occasion and removed his visitor to more congenial surroundings where, vastly amused, he allowed her to tell him the whole astonishing story of the murder of Rodney Burberry without a single interruption.
‘My, you’re a bit of a lad, aren’t you?’ he commented admiringly when she’d finished.
The Hon. Con smirked with pleasure. ‘Do my best,’ she admitted.
‘Well, it all sounds a pretty smart job to me, Butch, but I don’t see how I can help you. I knew Mack worked for this Smith geezer, of course – and a pretty cushy number it was by all accounts – but I never heard him say anything about this chap trying to have it off with him.’
‘Maybe poor Rodney was too embarrassed to mention it to his chums.’
‘Maybe,’ said Jack the John non-committally. ‘ If you ask me, though, he was a hell of a lot more likely to have given this fellow a right smack up the hooter for his pains. Them pansies are yellow to their boots when it comes to a carve up.’
‘Still,’ urged the Hon. Con, ‘you do agree that Smith’s got a few pertinent questions to answer, don’t you?’
Jack the John thought it over. It might turn out to be a bit of a giggle. ‘Yes,’ he agreed at last. ‘Why not? I reckon we’ve got a public duty here, Butch. After all, Mack was one of the Kama Sutra gang so it’s up to us to avenge him, isn’t it? ’ Specially as you’re sure it wasn’t one of the kids who did for him in the first place. Trust the cops to wipe their hands of it, eh? If Mack’d been some fat, respectable, middle-aged old bastard, the cops’d’ve bust a gut nicking somebody for croaking him. Yes’ – he assumed an air of weighty importance – ‘I think I can place my organization at your disposal, Butch. What exactly is it you want us to do? You’ll need to interrogate him, won’t you? Right up my street! Me and the boys’ll get him to talk for you.’ His face brightened at the prospect. ‘It’ll be a pleasure – and we won’t leave a mark on him.’
‘We’ve got to find him first,’ the Hon. Con pointed out. ‘This is where I thought you and your gang might be able to help. Smith stayed quite a time in Totterbridge. I know he was deliberately trying to cover his tracks but he must have slipped up somewhere. Wouldn’t be human otherwise. Now, I know already that the addresses he gave the Martyr’s Head and the police are phoney so we needn’t bother with them. Any information he dished out officially is bound to lead to a dead end. It’s the stuff he revealed without intending to that I’m after.’
‘I get you!’ said Jack the John eagerly. ‘Like he found himself a tart somewhere in Totterbridge? He’d not go all that time without having it off with somebody, would he? And, even if he is a fairy boy, it’d be the same difference, wouldn’t it? Yep, he’ll have found a friend of some sort and, while he was letting his hair down, he may have talked. Nothing like a bed for getting the vocal chords twanging, take it from me!’
The Hon. Con didn’t care much for the sound of this but she nodded her head. ‘Well, that sort of thing,’ she agreed gruffly. ‘Even his real name would be a help.’
Jack the John’s business sense began to reassert itself. ‘Going to be a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack,’ he warned.
‘Many hands make light work!’
‘It may cost you.’
The Hon. Con came down to earth with a painful bump. ‘ Not much, surely?’ she protested. ‘What will you need money for?’
‘Bribes. Tips. Some of ’em may not talk without the odd quid or two as a loosener.’
The Hon. Con was astounded. ‘I’m not having any bribery and corruption,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ve done all this investigation by myself so far and it hasn’t cost me a penny piece. Besides,’ she added, growing quite indignant the more she thought about it, ‘there’s absolutely no need for it. If you come across somebody who doesn’t want to talk, you must just terrorize them until they do. What do you have all these razor blades and bicycle chains for, for heaven’s sake? No’ – she patted Jack the John encouragingly on the arm – ‘you won’t need to bribe anybody, not a sadistic young thug like you.’
Chapter Fourteen
Three days passed.
Having acquired a whole pack of dogs, the Hon. Con was blowed if she was going to do any barking herself. In any case, she didn’t know what she could do. She mooched restlessly round the house, trying not to admit that she had for the moment shot her bolt. Until, and unless, Jack the John and his cronies could trace the whereabouts of Smith, she would have to sit impotently by, twiddling her thumbs.
