Chapter XVII.The Lovely LadyTo walk round Leicester Square in search of the mysterious Kitty gave Ellery an uncomfortable feeling. Kitty appeared to belong to a type of lovely lady which had not come much in his way, and his first sensation was one of strong distaste. Moreover, he very soon realised that the description given to him was not likely to be of much value. There seemed to be a whole tribe of Kittys in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, and Ellery liked each one he set eyes on less than the last. He came speedily to two conclusions—first, that he would never spot the right one by means of the description which Walter Brooklyn had given, and secondly, that it would be quite out of his power to address one of these ladies, or to do anything but seek refuge in flight if, as seemed most probable, one of them attempted to address him. He tried to overcome this feeling; but it was no use. Even though no one had yet spoken to him, he turned tail, and took refuge in Orange Street for a few minutes’ reflection.He knew that he could not do it. Moreover, to walk round Leicester Square addressing strange females by a Christian name which might or might not belong to them was probably an excellent prelude to adventures of a sort, but hardly to the gaining of the particular information of which he was in search. The way to find Kitty was not to hunt for a hypothetical needle in a very unpleasant haystack, but to go straight to some one who was likely to know. And who would be more likely than Will Jaxon, who was celebrated as the devil of a fellow with the women, and lived, moreover, in bachelor chambers hardly more than round the corner in Panton Street? Ellery set off there to find his man.Jaxon had been with Ellery at Oxford, and, dissimilar as many of their tastes were, they had kept up the acquaintance. They had in common an intense absorption in the technique of the theatre, in which Ellery was interested as a young and promising writer of plays, and Jaxon as an equally promising producer. But Jaxon’s way of living was very different from his friend’s. He was not a vicious man; but he said that vice, and still more the shoddy imitation of it which passes current in the Londondemi-monde, attracted him as a study. He liked watching the game, and making little bets with himself as to its fortunes. It was, he said, a harmless amusement, and, if the professors of psychology based their views largely on a study of the “diseases of personality,” why should not he, a mere amateur, follow their example? So he passed much of his time among persons whose ways of living were, to say the least, not in conformity with the dictates of the Nonconformist conscience. It was his pride to know the Society underworld; and, in particular, he was wont to boast that he knew the “points” of all the important “lovely ladies” of London. It was ten to one that he would know where to find Kitty.Jaxon, fortunately, was in, and Ellery was soon able to explain his business. He wanted a woman, none too young, and getting fat, whose name was Kitty something-or-other. She was, he believed, often to be found round about Leicester Square.“You’re the very last man I ever expected to come to me on a quest like that,” said Jaxon with a laugh. “Now, if it had been Lorimer or Wentworth—but you of all men. Oh, I know it’s all right, and your intentions are strictly honourable. But do you know that there are at least a dozen Kittys, all of them celebrated in their way, who conform fully to the description you have given me? How am I to know which one you want?”Ellery repeated his description, giving every detail that had been told him—the golden, dyed hair, the smile that switched on and off like an electric light—“That’s not much help. It’s part of the professional equipment,” said Jaxon—the dark eyes, the slovenly walk.“The golden hair and the dark eyes help to narrow the field; but there are still half a dozen it might be—all of the fat and forty brigade, and all of them no better than they should be according to the world’s reckoning. Five of the six are just the ordinary thing; but the other is something quite out of the common run. She’s not what you would call an honest woman; but she’s a very remarkable person for all that. I wonder if it is she you are after.”“Tell me about her first.”“Well her name—or at least the name she’s known by—is Kitty Frensham. Kitty Lessing it used to be when I first knew her. In those days she was more or less the property of a Russian Archduke, or something of the sort. Or rather, he used to be altogether her property. Then, a year or so ago, he died, and since then she has been rather at a loose end. She’s fat and forty; but she’s a most fascinating woman. Awfully clever, too.”“Can you get hold of her for me?”