crazed with broken blood vessels from the same cause. He was about fifty, wore a bright green and yellow checked jacket, and gave off what seemed a totally spontaneous affability.
'We wanted to chat about Maurice Arany,' said Wield.
'Maurice, eh? Well, not now, not now. I missed Estelle last night, got mixed up in a barney at the Turtle. Can't afford that again. Come on, we'll just get a pint afore she starts.'
They did but only because Hope's waved hand won them instant attention at the crowded bar at the back of the hall.
On stage was a trampoline. Music started, loud enough and poured from amplifiers enough to drown the chatter and clinking and other noises attendant on the drinking of pints and devouring of scampi and chips.
It was a nice, bouncy tune and when Estelle strolled on and clambered on to the trampoline, Pascoe settled back for a pleasant athletic balletic routine, thinking how easily pleased these Yorkshiremen were. The girl looked quite good, though her full skirt and frilly blouse obviously hampered her.
'I wonder,' said Pascoe, then said no more.
The girl was taking them off.
To cries of encouragement which penetrated even the ten-decibel music, she jumped right out of her skirt, shed her blouse sleeves like duck-down, took four somersaults to get out of her lacy stockings, and with a mid-air spin twisted out of what was left of her blouse. Now in pants and bra she did a series of manoeuvres which to Pascoe's untutored eye looked first class. Higher and higher she leapt and it was hard to spot the moment when she took off her bra.
She was so slender that as a conventional stripper she would probably have been mocked off the stage, but her grace and strength of movement filled the act with erotic promise.
'You don't get this in the Olympics,' bellowed Hope in his ear.
'No,' agreed Pascoe. One thing had certainly led to another.
But how was she going to get off? he wondered. Movement was of the essence. Once let her stand still and she would be but a seventeen-year-old looking like twelve.
The answer was simple. The highest bounce yet; she reached up her arms, caught at a bar or rope behind the drop curtain and swung her legs up out of sight. A moment later a pair of pants fluttered gently down to land on the trampoline.
When she appeared to take her bow she wore an old woollen dressing-gown and it was a measure of her act's success that even the loudest of club wits were applauding too hard to invite her to take it off.
Pascoe felt ashamed when he realized he'd clapped till his hands were sore. Ms Lacewing would elevate him several places on her death list if she could see him now, which, thank God, was not likely.
'Good evening, Inspector,' said Ms Lacewing.
It was her. She looked ravishing in a long white gown. Her appearance had been changed by the wearing of a Grecian-style hair piece pulled round over her bare left shoulder, but he would have recognized those sharp little teeth anywhere.
'Don't look so amazed,' she said. 'I'm on a recce tonight. You've got to spy out the land before you attack, haven't you? Policemen know that, surely?'
Pascoe realized she was rather tipsy. 'Drunk' seemed too coarse a word.
'Are you by yourself?' he asked.
'What do you think I am?' she asked in mock indignation. 'Uncle Godfrey! Come here!'
Pascoe turned. Sure enough it was Blengdale who approached, leaving behind a bunch of smiling cronies.
'He doesn't like me calling him uncle,' said Ms Lacewing. 'But Gwen is Mummy's sister, so you really are my uncle, aren't you, Uncle? Though,’ she added, stretching up to whisper none too quietly in Pascoe's ear, 'it doesn't stop him wanting to screw me.'
'Ha ha,' said Pascoe. 'Nice to see you again, Mr Blengdale.'
'You here on business or pleasure, Pascoe?' said Blengdale.
'Bit of both,' said Pascoe vaguely.
Blengdale nodded as though he knew what that meant.
'Uncle Godfrey, I think our steaks have arrived,' said Ms Lacewing. 'Shall I help you back to the table, Uncle?'
For a moment Pascoe felt sympathy for Blengdale. Then the girl turned to him and he decided to reserve all his sympathy for his own defence.
'You look as if you might be quite a ram, Inspector,' she said. 'I must ask your wife when I meet her. She sounds as if she might be sympathetic to my plans.'
'What are your plans?' he asked.
'See you in court,' she giggled. 'Perhaps they'll put me up on the same day as Jack Shorter.'
Pascoe turned away to meet another pint being thrust his way by Wield.
'Drink up,' said the sergeant. 'Then we're off to the Westgate Social. There's a singer there that Johnny wants to catch. I said we'd go in his car and make our own way back here later.'
The night was slipping out of his control, thought Pascoe a couple of minutes later as he and Wield clung together in the back of an old Morris Minor which smelt as if it had lately been used for transporting sheep. The passenger seat had been removed entirely and replaced by a crate of brown ale, and Hope's hand, through instinct or inaccuracy, frequently rattled among the bottles as he groped for the gear lever.
'Now, about Maurice Arany,' yelled Wield.
'Well I don't know,’ replied Hope dubiously.
'It'll be all right, Johnny,' said Wield.
Pascoe had a sense of a bargain being struck, or a promise made.
'What do you want to know?' asked Hope.
'Nothing much,' said Wield. 'Just anything you wouldn't expect us to find out any other way.'
This seemed a pretty broad demand, thought Pascoe modestly, and when Hope replied 'He's a Hungarian' he thought at first he was taking the piss. Wield seemed prepared to accept this as a serious contribution, however.
'Yes?' he urged.
'And there was some bother there in 1956,’ Hope went on slowly as though divulging state secrets.
'So there was,' said Pascoe.
Hope heaved a sigh which might have been relief at this acceptance of his assertion, or exasperation that he had to say any more.
'This fellow Haggard, now, that got killed, he was something or other in the British Embassy in Vienna. That's in Austria.'
Suddenly Pascoe was no longer amused by this parade of the obvious.
'Hang on,' he said. 'You're not saying that…'
'I'm saying nothing,' said Hope heavily. 'I'm just saying what I've heard others say. Arany either knew, or knew of Haggard before he came here.'
'But he'd just be a boy in 1956,' said Wield.
'Quite fond of boys, so they say,' said Hope. 'Me, I hate owt like that. Anything a bit perverted, I won't touch. You'll never see me mention a drag act in my column, Pete. Edgar'll back me up there.'
Pascoe was now so interested that he was able to forget the erratic progress of the Morris, exacerbated by Hope's habit of turning round to face his auditors every time he spoke.
'So the theory is that Arany had got something on Haggard?' he said.
'It's a strange mix else,' said Hope. 'I mean, it stands out a mile if you look at the facts. You don't have to be a detective!'
'You do if you want to be sure,' said Pascoe reprovingly.
What after all did they have? Arany's family come out of Hungary in 1956 and are transported, very probably via Vienna, to England. Haggard is in Vienna as a British Embassy official in 1956. The following year he leaves the service, possibly under a cloud, and comes home with a bit of money to invest. The inference in the rugby club think-tank was that the cloud was sexual, but rugby club philosophers see everything in physical terms. Suppose there'd been a bit of graft, queue-jumping, buy yourself a trip to sunny Britain? Arany, or his family, is involved. In
