Complete works of peter.., p.260
Complete Works of Peter Cheyney. Illustrated, page 260
There was a pause. Then Callaghan said:
"If you wanted to remember my birthday, why didn't you remember it till midnight? You know, a person's birthday is over at midnight."
Gringall said: "I know, but I wanted to have a word with that fellow Ferdinand about something. While I was having a drink there I thought it would be a good idea if you came over and had a drink with me for your birthday."
Callaghan nodded.
He said: "I see."
He lit a cigarette, smoked silently for a few minutes.
Then: "That woman Doria Varette is a hell of a woman, Gringall."
Gringall raised his eyebrows.
"So you went over?" he said.
Callaghan grinned.
"Yes, I went over," he said. "When I got there I found you'd gone, but Ferdinand asked me to have a drink. So I stayed and listened to Varette sing."
Gringall smiled.
"Well, then I did contribute something towards your birthday."
Callaghan said: "I wonder."
Gringall began to draw a water-melon on his blotting pad. After a moment he looked up.
"What are you wondering about?" he asked.
Callaghan said: "I thought I'd like to talk to Miss Varette, so I sent her a note round. She came back to my flat and had a drink. She asked me if I could find somebody for her—somebody she believes is missing."
Gringall looked surprised.
"Did she now?" he said. "Well, it looks as if you've got a case. Congratulations."
Callaghan said: "Yes. But it is an odd sort of case, isn't it, Gringall? That's why I came down here."
Gringall, who had finished drawing the water-melon, began to draw a tomato.
He asked: "Why is it an odd case?"
Callaghan went on: "If you want to find somebody, the right people to go to are the police. The police have much more chance of finding somebody than a private detective has." He grinned at Gringall. "You ought to know that," he said.
Gringall said: "Good God! You're not telling me we can do anything better than you can?"
"I didn't say that," said Callaghan.
Gringall re-lit his pipe. He said:
"There might be something in what you say."
Callaghan said: "Why is it if this Wilbery fellow—that was the name, I think—has disappeared, his family aren't interested in it, that is if he has a family?"
"Quite," said Gringall. "Why was Doria Varette interested in Wilbery?"
"She's in love with him," said Callaghan.
Gringall said: "Well, let's see what we can find out. What did you say the name was?"
Callaghan gave him the name and address of Lionel Wilbery. Gringall rang the bell on his desk. After a minute a detective-constable came in. Gringall said:
"See if there's anything on the file about this name. See if it's been reported as a missing person and whether anybody's been in touch with us about it."
Callaghan nodded.
"That's nice of you, Gringall."
Gringall smiled at him.
"Not at all," he said. "Maybe you'll do something for me one day."
Callaghan grinned amiably. He lit a cigarette, began to blow smoke rings.
Gringall got up from his desk and walked over to the window. He looked out. After a few minutes he turned.
He said: "You're not losing your grip, are you, Slim?"
Callaghan said: "You damned policemen are always so mysterious. What does that mean?"
Gringall smiled.
"Let me do a little deduction for you," he said. "Last night you go to a night club. You meet a good-looking lady. You take her back to your flat. She goes because"—Gringall looked a trifle quizzical—"she probably likes the cut of your jib in the first place—they tell me you've got a way with women, although I could never see it personally—and, secondly, because she wants you to do something for her. She wants you to find this Wilbery. Is that all right?"
"That's all right," said Callaghan.
"Well," Gringall continued, "then you come down here to find out if Wilbery has been reported to us as a missing person."
"You don't say," said Callaghan. "And why do I do that?"
"You do that," said Gringall, "because if he hasn't been reported to us as a missing person you get in touch with the family. You tell them that you've been approached by Miss Varette to find Wilbery. You've already made up your mind that the Wilbery family wouldn't be too keen on an investigation being made at the instigation of some young woman they probably don't know. You think they'll probably commission you to find Wilbery. So you get paid both ways."
"Just fancy that now," said Callaghan. "That's all right, but it only works if the family haven't already been in touch with Scotland Yard—you realise that?"
