An Act Of Detection, page 2
“No, nothing on the business side of things. He’s doing fine, but he’s not the same.” Johnny tapped the ash from his cigarette into a marble ashtray. “And he’s not that way inclined, in case anyone’s got a roving eye. He’s far too interested in the chorus girls.”
“But he’s not Robin?” Toby’s question implied that Robin might just have been that way inclined.
“It’s not what you’re thinking.” Johnny had evidently caught the drift. “There was no ‘interest’ between us. He was just the best assistant I’d ever had. One hundred per cent reliable, too.”
“Until he went walkabout.” Alasdair sat back, enjoying his erstwhile rival’s discomfort. “Hardly counts as reliable, does it?”
“That’s my whole point.” Johnny sounded exasperated, although whether at his secretary or at Alasdair wasn’t clear. “If he’d been habitually late or tended to go off for a day or two, then I wouldn’t be so worried. I want to know if he’s in trouble of some sort and whether I can help.”
“I would have thought the police would be better suited to finding that out—why haven’t you contacted them?” Alasdair was finding this whole interview more and more perplexing.
“I did contact them. I’m not an idiot, whatever else you think of me. Don’t answer that.” Johnny stubbed out his cigarette forcefully. “I held fire that first day, just in case word came through. The second day I rang the police, after I’d checked his lodgings and had been told he’d left for work as usual the previous morning.”
“And the police said?” Toby was clearly trying to sound the sympathetic one of the pair.
“They said they had better things to do with their time than go hunting grown men.”
“Did they, by Jove? I’ll have a word with my father about how his officers are addressing the populace.” Toby grinned; when your father was the Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police, you could make sure your friends were treated with a bit of common decency. However, embarrassing his father by being caught cottaging wasn’t something Toby was ever going to risk.
“Well, they didn’t use those exact words, but that’s what they meant. Unless there was evidence of a real crime—a ransom note or some other indication that Robin hadn’t just got fed up and gone—then they weren’t that interested.” Johnny opened his cigarette case, looked like he was about to have another, then slapped it shut and put it away. “If I’d found he’d had his fingers in the till, it might have been different, I suppose.”
“And had he?” Alasdair’s ears pricked up. “Been dipping his fingers in the till?”
“No evidence of anything like that. Straight as a die and everyone liked him.” Johnny shrugged.
“You’ve contacted his family?” Alasdair asked with a sniff. “That seems the obvious thing to do. Maybe his mother was taken ill and…”
“No mother,” Johnny interrupted the flow. “Nothing closer than a grandmother and she’s slightly gaga.”
Alasdair was beginning to be interested in the case. “I can’t deny I love an intellectual puzzle.”
”Oh yes,” Toby said, “to see him with The Times crossword is to observe poetry in motion. Cinema acting hardly stretches anyone’s mental resources, does it?”
Alasdair nodded. “To take on a real investigation would be a challenge, and we could always say we were conducting research for The Hound of the Baskervilles.” If only it had been someone other than Johnny Fisher asking. “So why is it so important for you to find Robin? There’s every chance he’s just fallen into the Thames or run away to be a sailor or lost his memory. Whatever’s happened, he either doesn’t want to be found or has no choice in the matter.”
“Because it bothers me. Why should any decent, respectable man vanish into thin air unless something untoward has happened? And if nothing untoward has occurred, you tell me where he went. I want to make sure he’s safe and not in trouble. If he’s got himself in a hole, I’d like to help dig him out.”
“You can’t dig someone out of a hole, Johnny.” Alasdair looked smug at the muddled metaphor.
“I wish we could help, but I think you’re overestimating our capabilities. We may play Holmes and Watson on the screen, but we’ve no experience in real life.” Toby spoke softly, clearly afraid of treading on his friend’s dreams. “That’s assuming I’ve got the right end of the stick and you’re actually asking us to do some sleuthing on your behalf. The Case of the Disappearing Secretary.”