If this waiting was a purgatory for the Hon. Con, it was an unmitigated hell for Miss Jones. Wherever she went she found the Hon. Con slouched miserably in a chair or hanging around aimlessly over the kitchen sink. If there was a table to be polished, the Hon. Con was sitting at it; a floor to be scrubbed and the Hon. Con’s number eights were planted firmly in the middle. Miss Jones, driven to distraction, actually got to the stage of suggesting that the Hon. Con might like to help with the housework to pass the time. The Hon. Con wasn’t that desperate. ‘Couldn’t concentrate,’ she informed Miss Jones earnestly and quickly. ‘I’d only have half the old mind on it, you see, and you know I can’t stomach a job done skimpily.’
‘Couldn’t you go out for a walk, then, dear? Or what about doing the shopping? Now, that really would be a help. I’ve got my list ready and …’
The Hon. Con shook her head. ‘Sorry, old fruit. Like to oblige but I just daren’t leave the phone. The call may come through at any moment.’
Miss Jones sighed.
In the end, however, impatience was rewarded. It was late afternoon when the phone rang and the Hon. Con leapt for it with all the verve of a pregnant salmon going up a fish ladder. Miss Jones sighed again and bent to pick up the occasional table which the Hon. Con had knocked over every single time the telephone had gone during the last three days. When she had finished setting the furniture to rights, she moved delicately over to the sitting-room door. The Hon. Con had let it slam shut but Miss Jones happened to know that you could hear quite well if you pressed your ear close to the panel. The Hon. Con had a very loud voice.
Miss Jones held her breath and listened. Well, at least it wasn’t a wrong number! The Hon. Con had been getting very fractious about wrong numbers recently.
Although the Hon. Con was only contributing a series of grunts and monosyllables, Miss Jones could tell that this was the call they’d been waiting for. Thank goodness for that! The suspense had been becoming unbearable. Miss Jones began to tip-toe back to her chair so as to be ready to look both pleased and surprised when the Hon. Con came thundering in with the good news. The speed with which the Hon. Con moved made it essential that one should be back in one’s place just before the receiver was replaced. Otherwise one ran the risk of being caught red-eared at the door. On this occasion, however, Miss Jones must have mistimed it slightly because there was quite a long wait before the Hon. Con erupted out of the hall and into the sitting-room.
‘He’s done it, Bones!’ she yelled in a high old state of excitement. ‘He’s done it! I always said there was more to that young man than met the eye.’
‘You’re such a good judge of character, dear,’ agreed Miss Jones soothingly. ‘Well, what did he have to say?’
‘Eh? Oh,
just that.’ The Hon. Con caught Miss Jones’s look of surprise. ‘Well, he couldn’t say any more, could he? Not over the old blower. You never know who’s listening. Still’ – she flung herself down into the easy chair by the fire – ‘he told me enough to let me know that he’s come up with a real lead.’
‘That’s nice, dear.’
‘Cracking good show, if you ask me.’ The Hon. Con took a quick glance at Miss Jones to see if she was likely to take the next bit as placidly. ‘They’re coming round later on this evening to give me all the gen.’
Miss Jones’s sixth sense rang a warning bell. ‘They, dear?’
‘Jack the John and a chum or two,’ explained the Hon. Con casually.
‘And how many is a chum or two?’
‘Oh, half a dozen, say,’ said the Hon. Con as though she couldn’t see that it really mattered.
‘Six?’ gasped Miss Jones, her worst expectations being overfulfilled.
‘Well, say seven with Jack the John himself.’
‘Seven?’
‘’Smarter of fact,’ said the Hon. Con, taking up yesterday’s paper and immersing herself in the nature notes, ‘I suggested they might care to stay for supper. Didn’t see, really, in the circumstances that I could do anything else.’
‘Seven extra people to supper?’ howled Miss Jones. ‘ Constance, have you gone out of your mind? How on earth am I going to feed seven extra people at a moment’s notice?’
