Salter let this pass. ‘Did he play much?’ he asked.
‘Every day. He and Bill used to get into a battle royal every day. Bill is going to be lost without him.’
‘A battle royal?’
‘They played hard. Not terrifically good, but they went at it like a couple of one-armed rug-beaters. The loser paid.’
‘Paid what?’
‘They always played for beer. The loser paid for the beer. Hey, Susie,’ he called to a waitress. ‘This is Mr Salter, a friend of Dave Summers. I was just telling him about the great games he used to have with Bill Bailey.’
The waitress struck a sad attitude. ‘Oh, those guys used to really beat up a storm, you know? And you always knew who was going to pay, like. Real kids they were. I mean, you know, for men, like, mature men, it was funny to see how bad it was for the one who lost. Especially Mr Bailey.’ She raised her eyebrows, shook her head, pursed her lips, looked around stagily to see if she were being overheard, all to indicate that Bailey was a poor loser. ‘They were at it every night,’ she concluded.
‘Did they play last week.’
‘Oh, sure. They played Thursday night before Mr Summers went to Montreal.’
‘Who won?’ Salter fixed an expression of warm, sad, piety on his face. He calculated that he had about two more questions before the waitress or the pro asked him why he was asking.
‘Oh, gee, I don’t know. Wait a minute. Yes, I do. Mr Summers must have won, because he was teasing Mr Bailey, you know, pretending to explain the game to him. Wait a minute, though, he couldn’t have won because he paid for the drinks. I think. No. Oh, gee, I don’t know. I guess Mr Bailey must have paid, because he was the loser all right.’ All this was delivered in the form of a passionate argument with herself.
‘I see you’re ahead of me, Inspector.’ Bailey stood by the table. As the meaning of his words got through to the others, the waitress scuttled, terrified, back to the bar, where she locked herself in conversation with the barman. The pro, however, looked quizically at him. ‘Toronto’s finest, eh? Here on official business? I guess you don’t want a lesson after all. You might have let me know, Inspector.’
‘I’d still like a lesson. Do you let coppers join?’
‘This is a club for the downtown professional man. That would include you.’
‘Then I’ll be here tomorrow, at three.’
The pro ducked his curls in a graceful bow, and left, looking like a Restoration beau about to sneak the immortal ‘Anyone-for-tennis?’ line into the wrong century.
Bailey sat down. ‘Thinking of joining the club, Inspector?’ he said, too cheerily.
No one is comfortable with the police, Salter thought.
‘I don’t know. He asked me to give it a try. I might.’
Bailey affected a hearty look. ‘If you want some practice, I’ll give you a game.’
‘I guess you need a new partner. You used to play Summers all the time, you say.’
‘We played a lot. We joined together a couple of years ago and we’ve been kind of seesawing back and forth. Did, I mean. It’s hard to start thinking in the past.’
‘Did you play him last week?’
‘Oh, sure. Every day until he left.’
‘Who won on Thursday? The waitress said you had quite a game.’
Bailey thought for a moment. Then, ‘He did, I think. Yes, he did. Why?’
‘No real reason, Mr Bailey. But it might be useful. For instance, all day Friday, Summers talked about having had a lucky day, and he paid a big dinner bill on Friday night. Now if his wife tells me he was feeling very happy on Thursday night, I’ll know it was just squash, nothing to do with whatever was making him so happy on Friday. See.’
Salter felt proud of this pile of rubbish, invented on the spur of the moment to divert Bailey. The reason was that the more he knew about Summers’s relationships, the more he would know about Summers, and that included knowing whether he was a good loser or a bad one, and what kind of winner he was, too.
Another man appeared at their table, about fifty, bald as a melon except for a fringe, with the calm, kindly face of a contented accountant. He was clean-shaven, and the fringe of hair had been cut to give him an ecclesiastical air. He looked out of place among all the young stockbrokers and lawyers, but seemed completely at home.
‘We were talking about David, Percy,’ Bailey said. ‘This is Inspector Salter, Percy. Percy Cranmer.’
Cranmer had the hand of a farmer, and he gripped Salter’s warmly. ‘Very sad,’ he said. ‘What about his home life? Did he leave any little ones? His wife all right?’
‘I think so, Mr Cranmer. He only had one daughter. ‘She’s at college.’
‘Is that right? We don’t know much about each other here, except for squash. I never met Dave’s wife.’
Bailey stood up. ‘We have a game, Inspector, if that’s ‘it.’
‘That’s it, Mr Bailey. Thanks very much. If I want you I’ll know where to find you.’
‘Like Percy said, Inspector, we don’t know much about each other here. I wouldn’t have a lot more to tell you about old Dave.’
‘I meant about that practice you mentioned. If I join the club.’
‘Oh. Right. Sure, Inspector. Any time. Come on Perce.’
Cranmer said, ‘Good luck, Inspector. I hope you catch the fella. Poor old Dave.’
Salter did not leave at once. When the two men had been gone for ten minutes he found the staircase connecting the courts, and climbed. There were three levels of court, arranged in blocks of eight, twenty-four in all. On one of the top levels Salter found a gallery overlooking the courts below and he stopped to watch. Bailey and Cranmer were playing in one of the end courts, and by standing back, Salter could watch them without being seen. He was surprised to see that the burly accountant played a delicate game, all flicks and soft shots, while Bailey bashed the ball whenever he got a clear shot. By the frequency of service changes, Salter judged that the two men were about even. They were also, compared to the players Salter had been watching in the lounge, very bad. Bailey constantly mis-hit the ball, and Cranmer was only effective if he could flick it around the front wall. They bumped into each other all the time, often interfering with each other’s shots. Bailey was as unsmiling and fierce as the good players downstairs, while Cranmer retained his fatherly smile throughout. Salter came to the conclusion that he should be able to beat either one of them in a week.
It was five o’clock, just the right time to telephone Molly Tripp, the student at the funeral. He was lucky. She was going to an early movie oh Bloor Street, but she agreed to meet Salter for a sandwich first, so they arranged to see each other at a café on Cumberland Street.
He arrived before her and ordered a beer. The café was almost deserted for no reason that Salter could see, because he had passed two similar establishments on the street that were jammed with people meeting after work. While he was wondering, Molly arrived.
‘Hi,’ she said, standing squarely before him, smiling like a child, sure of her welcome. She wore a pair of old blue jeans and a sweat shirt, and she was carrying a yellow slicker.
He stood up. ‘Let me get you a sandwich,’ he said. He pointed to the menu on the wall which listed a dozen kinds of sandwiches, all unfamiliar to him. I’ll have a “Reuben, Reuben”,’ she said. He ordered it, feeling foolish.
‘What’s a “Reuben, Reuben”,’