“Yes, I think I know where to find her; but you’d better understand that she’s not at all the ordinary sort of street-crawler. If she’s your woman, the description you gave was a bit misleading. She is most often about with Horace Mandleham, the painter chap, nowadays. Come round to Duke’s with me, and I dare say we shall find her.”Ellery knew about Duke’s, of course; but he had never been there. Just at the moment, it was the latest thing in night clubs in London, and everybody who fancied himself or herself as a bit in advance of other folk was keen to go there. Ellery was not advanced, and it took some persuasion to carry him along. He seemed to think that Jaxon ought to cut out his prize for him from under the guns of Duke’s and bring her home in tow. But Jaxon said he could find her, but he couldn’t possibly bring her. Finally, Ellery agreed to go. After all, he reflected, it was all in the day’s work. He had known what sort of man Walter Brooklyn was; and he must not complain if the task of clearing up his character meant going into some queer places.Duke’s certainly did not rely for its popularity on external display. It was approached by three flights of narrow and rickety stairs, and the visitors had to satisfy two rather seedy-looking janitors, not in uniform, at top and bottom. And, when they entered the Club itself, Ellery had a still greater surprise. The famous Duke’s consisted of one very long low room—or rather of three long, low attics which had been amateurishly knocked into one. The decorations were old and faded, and the places where the partitions had been were still marked by patches of new paper pasted on to hide the rents in the old. The ventilation was abominable, and what windows there were did not seem to have been cleaned for months. The furniture—a few seedy divans and a large number of common Windsor chairs and kitchen tables—seemed to have been picked up at second-hand from some very inferior dealer. Tables and floor were stained with countless spillings of food and drink, and a thick cloud of tobacco smoke made it quite impossible to see any distance along the room. There was only one redeeming feature, and Ellery’s eye fell upon it almost as soon as he entered the place. Near the door was a magnificent grand piano, on which some one was playing really well an arrangement from Borodine’sPrince Igor.Jaxon drew Ellery to a vacant table. “We’ll sit down here and order something, and then in a moment or two, I’ll go round and spy out the land,” he said. “From here we shall see any one who goes out. And, by Jove, there’s one of the six Kittys—not the one I told you about. I shouldn’t be surprised if we found the whole half-dozen before the evening’s out. Everybody looks in here just now.”Ellery felt very uncomfortable when he was left alone to sip his gin and water while Jaxon went round the room, exchanging a few words with friends at several of the tables. But soon his friend came back to report. “No, she’s not here now; but I’ve spotted another Kitty for you. I forgot her: she makes the seventh on our list, and you’d better have a word with the two who are here. Bring your drink across, and I’ll introduce you to that one over there. She’s Kitty Turner, and the chap she’s with is a fellow from Bloomsbury way called Parkinson—a civil servant, I believe. I’ll do the talking, or most of it. You just ask her if she knows Walter Brooklyn when you get a chance.”They drew a blank at the conversation. Kitty Turner was certainly a very bright lady, laughing immoderately both at her own and at Jaxon’s jokes, and, it seemed to Ellery, a good deal relieved to get a rest from hertête-à-têtewith the gloomy fellow who was sitting by her side. He, at any rate, seemed to take his pleasures sadly. Indeed, it struck Ellery, as he looked round the room, that very few of the people there seemed to be really enjoying themselves. The women were cheerful, but there was something forced about the gaiety of many of them; and some of the men seemed to need a deal of cheering up. Ellery found himself wondering why on earth so many people came to this sort of place, if they did not even find it amusing. He at any rate was not amused, even as Jaxon seemed to be, by regarding the place as a sort of psychological study. He had come there for a definite purpose; and, as soon as he had satisfied himself that Kitty Turner knew nothing of Walter Brooklyn, he was ready to move on. A signal soon brought Jaxon to his feet, and they strolled across the room to try the next Kitty on the list.Kitty Laurenson did know Walter Brooklyn, but not to any degree of intimacy. She had met him a few times, and Ellery rather gathered that, in her opinion, he had been less attentive than he should have been to her charms. She had certainly not seen him on Tuesday, or indeed for weeks past. Ellery liked her even less than the other; for her attitude towards him seemed to be strictly professional, and, as soon as she was sure that he could not be fascinated, she showed him plainly that the sooner he went away the better he would please her. Ellery again gave Jaxon the signal, and they left her table. They were just discussing whether it was worth while to wait a time in the hope that some more Kittys might turn up, when Jaxon said suddenly, “By Jove, here she comes, and alone too. We’re in luck.”Ellery turned, and saw entering the room a stout, rather coarse-looking woman of about forty or forty-five, so far as he could judge through the intervening smoke, and despite the artificial obstructions which the lady herself had placed in the way of those who might be minded to inspect her too closely. He saw at once that she was a person to be reckoned with. The face was powerful, and the pair of keen black eyes which were glancing penetratingly round the room, as