year.’
He didn’t reply at once. He stared at the floor for a long time with the half-eaten sandwich immobile in his hand.
Finally he said, ‘Who did the arithmetic? Radnor?’
‘No… I did. It’s very simple. I went to Company House in the City yesterday and looked up the Seabury balance sheets for the last few years, and I rang for a quotation of today’s share price from a stockbroker this morning. You can easily check it.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt you. I remember now, there was a rumour that you made a fortune on the Stock Exchange by the time you were twenty.’
‘People exaggerate so,’ I smiled. ‘My old governor, where I was apprenticed, started me off investing, and I was a bit lucky.’
‘Hm.’
There was another pause while he hesitated over his decision. I didn’t interrupt him, but I was much relieved when finally he said, ‘You have Radnor’s authority for seeing me, and he knows what you have told me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well.’ He got up stiffly and put down the unfinished sandwich. ‘You can tell Radnor that I agree to an investigation being made, and I think I can vouch for my colleagues agreeing. You’ll want to start at once, I suppose.’
I nodded.
‘The usual terms?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you would get on to Mr Radnor about that.’
As I didn’t know what the usual terms were, I didn’t want to discuss them.
‘Yes, all right. And Sid… it’s understood that there is to be no leak about this? We can’t afford to have Kraye slapping a libel or slander action on us.’
‘The agency is always discreet,’ I said, with an outward and an inward smile. Radnor was right. People paid for privacy. And why not?
SIX
The Racing Section was quiet when I went in next morning, mostly because Chico was out on an escort job. All the other heads were bent studiously over their desks, including Dolly’s.
She looked up and said with a sigh, ‘You’re late again.’ It was ten to ten. ‘The old man wants to see you.’
I made a face at her and retraced my way down the staircase. Joanie looked pointedly at her watch.
‘He’s been asking for you for half an hour.’
I knocked and went in. Radnor was sitting behind his desk, reading some papers, pencil in hand. He looked at me and frowned.
‘Why are you so late?’
‘I had a pain in me turn,’ I said flippantly.
‘Don’t be funny,’ he said sharply, and then, more reasonably, ‘Oh… I suppose you’re not being funny.’
‘No. But I’m sorry about being late.’ I wasn’t a bit sorry, however, that it had been noticed: before, no one would have said a thing if I hadn’t turned up all day.
‘How did you get on with Lord Hagbourne?’ Radnor asked. ‘Was he interested?’
‘Yes. He agreed to an investigation. I said he should discuss terms with you.’
‘I see.’ He flicked a switch on the small box on his desk. ‘Joanie, see if you can get hold of Lord Hagbourne. Try the London flat number first.’
‘Yes, sir,’ her voice came tinnily out of the speaker.
‘Here,’ said Radnor, picking up a shallow brown cardboard box. ‘Look at these.’
The box contained a thick wad of large glossy photographs. I looked at them one by one and heaved a sigh of relief. They had all come out sharp and clear, except some of the ones I had duplicated at varying exposures.
The telephone on Radnor’s desk rang once, quietly. He lifted the receiver.
‘Oh, good morning Lord Hagbourne. Radnor here. Yes, that’s right…’ He gestured to me to sit down, and I stayed there listening while he negotiated terms in a smooth, civilised, deceptively casual voice.
‘And of course in a case like this, Lord Hagbourne, there’s one other thing: we make a small surcharge if our operatives have to take out of the ordinary risks… Yes, as in the Canlas case, exactly. Right then, you shall have a preliminary report from us in a few days. Yes… good-bye.’
He put down the receiver, bit his thumb-nail thoughtfully for a few seconds, and said finally, ‘Right, then, Sid. Get on with it.’
‘But…’ I began.
‘But nothing,’ he said. ‘It’s your case. Get on with it.’
I stood up, holding the packet of photographs. ‘Can I… can I use Bona Fides and so on?’
He waved his hand permissively. ‘Sid, use every resource in the agency you need. Keep an eye on expenses though, we don’t want to price ourselves out of business. And if you want leg work done, arrange it through Dolly or the other department heads. Right?’
‘Won’t they think it odd? I mean… I don’t amount to much around here.’
‘And whose fault is that? If they won’t do what you ask, refer them to me.’ He looked at me expressionlessly.
‘All right.’ I walked to the door. ‘Er… who…’ I said, turning the knob, ‘gets the danger money? The operative or the agency?’
‘You said you would work for nothing,’ he observed dryly.
I laughed. ‘Just so. Do I get expenses?’
‘That car of yours drinks petrol.’
‘It does twenty,’ I protested.
‘The agency rate is based on thirty. You can have that. And other expenses, yes. Put in a chit to accounts.’
‘Thanks.’
He smiled suddenly, the rare sweet smile so incongruous to his military bearing, and launched into another elaborate metaphor.
‘The tapes are up,’ he said. ‘What you do with the race depends on your skill and timing, just as it always used to. I’ve backed you with the agency’s reputation for getting results, and I can’t afford to lose my stake. Remember that.’
‘Yes,’ I said soberly. ‘I will.’
I thought, as I took my stupidly aching stomach up two storeys to Bona Fides, that it was time Radnor had a lift installed: and was glad I wasn’t bound for Missing Persons away in the rarefied air of the fifth floor. There was a lot more character, I supposed, in the spendidly proportioned, solidly built town house that Radnor had chosen on a corner site in the Cromwell Road, but a flat half-acre of modern office block would have been easier on his staff. And about ten times as expensive, no doubt.
The basement, to start at the bottom, was — except for the kitchen — given over entirely to files and records. On the ground floor, besides Radnor himself and Joanie, there were two interview-cum-waiting rooms, and also the Divorce Section. On the first floor; the Racing Section, Accounts, another interview room and the general secretarial department. Up one was Bona Fides, and above that, on the two smaller top floors, Guard and Missing Persons. Missing Persons alone had room to spare. Bona Fides, splitting at the seams, was encroaching on Guard. Guard was sticking in its toes.
Jones-boy, who acted as general messenger, must have had legs like iron from pounding up and down the stairs, though thanks to a tiny service lift used long ago to take nursery food to top floor children, he could haul his tea trays up from landing to landing instead of carrying them.
In Bona Fides there was the usual chatter of six people talking on the telephone all at once. The department
