by Sax Rohmer
“Not at all — not at all.” Max’s gestures were eloquent. “She had gone to meet him at the B.B.C.”
“How do you know that?” Bluett asked, his ingenuous eyes very widely opened.
“I took her to meet him.”
“What!”
“This, I admit, was an accident, but it is a fact nevertheless. I picked her up near Oxford Circus and drove her to the B.B.C. I did not know she had gone to meet Sir Giles, but I saw them come out together.”
“You mean you were waiting outside?” Firth asked curiously.
“But certainly. And they came out together. I was unlucky, however. Someone, perhaps an artiste, I cannot say, the night was dark, gave them a lift; and although I tried to follow, a traffic block played geese and ganders with me. But, you understand, I had an idea roughly, where they had gone, and upon this idea I acted. I waited at a point d’appui, always with my flag down, hoping that this loving two would presently come out again. And they did. That was when I drove Darling Rita to King’s Road, Chelsea. It is strange, is it not, my old? I am working upon another case altogether — one so important — and I cross yours! Eh? strange!”
Firth continued to rest his elbows on the desk and his chin in his hands. “It may be fortunate. We must find out who this girl is.”
“I have found out.”
“What!”
“I discovered it this morning. She is called Rita Martin. She has a small flat at the address to which I drove her, and she is employed at Simone’s, the Court hairdressers. One thing I would advise: Be subtle, be sly. No clumsy interrogations and writing in notebooks. You have clever women here. Send one to Simone’s. For my own sake, also, I ask it. To frighten Darling Rita might destroy my own case as well as yours. Eh bien! I leave her to you. I am useful, is it not so? But there is something else.”
“Something else?” muttered Bluett suspiciously.
“But yes, something else, Friar Tuck, my old. When poor Sir Giles saw off Darling Rita in my taxi, he was constrained, in order that he might suitably embrace her, to place a small brown leather portfolio upon the running board.”
“A portfolio?” Firth suddenly stood up, a tall, dominating figure. “You are sure of that, Max?”
“Always I observe with some accuracy, my respected. Yes, he picked it up and with it he waved, as I drove my taxi away. And now — I must depart.” He made certain rapid adjustments and moved towards the door. “I drive back to the mews where I keep my cab. I return to my base. I cease to be Peter Finch. I become again Gaston Max.”
“Wait a minute, Max.” Gaston Max paused, smiling back at Firth. “There’s one feature of your make-up that quite defeats me. Ye are all of an inch shorter! How is it done?”
Max stooped and pulled off one very dirty shoe. This he offered to the Chief Inspector. “The heels of Peter Finch rest almost on the ground. See! This shoe is made for that purpose. Finch is a short fellow. How complete is the artistry of this Gaston Max, is it not so?”
The scene possessed elements of the grotesque; indeed, to Firth’s orderly mind, of the indecent. He was about to say as much, when Max, replacing his shoe, spoke again.
“Be, oh so careful, my old. Something much more important than the death of Sir Giles Loeder — something, my faith! that may cause the death of us all! — is concerned; something so difficult and dangerous that I, myself, am confused ...”
9
Simone’s
Simone’s world famous establishment to which the attention of Scotland Yard now became directed, had fallen upon evil days; Simone’s was making heavy weather in wartime waters. Many of those perfectly groomed young men and expert hairdressers who formerly had waited upon titled clients, alas, waited upon them no longer. And as for the maestro himself, the great Simone (who bore so conspicuous a resemblance to Velasquez), M. Simone had never attended any but princesses of the blood and one or two highly favored members of the peerage. Lady hairdressers, attractive, dexterous and possessed of impeccable manners, had largely supplanted male artists.
Nevertheless, although premises immediately right and left had been swept from the map of Old London, Simone’s was still Simone’s. In the shop on the ground floor, invariably referred to as the Salon, seductive show cases, their plate glass windows glittering like crystal, enshrined exquisite vials for containing perfumes of Paris and the Orient. But (alas again) assuming that they contained anything but colored water these delicate flasks were not for sale: they were museum pieces, taunting memories, high lights on a glowing canvas which the vulgar brush of Hitler had expunged.