if in search of some one, were not easily to be forgotten. The figure was without dignity; but the woman’s expression gave it the lie. Certainly she was more likely to have owned the Russian Archduke than to have been owned by him.Jaxon left Ellery standing by himself and went up to her. She greeted him pleasantly. “Oh, Will, I was looking for Horace. Do you know if he is here?”Jaxon replied that he had not seen him and asked her to join him and his friend while she was waiting. She agreed, and Jaxon led her across and made the introduction.From the moment when he was introduced to Kitty Frensham Ellery had a feeling that he had found what he wanted. She was very gracious; but, as Jaxon introduced her, she smiled, and the coming of her smile was for all the world as if she had suddenly pressed the switch and turned it on like the electric light. Both the other Kittys had smiles which they turned on and off at will; but their smiles came into being gradually, whereas this woman smiled, and stopped smiling, with quite extraordinary suddenness. Ellery was so sure that she was the right woman, and also, as he told Jaxon afterwards, so sure of her common sense, that he plunged straight into his story.“There’s something I want to ask you,” he said, “indeed, I got Jaxon to introduce me on purpose. You know Walter Brooklyn, don’t you?”Her face at once became serious. “Yes, I do. I have just seen the terrible news in the evening paper. Do you think he can have done it, Mr. Ellery? I suppose you know him too.”“Yes, I know him, and I am quite sure he had nothing to do with it. I want you to help prove that I am right. You saw him on Tuesday night, did you not?”“I had quite forgotten it; but I did. I spoke to him for a minute or two. I was coming out of the Alhambra with Horace—Mr. Mandleham, that is—and Horace had left me for a minute to look for a taxi. The Old ’un came up and spoke to me, I remember.”“The Old ’un? Is that a name for Walter Brooklyn?”“Yes, we used to call him ‘The Old Rip’; but it got shortened to ‘the Old ’un.’ He goes the pace rather, even now, you know.”“I dare say he does; and of course that is likely to make it all the worse for him with the jury—if it’s the usual sort.”“But if he didn’t do it, surely he’s all right, isn’t he?”“The fact that you remember meeting him may be the means of saving his life. Can you tell me at what time that was?”“Oh, Lord, Mr. Ellery, I never know the time. It was some time in the evening, fairly early. We left before the show was over. Horace would probably know.”“Did Mr. Mandleham see Mr. Brooklyn?”“Yes, he did. When he came back he asked me who it was I had been talking to.”At this point a new voice struck into the conversation. “Hallo, Kitty, you seem very deep in something. Haven’t you even a word for me?”“Why, here is Horace,” said Kitty. “I’ve been waiting for you for hours, Horace. It’s really too bad. But now you come over here, and make yourself really useful for a minute. It’s not a thing you do often.”Horace Mandleham was fortunately quite precise about the time. They had left the Alhambra a few minutes after half-past ten, and he had come back with the taxi just about a quarter to eleven. Walter Brooklyn had at that moment taken his leave of Kitty Frensham. Yes, that was the man. He recognised at once the photograph which Ellery passed across to him. He was quite ready to swear to it, if it was of any importance. He had seen the evening paper, and knew the chap was in trouble.A good deal to his surprise, Ellery found that he definitely liked Kitty Frensham, and before he left he had even promised to go and see her soon in her flat in Chelsea, which, as she told him, was hardly more than round the corner from his own rooms. She had promised, and had made Mandleham promise as well, to give every help that could possibly be given in clearing Walter Brooklyn, although she had made it plain that she did not like him, and although her reluctance to find herself in a court of law was evident enough. Still, she had recognised that she ought to do what she could; and Ellery half-believed that a part of her willingness was due to the fact that he had impressed her favourably. He had come prepared to spend money in securing the evidence of a “lovely lady” of unlovely repute: he had secured the willing testimony of an exceedingly clever and, even to his temperament, fascinating woman. Kitty Frensham was certainly not the sort of person to whom money could be offered for such a service. It puzzled Ellery that such a woman should have, as he put it to himself, “gone to the bad.” She was worthy of something better than that anæmic specimen, Mandleham.It was by this time too late to do more; but, before going home, Ellery ’phoned through to Joan, who was waiting up for a message from him and told her briefly what he had accomplished. The quest, he said, had taken him to some strange places; he would tell her all about it on the morrow. Joan, too, had news of a sort; but she said that it would keep. Both of them retired for the night well pleased with the results of their first evening’s experience of practical detective work. It had been easy going so far; but, Ellery said to himself, fortune had a most encouraging way of smiling on the beginner. Probably their troubles were still to come.
