“Well, if it’s going on now, that should surely give you all you want.”
“All I want?” He stared at her with a sudden thrill. Something was going to come out of this after all! “For heaven’s sake, Emily, what do you mean?”
But Mrs. French was not to be hurried. Deliberately she rearranged her work and started on a new corner.
“Wasn’t that Darke girl upset when you saw her?” she went on slowly.
“Very much so. She thought she—”
“And she had been upset for some time before you saw her?”
“Yes. She thought those ruffians Westinghouse and Style were—”
“And those other two girls? They were upset too before they disappeared?”
“Yes, I found that both had evidently had something on their minds for a considerable time. The people at their boarding houses and at the cinemas had noticed it. But how does that help? It only means that all three knew they were in a tight place.”
“It means far more than that. It gives you all you want so far as I see.”
French swung round in his walk with a gesture of impatience.
“For the love of heaven, Emily, can’t you say what’s in your mind? How does it give me anything?”
“I’ve a good mind to let you think for yourself. You’re not shining just at present, Joseph French.”
He recognized “her way.” Exasperated by it, but thrilled by the possibility of some light really coming, he answered eagerly: “Don’t worry about me, old lady. Get on and let’s have the big idea.”
“Surely it’s simple enough. Cinema box office girls are necessary to this thing, whatever it is. All the girls whom you found mixed up in it showed unmistakable signs of being upset. The thing is still going on. Other girls will therefore be mixed up in it. These girls will therefore be upset. Well, find them.”
For the second time that evening French strode over to his wife and implanted a hearty kiss on her cheek.
“By Jove, old girl, but you lick creation! It’s an idea, that is. Quite an idea.” He swung up and down the room, enthusiastic, then hesitated as a wave of misgiving swept over him.
“Well, what is it?”
The phrase about marriage being the domestication of the Recording Angel passed inconsequently through his mind. He hoped his Emily didn’t always read his thoughts as he answered:
“When those first two girls were put away some crisis in the gang’s affairs must surely have arisen. When the business is running normally they may not be upset at all. It may be running normally now.”
“Well, if it’s running normally there won’t be any more murders, which is what you say you want to guard against,” she answered drily. “If murder is threatened the girls will be upset and that’ll give you warning. Don’t go out of your way to make difficulties.”
It was his only chance. As he lay awake that night thinking over the conversation and viewing his wife’s suggestion more soberly than in his first flush of delight, he felt that, while unpromising, it offered at least a possibility of progress. At all events he decided that next morning he would begin to work on the idea.
He found his new quest a more difficult job than he had anticipated. There was no use in asking the managers of the various London cinemas whether any of the girls under their charge had lately displayed signs of hidden anxiety. So long as the work was done, the managers would neither know nor care. He must in some way observe the girls themselves.
But this was no more easy. It was out of the question for him to scrape acquaintance with all the cinema box office girls in London. It would take him a year. There must be some quicker way.
At last he decided that inquiries from the door porters was his most promising plan. Accordingly he spent some days going round the cinemas. At each he drew the most likely looking man aside and pledged him to secrecy.
“I may tell you,” he began confidentially in each case, “that I am a detective from Scotland Yard and that I am looking for a certain girl who has got into the hands of a gang of crooks. You will understand that it is not the girl personally that we’re after, but the crooks. Got that?”
The men got it without difficulty.
“We don’t know who the girl is, but we know two things about her. First, she is employed in the box office of a London cinema, and second, because of her association with the crooks she will be considerably worried and troubled.
“Now I can’t go round all the box office girls in London to see if they are showing signs of mental trouble. And that is where you come in. You know the girls in your box office. I want you to tell me whether any of them have become worried looking lately as if they were in some trouble. That’s all.”
Upon this the idiosyncrasies of the various men came out. Some were satisfied with the story and immediately gave an intelligent answer. Others required further explanation and much questioning and suggestion before risking an opinion. Still others were suspicious and gave French a lot of trouble before he managed to get their views. Lastly, some were simply stupid. Of these he could make little.
At last after immense labour he obtained the names and addresses of eleven girls, all of whom, according to the porters, seemed to be in trouble of some kind.
His next business was to find out the cause in each case. Here again the problem was horribly difficult. No doubt it could be done by scraping acquaintance with each and in time forcing a confidence. But French had not time for such methods. He had spent long enough on the case as it was, and Mitchell was beginning to hint that he would not stand for his remaining on it much longer.
He began by sending