The French receptionist, Mademoiselle Dorine, was still at her post; black gowned, discreet, accustomed to those little commissions from titled clients which bore no relation to hairdressing or manicure. The Commissionaire, Sergeant Smith, continued to meet all cars and carriages; for two grandes dames at least who patronised this long established business sometimes arrived in Edwardian fashion. But upstairs, presiding over the cubicles which had accommodated so much nobility, were the houris whom Smith (his ribbons included the South African war) described as the Beauty Chorus.
Simone’s young ladies certainly were well chosen, possessing both skill and comely appearance. That they had not been gathered into those uniformed ranks which had claimed so many of their generation, indicated that Simone had influential friends, or else, that the young ladies had.
There were, however, slack hours in the famous house which formerly it had never known, although Mlle. Dorine in making appointments, permitted no hint of this tragedy to reach a client. And it was during one of these intervals, when actually there was not a customer in the building, that the young lady known as Miss Rita, Simone’s most trusted hairdresser, sank down into a charmingly upholstered settee in a lobby upstairs upon which the cubicles opened.
Recessed between two slender buhl cabinets containing alluring exhibits, lip sticks, powder puffs, cigarette lighters, sealed and tasselled cut glass containers, reliquaries for Attar of Rose, of Jasmine, indeed a hundred and one trifles to threaten a woman’s soul (but none of them for sale), this settee was sacred to clients. Since no client was present, Rita took advantage of the fact.
She wore a spotless white coat over her frock, and lighting a cigarette which she took from a pocket in this coat, she then drew out an early edition of an evening paper, a gesture which could not have failed to remind one, who had known him, of Detective-Sergeant Bluett. She began to read an account of the mysterious death of Sir Giles Loeder; and as she read there were tears in her eyes which a lover might have likened to dew on brown pansies.
As a matter of fact, Rita had been puzzling over certain problems ever since she had heard that morning (she listened to the seven o’clock news bulletin from her bath) that Sir Giles had been killed. Would she be dragged into it? Who knew that she had been with him? Of those who knew, which would be likely to say so?
Some slight movement in one of the cubicles was presently explained by the appearance of another of Simone’s young ladies who had been tidying up after a departing client. Whereas Rita wore her jet black curls in a compact mass, Miss Dora, an ash blonde, had apparently taken the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara as her model. One guessed, however, that she stressed a slight likeness to a prominent film actress. Drawing the curtains behind her, she approached Rita.
“Move up, dear,” she said. “I can do with a flop, myself.”
And any client accustomed to Miss Dora’s refined accents must have been surprised to note what a difference occurred off-duty. Rita, still reading, moved petulantly to one end of the settee, the carved arms of which each supported a little jewelled ashtray attached by an embroidered band. Mechanically she knocked ash into that nearer to her, but made no reply.
Miss Dora, lighting a cigarette in turn, glanced inquiringly at her friend, who, her reading completed, put the newspaper on the cushions beside her, and stared vacantly into space.
“Something bothering you, dear?”
“
Yes.” Rita nodded. In repose, the expression of her full lips was somewhat sullen. “I’m worried to death and fed up to the teeth.”
“Oh, if that’s all,” said Dora, “we are all fed up. This swell place I’d heard so much about before I came here ain’t all honey, is it? Might as well be in the army, I say. What with her (“Her” signified Mlle. Dorine) and him (Monsieur) well—”
“I didn’t mean just Simone’s. Everything in the world has gone wrong with me.”
“Not much else left to go wrong, then?”
“Don’t be funny, Dora. I don’t feel a bit comic to-day.”
“Your humor’s your own business, dear,” said Dora brightly. “I was only being friendly.”
“No offence, Dora.” Rita turned and patted her friend’s shoulder. “But you don’t understand what a mess I am in.”
“Mess?”
“Just that: a mess — a bloody mess.”