To walk round Leicester Square in search of the mysterious Kitty gave Ellery an uncomfortable feeling. Kitty appeared to belong to a type of lovely lady which had not come much in his way, and his first sensation was one of strong distaste. Moreover, he very soon realised that the description given to him was not likely to be of much value. There seemed to be a whole tribe of Kittys in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, and Ellery liked each one he set eyes on less than the last. He came speedily to two conclusions—first, that he would never spot the right one by means of the description which Walter Brooklyn had given, and secondly, that it would be quite out of his power to address one of these ladies, or to do anything but seek refuge in flight if, as seemed most probable, one of them attempted to address him. He tried to overcome this feeling; but it was no use. Even though no one had yet spoken to him, he turned tail, and took refuge in Orange Street for a few minutes’ reflection.
He knew that he could not do it. Moreover, to walk round Leicester Square addressing strange females by a Christian name which might or might not belong to them was probably an excellent prelude to adventures of a sort, but hardly to the gaining of the particular information of which he was in search. The way to find Kitty was not to hunt for a hypothetical needle in a very unpleasant haystack, but to go straight to some one who was likely to know. And who would be more likely than Will Jaxon, who was celebrated as the devil of a fellow with the women, and lived, moreover, in bachelor chambers hardly more than round the corner in Panton Street? Ellery set off there to find his man.
Jaxon had been with Ellery at Oxford, and, dissimilar as many of their tastes were, they had kept up the acquaintance. They had in common an intense absorption in the technique of the theatre, in which Ellery was interested as a young and promising writer of plays, and Jaxon as an equally promising producer. But Jaxon’s way of living was very different from his friend’s. He was not a vicious man; but he said that vice, and still more the shoddy imitation of it which passes current in the Londondemi-monde, attracted him as a study. He liked watching the game, and making little bets with himself as to its fortunes. It was, he said, a harmless amusement, and, if the professors of psychology based their views largely on a study of the “diseases of personality,” why should not he, a mere amateur, follow their example? So he passed much of his time among persons whose ways of living were, to say the least, not in conformity with the dictates of the Nonconformist conscience. It was his pride to know the Society underworld; and, in particular, he was wont to boast that he knew the “points” of all the important “lovely ladies” of London. It was ten to one that he would know where to find Kitty.
Jaxon, fortunately, was in, and Ellery was soon able to explain his business. He wanted a woman, none too young, and getting fat, whose name was Kitty something-or-other. She was, he believed, often to be found round about Leicester Square.
“You’re the very last man I ever expected to come to me on a quest like that,” said Jaxon with a laugh. “Now, if it had been Lorimer or Wentworth—but you of all men. Oh, I know it’s all right, and your intentions are strictly honourable. But do you know that there are at least a dozen Kittys, all of them celebrated in their way, who conform fully to the description you have given me? How am I to know which one you want?”
Ellery repeated his description, giving every detail that had been told him—the golden, dyed hair, the smile that switched on and off like an electric light—“That’s not much help. It’s part of the professional equipment,” said Jaxon—the dark eyes, the slovenly walk.
“The golden hair and the dark eyes help to narrow the field; but there are still half a dozen it might be—all of the fat and forty brigade, and all of them no better than they should be according to the world’s reckoning. Five of the six are just the ordinary thing; but the other is something quite out of the common run. She’s not what you would call an honest woman; but she’s a very remarkable person for all that. I wonder if it is she you are after.”
“Tell me about her first.”
“Well her name—or at least the name she’s known by—is Kitty Frensham. Kitty Lessing it used to be when I first knew her. In those days she was more or less the property of a Russian Archduke, or something of the sort. Or rather, he used to be altogether her property. Then, a year or so ago, he died, and since then she has been rather at a loose end. She’s fat and forty; but she’s a most fascinating woman. Awfully clever, too.”
“Can you get hold of her for me?”
“Yes, I think I know where to find her; but you’d better understand that she’s not at all the ordinary sort of street-crawler. If she’s your woman, the description you gave was a bit misleading. She is most often about with Horace Mandleham, the painter chap, nowadays. Come round to Duke’s with me, and I dare say we shall find her.”
Ellery knew about Duke’s, of course; but he had never been there. Just at the moment, it was the latest thing in night clubs in London, and everybody who fancied himself or herself as a bit in advance of other folk was keen to go there. Ellery was not advanced, and it took some persuasion to carry him along. He seemed to think that Jaxon ought to cut out his prize for him from under the guns of Duke’s and bring her home in tow. But Jaxon said he could find her, but he couldn’t possibly bring her. Finally, Ellery agreed to go. After all, he reflected, it was all in the day’s work. He had known what sort of man Walter Brooklyn was; and he must not complain if the task of clearing up his character meant going into some queer places.
