The Franchise Affair (20 page)

“You want me to give you the name of a private agent, is that it?”

“Yes, I suppose it has come to that. But I did wonder—”

“Wonder what?” Kevin asked, as he hesitated.

“Well, I did think of going to Grant at the Yard and saying quite frankly that I had found out how she could have known about the Sharpes and about the house; and that she had met a man in Larborough and that I had a witness of the meeting.”

“So that they could do what?”

“So that they could investigate the girl's movements during that month instead of us.”

“And you think they would?”

“Of course. Why not?”

“Because it wouldn't be worth their while. All they would do when they found out that she was not trustworthy would be to drop the case thankfully into oblivion. She has not sworn to anything so they could not prosecute her for perjury.”

“They could proceed against her for having misled them.”

“Yes, but it wouldn't be worth their while. It won't be easy to unearth her movements for that month, we may be sure. And on top of all that unnecessary investigation they would have the job of preparing and presenting a case. It's highly unlikely that an
overworked department, with serious cases flooding in at their doors, are going to all that bother when they could quietly drop the thing on the spot.”

“But it's supposed to be a department of Justice. It leaves the Sharpes—”

“No, a department of the Law. Justice begins in court. As you very well know. Besides, Rob, you haven't brought them any proof of anything. You don't know that she ever went to Milford. And the fact that she picked up a man at the Midland, and had tea with him, doesn't do anything to disprove her story that she was picked up by the Sharpes. In fact the only leg you have to stand on is Alec Ramsden, 5 Spring Gardens, Fulham. South West.”

“Who is he?”

“Your private sleuth. And a very good one, take it from me. He has a flock of tame operators at call, so if he is busy himself he can supply you with a fairly good substitute. Tell him I gave you his name and he won't palm off a dud on you. Not that he would, anyhow. He's the salt of the earth. Pensioned from the Force because of a wound ‘received in the course of duty.' He'll do you proud. I must go. If there's anything else I can do just give me a ring sometime. I wish I had time to come down and see The Franchise and your witches for myself. They grow on me. Goodbye.”

Robert laid down the receiver, picked it up again, asked for Information, and obtained the telephone number of Alec Ramsden. There was no answer and he sent a telegram saying that he, Robert Blair, needed some work done urgently and that Kevin Macdermott had said that Ramsden was the man to do it.

“Robert,” said Aunt Lin coming in pink and indignant, “did you know that you left the fish on the hall table and it has soaked through to the mahogany and Christina was waiting for it.”

“Is the gravamen of the charge the mahogany or keeping Christina waiting?”

“Really, Robert, I hardly know what's come over you. Since you got involved in this Franchise affair you've changed entirely. A fortnight ago you would never have dreamed of putting a parcel of fish down on polished mahogany and forgetting all about it. And if you had you would be sorry about it and apologise.”

“I do apologise, Aunt Lin; I am truly contrite. But it is not often I am saddled with a responsibility as serious as the present one and you must forgive me if I am a little jaded.”

“I don't think you are jaded at all. On the contrary, I have never seen you so pleased with yourself. I think you are positively
relishing
this sordid affair. Only this morning Miss True-love at the Anne Boleyn was condoling with me on your being mixed up in it.”

“Was she indeed? Well, I condole with Miss Truelove's sister.”

“Condole about what?”

“On having a sister like Miss Truelove. You
are
having a bad time, aren't you, Aunt Lin.”

“Don't be sarcastic, dear. It is not pleasant for anyone in this town to see the notoriety that has overtaken it. It has always been a quiet and dignified little place.”

“I don't like Milford as much as I did a fortnight ago,” Robert said reflectively, “so I'll save my tears.”

“No less than four separate charabancs arrived, from Larborough at one time or another today, having come for nothing but to inspect the Franchise
en route.”

“And who catered for them?” Robert asked, knowing that coach traffic was not welcome in Milford.

“No one. They were simply furious.”

“That will larn them to go poking their noses. There is nothing Larborough minds about as much as its stomach.”

“The vicar's wife insists on being Christian about it, but I think that that is the wrong point of view.”