‘Oh, you’ll manage, Bones!’ The Hon. Con smiled encouragingly. ‘I warned ’em they’d have to take pot luck.’
‘We haven’t got a pot in the house big enough to feed seven extra people!’ Miss Jones retorted tartly.
‘Can open a couple of tins, can’t you?’ asked the Hon. Con, wriggling uneasily in her chair. ‘They won’t expect anything elaborate. They eat anything at that age – just so there’s plenty of it.’
Miss Jones stood up and made no effort to disguise her annoyance. ‘I just don’t know how I’m going to manage! How could you be so inconsiderate, Constance?’
‘You’ll think of something,’ said the Hon. Con feebly. ‘Wouldn’t have issued the invitation if I’d known there was going to be all this fuss.’
‘And what are you proposing to give them to drink, may I ask?’
‘Drink? Well, a cup of coffee, I suppose.’
Miss Jones laughed a withering laugh. ‘ I think they’ll expect something with a little more zip in it than that, dear! You may remember that your own particular protégé went to meet his Maker with a bottle of Scotch whisky in his hand.’
‘Well, they needn’t think they’re coming here for an evening’s booze-up!’ replied the Hon. Con indignantly. ‘They can have a glass of that sherry stuff we couldn’t drink at Christmas and that’s their lot. Anyhow, Bones,’ – with a great show of willingness – the Hon. Con stood up too – ‘I’ll see to the drink. You just go ahead and rustle up a bit of supper, eh?’
‘What time are they supposed to be coming?’
The Hon. Con glanced unhappily at the sitting-room clock. ‘Should be here in about half an hour, actually,’ she admitted.
Jack the John, accompanied by a haphazard selection of the Kama Sutra mob, eventually turned up well over an hour late. Miss Jones, with a face that would have brought a blush to a piece of litmus paper, counted them as they pushed and jostled their way noisily into the sitting-room: five boys and four girls!
‘I only said about six!’ hissed the Hon. Con in an unavailing attempt to justify herself.
Miss Jones was prevented from making the crushing reply which she had all ready as Pimp, Jack the John’s right-hand lout, bore down upon her. With a courtly, olde-worlde bow he thrust an enormous bunch of yellow roses into her arms.
‘For you, beautiful!’ he announced and, seizing her round the waist, planted a couple of passionate kisses on her cheeks.
Miss Jones was flustered – but touched. If there was one thing she did appreciate it was thoughtfulness and good manners. And what lovely, lovely roses they were! She pushed her face into them and sniffed ecstatically. ‘Oh, how clever of you!’ she gurgled. ‘They’re Mrs Thomas Bentleys, aren’t they? I’d recognize them anywhere. They’re my favourite roses! How did you guess?’
Pimp just sniggered and shrugged his shoulders.
‘I must go and put them in water right away,’ cooed Miss Jones. ‘What an amazing coincidence that you should have picked my very favourites! We’ve got half a dozen trees in the garden, you know. I expect you saw them as you came …’ Her voice trailed off as she performed the simple arithmetical process of putting two and two together. The answer was four. Miss Jones threw all her notions of lady-like behaviour ro the winds. ‘Constance!’ she screamed. ‘ Have you seen what these bloody young blackguards have done?’ She raised the bouquet aloft with shaking hands and rattled it. ‘My beautiful Mrs Thomas Bentleys! These buggers have ravished them!’
The Hon. Con suspected that she was going to have an embarrassing situation on her hands if she didn’t do something quickly. She plunged through the shower of rose petals, grabbed Miss Jones and bundled her out into the kitchen. There she left her, sobbing and moaning over a fistful of denuded stalks, with the helpful suggestion that she’d better pull herself together and start dishing up the grub. ‘I’ll look after our guests,’ said the Hon. Con and beat a smart retreat back to the sitting-room.
The guests, however, were not the ones to stand on ceremony and they had already made themselves completely at home. Every chair was occupied and so was a good part of the floor area. One couple – the Hon. Con was practically sure that they were of assorted sexes – had taken possession of the sofa and were rapidly becoming absorbed in their own affairs. The Hon. Con perched herself gingerly on the edge of a coffee table and wondered what Miss Jones was going to say when she saw the large heaps of cigarette ash which were already forming on the carpet.