“Couldn’t you call it research or something?” Johnny smiled sweetly; he wasn’t daft, he knew he’d get further pleading with Toby than he ever would with his partner. “Getting prepared for The Hound of the Baskervilles?”
“So we’re to take to Dartmoor in search of your erstwhile employee, are we?” Toby’s eyes were bright—worryingly bright, as far as Alasdair was concerned.
“I hoped you wouldn’t have to go as far as that. I guess I just had London in mind…I hadn’t really considered what might be involved.” Johnny was suddenly serious, his normally happy-go-lucky outlook submerging under his genuine concern. “Look, don’t take this up if you don’t have the time or the inclination. It was a stupid whim anyway, thinking that you might succeed on a wild goose chase.”
“Stupid?” Whether he’d intended it or not—and whatever else he was, Johnny was a brilliant actor—he’d hit on just the right form of words, and approach, to get Alasdair to change his mind. If Johnny Fisher didn’t think Alasdair capable of something, then Alasdair was definitely going to prove him wrong. “If the police are disinclined to pay attention, then I don’t see why we couldn’t take an interest in the case, as we won’t be treading on their toes. It’s a couple of weeks before work starts on our pirate film, with just the premiere of A Scandal in Bohemia in between. I’d like to see how much headway we could make in that time.” He glanced at Toby. “Give us all the information you have and we’ll see where we get to.”
The huge smile Johnny broke into suggested he’d manipulated the whole situation to get the outcome he wanted, but Alasdair did his best to ignore the fact. “Wherever you can get has got to be better than total ignorance, which is where I am now. I’ll pay all your expenses, of course.”
“You will not.” Toby at last got the chance to speak. “Have this as a present from us, in honour of your new production. In return we want a couple of tickets for the best seats in the house, as soon as it’s bedded in. If you think it’s worth seeing, of course,” he added.
“Worth seeing? It’ll be the hit of the season.” Johnny slapped his hands on the desk. “Only shouldn’t that be four tickets—two for you and two for your alleged girlfriends of the moment?”
Toby groaned. “I suppose you’re right. Unless you get us a box, of course, and we can take my mother and sister along. People will assume that Alasdair’s got a thing for her and no young fillies will end up disappointed.”
“Won’t she be disappointed? Your sister, I mean?”
“Oh, no. She’s got her eye on a sailor boy and he quite likes it when he’s on a tour of duty and one of us squires her around town. Keeps the bees away from the honey. Now…” Toby tapped the arm of his chair, “information. We can’t start finding out anything if we’ve just got this chap’s first name.”
“I’ve kept a file.” It was right at hand, suggesting that the man had been well-prepared for this whole exercise, and confident—rightly—of seeing it through to the desired outcome. “Take it. And good luck.”
Alasdair rose, picking up the file and flicking through it. The first impression was favourable, at least in terms of legibility and organisation. Not a lot in the way of information, though. Maybe this wasn’t going to be easy as his offended audacity had hoped. “We’d best be amongst it, then. We’ll keep you up to date with what we find.” Still, he felt rooted to the spot, unwilling to take the first step on an uncharted road.
“Come on, we’ve got work to do, Sherlock.” Toby took his friend’s arm and guided him towards the door. “Although I’m lucky my Holmes thinks his Watson has a degree of intelligence. Quite a different set-up from the original.”
“You can say that again. Don’t remember Sherlock leaping into the sack with his beloved doctor.” Johnny held out his hand for his friends to shake. “Let me know as soon as you turn anything up. I know it’s an imposition, but I suspect you’re my only hope.”
Chapter Two
They’d left Johnny’s office and were down some stairs and along a corridor before Alasdair could trust himself to speak.“Why us?” He might have accepted the commission but that didn’t mean he was happy about it.
“The police weren’t interested, and…”
Alasdair cut across his friend; there was no time to waste. “I understand that, but why us? Why not a private investigator or someone else with the relevant experience?” He had a horrible thought. “He’s not still after you, is he?”
Toby snorted. “I should bloody well hope not. Surely he’s got the message by now? No, I don’t think this is all some cunning strategy to somehow get me alone and wheedle his way into my boudoir. Even if it was, give me some credit for being able to resist him.”
