James Chase - No Business Of Mine

guessed he had visions of hanging around more draughty passages,

looking through more sordid keyholes, standing outside more houses

in the rain. He muttered something through his moustache, stood

staring down at his boots.

“I’d like to talk to Mr. Littlejohns,” I said to Merryweather. “Can I

take him along with me?”

“Of course,” Mr. Merryweather said, beaming, “By all means take

him along with you.”

“We’ll go back to my hotel,” I said to Littlejohns. “I’d like you to

have details of this case.”

He nodded, muttered again under his breath, opened the door for

me.

We walked to the elevator, rode down to the ground-level in

silence.

I waved to a taxi, ushered Mr. Littlejohns in and as I was about to

follow, something — intuition, instinct, something- made me turn

quickly and look behind me.

The young runt who had tried to dent my skull and who had

followed me in the Standard was standing in a doorway watching me.

For a second our eyes met, then he spat on the pavement, sauntered

off in the opposite direction.

Chapter VII

HENRY LITTLEJOHNS looked as out of place in the Savoy as a

snowman in the middle of August. He sat on the edge of a chair, his

bowler hat resting on his knees, a sad expression on his face.

I told him about Netta, took him through every detail of the story,

concluded with the burning of Anne’s body.

Throughout the recital, he sat motionless. The sad expression

remained on his face, but I could tel by the intent look in his eyes that

he wasn’t missing a thing.

“A very interesting story,” he said when I had finished. “It calls for

a most searching investigation.”

I said I thought he was right, and what did he think of the set-up

now that I had given him the facts?

He sat chewing his moustache for a moment or so, then looked

up.

“I think Miss Scott’s alive,” he said. “The fact that her clothes are

missing, the body stolen to prevent identification and that you think

you saw her yesterday seems proof enough to me. If she is alive, then

we shall have to discover who the dead woman was in Miss Scott’s

flat. We shall also have to find out whether Miss Scott had anything to

do with her death; whether it was murder or suicide, whether there

was anyone else implicated. It seems to me that if Miss Scott arranged

for the dead woman to be mistaken for her, she must have an urgent

reason for going into hiding. That’s another thing we must discover.

The fact that she didn’t take the money nor the diamond ring,

although she had time to pack her clothes, would point to a third

party being present whom she did not trust and from whom she was

anxious to conceal the fact that she had such valuables in the flat. We

must find out who that third party was.”

“You worked all that out in a few minutes,” I said, regarding him

thoughtfully. “I worked it out too, only I took a little longer, but

Corredan hasn’t got around to it yet. Now why? Why should Carridan

still insist that Netta committed suicide?”

Littlejohns allowed himself a bleak smile. “I have had some

experience of Inspector Corridan,” he said. “He is a most misleading

man. I suggest from my knowledge of his methods that he has arrived

at this conclusion but he is not letting you know that he has done so.

It may be, sir, that he considers you’re implicated in this case, and is

allowing you to think he has hold of the wrong end of the stick in the

hope you will be over-confident and commit yourself. The Inspector is

a deep thinker, and I wouldn’t underestimate his abilities for a

moment.”

I gaped at him. “Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “That idea never

occurred to me.”

For a moment Littlejohns relaxed sufficiently to look almost

human. “The Inspector, in spite of what Mr. Merryweather says, is a

brilliant investigator. He has caught more criminals by pretending to

know nothing when he has known the ful facts than any other of the

Yard’s personnel. I should be most careful what you say or do as far as

he’s concerned.”

“Okay, I’ll remember that,” I said. “Now the next step is to dig and

keep digging until we find something important to work on. I’m sure

you’re right about Netta. She’s alive and she’s arranged with Cole to

identify this dead woman as herself. That explains why the body was

kidnapped. They are keeping the body away from me. Will you go

down to Lakeham right away and keep an eye on Mrs. Brambee’s

cottage? Look out for Netta. I think she’s hiding there. I’ll do what I

can up here and in a couple of days or so we’ll get together and see

how far we’ve got.”

Littlejohns said he’d go to Lakeham immediately, left with a much

more sprightly step than when he had come.

The rest of the day I worked at my first article on Post-War Britain

for the United News Agency. I had already obtained a considerable

amount of material for the article so I was able to settle in my room

and make my first rough draft. I became so absorbed in my work that

the problem of Netta and her sister ceased to nag me. By six-thirty I

had completed the draft, and decided to leave it until the next day

before polishing and checking my facts.

I rang for the floor waiter, lit a cigarette and sat before the open

window looking down on the Embankment. Now that I had put the lid

on my typewriter, Netta took over my thoughts. I wondered what

Corridan was doing. The more I thought about Littlejohns’s theory the

more sure I was that Corridan knew that Netta hadn’t committed

suicide, and that I might be hooked up in the case in some way.

The floor waiter, who was fast beginning to learn my habits,

arrived at this moment with a double whisky, water and ice bucket. I

added a little water and ice to a lot of whisky, stretched out more

comfortably in the arm-chair. Now what, I asked myself, was I going to

do to help solve the puzzle of the missing body? As far as I could see

there were three things I could do that might lead to something: first,

I could find out all I could about Julius Cole. If the girl who had died in

Netta’s flat was not Netta, then Julius Cole was in this business up to

his neck. It would obviously pay to keep an eye on him. Then there

was Madge Kennitt, the occupier of the first-floor flat. She might have

seen something. I had to find out if anyone had called the night the

girl died. I had a hunch that Netta wasn’t involved in this business, but

had, in some way, been implicated against her will. If that was so a

third person had been in the flat on that night. Madge Kennitt might

have seen him or her. Final y, I could visit the Blue Club , and try to find

out if Netta had any special friends among the hostesses, and if she

did, and if I could locate her, to find out from her anything about

Netta that might give me a lead.

By the time I had finished my whisky, I had decided to visit the

Blue Club . I took my shower, changed into a dark suit and wandered

downstairs for an early supper in the almost deserted grill-room.

I arrived at the Blue Club a few minutes to nine o’clock, too early

for the main crowd, but late enough to find the cocktail bar full.

The Blue Club was a three-storey building half-way up Bruton

Mews behind Bruton Place. It was a shabby, faded-looking place, and