Gringall nodded.
"We'll know in a minute," he said.
He went back to his desk and began to draw a pineapple. Callaghan blew more smoke rings. Two minutes afterwards the detective-constable returned.
"There's nothing on the file, sir," he turned to Gringall. "There's been no inquiry about Wilbery."
Gringall said: "Thanks."
The detective-constable went away. Gringall cocked an eye at Callaghan.
"So it looks as though it's come off, Slim," he said.
Callaghan got up.
"It looks as if it has," he answered.
He picked up his hat and went out.
Five minutes afterwards a very slim, elderly and rather distinguished-looking gentleman walked into Gringall's room. He said:
"Do you think he fell for it?"
Gringall said: "I'm certain he did, sir. Hook, line and sinker."
II.
Callaghan came into the office at five o'clock. He went into his room, sat down at the desk. He opened one of the drawers, took out a bottle of rye whisky and a medicine glass and drank a stiff three fingers. He felt better afterwards. He put his feet on the desk and smoked cigarettes.
At five-twenty Nikolls came in. Callaghan said:
"Well, Windy?"
Nikolls hung up his hat. He eased himself into the big leather arm-chair by the fire, took out a packet of Lucky Strikes. He looked at the medicine glass. Callaghan passed the bottle.
Nikolls said: "This guy Wilbery is a punk. He's been livin' around at Roedean Apartments for ten months. He's got a small allowance from his mother. She lives in a house called Deeplands at Norton Fitzwarren in Somerset. From what I can hear she's lousy with dough. His father's dead. His mother's cut his allowance two or three times because she's heard stories about his drinkin' an' goin' on."
Callaghan said: "I see. Did he do anything?"
"Not so you'd notice it," said Nikolls. "But he used to write poetry—I ask you! About four or five months ago he started gettin' around with an odd crowd. I think he started on the hop then. He's the sort of guy who goes for drugs. Sometimes he comes home an' sometimes he don't. He's been away for two three weeks or a month. He owes five months' rent, an' if it wasn't for his family the people at the apartments would pinch his furniture."
"Nice work," said Callaghan. "What was the housemaid like?"
"It wasn't a housemaid. They got a housekeeper there. She's all right too. That dame has nice hips an' ankles that strike right home."
Callaghan said: "Does she know any more?"
Nikolls grinned.
"I got a date with her sometime," he said. "She sorta likes me. Maybe I'll find something else out."
Callaghan said: "I shouldn't worry. You said it was the mother who lived down in Somerset?"
"Yeah," said Nikolls.
He poured out his second shot of whisky.
Callaghan said: "Get through on the telephone. See if you can get her. I want to talk to her."
Nikolls said: "Is this case a secret or do I know somethin' about it?"
Callaghan lit a fresh cigarette. He said:
"I saw Gringall this morning. I asked him what he wanted to see me about last night. He said he wanted to wish me a happy birthday. He said he had the date down in his diary." Callaghan grinned cynically. "He didn't know it was my birthday till you told him on the 'phone last night," he said.
Nikolls said: "Well, what's the answer?"
Callaghan said: "Gringall wanted me to go to Ferdie's Place last night. When I got there I thought Ferdie was a little too affable. He'd been told I was coming over."
"I get it," said Nikolls. "All that stuff about the lovely dame over there who was right up your street was just to make sure you did go over?"
Callaghan nodded.
"Gringall wanted me to see the Varette woman last night," he said. He drew the cigarette smoke down into his lungs. "When I meet her I ask her to come round here and have a drink. It is rather a coincidence that when she gets here she wants me to find Wilbery. That's the reason I went to see Gringall at the Yard this morning." Callaghan began to grin. "Gringall suggested," he went on, "that the family might be annoyed at my being commissioned by a young woman they didn't know to look for Wilbery. He thought it might be a good thing for me if I got in touch with family—that they might like to give me a job."
Nikolls said: "But if the family was worryin' about Wilbery, wouldn't they have been in touch with the Yard?"
