By the Pricking of My Thumbs tat-4

by Agatha Christie

  'I'm going to do a bit of searching myself. Try these solicitors first. They may be quite all right, but I'd like to have a look at them, and draw my own conclusions.'

  Chapter 12. Tommy Meets an Old Friend

  From the opposite side of the road, Tommy surveyed the premises of Messrs. Partingdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Pardngdale.

  They looked eminently respectable and old-fashioned. The brass plate was well worn but nicely polished. He crossed the street and passed through swing doors to be greeted by the muted note of typewriters at full speed.

  He addressed himself to an open mahogany window on his right which bore the legend [Unreadable]. Inside was a small room where three women were typing and two male clerks were bending over desks copying.

  There was a faint, musty atmosphere [Unreadable] flavour.

  A woman of thirty-five odd, with a severe air, faded blond hair, and pince-nez rose from her typewriter and came to the window.

  'Can I help you?'

  'I would like to see Mr. Eccles.'

  The woman's air of severity redoubled.

  'Have you an appointment?'

  'I'm afraid not. I'm just passing through London today.'

  'I'm afraid Mr. Eccles is rather busy this morning. Perhaps another member of the firm?'

  'It was Mr. Eccles I particularly wanted to see. I have already had some correspondence with him.'

  'Oh I see. Perhaps you'll give me your name.'

  Tommy gave his name and address and the blonde woman retired to confer with the telephone on her desk. After a murmured conversation she returned.

  'The clerk will show you into the waiting room. Mr. Eccles will be able to see you in about ten minutes' time.'

  Tommy was ushered into a waiting room which had a bookcase of rather ancient and ponderous-looking law tomes and a round table covered with various financial papers.

  Tommy sat there and went over in his own mind his planned methods of approach. He wondered what Mr. Eccles would be like. When he was shown in at last and Mr. Eccles rose from a desk to receive him, he decided for no particular reason that he could name to himself that he did not like Mr. Eccles. He also wondered why he did not like Mr. Eccles. There seemed no valid reason for dislike. Mr. Eccles was a man of between forty and fifty with greyish hair thinning a little at the temples. He had a long rather sad-looking face with a particularly wooden expression, shrewd eyes, and quite a pleasant smile which from time to time rather unexpectedly broke up the natural melancholy of his countenance.

  'Mr. Beresford?'

  'Yes. It is really rather a trifling matter, but my wife has been worried about it. She wrote to you, I believe, or possibly she may have rung you up, to know if you could give her the address of a Mrs. Lancaster.'

  'Mrs. Lancaster,' said Mr. Eccles, retaining a perfect poker face. It was not even a question. He just left the name hanging in the air.

  'A cautious man,' thought Tommy, 'but then it's second nature for lawyers to be cautious. In fact, if they were one's own lawyers one would prefer them to be cautious.'

  He went on: 'Until lately living at a place called Sunny Ridge, an establishment-and a very good one-for elderly ladies. In fact, an aunt of my own was there and was extremely happy and comfortable.'

  'Oh yes, of course, of course. I remember now. Mrs. Lancaster. She is, I think, no longer living there? That is right is it not?'

  'Yes,' said Tommy.

  'At the moment I do not exactly recall-he stretched out a hand towards the telephone-'I will just refresh my memory.'

  'I can tell you quite simply, my wife wanted Mrs. Lancaster's address because she happens to be in possession of a piece of property which originally belonged to Mrs. Lancaster. A picture, in fact. It was given by Mrs. Lancaster as a present to my aunt, Miss Fanshawe. My aunt died recently, and her few possessions have come into my keeping. This included the picture which was given her by Mrs. Lancaster. My wife likes it very much but she feels rather guilty about it. She thinks that it may be a picture Mrs. Lancaster values and in that case she feels she ought to offer to return it to Mrs. Lancaster.'

  'Ah, I see,' said Mr. Eccles. 'It is very conscientious of your wife, I am sure.'

  'One never knows,' said Tommy, smiling pleasantly, 'what elderly people may feel about their possessions. She may have been glad for my aunt to have it since my aunt admired it, as my aunt died very soon after having received this gift, seems, perhaps, a little unfair that it should pass into the possession of strangers. There is no particular title on the picture. It represents a house somewhere in the country. For all I know it may be some family house associated with Mrs. Lancaster.'