“Christian?”

“Yes; ‘reserving our judgment,' you know. That is merely feebleness, not Christianity. Of course I don't discuss the case, Robert dear; even with her. I am the soul of discretion. But of course she knows how I feel, and I know how she feels, so discussion is hardly necessary.”

What was clearly a snort came from Nevil where he was sunk in an easy chair.

“Did you say something, Nevil dear?”

The nursery tone clearly intimidated Nevil. “No, Aunt Lin,” he said meekly.

But he was not going to escape so easily; the snort had only too clearly been a snort. “I don't grudge you the drink, dear, but is that your
third
whisky? There is a Traminer for dinner, and you won't taste it at all after that strong stuff. You mustn't get into bad habits if you are going to marry a Bishop's daughter.”

“I am not going to marry Rosemary.”

Miss Bennet stared, aghast. “Not!”

“I would as soon marry a Public Assistance Board.”

“But, Nevil!”

“I would as soon marry a radio set.” Robert remembered Kevin's remark about Rosemary giving birth to nothing but a gramophone record. “I would as soon marry a crocodile.” Since Rosemary was very pretty Robert supposed that “crocodile” had something to do with tears. “I would as soon marry a soap-box.” Marble Arch, Robert supposed. “I would as soon marry
the Ack-Emma”
That seemed to be final.

“But Nevil, dear,
why!”

“She is a very silly creature. Almost as silly as the
Watchman”

Robert heroically refrained from mentioning the fact that for the last six years the
Watchman
had been Nevil's bible.

“Oh, come, dear; you've had a tiff; all engaged couples do. It's a good thing to get the give-and-take business on a firm basis
before marriage; those couples who never quarrel during their engagement lead surprisingly rowdy lives after marriage; so don't take a small disagreement too seriously. You can ring her up before you go home tonight—”

“It is a quite fundamental disagreement,” Nevil said coldly. “And there is no prospect whatever of my ringing her up.”

“But Nevil, dear, what—”

The three thin cracked notes of the gong floated through her protest and gave her pause. The drama of broken engagements gave place on the instant to more immediate concerns.

“That is the gong. I think you had better take your drink in with you, dear. Christina likes to serve the soup as soon as she has added the egg, and she is not in a very good mood tonight because of getting the fish so late. Though why that should make any difference to her I can't think. It is only grilled, and that doesn't take any time. It's not as if she had had to wipe the fish juice off the mahogany, because I did that myself.”

I
t further upset Aunt Lin that Robert should have breakfast next morning at 7:45 so that he could go early to the office. It was another sign of the degeneration that the Franchise affair was responsible for. To have early breakfast so that he might catch a train, or set out for a distant meet, or attend a client's funeral, was one thing. But to have early breakfast just so that he could arrive at work at an office-boy hour was a very odd proceeding, and unbefitting a Blair.

Robert smiled, walking up the sunny High Street still shuttered and quiet. He had always liked the early morning hours, and it was at this hour that Milford looked its best; its pinks and sepias and creams as delicate in the sunlight as a tinted drawing. Spring was merging into summer, and already the warmth of the pavement radiated into the cool air; the pollarded limes were full out. That would mean shorter nights for the lonely women at The Franchise, he remembered thankfully. But perhaps—with any luck—by the time the summer was actually here their vindication would be complete and their home no longer a beleaguered fortress.

Propped against the still closed door of the office was a long thin grey man who seemed to be all bones and to have no stomach at all.

“Good-morning,” Robert said. “Did you want to see me?”

“No,” said the grey man. “You wanted to see me.”

“
I
did?”

“At least so your telegram said. I take it you're Mr. Blair?”

“But you can't be here already!” Robert said.

“It's not far,” the man said laconically.

“Come in,” said Robert trying to live up to Mr. Ramsden's standard of economy in comment.

In the office he asked as he unlocked his desk: “Have you had breakfast?”

“Yes, I had bacon and eggs at the White Hart.”

“I am wonderfully relieved that you could come yourself.”

“I had just finished a case. And Kevin Macdermott has done a lot for me.”