The atmosphere of the lobby, faintly redolent of long vanished essences, mingled with more antiseptic odors, not, however, displeasing, seemed to Dora to become charged with menace, as she watched the gloomy face of her companion. Dora had come from an exclusive establishment on the south coast, Rita, from a high-class suburban hairdresser’s. Both selected by the unerring eye of the maestro, their friendship had dated only from their arrival at Simone’s, but it had progressed to a point where they had few secrets from one another. And so Dora thought that she had divined the cause of her friend’s gloom.
“Is it Dick?” she asked. “Has he done the dirty?”
Rita shook her head, so that some of the little tufty curls danced fascinatingly. “No, but he ‘phoned up more than a week ago to say he expected leave: since then, I have heard nothing whatever about him.”
“Perhaps his leave was cancelled.”
“Why didn’t he write and say so, or call me? No. I believe he got his leave all right.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Well—” Rita hesitated. “I’ve got an idea, only an idea, mind you, that I saw him ... one night.”
“Up in town?”
“Yes. Of course, I may have been wrong; but I’ve ‘phoned everywhere I can think of, and nobody seems to know what has become of him.”
“Did you ‘phone his station?”
“Not likely. I got a proper tick-off last time I tried. But there’s something very funny about it.”
“I am sorry, dear. Dick was a snip, and they tell me Americans make wonderful husbands.” She picked up the paper which Rita had dropped, and, glancing at it, seemed to become inspired. Rita, who possessed many qualities essential to the set-up of a good little business woman, had observed a tactful reticence regarding her relations with Sir Giles. Vanity, however, had prompted her to let Dora know that that notability took an interest in her affairs.
“Rita!” Dora raised her long, beautifully blackened lashes, and stared open-eyed at her friend. “What a damn fool I am! It isn’t Dick you’re bothering about at all. It’s Sir Giles! Oh, I’m deaf, dumb and blind! Good lord! I should think you are worrying. I should worry, too. That kind don’t grow on gooseberry bushes.”
Rita nodded. “No. It’s going to make a hell of a difference. I can’t afford to lose Dick, now.”
“But, Rita, when did you see Sir Giles last? It says here he was carried to a house in the West End where the body was discovered later.”
“Why—” Rita checked herself— “why, only a few nights ago.”
“Not—”
A bell rang, and light footsteps might be heard on the carpeted stair. By means of minor conjuring tricks, both girls “vanished” their cigarettes. They were standing facing the staircase when Mlle. Dorine appeared.
“Lady Huskin is here, Miss Rita. Are you ready?”
It was a formula, and Rita forced a smile — and a “refined” accent. “Quite ready, ma’m’selle.”
Ma’m’selle sniffed suspiciously, and then, “I have just booked a client for you, Miss Dora,” she added, “who will be here at any moment; a Mrs. Jameson for manicure.” She turned, for voices might be heard.
Lady Huskin (wife of the first baron) made her entrance. She had retained much of that girlish figure for which formerly she had been celebrated. Her suit was perfectly tailored, the skirt coquettishly short. As she was on the short side herself, the heels of her shoes were exceptionally high, so that her cautious gait resembled that of a hen. Her complexion was radiant, for she made up artistically, and her face wore a girlish smile, but her brown eyes (she had slightly overhanging lids, by some said to denote sensuality) did not seem to share in the fun. As for Lady Huskin’s hair, dressed high on her head, it was of purest guinea gold.
“Oh, Miss Rita!” she exclaimed, breathing rather heavily, “I simply could not wait another day. My hair is a fright.”
“I think your hair looks beautiful, my lady.”
Rita’s change of voice, of accent, of manner, must have seemed magical to one who had overheard her recent conversation. To Dora it was a professional commonplace, which, discreetly effacing herself, she did not even notice.
As Lady Huskin advanced to the cubicle, one curtain of which Rita deferentially held aside, a second figure appeared on the stairhead, that of a smartly dressed chauffeur, a fair young man, spruce and of good figure. He carried a number of illustrated periodicals, an attaché case, and a toy dog whose golden-brown countenance and protuberant eyes might have reminded an irreverent critic of those of Lady Huskin.