Duke’s certainly did not rely for its popularity on external display. It was approached by three flights of narrow and rickety stairs, and the visitors had to satisfy two rather seedy-looking janitors, not in uniform, at top and bottom. And, when they entered the Club itself, Ellery had a still greater surprise. The famous Duke’s consisted of one very long low room—or rather of three long, low attics which had been amateurishly knocked into one. The decorations were old and faded, and the places where the partitions had been were still marked by patches of new paper pasted on to hide the rents in the old. The ventilation was abominable, and what windows there were did not seem to have been cleaned for months. The furniture—a few seedy divans and a large number of common Windsor chairs and kitchen tables—seemed to have been picked up at second-hand from some very inferior dealer. Tables and floor were stained with countless spillings of food and drink, and a thick cloud of tobacco smoke made it quite impossible to see any distance along the room. There was only one redeeming feature, and Ellery’s eye fell upon it almost as soon as he entered the place. Near the door was a magnificent grand piano, on which some one was playing really well an arrangement from Borodine’sPrince Igor.
Jaxon drew Ellery to a vacant table. “We’ll sit down here and order something, and then in a moment or two, I’ll go round and spy out the land,” he said. “From here we shall see any one who goes out. And, by Jove, there’s one of the six Kittys—not the one I told you about. I shouldn’t be surprised if we found the whole half-dozen before the evening’s out. Everybody looks in here just now.”
Ellery felt very uncomfortable when he was left alone to sip his gin and water while Jaxon went round the room, exchanging a few words with friends at several of the tables. But soon his friend came back to report. “No, she’s not here now; but I’ve spotted another Kitty for you. I forgot her: she makes the seventh on our list, and you’d better have a word with the two who are here. Bring your drink across, and I’ll introduce you to that one over there. She’s Kitty Turner, and the chap she’s with is a fellow from Bloomsbury way called Parkinson—a civil servant, I believe. I’ll do the talking, or most of it. You just ask her if she knows Walter Brooklyn when you get a chance.”
They drew a blank at the conversation. Kitty Turner was certainly a very bright lady, laughing immoderately both at her own and at Jaxon’s jokes, and, it seemed to Ellery, a good deal relieved to get a rest from hertête-à-têtewith the gloomy fellow who was sitting by her side. He, at any rate, seemed to take his pleasures sadly. Indeed, it struck Ellery, as he looked round the room, that very few of the people there seemed to be really enjoying themselves. The women were cheerful, but there was something forced about the gaiety of many of them; and some of the men seemed to need a deal of cheering up. Ellery found himself wondering why on earth so many people came to this sort of place, if they did not even find it amusing. He at any rate was not amused, even as Jaxon seemed to be, by regarding the place as a sort of psychological study. He had come there for a definite purpose; and, as soon as he had satisfied himself that Kitty Turner knew nothing of Walter Brooklyn, he was ready to move on. A signal soon brought Jaxon to his feet, and they strolled across the room to try the next Kitty on the list.
Kitty Laurenson did know Walter Brooklyn, but not to any degree of intimacy. She had met him a few times, and Ellery rather gathered that, in her opinion, he had been less attentive than he should have been to her charms. She had certainly not seen him on Tuesday, or indeed for weeks past. Ellery liked her even less than the other; for her attitude towards him seemed to be strictly professional, and, as soon as she was sure that he could not be fascinated, she showed him plainly that the sooner he went away the better he would please her. Ellery again gave Jaxon the signal, and they left her table. They were just discussing whether it was worth while to wait a time in the hope that some more Kittys might turn up, when Jaxon said suddenly, “By Jove, here she comes, and alone too. We’re in luck.”
Ellery turned, and saw entering the room a stout, rather coarse-looking woman of about forty or forty-five, so far as he could judge through the intervening smoke, and despite the artificial obstructions which the lady herself had placed in the way of those who might be minded to inspect her too closely. He saw at once that she was a person to be reckoned with. The face was powerful, and the pair of keen black eyes which were glancing penetratingly round the room, as if in search of some one, were not easily to be forgotten. The figure was without dignity; but the woman’s expression gave it the lie. Certainly she was more likely to have owned the Russian Archduke than to have been owned by him.