  'Quite, quite,' said Mr. Eccles, 'but I don't think-'

  There was a knock and the door opened and a clerk entered and produced a sheet of paper which he placed before Mr. Eccles. Mr. Eccles looked down. 'Ah yes, ah yes, I remember now. Yes, I believe Mrs-' He glanced down at Tommy's card lying on his desk-'Beresford rang up and had a few words with me. I advised her to get into touch with the Southern Counties Bank, Hammersmith branch. This is the only address I myself know. Letter addressed to the bank's address, care of Mrs. Richard Johnson would be forwarded. Mrs. Johnson is, I believe, a niece or distant cousin of Mrs. Lancaster's and it was Mrs. Johnson who made all the arrangements with me for Mrs. Lancaster's reception at Sunny Ridge. She asked me to make full inquiries about the establishment, since she had only heard about it casually from a friend. We did so, I can assure you, most carefully. It was said to be an excellent establishment and I believe Mrs. Johnson's relative, Mrs. Lancaster, spent several years there quite happily.'

  'She left there, though, rather suddenly,' Tommy suggested.

  'Yes. Yes, I believe she did. Mrs. Johnson, it seems, returned rather unexpectedly recently from East Africa-so many people have done so! She and her husband had, I believe resided in Kenya for many years. They were making various new arrangements and felt able to assume personal care of their elderly relative. I am afraid I have no knowledge of Mrs. Johnson's present whereabouts. I had a letter from her thanking me and settling accounts she owed, and directing that if there was any necessity for communicating with her I should address my letters care of the bank as she was undecided as yet where she and her husband would actually be residing. I am afraid, Mr. Beresford, that that is all I know.'

  His manner was gentle but [Unreadable]. It displayed no embarrassment of any kind nor disturbance. But the neutrality of his voice was very definite. Then he unbent and his manner softened a little.

  'I shouldn't really worry, you know, Mr. Beresford,' he said reassuringly. 'Or rather, I shouldn't let your wife worry. Mrs. Lancaster, I believe, is quite an old lady and inclined to be forgetful. She's probably forgotten all about this picture that she gave away. She is, I believe, seventy-five or seventy-six years of age. One forgets very easily at that age, you know.'

  'Did you know her personally?'

  'No, I never actually met her.'

  'But you knew Mrs. Johnson?'

  'I met her when she came here occasionally to consult me as to arrangements. She seemed a pleasant, businesslike woman. Quite competent in the arrangements she was making.' He rose and said, 'I am so sorry I can't help you, Mr. Beresford.'

  It was a gentle but firm dismissal.

  Tommy came out onto the Bloomsbury street and looked about him for a taxi. The parcel he was carrying, though not heavy, was of a fairly awkward size. He looked up for a moment at the building he had just left. Eminently respectable, long-established. Nothing you could fault there, nothing apparently wrong with Messrs. Parringdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale, nothing wrong with Mr. Eccles, no signs of alarm or despondency, no shiftiness or uneasiness. In books, Tommy thought gloomily, a mention of Mrs. Lancaster or Mrs. Johnson should have brought a guilty start or a shifty glance. Something to show that the names registered, that all was not well. Things didn't seem to happen like that in real life. All Mr. Eccles had looked like was a man who was too pol
ite to resent having his time wasted by such an inquiry as Tommy had just made.

  But all the same, thought Tommy to himself, I don't like Mr. Eccles. He recalled to himself vague memories of the past, of other people that he had for some reason not liked. Very often those hunches-for hunches is all they were-had been right.

  But perhaps it was simpler than that. If you had had a good many dealings in your time with personalities, you had a sort of feeling about them, just as an expert antique dealer knows instinctively the taste and look and feel of a forgery before getting down to expert tests and examinations. The thing just is wrong. The same with pictures. The same presumably with a cashier in a bank who is offered a first-class spurious banknote.

