Prelude To A Certain Midnight

‘I’m absolutely sure of it.’

‘Well, no doubt you’ve got your very good reasons.’

‘Look here, Turpin, work it out for yourself —’

‘I wish I could work it out for myself, Miss Thundersley, but it isn’t my department. All the same, I’d like to hear what I’ve got to work out for myself, if you know what I mean.’

‘That poor little girl was enticed — lured — inveigled into the filthy coal-cellar of that horrible house. I’ve been a little girl myself. You’ve never been a little girl, Dick, so let me tell you. There isn’t one girl in a million who’d go with a stranger into a deserted house. So she must have known him. Well, how could she have known him? Through her father’s shop. Sam Sabbatani is one of those homely little tradesmen: his wife and kid were always in and out of the shop. Everyone who set foot in the place was one of the family. Poor Mrs Sabbatani is for ever bringing in cups of tea. She’s made that way. You know the type of person I mean. Well, as it happens, Sam made a bit of a connexion at the Bar Bacchus. He’s still got a little advertisement hung up there — done in red and black lettering, in a little brown frame. You know Gonger the barman? Well, Sam Sabbatani made an arrangement with him — Gonger displayed Sam’s showcard, and Sam pressed Gonger’s suits and kept him in white jackets. You ask Gonger, you ask Sam Sabbatani. Most of Sam’s customers came from the Bar Bacchus. Work it out, Turpin, work it out!’

‘There isn’t anything to work out,’ said Turpin, smiling.

It was then that Cigarette, looking hostile, spoke of Dicks, or detectives.

A waiter, observing that her glass was empty, paused with a tray of full glasses. Cigarette took one and put back the glass she had emptied, saying: ‘There’s more in this stuff than meets the eye, comrade.’

Then she gulped about a quarter of a pint of Schiff’s Form ule, and became angry. She strode over to Detective-Inspector Turpin, knocking down a little three-legged table on her way, and cried:

‘How dare you come here? You copper’s nark, you dirty little bogey! What are you doing in the company of decent human beings! You filthy bloodhound, why aren’t.you out? Why aren’t you out hunting; why aren’t you out hunting better men to death, you stinking dirty wolf? You murdered Chicken Eyes Emerald. You murdered him! You dirty coward! You wouldn’t have dared to meet him face to face as man to man — no, no, you had to be mob- handed, you beast, with thousands of coppers behind you, all hunting down one man. You hound! And I suppose you’ve come here to gloat, to show off! You —’

‘— Cigarette, shut up,’ said Asta.

‘I’m sorry. I know I’m your guest,’ said Cigarette. ‘But I won’t shut up! Christ Almighty, instead of hounding better men to death, why don’t these bastards go out and find out who killed that little girl?’

‘All right,’ said Detective-Inspector Turpin, ‘take it easy, just take it easy.’

He took a full glass from a passing waiter, handed it tc Cigarette, and said: ‘Let’s have a drink.’

She drank, and she melted. Looking sideways at Turpin through her eyelashes she said, in a different voice: ‘I’m sorry. I behaved like a perfect pig. You won’t believe me, but ordinarily I have quite good manners. I don’t know what came over me. Will you forgive me? Do, please, say you forgive me.’

‘Nothing to forgive, I’m sure.’

‘Call me Cigarette. Everybody calls me Cigarette. Do please forget what I said. I didn’t mean a word of it.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘Do you know me?’

Turpin knew her; but he said: ‘I can’t say I’ve had the privilege.’

‘I was Chicken’s girl. Does that convey anything to you?’

‘Ah-ha?’

‘He was a rat, you know.’

‘So?’

‘But I loved him. I loved him, Turpin!’

‘It’s all over now,’ said Turpin. ‘Be sociable, eh?’

‘I like you, Turpin. Turpin, tell me all about yourself.’

‘_You’ve_ just told me.’

‘What’s your wife like?’

‘What makes you ask, miss?

‘Do you make love to her often, Turpin?’ asked Cigarette.

‘Why don’t you finish that nice drink?’

‘Oh, Turpin, Turpin, I do think you’re pretty terrific! You know, for a little while I hated you. But now I think you’re pretty damned fine. Do you know what? My father used to hunt silly little foxes. But you, you hunt real live men. My God, Turpin, it takes something to hunt down a man like the Chicken — it does! He was a man! … And you’re a better man …’ said Cigarette, with certain inward explosions that presaged hysterics. ‘You’re a — ha-hup, ha-hup —’

‘You can cut that out,’ said Detective-Inspector Turpin, in an undertone like cracked ice made articulate. ‘I’ve heard it all before. Have another drink and get properly drunk, and go home and sleep; and get up, and get drunk again to-morrow, and go to sleep again. But just for now be quiet. Is that clear?’

‘Yes,’ said Cigarette, quietly crying.

Turpin side-stepped like a boxer and disappeared into the thickening crowd.