“I’m sorry.” Alasdair bit his lip.
“I’ll accept your apology if you look more contrite. Better. Now, are you sure, absolutely sure, that you want to take this case up?” Toby looked genuinely troubled.
“Of course I do, if only to see the smile wiped off his face when we succeed.” Another horrible thought. “Are you saying that you’d rather not be involved? You seemed so keen in there that I assumed…”
“You assumed quite right. I’d like to find anything to keep my mind off this bloody awful fiasco of a pirate film.” Toby grinned. “I quite fancy a diversion.”
“Then that’s a perfect motivation for both of us. You to stave off ennui and me to put one over on our smug friend.”
“Then, as your Commodore Neville has such a habit of saying, ‘There’s not a moment to lose.’” Toby bounded down a little run of five stairs and strode off along another corridor, Alasdair scurrying to catch up. They walked down to the foyer, the time for decision-making getting ever closer. Toby stood by the desk where they sold programmes and gave a huge, appropriately theatrical sigh. “Any idea where we should start, then?”
“Mr. Bowe?” A sandy haired young man, very earnest behind metal-rimmed spectacles but not bad-looking—apart from the knobbly Adam’s apple—came hurtling through a door and leaped across the foyer. “Mr Fisher said he’s terribly sorry, but he forgot to give you this.” He held out a small black-covered book.
Toby took it, perusing the pages and nodding his head. An address book. “Thank you, Mr…?”
“Hampson.”
“Hampson. I’ll try to remember the name. I suppose this book belonged to Robin Pierce?”
Hampson nodded. “That’s why Mr. Fisher wanted you to have it. That he should come to you for help, though...” He shook his head and turned on his heels, mission accomplished.
“What on earth did he mean by that?” Alasdair frowned.
“Probably thinks the same as us—that we’re actors, not detectives, and that this is probably all going to turn out for the worst.” Toby pocketed the address book safely against the rain which was still pitching down outside. “We should show him. Show the both of them. Where would Sherlock begin?”
“Bugger Sherlock. I’d begin with finding a decent pub, having a pint of beer and giving that book—which I note was sent down to you but I’ll try to ignore the fact—a dose of reasoning. There’s not a lot of time and we don’t want to be chasing wild geese.”
Toby hid his grin behind the collar of his coat. He knew Alasdair liked playing the great detective best of all the roles he’d had at Landseer, not least because it meant the on-screen romances were kept to a minimum in order to please the purists. Even Toby got more of a look in with the ladies, Watson being the one with an eye for the fair sex as far as Conan Doyle was concerned. “Righty-ho, Sherlock,” Toby risked as they took to the street, ignoring what sounded like a ribald but whispered reply.
They walked in the direction of a decent hostelry, found themselves a table and got outside of a couple of pints. Soup and rolls were ordered, raincoats hung up and the address book given the once over. The names might have been copied straight from the pages of the telephone directory for all the information they provided; once they’d eliminated Johnny Fisher and some other contacts from within “the business,” the rest were a meaningless jumble. There were only two Pierces listed, a woman—presumably the granny who’d gone gaga—and another who’d been scratched out. Deceased?
“What next in The Case of the Secretary’s Address Book?” Toby had consumed the first restorative mouthful of beer, but it didn’t seem to be making the way forward any clearer. At the moment he felt like taking a pin and choosing where to start at random. Surely investigating couldn’t be that hard for a pair of intelligent men? They just had to find their feet.
“I suggest we pick half a dozen names each and try to visit them all over the next two days, separating to cover more of the ground.” The beer seemed to be making Alasdair particularly decisive.
“Selecting names at random doesn’t seem entirely logical, Sherlock.” Toby shrugged. “Just have to hope we strike lucky sooner rather than later.” Over the soup, they split the list, choosing their six names simply on a geographical basis, people listed in London or close by. Enough of the day was left for them to make a bit of progress, if they got going quickly and enticed fortune into favouring them.
