SUPERINTENDENT ABBOTT inserted his tall figure and expressionless face into the narrow opening of the door of the Chief Inspector’s office on B Floor at New Scotland Yard. Abbott seemed never to enter a door in natural fashion, but to slide in as if he were anxious to be unobserved.
When Roger West, who was in the office with Chief Inspector Eddie Day, looked up and saw the vacant face of the Superintendent, his heart dropped. He had schemed to take this particular day off, because it was his wife’s birthday, but he had been pessimistic until, when he had arrived an hour before, he had found a note from Abbott telling him to give details of one or two reports and go off. It was a dull, grey day, with early April making a passable imitation of late November; lights were burning over the desks furthest from the windows.
At the Yard, they called Abbott the Apostle of Gloom, for he was invariably the bearer of evil tidings, which perhaps accounted for his cold, vacuous expression.
Eddie Day looked up, pushed his chair back, and grinned. Eddie was not handsome, and when he grinned he showed most of his prominent front teeth.
“Oh, West,” said Abbott. “Will you be at home this afternoon ?”
Roger looked puzzled. “I expect so, yes.”
“Can you make sure that you will be in ?”
“I had thought of doing a show with my wife, but that wouldn’t be until this evening.” Abbott was not a man with whom it was wise to take liberties. “You’re not going to bring me back, are you ?”
“I just wanted to be sure where I could find you,” Abbott promptly effaced himself, closing the door without a sound.
“What a ruddy nerve!” Eddie declared. “Trying to put you in a fix so’s you don’t know what to do. I’ll tell you what, Handsome, take Janet out and let Abbott get someone else to chase round after him.” Eddie, who was a shrewd officer and at his particular job — the detection of forgery — head and shoulders above anyone else at the Yard, still looked and talked like a detective-sergeant newly promoted from a beat. “Cold as a fish, that’s what I always think the Apostle is.” Then he frowned at Roger’s expression. “Say, what’s biting you. Handsome? You look as if you’ve eaten something that don’t agree with you.”
“It’s nothing,” said Roger. “He might have given me one day without wanting me on tap.” He locked his desk and took his hat and mackintosh from a hat-stand. “Head him off for me if you can, Eddie.”
“Trust me,” said Eddie. “I won’t let you down. Give my love to Janet!”
His laughter echoed in Roger’s ears as he went out, and walked thoughtfully along the passage.
A soft drizzle of rain, a mist which threatened to become a fog and a sky of a uniform dull grey did not depress him. He slipped into a shop, for Janet, and contemplated an afternoon in front of a log fire after a good lunch at a hotel in Chelsea.
When he reached his small detached house in Bell Street, Chelsea, she was waiting in the lounge in a gaily- coloured mackintosh. She was tucking in a few stray curls of her dark hair beneath a wide-brimmed felt hat.
“Will I do, darling?”
Slowly, Roger West looked her up and down. As slowly, he began to smile. The wicked gleam in his eyes brought a flush to Janet’s cheeks.
“You ass !” she exclaimed.
“Yes, you’ll do,” declared Roger. “Although why we want to go out I don’t know. I’d much rather stay in. Catch!” He tossed the package to her.
She caught the package, moved to him and kissed him. “I thought we said “no presents, only a day out”,” she said. “Roger, you haven’t got to go back ?”
He laughed at her sudden alarm. “Not as far as I know. That’s not a peace-offering !”
Yet as she opened the present he wished that she had not reminded him of the Yard.
Janet enthused over a locknit twin set.
She dropped the set on a table. A few minutes later, with her hair slightly rumpled and faint smears of lipstick on his lips and cheeks, Roger had completely forgotten Abbott.
Throughout the meal, at the hotel ten minutes walk from the house, they talked of trifles. Only when they were in the lounge drinking coffee, and Roger could see into the street, did a frown darken his face.
“What’s the matter?” asked Janet.
“Nothing,” said Roger.
“Darling,” said Janet, “you can probably deceive all the criminals in the world but it’s no use lying to me. What did you see?”
“Now, would I lie to you?” asked Roger. “I caught a glimpse of Tiny Martin outside and wondered why he’s here. He’s been on a job at Bethnal Green.”
“Who’s Tiny Martin?”
“A sergeant who does Abbott’s leg work,” said Roger. “Let’s forget him.”
But Martin was not so easily forgotten. He was a tall, thin, cadaverous-looking man who always worked with Abbott and had something of the Superintendent’s strange coldness.
In spite of the drizzle, Roger and Janet sauntered along the Chelsea Embankment before returning to Bell Street. Twice Roger caught a glimpse of Martin, although Janet had completely forgotten the man and was busy speculating on Roger’s chances of a month’s holiday so that they could go abroad. They were still discussing it when they reached the house. He thought that he caught a glimpse of Martin at the end of the road, but dismissed the idea and went indoors. He sat back in an easy chair and told himself that he was both a happy man and a lucky one. He looked a little drawn — Janet knew that overwork explained it, but although there was a tinge of grey at his temples he looked absurdly young to be a Chief Inspector at the Yard. Their closest friend, Mark Lessing, frequently
