While she was drooling over the stockings I rang for the floor
waiter, and then lit a cigarette.
My visit to the
Mrs. Brambee had been a stroke of luck, especially as she hadn’t seen
me. Crystal had told me that she had seen Mrs. Brambee in the club
regularly every Thursday night. She appeared to have business with
Jack Bradley, and after, she had dinner and went away. No one knew
who she was; she always dined alone, and always left the club
immediately after finishing her meal.
This information intrigued me. When I first saw Mrs. Brambee she
was so obviously the village charwoman that meeting her dressed up
in her finery had come as a complete surprise. I decided to pass this
information on to Littlejohns. It might help him to find out what kind
of game Mrs. Brambee was playing.
Then the visit to the club’s garage had also been fruitful. The first
car I had seen in the vast cellar, running under the club, had been the
battered Standard Fourteen that had followed me on my run to
Lakeham.
Slowly, bits of the jig-saw puzzle were fitting themselves together.
For some reason Jack Bradley was interested in my moves. I was
pretty sure that the youth who had followed me was acting on
Bradley’s instructions. I thought Crystal could enlighten me, and
turned from the window to ask her. I found her in the act of changing
her stockings.
“Don’t look now,” she said with a giggle, rolling the nylons up her
shapely legs. “I’m in what is known as an intimate situation.”
“Hey! Get that limb out of sight,” I said, as I heard a gentle tap on
the door, and the handle turn.
The floor waiter drifted in as Crystal hurriedly adjusted her dress.
His eyes flickered for a second, then he looked at me, coldly inquiring.
“A double whisky and. a large gin and lime,” I said, trying to look
as if Crystal was my sister.
He inclined his head, drifted out again. His back was stiff with
disapproval.
“I guess I’ll be the guy who’ll be ruined,” I sighed, sitting in the
arm-chair again. “Will you hurry and get that leg show over before he
returns?”
“Don’t you like it?” Crystal asked, hurt. “I thought you’d go all
pop-eyed and coy.” She put on her shoes, regarded her legs with
unconcealed delight. “They are lovely, aren’t they?” she exclaimed. “I
can’t thank you enough.” She rushed over to me, sat on my la and
twined her arms around my neck. “You’re a good, kind pet and I adore
you,” she went on, nibbled the lobe of my ear with her sharp little
teeth.
I pushed her off, got up and plumped her in the chair.
“Stay still and behave,” I said. “I want to talk to you.”
“Talk away. I’ll listen,” she said, hugging her knees and peering at
me over the top of them with her big, dizzy blue eyes.
“Have you ever seen in the club a young guy, slight, dark, sal ow
complexion, wears a grey greasy looking hat, clean shaven, about
twenty, who drives that Standard I pointed out to you?” I asked.
“Oh, you mean Frankie,” Crystal said at once. “He’s a horrible boy.
None of the girls like him.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I said, called, “Come in,” as the waiter
tapped, and received the drinks with as much nonchalance as I could
muster. When he had gone, I went on, “What does he do?”
“Frankie?” Crystal raised her shapely shoulders. “He hangs
around. I suppose he does all Bradley’s dirty work. He drives the car,
runs errands-those kind of things. Why are you interested?”
“It’d take too long to tell you,” I said, putting her off. “You liked
Netta Scott, didn’t you?”
“I don’t like women,” Crystal said promptly. “I’m too busy trying
to like men. I’m mad about men. Did you know my mother was
frightened by a wrestler just before I was born?”
“I know. Sam told me.”
“It’s had ever such a funny effect on me . . .” Crystal began, but I
interrupted.
“Never mind about that,” I said hastily. “Let’s talk about Netta.
Sam tells me you two got on together.”
“I suppose we did,” Crystal said indifferently. “She was a bit odd,
but she didn’t try to steal my men, and I didn’t want Jack Bradley or
her other boys, so we didn’t ever come to blows.”
“Were you surprised when you heard what had happened to her?“
“I was stricken in a heap. I was sure she’d never have done an
awful thing like that. It just shows, doesn’t it? My father always says . .
.”
“And we’ll leave your father out of this conversation too,” I said.
“Will you try to remember that? Wrestlers and your father-out! Tell
me something about Netta. Did you ever meet her sister?”
Crystal frowned. “I didn’t know she had a sister.”
“She never mentioned one?”
“Oh, no, but then she might have and I mightn’t have listened.
You see, if she had said she had a brother . . .”
“Yes, yes, I can understand that, but we’re talking about her
sister. All right. You didn’t know she had a sister. Did she ever speak
about going to a village in Sussex cal ed Lakeham.”
“No. Lakeham? I don’t know the place.”
“Don’t let that worry you,” I said kindly, “There must be a whale
of a lot of other places you don’t know either. Tell me something else.
You’ll be able to answer this one. Did she have a regular boy friend
while you knew her?”
“Oh, yes,” Crystal said, perking up. “She did have someone, but
she never talked about him. In fact, she was quite secretive about
him. I saw him twice, although Netta didn’t know. I was on the look-
out for him. The first time I saw him he was driving a marvellous
black-and-yellow Bentley. He picked Netta up outside the club.” She
sighed. “I wish one of my boys had a Bentley.”
“What’s this guy like?” I asked, interested.
She shook her head. “I never once saw his face. He was big` tall
