she? There ought to be some lead there.'
'She died. I don't really know much about her. I think her name was Davis.'
'Well, couldn't you find out more?'
'I'll see what I can do.'
'If we could get at her background, we might find out how she knew what she did know.'
'I see your point.'
I got Jim Corrigan on the telephone early the next morning and put my query to him.
'Let me see now. We did get a bit further, but not much. Davis wasn't her real name, that's why it took a little time to check up on her. Half a moment, I jotted down a few things… oh yes, here we are. Her real name was Archer, and her husband had been a small-time crook. She left him and went back to her maiden name.'
'What sort of a crook was Archer? And where is he now?'
'Oh, very small stuff. Pinched things from department stores. Unconsidered trifles here and there. He had a few convictions. As to where be is now, he's dead.'
'Not much there.'
'No, there isn't. The firm Mrs Davis was working for at the time of her death, the C.R.C. (Customers Reactions Classified), apparently didn't know anything about her, or her background.'
I thanked him and rang off.
Chapter 12
Three days later Ginger rang me up.
'I've got something for you,' she said. 'A name and address. Write it down.'
I took out my notebook.
'Go ahead.'
'Bradley is the name and the address is Seventy-eight Municipal Square Buildings, Birmingham.'
'Well, I'm damned, what is all this?'
'Goodness knows! I don't. I doubt if Poppy does really!'
'Poppy? Is this -'
'Yes. I've been working on Poppy in a big way. I told you I could get something out of her if I tried. Once I got her softened up, it was easy.'
'How did you set about it?' I asked curiously. Ginger laughed.
'Girls-together stuff. You wouldn't understand. The point is that if a girl tells things to another girl it doesn't really count. She doesn't think it matters.'
'All in the trade union so to speak?'
'You could put it like that. Anyway, we lunched together, and I yapped a bit about my love life – and various obstacles – married man with impossible wife – Catholic – wouldn't divorce him – made his life hell. And how she was an invalid, always in pain, but not likely to die for years. Really much better for her if she could die. Said I'd a good mind to try the Pale Horse, but I didn't really know how to set about it, and would it be terribly expensive? And Poppy said yes, she thought it would. She'd heard they charged the earth. And I said 'Well, I have expectations.' Which I have, you know – a great-uncle – a poppet and I'd hate him to die, but the fact came in useful. Perhaps, I said, they'd take something on account? But how did one set about it? And then Poppy came across with that name and address. You had to go to him first, she said, to settle the business side.'
'It's fantastic!' I said.
'It is, rather.'
We were both silent for a moment.
I said incredulously: 'She told you this quite openly? She didn't seem scared?'
Ginger said impatiently: 'You don't understand. Telling me didn't count And after all, Mark, if what we think is true the business has to be more or less advertised, hasn't it? I mean they must want new 'clients' all the time.'
'We're mad to believe anything of the kind.'
'All right. We're mad. Are you going to Birmingham to see Mr Bradley?'
'Yes,' I said. 'I'm going to see Mr Bradley. If he exists.'
I hardly believed that he did. But I was wrong. Mr Bradley did exist.
Municipal Square Buildings was an enormous honeycomb of offices. Seventy-eight was on the third floor. On the ground-glass door was neatly printed in black: C.R. Bradley, Commission Agent. And below, in smaller letters: Please Enter.
I entered.
There was a small outer office, empty, and a door marked Private, half ajar. A voice from behind it said:
'Come in, please.'
The inner office was larger. It had a desk, one or two comfortable chairs, a telephone, a stack of box files, and Mr Bradley sitting behind the desk.
He was a small dark man, with shrewd dark eyes. He wore a dark business suit and looked the acme of respectability.
'Just shut the door, will you?' he said pleasantly. 'And sit down. That chair's quite comfortable. Cigarette? No? Well now, what can I do for you?'
I looked at him. I didn't know how to begin. I hadn't the least idea what to say. It was, I think, sheer desperation that led me to attack with the phrase I did. Or it may have been the small beady eyes.
'How much?' I said.
It startled him a little, I was glad to note, but not in the way that he ought to have been startled. He did not assume, as I would have assumed in his place, that someone not quite right in the head had come into his office.
His eyebrows rose.
'Well, well, well,' he said. 'You don't waste much time, do you?'
I held to my line.
'What's the answer?'
He shook his head gently in a slightly reproving manner.
'That's not the way to go about things. We must proceed in the proper manner.'
I shrugged my shoulders.
'As you like. What's the proper manner?'
'We haven't introduced ourselves yet, have we? I don't know your name.'
'At the moment,' I said, 'I don't really think I feel inclined to tell it to you.'
'Cautious.'
'Cautious.'
'An admirable quality – though not always practicable. Now who sent you to me? Who's our mutual friend?'
'Again I can't tell you. A friend of mine has a friend who knows a friend of yours.'
Mr Bradley nodded his head.
'That's the way a lot of my clients come,' he said. 'Some of the problems are rather – delicate. You know my profession, I presume?'
He had no intention of waiting for my reply. He hastened to give me the answer.
'Turf Commission Agent,' he said. 'You're interested, perhaps, in – horses?'
There was just the faintest pause before the last word.
'I'm not a racing man,' I said noncommittally.
'There are many aspects of the horse. Racing, hunting, hacking. It's the sporting aspect that interests me. Betting.' He paused for a moment and then asked casually – almost too casually:
'Any particular horse you had in mind?'