Yes; Kevin, for all his surface malice and his over-crowded life, found the will and the time to help those who deserved help. In which he differed markedly from the Bishop of Larborough, who preferred the undeserving.

“Perhaps the best way would be for you to read this statement,” he said, handing Ramsden the copy of Betty Kane's statement to the police, “and then we can go on with the story from there.”

Ramsden took the typescript, sat down in the visitors' chair—folded up would be a more accurate description of his action—and withdrew himself from Robert's presence very much as Kevin had done in the room in St. Paul's Churchyard. Robert, taking out his own work, envied them their power of concentration.

“Yes, Mr. Blair?” he said presently; and Robert gave him the rest of the story: the girl's identification of the house and its inmates, Robert's own entrance into the affair, the police decision that they would not proceed on the available evidence, Leslie Wynn's resentment and its result in the
Ack-Emma
publicity,
his own interviews with the girl's relations and what they revealed, his discovery that she went bus-riding and that a double-decker did run on the Milford bus-route during the relevant weeks, and his unearthing of X.

“To find out more about X is your job, Mr. Ramsden. The lounge waiter, Albert, knows what he looked like, and this is a list of residents for the period in question. It would be too great luck that he should be staying at the Midland, but one never knows. After that you're on your own. Tell Albert I sent you, by the way. I've known him a long time.”

“Very good. I'll get over to Larborough now. I'll have a photograph of the girl by tomorrow, but perhaps you could lend me your
Ack-Emma
one for today.”

“Certainly. How are you going to get a proper photograph of her?”

“Oh. Ways.”

Robert deduced that Scotland Yard had been given one when the girl was reported missing, and that his old colleagues at Headquarters would not be too reluctant to give him a copy; so he left it at that.

“There's just a chance that the conductor of one of those double-decker buses may remember her,” he said as Ramsden was going. “They are Larborough and District Motor Services buses. The garage is in Victoria Street.”

At half-past nine the staff arrived—one of the first being Nevil; a change in routine which surprised Robert: Nevil was usually the last to arrive and the last to settle down. He would wander in, divest himself of his wrappings in his own small room at the back, wander into “the office” to say good morning, wander into the “waiting-room” at the back to say hello to Miss Tuff, and finally wander into Robert's room and stand there thumbing open the bound roll of one of the esoteric periodicals that came for him by post and commenting on the permanently deplorable
state of affairs in England. Robert had grown quite used to running through his morning post to a Nevil obbligato. But today Nevil came in at the appointed time, went into his own room, shut the door firmly after him, and, if the pulling in and out of drawers was any evidence, settled down to work at once.

Miss Tuff came in with her notebook and her dazzling white peter-pan collar, and Robert's normal day had begun. Miss Tuff had worn peter-pan collars over her dark frock for twenty years, and would have looked undressed, almost indecent, without them now. A fresh one went on every morning; the previous day's having been laundered the night before and laid ready for putting on tomorrow. The only break in the routine was on Sundays. Robert had once met Miss Tuff on a Sunday and entirely failed to recognise her because she was wearing a jabot.

Until half-past ten Robert worked, and then realised that he had had breakfast at an abnormally early hour and was now in need of more sustenance than an office cup of tea. He would go out and have coffee and a sandwich at the Rose and Crown. You got the best coffee in Milford at the Anne Boleyn, but it was always full of shopping females
(“How
nice to see you, my dear! We
did
miss you so at Ronnie's party! And
have
you heard . . . ”) and that was an atmosphere he would not face for all the coffee in Brazil. He would go across to the Rose and Crown, and afterwards he would shop a little on behalf of the Franchise people, and after lunch he would go out and break to them gently the bad news about the
Watchman
. He could not do it on the telephone because they had no telephone now. The Larborough firm had come out with ladders and putty and recalcitrant sheets of glass and had replaced the windows without fuss or mess. But they, of course, were Private Enterprise. The Post Office, being a Government department, had taken the matter of the telephone into avizandum and would move in their own elephantine good time. So Robert planned to spend part of his afternoon telling the Sharpes the news he could not tell them by telephone.