“I’ll start by tackling the distaff side of the equation.” Alasdair tapped the list he’d copied from the book. “There’s plenty of meat to get my teeth into here.”
“I’m not sure I appreciate your choice of phrase, especially if you do have only female names on your list, but I’ll assume it’s poetic licence.” Toby cuffed his lover’s arm. “The game’s afoot.”
“One more Holmes quote and I may have to smack you, public place or not.”
“Save it for tonight. I assume we’re still on for a bit of supper?”
“Absolutely. Got to get our strength up for the big opening night.” Alasdair grimaced.
“I’d almost forgotten about that.” Toby lowered his voice. “Better leave it at supper, then, and not extend matters to a taxi home and an overnight stay. If there’s anyone from the press milling about, I don’t fancy having to nip out of the back door and down the alleyway again. It’s not just undignified—I almost ripped my trousers last time. I’m starting to get the feeling of prying eyes on my back.”
***
Alasdair’s cab sped—as much as any cab could speed in London—up the road, leaving Toby to set off for the exotic environs of Kensal Rise, where Pierce had his lodgings.
Toby got his cab to stop at the end of Pierce’s road. A gentle saunter along the street would cause less of a kerfuffle than a stranger pulling up to the door and discharging himself dramatically onto the pavement in front of the area steps. The properties here were in pretty good nick—if the bombs of the Blitz had touched this particular road, then the repairs had been done quickly and with good taste. It was what his mother would have called “still a nice area,” even if some of the houses had become sets of lodgings.
The one he sought had a London plane tree outside. Now that the rain had blown through and the sun had deigned to make an appearance again, the tree’s shadow danced across the front steps. Toby took a deep breath, just like he did before the cameras rolled. So what if he really was going into someone’s house to ask all sorts of intrusive questions? It was just another role. He knocked at the door.
“Mrs. Chivers?” Toby smiled at the bright-eyed, grey-haired woman who answered the door.
“That’s right, sir.” Mrs. Chivers peered at him and then gave a gasp of surprise. Toby knew the look well—the shock of seeing on her own doorstep the man she’d last viewed from the “one and nines” in the local cinema. “I’m sorry to be knocking on your door out of the blue, but I’m trying to locate Robin Pierce on behalf of his employer, who’s an old friend of mine.”
“Mr. Pierce? Oh yes, of course.” Mrs. Chivers ushered Toby in, listening attentively to his story about helping out this old friend, although he was sure she didn’t believe a word of what he said. He wondered whether she’d made up her own theory about him practicing his Dr. Watson persona. Still, at least she was endeavouring to be helpful; he’d honestly thought he’d be chucked out on his ear, so perhaps having a well-known face was going to be an asset. Toby was offered a chair in the parlour and a cup of tea, neither of which he felt he could politely refuse.
“I believe that about a week ago Robin Pierce just didn’t turn up for work. Have you seen him since?” Toby asked, settling into his chair.
“I haven’t, sir. Neither hide nor hair.” However, as the landlady then pointed out rather ashamedly, a woman had to live and she’d let the rooms already. “I’ve put all Mr. Pierce’s belongings, such as they are, into a cupboard in the cellar in case he should return. They’ll be nice and safe there. I told the police that, but they didn’t seem particularly bothered.”
Police? So the constabulary had taken an interest in the disappearance, however cursory a one. “I think you did the right thing on both counts, Mrs. Chivers. If Pierce comes back here and finds he’s got nowhere to stay, he’ll have no right to complain. Had he left much behind?”
“Just about everything, as far as I can see, sir.” Mrs. Chivers shook her head. “He must have left with the clothes he was standing up in and whatever he’d stuffed into his pockets. Not even, as far as I could see, a change of smalls.”
Toby remembered his mother’s insistence that he always wear clean underwear in case of an accident; the logic of the stipulation still defeated him. Still, it was odd for Pierce not to have taken at least a bagful of things if he was deliberately going off and, say, working his passage somewhere. “Most odd about him leaving his stuff.”
