He swallowed, and advanced on the inner door, its reeded glass panel inscribed in black Mr Thomas Pepper. He put his hand – it was suddenly sweaty – on the knob, twisted, found he had no purchase, tightened his grip, twisted again and the door swung so wide that he almost stumbled inside.
Behind a small desk – the room itself was small enough – a man rose to greet him, hand held out. He did not look at all like the private eye Henry had envisaged. Somehow it was impossible to think of that extended hand as holding a gun or that in the bottom drawer of that desk there would be a bottle of bourbon, or even of Scotch. Red-faced, Thomas Pepper was, if not actually fat, certainly a very solid shape. But, somehow again, not a shape adapted to sudden action. His shoulders were, plainly, stooped and his brown suit looked as if it was worn unchanged day after day.
‘Tom Pepper, at your service. Tom Pepper, TP, where I got TOP Investigations from. My little joke. Should have been TP Investigations, but couldn’t resist that extra O. Make it sound big. Ah, well …’
‘Oh, yes. Yes.’ Henry cleared his throat. ‘Look, there’s – there’s something …’
‘Here, take a pew. Take the pew, only one there is. And tell me all about it, beginning—’ He drew a virgin-white pad towards himself— ‘with the name.’
It was all, abruptly, cosy. A cosy atmosphere.
Henry sat in the chair in front of the desk, a comfortably padded one, and having given his name and spelt out that always difficult T – A – I – L – O – R, not T – A – Y, once again produced the story of the alien toothbrush. In full detail.
He saw, when he had come to the end, that Tom Pepper was as baffled as he had been himself, even turning to the computer at the corner of the desk and peering at it with a look of hopelessly hopeful expectation.
‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Wonderful things, computers. They never made enough use of ’em when I was in the Force, spent all their time feeding in information and not enough getting information out. No, this little feller’s what I call the real Policeman’s Friend, not the thing used to be in your trousers case you were taken short out on the beat.’
He gave the keyboard at his elbow a little tap of gratitude.
‘Know what I found out on it the other day? Just who the original Tom Pepper was. Out of curiosity, tapped in me own name. Found that, back in the 1800s, Tom Pepper was a champion liar. He was a sailor, and he drowned and, natch, went to Hell. And, do you know, he told so many lies down there that in the end they had to kick him out. Out of Hell. My ancestor. But, don’t you worry, this Tom Pepper’s no liar. Well, only sometimes. Interests of truth.’
Henry began to think his trip up to Queensway was going to be a waste of time. But Tom Pepper’s next remark gave him a little burst of hope.
‘Yes, but get down to it. What you’ve told me’s interesting. Very. Make a nice case. Beats standing in the rain, erring wife, wandering daughter, or, come to that, lying in the dust putting a bug under a bed. You got that toothbrush here?’
‘No. No, I haven’t. Actually, it’s locked in my briefcase, and I didn’t bring that with me.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Tom Pepper said comfortably. ‘See, way I work, it’s bit of a chat with the client first, ’specially with a matrimonial, and then ask ’em to come in again, with the photos or whatever. And, of course, initial fees. Gives ’em time to change their mind. Often do, the ladies. No skin off my nose. Client who doesn’t really want to be one, nothing but a pain in the whatsit. Neck.’
But in Henry’s mind a more immediate anxiety had been set up.
‘Er – the fee?’ he said. ‘I mean … Well, how much will that be?’
‘Right. Down to business. Best way. So, initial’s two hundred and fifty.’
He must have seen the look on Henry’s face. He was watching him keenly enough.
‘But that’s matrimonials. Or missing persons. Your case? Well, make it a straight two hundred. View of the interest.’
‘Yes, I see. But – But, well, how much will it be after that?’
‘Hard to say, hard to say. Depends how much work there turns out to be. I charge by the hour. So, might come a bit pricey. Other hand, if all I do is sit here poking about on the Net, could be a lot cheaper. Here’s my little printed note. Take it away. Have a ponder. Then give me a tinkle. Or not.’
Henry had waited till the following Saturday – ‘Quite a rush on at Manifold House,’ he told Alice – but he arrived at the cramped little office in Queensway at exactly ten a.m., with in his wallet pocket the alien toothbrush and ten carefully folded twenty-pound notes.
Sitting once more in front of Tom Pepper, he thrust them out.
There. Done it.
Tom slipped the bundle into the drawer in front of him.
‘So, we’re on,’ he said. ‘Mystery of the missing toothbrush. Or, come to think of it, mystery of the anything-but-missing toothbrush. You got it with you this time?’
Henry handed it across.
‘Right. Your dabs all over of course, and no doubt your pal’s, Mr Crossley-Smith. Very nice sort of client, Mr Smith. So what’ve we got?’
A long scrutiny.
‘Yes. Useful sort of name here. Gold letters. The Aristocrat. Tells us something.’
Henry, who had taken little notice of the flowing golden letters, could not think what they could tell anybody.
‘America,’ Tom Pepper said. ‘Bet a shilling. You ever see anybody this country calling a toothbrush The Aristocrat? No, it’s only over there they fancy aristocracy. Haven’t got any of their own, that’s why.’
Henry was impressed. A little progress. Straight away.
Then he saw Tom Pepper looking at him.
‘You want to go on with this, son? Because you’re in trouble. You know that?’
‘But – But why? I mean, just because that funny-looking toothbrush somehow got into the mug in our bathroom, surely it can’t mean anything … Anything, well, serious?’
‘Oh, but it does. If you go on with this, let me tell you, something mucky’ll come your way. Can smell it. Still, if you don’t go on, something mucky’ll still turn up. You’d better believe that.’
What mucky? Henry thought. How could anything mucky be happening to me?
And then the idea of what might be mucky tickled again at a corner of his mind. But impossible. Impossible.
He sat forward in Tom Pepper’s comfortable client’s chair.
‘Look,’ he said with a touch of real ferocity, ‘how do I know I can trust you, Mr Pepper?’
Tom Pepper gave a hint of a smile.
He sat back then and pulled open the drawer in front of him. From it he took the little wad of twenties Henry had so carefully folded together and slapped it down on the desk.
‘That’s why,’ he said.
And then, somehow, Henry found he had taken his decision.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, Mr Pepper, I do want to go on with it. And I’ll pay anything more there is. I’ll pay, whatever it takes.’
For the third Saturday running Henry told Alice that there was a rush on at Manifold House. Luckily, she always left matters concerning his work altogether to him, and simply said she could manage to do the big shop quite nicely on her own this week. So for a third time he made his way along the crowded Queensway pavement, thinking vaguely