"Right," said Callaghan. "But it's obvious that the family haven't been worrying about Wilbery, because Gringall went out of his way to let me know that they haven't been in touch with the Yard."
Nikolls nodded.
"It's goddam mysterious, I reckon," he said. "It just proves somethin' or other, but I don't know what."
Callaghan said: "When you were making a play for that housekeeper round at the Roedean Apartments, she didn't say anything about the man I told you about—the man who looked like a Cuban?"
Nikolls shook his head.
"No," he said. "I talked to her about that. She didn't know a thing." He sighed audibly. "A dame with a shape like that don't have to know much."
He went out.
Callaghan sat blowing smoke rings, looking at the ceiling, wondering about Gringall. Outside he could hear Nikolls trying to get through to Mrs. Wilbery at Norton Fitzwarren, being told that there was a delay on the line.
He wondered what Gringall's game was. Gringall was no fool—Callaghan had been up against him too often since the days of the Meraulton case to have any delusions on that point—and it was certain that Gringall had some scheme in the back of his mind; something which concerned Callaghan or needed Callaghan unconsciously to bring that scheme to fruition.
And Gringall would have no scruples about using Callaghan. Why should he? Callaghan remembered, with a grin, the numerous occasions during the past two years when he had made good use of the police officer. And Gringall had a long memory.
Was it a sudden idea which had caused him to telephone through the night before? Obviously he had wanted to get Callaghan over to Ferdie's Place. Obviously he had wanted Callaghan to meet Doria Varette. Why? It was just as obvious that he had not wanted to be present during the interview, otherwise he would have stayed at the bottle party on the off-chance of Callaghan turning up.
Callaghan began to think about the Cuban. He wondered why Doria Varette's late caller had been so generous with the two fifty-pound notes. Fifty-pound notes did not grow on apple trees and there was no consideration for the pay-off. Maybe, the private detective thought, the Cuban had taken him for someone else. Why not?
What the hell...? Callaghan, who seldom worried about looking at anything that happened beyond the end of his nose, who believed that Sherlock Holmes' methods of deduction looked wonderful in novels but flopped badly when it came down to cases, was concerned with the facts that were, at the moment, right under his nose. The facts were Gringall planting him, Callaghan, at Ferdie's Place at a crucial moment, the interview with Doria Varette, the encounter with the Cuban and the fact that nobody seemed to give a damn what had happened to Lionel Wilbery—except Doria Varette.
As facts they added up, at the moment, to sweet nothing at all. But they constituted a good kicking-off ground. Callaghan, whose motto Gringall had, in a caustic moment, once said was "We Get There Somehow and Who The Hell Cares How," thought that, as a kicking-off ground, the facts were all right.
Callaghan wondered if Lionel Wilbery had disappeared. He might easily be on a bout of drink or drugs or something. The Varette woman might be panicking about him because she was crazy about him or because she was trying to get away with something.... You never knew with women.
He began to grin. That was about the truest thing that anybody had ever said. You never knew with women. At least you knew some things but nothing that ever added up to anything logical. Women were the true individualists. They were so damned keen on being themselves that, very often, their simplicity of outlook made you think they were much more mysterious, much more dangerous, than they really were. The essential difference between men and women—especially when they got into some sort of trouble—was that a man did things by reason and a woman by what she thought was "instinct," but which was, in reality, the quickest method of getting what she wanted—a point of view which was, in fact, much more logical than that of the male. A man always saw certain things sticking up in his way. He would try to evade them if he could. A woman saw nothing she did not wish to see—not even the inevitable.
He took his feet off the desk, stubbed out his cigarette end in the ash-tray, lit a fresh one. He opened the bottom drawer, took out the rye bottle and the medicine glass which Nikolls had replaced, and poured himself a drink. The rye tasted acid and bitter. Callaghan thought that maybe he'd been drinking a little too much lately, then qualified the idea with the thought that you could not really drink too much anyhow.
