But such a view was contrary to Prentisse’s meticulous mind. He was also a man of impulses and curious obstinacies. That was why he suddenly made up his mind that the right thing to do would be to visit a detective agency and check up that chapter in the light of such new impressions as he might form. But the resolve brought also an annoyance.
There was the chance that his guesses in that chapter had been reasonably correct and that the chapter would not have to be re-written. But whether that were so or not, time would be wasted and just when he was fired with the urge to finish the book. To ignore the letter seemed sheer carelessness. That letter from the policeman might start a spate of inquiries into local colour. Heaven knew what people and professions would be writing to the Press about the gross errors they had unearthed. He could almost see one such letter—
Dear Sir,
Referring to the matter of local colour, I was very amused to find in a novel by Lutley Prentisse entitled ‘Tingling Symbols’ a statement that …
In any case that morning he was unable to settle down to work and just before noon he went along to his club. He ran into George Foster and they lunched together.
‘Was that Peter Claire I saw getting into a taxi just as I came in?’ Prentisse happened to ask.
‘That’s right,’ George said. ‘I was talking to him just before. He’s going down to Cambridge tomorrow to play for the Pilgrims against the Wanderers. A two-day match. Did you want to see him?’
‘Well, in a way—yes. I wanted him to give me an introduction to his brother. He’s a Chief Constable, as you probably know, and I hoped he might give me some local colour and save some rather tiresome inquiries.’
George Foster was probably the only man to whom he would have told that morning’s worries. George didn’t seem at all unhappy about it.
‘I don’t think a Chief Constable would help very much,’ he said. ‘Why not go to the fountainhead? I know a really good firm of private detectives who did an excellent job for a friend of mine. You go along and see them. Just make up some yarn or other. Just a simple job that won’t cost very much. That ought to give you the whole bag of tricks.’
Foster happened to remember the name of the firm and the approximate address, and that Friday afternoon Prentisse made a bold decision and went to Took Street. The taxi driver happened to know the number and on a door on the first floor Prentisse found what he wanted.
PERRING AND HOLT
PRIVATE INQUIRY AGENTS
He knocked, and the door was opened with instant and agreeable promptitude by a receptionist.
‘Can I see one of the principals, please?’ he asked.
‘Take a seat, sir, please,’ the young lady replied. ‘I think Mr Holt is free. Have you a card?’
A couple of minutes and he was in Holt’s room. It was a smallish office crammed with filing cabinets and reference books. There was the usual flat-topped desk and swivel chair. Holt, a dapper-looking youngish man, rose and held out a hand.
‘How d’you do, Mr Prentisse. Take a seat, will you? Cigarette? … And what precisely may we do for you?’
‘Well, er—’
Holt smiled reassuringly. ‘Secrets are safe with us, sir. We’re used to handling affairs of the utmost delicacy, and in the strictest of confidence. You can rely on us implicitly.’
Prentisse had to think quickly. The thoughts he had had were now in thin air. It would be crude to admit that he was in that room solely for the purpose of picking brains. When he did speak it was only to make time.
‘It’s a fairly trivial matter,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t matter to us, sir,’ Holt assured him. ‘Whatever the work, we can undertake it. And in strict confidence.’
His manner was suave and impressive. Prentisse thought of the use he had made in his novel of an imaginary detective agency and decided on something along the same lines.
‘Well’—there was still a certain diffidence in his manner—‘I take it you’re prepared to keep people under observation? Not necessarily to do with divorce, of course.’
‘Most certainly.’ He drew a pad towards him, and the pen was poised. ‘Name, sir?’ he inquired.
‘Lutley Prentisse.’
Holt smiled. ‘Not your name, sir,’ he said. ‘The name of the person it will be our task to watch.’
Prentisse smiled too, but not at that mistake he had made. An idea had come to him, and wrapped up in it were all the elements of the ludicrous.
‘Ah, yes, of course. The name is Peter Claire.’
‘Address?’
‘Three, Oudenarde Mansions, Kensington.’
‘And what exactly do you want, sir—and when?’
‘Just a report in confidence, by Monday, of what he does from now until then. You can manage that?’
‘Most decidedly. Where do you wish the report delivered?’
‘Five B, Porter Street, Mornington Crescent. About noon, if you can manage it.’
That was virtually all. As he walked down the stairs Prentisse was both gratified and mildly amused. He had been in the office of a detective agency and what he had seen and heard would involve only minor alterations in the carefully written chapter.
As to the amusement, it would certainly be uproariously funny if Peter, during his stay in Cambridge, discovered that a private detective was on his heels. And then suddenly he halted, and frowned. Annoying, too. The least thing he could do was to get hold of Peter and warn him. A knowledge of what was going to happen would make the joke the property of Peter as well as of himself.
From his flat he rang Oudenarde Mansions. Claire’s man, Daniels, answered the telephone. Mr Prentisse was just a few minutes too late. Mr Claire had just left by taxi. Yes, Daniels was certain he had gone to Cambridge. He’d definitely taken his golf bag and a weekend suitcase.
‘You know the hotel he’ll be staying at?’ Prentisse asked.
‘I don’t, sir,’ Daniels said. ‘All I know is that he’ll be back early on Monday.’
So that was that—though Prentisse was still glad he’d hit on Claire as a stalking-horse for Holt’s detective. A less intimate friend of the family would be highly indignant when he learned what had been going on. And Claire would learn, though now he must wait until Monday. So Prentisse sat down at the typewriter and wrote for Claire’s exclusive enlightenment an account of the whole thing.
… And that’s how it happened. It will be extremely amusing if you chance to spot the sleuth. In any case I’ll send you the report, innocuous though it will be. Until Monday then.
Yours as ever,
Lutley.
P.S. Why not have dinner with us on Monday? I’m expecting Dorothy back from Carnford. Her sister’s much better.
He went out at once and mailed the letter and as he walked back to the apartment he wondered if Peter’s reactions would be altogether what he himself had expected. Not that Peter hadn’t a sense of humour in a rather hearty way.
That evening he worked hard at the detective agency chapter and rewrote where the afternoon’s call on Holt seemed to require it. By Saturday he had the chapter well in hand and that afternoon he treated himself to a matinee.
In the evening he dined at his club and then went back to his apartment and outlined the final chapter of his novel. On the Sunday morning he went to the Hampstead