  'He sounds all right,' thought Tommy. 'He looks all right, he speaks all right, but all the same-' He waved frantically at a taxi which gave him a direct and cold look, increased its speed and drove on. 'Swine,' thought Tommy.

  His eyes roved up and down the street, seeking for a more obliging vehicle. A fair amount of people were walking on the pavement. A few hurrying, some strolling, one man gazing at a brass plate just across the road from him. After a close scrutiny, he turned round and Tommy's eyes opened a little wider. He knew that face. He watched the man walk to the end of the street, pause, mm and walk back again. Somebody came out of the building behind Tommy and at that moment the man opposite increased his pace a little, still walking on the other side of the road but keeping pace with the man who had come out of the door. The man who had come out of Messrs. Partingdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale's doorway was, Tommy thought, looking after his retreating figure, almost certainly Mr. Eccles. At the same moment a taxi lingering in a pleasant tempting manner, came along. Tommy raised his hand, the taxi drew up, he opened the door and got in.

  'Where to?'

  Tommy hesitated for a moment, looking at his parcel. About to give an address he changed his mind and said, '14 Lyon Street.'

  A quarter of an hour later he had reached his destination. He rang the bell after paying off the taxi and asked for Mr. Ivor Smith. When he entered a second-floor room, a man sitting at a table facing the window, swung round and said with faint surprise, 'Hullo, Tommy, fancy seeing you. It's a long time. What are you doing here? Just tooling round looking up your old friends?'

  'Not quite as good as that, Ivor.'

  'I suppose you're on your way home after the Conference.'

  'Yes.'

  'All a lot of the usual talky-talky, I suppose? No conclusions drawn and nothing helpful said.'

  'Quite right. All a sheer waste of time.'

  'Mostly listening to old Bogie Taddock shooting his mouth off, I expect. Crashing bore. Gets worse every year.'

  'Oh! Well-'

  Tommy sat down in the chair that was pushed towards him, accepted a cigarette, and said, 'I just wondered-it's a very long shot-whether you know anything of a derogatory nature about one Eccles, solicitor, of the firm of Messrs. Partingdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale.'

  'Well, well, well,' said the man called Ivor Smith. He raised his eyebrows. They were very convenient eyebrows for raising.

  The end of them near the nose went up and the opposite end of the cheek went down for an almost astonishing extent. They made him on very little provocation look like a man who had had a severe shock, but actually it was quite a common gesture with him. 'Run up against Eccles somewhere have you?'

  'The trouble is,' said Tommy, 'that I know nothing about him.'

  'And you want to know something about him?'

  'Yes.'

  'Hm. What made you come to see me?'

  'I saw Anderson outside. It was a long time since I'd seen him but I recognized him. He was keeping someone or other under observation. Whoever it was, it was someone in the building from which I had just emerged. Two firms of lawyers practise there and one firm of chartered accountants. Of course it may be any one of them or any member of any one of them. But a man walking away down the street looked to me like Eccles. And I just wondered if by a lucky chance it could have been my Mr. Eccles that Anderson was giving his attention to?'

  'Hm,' said Ivor Smith. 'Well, Tommy, you always were a pretty good guesser.'

  'Who is Eccles?'

  'Don't you know? Haven't you any idea?'

  'I've no idea whatever,' said Tommy. 'Without going into a long history, I went to him for some information about an old lady who has recently left an old ladies' home. The solicitor employed to make arrangements for her was Mr. Eccles. He appears to have done it with perfect decorum and efficiency. I wanted her present address. He says, he hasn't got it. Quite possibly he hasn't… but I wondered. He's the only clue to her whereabouts I've got.'

  'And you want to find her?'

  'I don't think it sounds as though I'm going to be much good to you. Eccles is a very respectable, sound solicitor who makes a large income; has a good many highly respectable clients, works for the landed gentry, professional classes and retired soldiers and sailors, generals and admirals and all that sort of thing. He's the acme of respectability. I should imagine from what you're talking about, that he was strictly within his lawful activities.'

  'But you're-interested in him,' suggested Tommy.

  'Yes, we're very interested in Mr. James Eccles.' He sighed. 'We've been interested in him for at least six years. We haven't progressed very far.'

