Naysmith house on the Heights, tell them it's urgent.'
Then he was off. What was it Butcher had said? Opposite Willie Woodbine's house ... well, he knew that, having been there once for a party which had gone off, literally, with a bang. Should mean the Rapid Response Unit would get their fingers out, but no guarantee. On the Rasselas, RRU meant Really Rather U-didn't-bother-us. So, time for the lone PI to ride to the rescue!
The Mini's engine snarled as if it had been waiting all its long life for this moment.
But even breaking speed limits and shaving lights couldn't turn a fifteen-minute drive into less than twelve and as he hit the hill which (along with the property prices) gave Beacon Heights its name, he saw he'd been maligning the police. Up ahead the frosty night air was pulsing with blue. Which was good. Except that some of the strobe was coming off an ambulance. Which was bad.
A stretcher was being lifted into the ambulance. He ran the Mini up on to the pavement and hurried forward.
'What's happened?' he demanded as he forced his way through the small crowd of spectators. 'Is Naysmith dead?'
'Don't know. What's it to you, anyway?'
The man responding was a crinkly blond, in his thirties, beautifully tanned or heavily made up, and wearing a dinner jacket. A butler maybe, thought Joe. Then he checked out the teeth and upgraded his guess. Anyone could wear a bow tie but only money in the bank got you teeth that looked like Michelangelo had chipped them out of Carrara marble.
'I'm just worried, is all,' said Joe.
It occurred to him that most of the spectating men were dinner jacketed and their accompanying women were wearing fancy evening gowns which displayed a lot of rapidly goose-pimpling flesh. Presumably there'd been a top- people's party in one of the neighbouring houses, but good breeding hadn't stopped them pouring out to enjoy a spot of ghoulish gawking.
'Don't live round here, do you?' said the man with the authority of one who did.
'No,' said Joe. 'Just passing through.'
'Or just coming back to the scene of the crime, eh? Hold on. I think you'd better have a word with the constabulary.'
Joe, realizing nothing useful was likely to pass between those twinkling teeth, had taken a step away in search of higher intelligence. Now he felt himself seized by the collar and dragged up till he stood on his toes. If he'd paused to think, probably good sense would have made him decide against a physical reaction. Or even if he'd opted for it, the intervention of the thought process would have meant he got it all wrong. But indignation blanked his mind, leaving plenty of uncluttered space for the exercise of pure intuition.
In a move of which Mr. Takeushi must have been the source, but whose execution by this least cpt of his pupils would have amazed the old judo instructor, Joe jumped in the air, transferring all his weight to marble-tooth's arm. The man staggered forward, bending under the sudden burden, and Joe, reaching back over his shoulder with his right hand, seized him by the bow tie and brought him flailing through the air in a very effective if slightly unorthodox hip throw.
The women screamed in terror, or delight; the men made the kind of indignant baying noises by which good citizens since time began have indicated their readiness to become faceless cells in a lynch mob; and Joe looked anxiously down at the recumbent man, his mind full of fear that he might have incidentally dislodged one of those perfect teeth.
'You OK, mate?' he said.
The man had difficulty in replying, mainly because his tie was half strangling him.
Joe stooped to loosen it, saying, 'Always use a clip-on myself. Lot safer.'
Then he felt himself seized again and dragged upright. Any inclination he had to resist died when he saw it was two cops who'd got a hold of him and a moment later he heard Sergeant Chivers's familiar voice cry, 'I don't believe it. Twice may be coincidence but three out of three's too good to be true. Bring him inside!'
'Shall we cuff him, Sarge?' said one of the uniformed men.
'Cuff him?' said Chivers. 'You can kick him senseless for all I care. Only don't let anyone see!'
Nine.
There was good news.
Felix Naysmith wasn't dead.
And there was bad news.
He'd been badly beaten about the head and was in such a state of shock, he'd been unable to say anything about what had happened. He certainly hadn't said anything to confirm Joe's story.
'Ring the Glit,' said Joe. Talk to Merv Golightly. All I came here to do was save the guy's life.'
He tried to sound persuasive but he wasn't at the best angle for persuasion. Chivers had put him in what must be Naysmith's study, sat him at a huge leather-topped desk, then handcuffed his right hand to the desk leg so that he was forced to lean forward and rest his head on a large blotter.
'Sixsmith, you've gotta learn to tell better lies,' said Chivers.
'Chivers, you gotta learn to keep better laws,' said Joe. 'This is illegal restraint, you know that?'
'Sue me,' said Chivers.
The door opened and a head appeared.
'Sarge, there's a gate in the garden fence where it boundaries the wood and they think they've found a recent print.'
