Bones in London - Edgar Wallace [48]
“Exactly,” said Bones, nodding. “And that is just where I come in. You see, I did a little bit of work last night – rather a pretty little bit of work.” He took a slip of paper from his pocket. “You dined at the Criterion at half-past eight with a tall, fair lady – a jolly old dear she was too, old boy, and I congratulate you most heartily – named Vera.”
Hamilton’s face went red.
“You left the restaurant at ten past nine, and entered cab No. 667432. Am I right, sir?”
“Do you mean to tell me,” exploded Hamilton, “that you were watching me?”
Bones nodded.
“I picked you up, old thing, outside the Piccadilly Tube. I shadowed you to the theatre. I followed you home. You got a taxi – No. 297431– and you were an awful long time before you got out when you reached the lady’s destination – an awful long time,” said Bones emphatically. “What you could find to talk about after the cab had drawn up at the dear old ancestral home of Vera–”
“Bones,” said Hamilton awfully. “I think you’ve gone far enough.”
“I thought you’d gone a bit too far, dear old thing, I did really,” said Bones, shaking his head reprovingly. “I watched you very carefully.”
He danced, with a little squeak of joy, into the office of his beautiful secretary, leaving a very red and a pardonably annoyed Hamilton breathing heavily.
Bones went to the office of Siker’s Detective Agency early the next morning. He went, it may be remarked in passing, though these details can only be interesting to the psychologist, wearing the darkest of his dark suits and a large black wide-awake hat. There was a certain furtiveness in his movements between the taxicab and the entrance of the office, which might suggest to anybody who had taken the trouble to oberve him that he was an escaping bank-robber.
Siker’s had spacious offices and a small staff. Only Hilton, the manager, and a clerk were in when Bones presented his card. He was immediately conducted by Mr Hilton to a very plain inner office, surrounded with narrow shelves, which in turn were occupied by innumerable little deed boxes.
Mr Hilton was a sober-faced man of fifty-five, sallow and unhappy. His tone was funereal and deliberate, his eyes steady and remorseless.
“Sit down, Mr Senob,” he said hollowly. “I have a message from the lawyers, and I presume I am welcoming to this establishment the new proprietor who has taken the place of my revered chief, whom I have faithfully served for twenty-nine years.”
Bones closed his eyes and listened as to an address of welcome.
“Personally,” said Mr Hilton, “I think that the sale of this business is a great mistake on the part of the Siker family. The Sikers have been detectives for four generations,” he said with a relish of an antiquarian. “George Siker first started work as an investigator in 1814 in this identical building. For thirty-five years he conducted Siker’s Confidential Bureau, and was succeeded by his son James the grandfather of the late John. George for twenty-three years–”
“Quite so, quite so,” said Bones. “Poor old George! Well, well, we can’t live for ever, dear old chief of staff. Now, the thing is, how to improve this jolly old business.”
He looked around the dingy apartment without enthusiasm.
Bones had visitors that morning, many visitors. They were not, as he had anticipated, veiled ladies or cloaked dukes, nor did they pour into his discreet ears the stories of misspent lives.
There was Mr Carlo Borker, of Borker’s Confidential Enquiry Bureau, a gross man in a top hat, who complained bitterly that old man Siker had practically and to all intents and purposes offered him an option of the business years ago.
It was a one-sided conversation.
“I says to him: ‘Siker, if you ever want to sell out’… He says to me: ‘Borker, my boy, you’ve only to offer me a reasonable figure’… I says to him: ‘Now, Siker, don’t ever let anybody else get this business…’”
Then there was ex-Inspector Stellingworth, of Stellingworth’s Detective Corps, a gloomy man, who painted in the blackest colours the difficulties and tragedies