These properties being suitably disposed in the cubicle, Rita brought a cushion for the greater convenience of Dandini, the dog; and the good looking chauffeur, behind Lady Huskin’s back, took advantage of this opportunity to squeeze Rita. Rita responded with a glance from her bold eyes which might have shrivelled a lesser man: it merely induced the chauffeur to wink and to contract his lips in the form of a kiss. Having placed upon a small table within easy reach of Lady Huskin’s carefully manicured plump hand, her cigarette case, lighter, and other small comforts, the chauffeur retired.
Preparations were made for the ceremony of the shampoo, but before these were completed, Dandini displayed symptoms of dissatisfaction which attracted his mistress’s attention.
“Oh, the poor little beastie! He is telling me that I have forgotten his saucer of tea. He so looks forward to his saucer of tea when he comes here, Miss Rita. Do please get it for him.”
“Certainly, my lady; I will ask them to make some tea downstairs. You would like a cup yourself, no doubt, later.”
“No, not yet. Just make a cup for Dandini.”
“At once, my lady”; and Rita was about to go when Lady Huskin detained her.
“Oh, just a moment. Would you give me my notebook and pencil.”
A small notebook with tear-out leaves, the cover emblazoned with a glittering crest, was produced from the handbag, and Lady Huskin scribbled a note.
“Please ask Sergeant Smith to give that to Payne. He is to deliver it at once and bring me the reply, here, immediately.”
“Yes, my lady.”
These matters being arranged, the shampoo actually commenced, very soon to be interrupted, however, by the appearance of Dora, her blonde countenance registering strong disapproval. She carried a saucer of tea and a sheet of newspaper, which she placed on the floor.
“Oh, you are sure it is not too hot?” asked Lady Huskin. “The poor little beastie hates scalding his wee tongue.”
“No, my lady.” The girl dipped her finger in the saucer. “It is just the right temperature.”
“Oh, thank you so much. There, Dandini, darling, that is what you wanted.”
As Dandini superciliously surveyed the offering, then walked around it thoughtfully and with a certain grave suspicion, Lady Huskin’s faulty memory divulged a second oversight.
“Oh, good gracious! I do hate to bother you, my dear. But we have forgotten the sweet biscuits. How silly of us!”
“I will see what I can do, my lady.”
> Dora’s expression as she retired from the cubicle indicated that several ideas on this subject had presented themselves to her mind. Further suggestions were made by Sergeant Smith (instructed to obtain biscuits from a neighboring store). These suggestions included rat poison. “Some people don’t know there’s a war on,” he remarked. “There’s others — one of them’s upstairs now — who ought to be dropped by parachute on the Russian front so they can find out.”
“Sweet biscuits!” hissed Dora, studying a book of ration-cards. “Bang go my last three points, bless her!”
However, in due course the shampoo was resumed, and operations were not again suspended until Payne, the chauffeur, returned with a message which he delivered personally. This related to dance shoes and coupons, and was entirely unsatisfactory.
“Oh, but how preposterous!” Lady Huskin exclaimed, raising her head from the basin, to reveal the fact that under Rita’s treatment it now resembled a large and overblown cauliflower. “Lord Huskin will be furious.”
Payne was despatched with a second message, and the shampoo was resumed once more. Mlle. Dorine might be heard announcing: “Mrs. Jameson for you, Miss Dora,” her words being followed by movement and voices in an adjoining cubicle. Then, Mademoiselle, discreetly knocking, entered that occupied by Lady Huskin.
“Here are the sweet biscuits, my lady. There is a call for you on the telephone. I said I would inquire.”
“Who is it?” Lady Huskin demanded from the depths.
“Mr. Olivar, my lady.”
The cauliflower head was raised again. “Bring in the ‘phone.”
“I regret, my lady, that the extensions are out of order. It will be necessary for you to use the instrument in the lobby.”
“Horror! Preposterous! Oh, very well — put the call through at once to the lobby. Miss Rita, get me a towel as I must go to the ‘phone.”
“I am afraid I must rinse your hair first, my lady.”
“Not at all — not at all! when I come back! Give me a towel. Please put the call through at once.”