Nikolls stuck his head round the doorway. He said:
"She's on the line. She's got a voice like the Queen of Sheba after she'd graduated from Vassar. She's so goddamned county it hurts. She's all yours."
Callaghan picked up the telephone. He said:
"Is that Mrs. Wilbery?"
The voice at the other end said yes.
Callaghan went on talking. He sounded quite impersonal and quite dispassionate. But he managed to imbue his words with a certain urgency intended to do something to the listener. He said:
"This is Mr. Callaghan of Callaghan Investigations, London. I am calling you, Mrs. Wilbery, because I understand from the Scotland Yard authorities that you have not reported the fact that your son, Mr. Lionel Wilbery, is believed to be missing..."
She said: "But I don't understand. Why should I have reported that fact? Is Lionel missing... and missing from where?"
"Exactly," said Callaghan briskly. "My whole point in calling you, Mrs. Wilbery, is that this organisation is not keen on undertaking an investigation in which the nearest relatives of the missing person are not particularly interested."
There was a pause. Then the cool voice at the other end asked:
"Mr. Callaghan. Is my son missing? Who believes him to be missing? Please explain."
Callaghan said: "Of course. Yesterday, Mrs. Wilbery, a young lady by the name of Varette—Miss Doria Varette—assigned us to investigate the whereabouts of Lionel Wilbery. She suggested that he had not been seen for some weeks; that she was very worried about him. She also informed us that he was a person of not very good habits, that he had been in the habit of taking drugs, that he was in the habit of mixing with people who were not-so-good. She has offered to pay us a considerable sum to try and find him. Naturally we took up the matter with the Scotland Yard authorities. They tell us that you have not indicated that you consider him to be missing."
She said coolly: "But I am naturally very interested, Mr. Callaghan. I want to know what has happened to Lionel, if anything has happened to him."
Callaghan grinned into the receiver. He said:
"Well, Mrs. Wilbery, you surely aren't very surprised. After all, you knew the sort of people he was getting around with... didn't you?"
"Really, Mr. Callaghan...." The voice was caustic. "And may I ask how you come to that conclusion?"
Callaghan said: "Why did you cut his allowance?"
There was a pause. Then she said, as coolly as ever:
"I don't think we ought to talk about this on the telephone, Mr. Callaghan. First of all if there are any grounds for believing that Lionel has disappeared I should naturally want him found. But I really don't see why a Miss Varette should concern herself. Who is Miss Varette?"
Callaghan said: "Apparently Miss Varette is, or was, your son's fiancée. Didn't you know?"
"No," she answered. "I didn't know Miss Varette. But then there are many of my son's friends whom I haven't met."
Callaghan said: "Thanks, Mrs. Wilbery. I'm sorry if I've troubled you...."
"Just a moment, Mr. Callaghan," said Mrs. Wilbery. "I suppose if you are investigating this business for Miss Varette there is no reason why you should not also represent us?"
Callaghan looked up at Nikolls who was leaning against the office door. His wink was comprehensive. He said into the telephone:
"No reason at all, Mrs. Wilbery."
"Excellent," she said. "Well... I wonder if you could come and see me. You see I don't go to London very often. I would like to talk to you about this."
"Of course," said Callaghan. "I'll try and see you to-morrow."
"Perhaps," she went on, "you might see my daughter first. She's in London. Perhaps she may know something of Lionel. I'm afraid he's an extraordinary boy. Will you go and see her and let me know if she has any ideas when you come down?"
Callaghan said he would. He took a note of Miss Leonore Wilbery's address—15, Claremont House, Welbeck Street, murmured a few words of farewell and hung up the receiver.
Nikolls said: "Nice work... hookin' two clients on one job."
Callaghan did not reply. He was wondering if Leonore Wilbery was going to look as good as her mother sounded.
III.
Callaghan and Nikolls sat on high stools in the upstairs bar at the Premier in Dover Street. They were drinking double rye whiskies.
Nikolls said: "It looks goddam screwy to me. You don't know anythin' about this Varette baby an' she's slipped up already, ain't she?"
