‘Judging by this, she did it very well. Where did you get it?’
‘Sources. Interested?’
He stood up, which I thought was taking a lot for granted. He buttoned his overcoat and adjusted his neck-scarf which was red with little white horses all over it.
‘Could be,’ I said.
‘Good. Usual terms. I’ve left the company file outside with Wilkins.’
‘Any particular line?’
He put the photograph of the Indian piece of jewellery on the desk. ‘I think it was stolen, but not the way she describes it. Have a word with her. I’m sure you’ll feel better when you have.’ He nodded at the photograph in my hand. ‘It’s things like that which cheer up a dull world.’
‘Personally, on a freezing day like this, it just makes me feel colder.’ It wasn’t true of course, but I didn’t see why I should admit that his tactics had paid off. Since there isn’t much dignity in my profession I had to cling to the little I could muster.
He looked at me, decided not to wink, and went out. Wilkins was in ten seconds later, carrying the company file. I was still holding the photograph in my hand.
She put the file on my desk, sniffed hard to keep abreast of the cold she had picked up three months before, and said, nodding at the photograph, ‘Disgusting.’
‘Absolutely. But maybe what I need.’
‘For a reasonably nice person,’ she said, ‘you respond to the coarsest stimuli. Sex, alcohol and gambling.’
‘Thanks.’
She turned away, but when she got to the door she paused and cocked her head back at me. I knew all about that pause and half-turn of the head and waited for one hand to go up and touch her hair. Something was coming.
‘Mrs Burtenshaw, my sister, will take over next Monday.’
‘Christ!’ It was out before I could stop it. At least some reflexes were working properly.
She gave me a chilly look.
‘Sorry. Why is she coming?’
‘Because I am going to Cairo, to be with Olaf. It’s my annual visit.’
Olaf was the Suez Canal pilot. His other name was Bornjstrom, or something like that. I’d met him once and kept a very clear impression of a blond giant, about eight feet tall and three feet wide, who made the ground shake beneath him as he walked. Any ship he went aboard was in danger of capsizing unless he kept dead centre on the bridge. Whenever Wilkins made her annual visit her sister came and did for me. And there is no more accurate description. She was three times tougher and more efficient than Wilkins and I couldn’t get into the office if there was the faintest whiff of beer on my breath. In my present low state of health she was all that was needed for my sister in Honiton to be able to collect my death insurance money.
‘Think he’ll pop the question this time?’ I asked.
Wilkins changed the chilly to her basilisk look, and said, ‘I suggest you read the file before you visit Mrs Stankowski.’
‘That can’t be her name.’
‘Her late husband was a Pole who made a fortune from scrap-metal dealing. He had a thrombosis almost two years ago.’
‘Couldn’t stand the pace.’ I looked at the photograph. The subject was clearly death to anyone with a weak heart.
‘Before her marriage she was a Miss Freeman. Gloria Freeman.’
Eyes still on the photograph, I said, ‘Gloria. It’s just the name I would have chosen.’
‘I find it, myself, rather common. Are you going to see her today?’
‘If I can find the strength.’
Wilkins looked at her watch. ‘That shouldn’t be difficult. They’ve just opened.’
*
I went across Northumberland Avenue and into the public bar of the Sherlock Holmes.
Although it had only been open ten minutes, Dimble was there. Half an hour later and I would have had to go to the Chandos Arms. Dimble had a strict routine for the lunchtime session. Everyone who knew him, professionally, that is, knew it. At any time of the day during licensing hours it was possible to say exactly where Dimble would be, or be between being. He was doing the quick cross-word in the Daily Mail, using a stump of pencil half an inch long. Dimble got the maximum use out of everything he possessed. When he struck a match he transferred the spent number into another box, saved the boxes and burnt them on his fire at night. He was a dedicated miser, about fifty, and never got crowded on a bus or the tube because he applied his miserly principles even to the matter of personal hygiene.
I bought a couple of Guinnesses and sat down two feet from him. I reached over and put one of the Guinnesses in front of him.
‘’Lo, Mr Carver,’ he said.
‘’Morning, Dimble.’ I raised my glass and drank to him. He looked at his and decided to save it for a while.
I put my glass down and passed him a photograph. Dimble’s profession included knowing every fence worth knowing in London and having an unrivalled knowledge of the movement of stolen tomfoolery. Quite a big slice of my work was recovery and Dimble had worked for me often.
I nodded at the photograph. ‘If you’ve seen that anywhere around lately I’m willing to pay for its return.’
He looked at the photograph without touching it and his face stiffened in Presbyterian disapproval. Then he edged it away from him with the tip of one finger and said, ‘Contrary to most, Mr Carver—I have a higher opinion of you than that.’
I saw that I had given him the wrong photograph. Hastily I corrected the mistake. You’d be surprised how many people in Dimble’s world have very old-fashioned ideas about women.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I meant this.’
Dimble picked up the other photograph and examined it. It showed the piece of Indian antique jewellery, an arm bracelet in the form of a coiled python. Stretched out straight, I suppose, it would have been about two feet long. Personally I don’t go for snakes or for the snake