Jack the John looked round expectantly and smacked his lips.
The Hon. Con sighed and got up. She picked her way through sprawling legs and over recumbent bodies to get the bottle of sherry. She served it carefully concealing the label in the palm of her hand. British-type sherry might be patriotic but even the Hon. Con knew that it wasn’t chic.
The Kama Sutra gang, though, were not fooled. One sip and most of them were, very pointedly holding their noses. The Hon. Con resumed her seat on the coffee table and tried a drop herself, just to be sociable. Oh, cripes! Sherry couldn’t go bad, could it? Only the revolting Pimp was knocking the stuff back with any sign of enjoyment.
Jack the John made no bones about abandoning his aperitif. He handed his glass to Pimp and then gazed round the sitting-room with a good natured contempt for the bourgeois values it displayed.
‘Well, Butch,’ he said, ‘I reckon we’ve done you proud.’
‘My heartiest congratters!’
‘It wasn’t easy, mind!’ Jack the John pointed out firmly. ‘Don’t
you go getting the idea that any bunch of idiots could have done it.’
‘’Course not! I’m not the one to underestimate you chaps, you know that. Have you got Smith’s address?’
‘All in good time,’ grinned Jack the John. ‘Actually’ – he looked round again – ‘we ought to let Vera tell it. It’s her story, really.’ His eyes came to rest on the entwined couple on the sofa. ‘Oh, well, maybe I’d better do it for her.’
‘Yes,’ agreed the Hon. Con eagerly, ‘you shoot the works!’ She didn’t care who gave her the facts as long as somebody did.
‘Well,’ began Jack, propping his feet up on the mantelpiece, ‘we didn’t get anywhere to begin with. Smith didn’t have a car so we had to pack in the idea of tracing him through that. We didn’t have no luck at the railway station, either. None of the yobs there could remember him booking a ticket when he left.’
‘Hard cheese!’ said the Hon. Con sympathetically.
‘Then I thought of money. He must have run through a couple of hundr
ed quid at least while he was in Totterbridge and I wondered if he’d made some banking arrangements we could trace.’
‘And had he?’ demanded the Hon. Con who was finding all this build-up pretty tedious.
Jack the John scowled and Pimp leaned across to tap the Hon. Con warningly on the knee with his flick knife. ‘Shut it!’ he advised.
The Hon. Con blinked at him. ‘Shut what?’
‘Your gob!’ explained Pimp shortly and returned to the bleeding heart he was carving on the arm of his chair.
Jack the John resumed his recital. ‘Yes, Smith’s bank account. Well, luckily I have a few connections in the banking world.’ He raised his eyebrows at the Hon. Con. ‘ I could tell you the state of your current account right now, if you’d like.’
‘Don’t bother,’ said the Hon. Con hurriedly. ‘Tell me about Smith’s bank account.’
‘He didn’t have one. He was using traveller’s cheques, the sort you buy over the counter for cash. You can get ’em at any travel agency and use any name you want. As long as you sign the same name top and bottom, there’s no questions asked.’
The Hon. Con sighed. ‘Another dead end?’
‘As a door nail. But then our little Vera the Virgin came along.’ There was a muffled grunt from the sofa. The Hon. Con turned to see what was going on and immediately wished she hadn’t. Jack grinned wickedly and went on with his story. ‘ Vera works as a chambermaid at the Martyr’s Head,’ he explained, ‘and very obliging she is, too. Generous, big-hearted, does everything she can to give satisfaction. She’s the same in her work as well.’ Pimp seemed to think this was very funny and sniggered loudly until Jack the John shut him up with a fierce look. ‘Yes, that’s our Vera, Butch – nothing’s too much trouble for her. That’s why, when she’s tarting up the guests’ rooms at the Martyr’s Head, she generally has a quick shuftie through their drawers and suitcases and things, just to see if mere’s anything she can do for them.’
‘Golly!’ breathed the Hon. Con, pop-eyed.