  'Very interesting,' said Tommy. 'I'll ask you again. Who exactly is Mr. Eccles?'

  'You mean what do we suspect Eccles of? Well, to put it in a sentence, we suspect him of being one of the best brains in organised criminal activity in this country.'

  'Criminal activity?' Tommy looked surprised.

  'Oh yes, yes. No cloak and dagger. No espionage, no counter-espionage. No, plain criminal activity. He is a man who has so far as we can discover never performed a criminal act in his life. He has never stolen anything, he's never forged anything, he's never convened funds, we can't get any kind of evidence against him. But all the same whenever there's a big planned organised robbery, there we find, somewhere in the background, Mr. Eccles leading a blameless life.'

  'Six years,' said Tommy thoughtfully.

  'Possibly even longer than that. It took a little time, to get onto the pattern of things. Bank hold-ups, robberies of private jewels, all kind of things where the big money was. They're all jobs that followed a certain pattern. You couldn't help feeling that the same mind had planned them. The people who directed them and who carried them out never had to do any planning at all. They went where they were told, they did what they were ordered, they never had to think. Somebody else was doing the thinking.'

  'And what made you hit on Eccles?'

  Ivor Smith shook his head thoughtfully. 'It would take too long to tell you. He's a man who has a lot of acquaintances, a lot of friends. There are people he plays golf with, there are people who service his car, there are scores of stockbrokers who act for him. There are companies doing a blameless business in which he is interested. The plan is getting him but his part in it hasn't got much clearer, except that he's very conspicuously absent on certain occasions. A big bank robbery cleverly planned (and no expense spared, mind you), consolidating the getaway and all the rest of it, and where's Mr. Eccles when it happens? Monte Carlo or Zurich or possibly even fishing for salmon in Norway. You can be quite sure Mr. Eccles is never within a hundred miles of where criminal activities are happening.'

  'Yet you suspect him?'

  'Oh yes. I'm quite sure in my own mind. But whether we'll ever catch him I don't know. The man who tunnelled through the floor of a bank, the man who knocked out the night watchman, the cashier who was in it from the beginning, the bank manager who supplied the information, none of them know Eccles, probably they've never even seen him. There's a long chain leading away-and no one seems to know more than just one link beyond themselves.'

  'The good old plan of the cell?'

  'More or less, yes, but there's some original thinking. Someday we'll
get a chance. Somebody who oughtn't to know anything, will know something. Something silly and trivial, perhaps, but something that strangely enough may be evidence at last.'

  'Is he married-got a family?'

  'No, he has never taken risks like that. He lives alone with a housekeeper and a gardener and a butler-valet. He entertains in a mild and pleasant way, and I dare swear that every single person who's entered his house as his guest is beyond suspicion.'

  'And nobody's getting rich?'

  'That's a good point you've put your finger on, Thomas. Somebody ought to be getting rich. Somebody ought to be seen to be getting rich. But that part of it's very cleverly arranged. Big wins on race courses, investments in stocks and shares, all things which are natural, just chancy enough to make big money at, and all apparently genuine transactions. There's a lot of money stacked up abroad in different countries and different places. It's a great big, vast, money-making concern-and the money's always on the move-going from place to place.'

  'Well,' said Tommy, 'good luck to you. I hope you get your man.'

  'I think I shall, you know, some day. There might be a hope if one could jolt him out of his routine.'

  'Jolt him with what?'

  'Danger,' said Ivor. 'Make him feel he's in danger. Make him feel someone's on to him. Get him uneasy. If you once get a man uneasy, he may do something foolish. He may make a mistake. That's the way you get chaps, you know. Take the cleverest man there is, who can plan brilliantly and never put a foot wrong. Let some little thing rattle him and he'll make a mistake. So I'm hoping. Now let's hear your story. You might know something that would be useful.'

  'Nothing to do with crime, I'm afraid-very small bean.'

  'Well, let's hear about it.'

  Tommy told his story without undue apologies for the triviality of it. Ivor, he knew, was not a man to despise triviality.

  Ivor, indeed, went straight to the point which had brought Tommy on his errand.

  'And your wife's disappeared, you say?'

  'It's not like her.'

  'That's serious.'