Jaxon left Ellery standing by himself and went up to her. She greeted him pleasantly. “Oh, Will, I was looking for Horace. Do you know if he is here?”
Jaxon replied that he had not seen him and asked her to join him and his friend while she was waiting. She agreed, and Jaxon led her across and made the introduction.
From the moment when he was introduced to Kitty Frensham Ellery had a feeling that he had found what he wanted. She was very gracious; but, as Jaxon introduced her, she smiled, and the coming of her smile was for all the world as if she had suddenly pressed the switch and turned it on like the electric light. Both the other Kittys had smiles which they turned on and off at will; but their smiles came into being gradually, whereas this woman smiled, and stopped smiling, with quite extraordinary suddenness. Ellery was so sure that she was the right woman, and also, as he told Jaxon afterwards, so sure of her common sense, that he plunged straight into his story.
“There’s something I want to ask you,” he said, “indeed, I got Jaxon to introduce me on purpose. You know Walter Brooklyn, don’t you?”
Her face at once became serious. “Yes, I do. I have just seen the terrible news in the evening paper. Do you think he can have done it, Mr. Ellery? I suppose you know him too.”
“Yes, I know him, and I am quite sure he had nothing to do with it. I want you to help prove that I am right. You saw him on Tuesday night, did you not?”
“I had quite forgotten it; but I did. I spoke to him for a minute or two. I was coming out of the Alhambra with Horace—Mr. Mandleham, that is—and Horace had left me for a minute to look for a taxi. The Old ’un came up and spoke to me, I remember.”
“The Old ’un? Is that a name for Walter Brooklyn?”
“Yes, we used to call him ‘The Old Rip’; but it got shortened to ‘the Old ’un.’ He goes the pace rather, even now, you know.”
“I dare say he does; and of course that is likely to make it all the worse for him with the jury—if it’s the usual sort.”
“But if he didn’t do it, surely he’s all right, isn’t he?”
“The fact that you remember meeting him may be the means of saving his life. Can you tell me at what time that was?”
“Oh, Lord, Mr. Ellery, I never know the time. It was some time in the evening, fairly early. We left before the show was over. Horace would probably know.”
“Did Mr. Mandleham see Mr. Brooklyn?”
“Yes, he did. When he came back he asked me who it was I had been talking to.”
At this point a new voice struck into the conversation. “Hallo, Kitty, you seem very deep in something. Haven’t you even a word for me?”
“Why, here is Horace,” said Kitty. “I’ve been waiting for you for hours, Horace. It’s really too bad. But now you come over here, and make yourself really useful for a minute. It’s not a thing you do often.”
Horace Mandleham was fortunately quite precise about the time. They had left the Alhambra a few minutes after half-past ten, and he had come back with the taxi just about a quarter to eleven. Walter Brooklyn had at that moment taken his leave of Kitty Frensham. Yes, that was the man. He recognised at once the photograph which Ellery passed across to him. He was quite ready to swear to it, if it was of any importance. He had seen the evening paper, and knew the chap was in trouble.
A good deal to his surprise, Ellery found that he definitely liked Kitty Frensham, and before he left he had even promised to go and see her soon in her flat in Chelsea, which, as she told him, was hardly more than round the corner from his own rooms. She had promised, and had made Mandleham promise as well, to give every help that could possibly be given in clearing Walter Brooklyn, although she had made it plain that she did not like him, and although her reluctance to find herself in a court of law was evident enough. Still, she had recognised that she ought to do what she could; and Ellery half-believed that a part of her willingness was due to the fact that he had impressed her favourably. He had come prepared to spend money in securing the evidence of a “lovely lady” of unlovely repute: he had secured the willing testimony of an exceedingly clever and, even to his temperament, fascinating woman. Kitty Frensham was certainly not the sort of person to whom money could be offered for such a service. It puzzled Ellery that such a woman should have, as he put it to himself, “gone to the bad.” She was worthy of something better than that anæmic specimen, Mandleham.
It was by this time too late to do more; but, before going home, Ellery ’phoned through to Joan, who was waiting up for a message from him and told her briefly what he had accomplished. The quest, he said, had taken him to some strange places; he would tell her all about it on the morrow. Joan, too, had news of a sort; but she said that it would keep. Both of them retired for the night well pleased with the results of their first evening’s experience of practical detective work. It had been easy going so far; but, Ellery said to himself, fortune had a most encouraging way of smiling on the beginner. Probably their troubles were still to come.