I assured her that I could support the expense.
"As for you -" Ginger thought a minute. "I believe," she said slowly, "that your best bet would be the Thomasina Tuckerton angle."
"But how? She's dead."
"And somebody wanted her dead, if your ideas are correct! And arranged it with the Pale Horse. There seem two possibilities. The stepmother, or else the girl she had the fight with at Luigi's, and whose young man she had pinched. She was going to marry him, perhaps. That wouldn't suit the stepmother's book - or the girl's, if she was crazy enough about the young man. Either of them might have gone to the Pale Horse. We might get a lead there. What was the girl's name, or don't you know?"
"I think it was Lou."
"Ash blonde dank hair, medium height, rather bosomy?"
I agreed with the description.
"I think I've met her about. Lou Ellis. She's got a bit of money herself."
"She didn't look like it."
"They don't - but she has, all right. Anyway, she could afford to pay the Pale Horse's fees. They don't do it for nothing, I suppose."
"One would hardly imagine so."
"You'll have to tackle the stepmother. It's more up your street than mine. Go and see her -"
"I don't know where she lives or anything."
"Luigi knows something about Tommy's home. He'll know what county she lived in, I should imagine. A few books of reference ought to do the rest. But what idiots we are! We saw the notice in The Times of her death. You've only got to go and look in their files."
"I'll have to have a pretext for tackling the stepmother," I said thoughtfully.
Ginger said that that would be easy.
"You're someone, you see," she pointed out. "A historian, and you lecture and you've got letters after your name. Mrs Tuckerton will be impressed, and probably tickled to death to see you."
"And the pretext?"
"Some feature of interest about her house?" suggested Ginger vaguely. "Sure to have something if it's an old one."
"Nothing to do with my period," I objected.
"She won't know that," said Ginger. "People always think that anything over a hundred years old must interest a historian or an archeologist. Or how about a picture? There must be some old pictures of some kind. Anyway, you make an appointment and you arrive and you butter her up and be charming, and then you say you once met her daughter - her stepdaughter - and say how sad, etc... And then, bring in, quite suddenly, a reference to the Pale Horse. Be a little sinister if you like."
"And then?"
"And then you observe the reaction. If you mention the Pale Horse out of the blue, and she has a guilty conscience, I defy anyone not to show some sign."
"And if she does - what next?"
"The important thing is, that we'll know we're on the right track. Once we're sure, we can go full steam ahead."
She added thoughtfully:
"There's something else. Why do you think the Grey woman told you all she did tell you? Why was she so forthcoming?"
"The common-sense answer is because she's potty."
"I don't mean that. I mean - why you? You in particular? I just wondered if there might be some kind of tie up?"
"Tie up with what?"
"Wait just a moment - while I get my ideas in order."
I waited. Ginger nodded twice emphatically and then spoke.
"Supposing - just supposing - it went like this. The Poppy girl knows all about the Pale Horse in a vague kind of way - not through personal knowledge, but by hearing it talked about. She sounds the sort of girl that wouldn't be noticed much by anyone when they were talking - but she'd quite likely take in a lot more than they thought she did. Rather silly people are often like that. Say she was overheard talking to you about it that night, and someone ticks her off. Next day you come and ask her questions, and she's been scared, so she won't talk. But the fact that you've come and asked her also gets around. Now what would be the reason for your asking questions? You're not police. The likely reason would be that you're a possible client."
"But surely -"
"It's logical, I tell you. You've heard rumours of this thing - you want to find out about it - for your own purposes. Presently you appear at the fкte in Much Deeping. You are brought to the Pale Horse - presumably because you've asked to be taken there - and what happens? Thyrza Grey goes straight into her sales talk."
"I suppose it's a possibility." I considered... "Do you think she can do what she claims to do, Ginger?"
"Personally I'd be inclined to say of course she can't! But odd things can happen. Especially with things like hypnotism. Telling someone to go and take a bite out of a candle the next afternoon at four o'clock, and they do it without having any idea why. That sort of thing. And electric boxes where you put in a drop of blood and it tells you if you're going to have cancer in two years' time. It all sounds rather bogus - but perhaps not entirely bogus. About Thyrza - I don't think it's true - but I'm terribly afraid it might be!"
"Yes," I said somberly, "that explains it very well."
"I might put in a bit of work on Lou," said Ginger thoughtfully. "I know lots of places where I can run across her. Luigi might know a few things too.
"But the first thing," she added, "is to get in touch with Poppy."
The latter was arranged fairly easily. David was free three nights ahead, we settled on a musical show, and he arrived with Poppy in tow. We went to the Fantasie for supper and I noticed that Ginger and Poppy after a prolonged retirement to powder their noses, reappeared on excellent terms with each other. No controversial subjects were raised during the party on Ginger's instructions. We finally parted and I drove Ginger home.
"Not much to report," said she cheerfully. "I've been on to Lou. The man they quarrelled about was Gene Pleydon, by the way. A nasty bit of goods, if you ask me. Very much on the make. The girls all adore him. He was making quite a play for Lou and then Tommy came along. Lou says he didn't care for her a bit, he was after her money - but she'd probably want to think that. Anyway, he dropped Lou like a hot coal and she was naturally sore about it. According to her, it wasn't much of a row - just a few girlish high spirits."
"Girlish high spirits! She tugged Tommy's hair out by the roots."
"I'm just telling you what Lou told me."
"She seems to have been very forthcoming."
"Oh, they all like talking about their affairs. They'll talk to anyone who will listen. Anyway, Lou has got another boyfriend now - another dud, I'd say, but she's already crazy about him. So it doesn't look to me as though she'd been a client of the Pale Horse. I brought the term up, but it didn't register. I think we can wash her out. Luigi doesn't think there was much in it, either. On the other hand, he thinks Tommy was serious about Gene. And Gene was going for her in a big way. What have you done about the stepmother?"
"She was abroad. She comes back tomorrow. I've written her a letter - or rather I got my secretary to write it, asking for an appointment."
"Good. We're getting things moving. I hope everything doesn't peter out."
"If it gets us anywhere!"
"Something will," said Ginger enthusiastically. "That reminds me. To go back to the beginning of all this, the theory is that Father Gorman was killed after being called out to a dying woman, and that he was murdered because of something she told him or confessed to him. What happened to that woman? Did she die? And who was she? There ought to be some lead there."
"She died. I don't really know much about her. I think her name was Davis."
"Well, couldn't you find out more?"
"I'll see what I can do."
"If we could get at her background, we might find out how she knew what she did know."
"I see your point."
I got Jim Corrigan on the telephone early the next morning and put my query to him.
"Let me see now. We did get a bit further, but not much. Davis wasn't her real name, that's why it took a little time to check up on her. Half a moment, I jotted down a few things... oh yes, here we are. Her real name was Archer, and her husband had been a small-time crook. She left him and went back to her maiden name."
"What sort of a crook was Archer? And where is he now?"
"Oh, very small stuff. Pinched things from department stores. Unconsidered trifles here and there. He had a few convictions. As to where be is now, he's dead."
"Not much there."
"No, there isn't. The firm Mrs Davis was working for at the time of her death, the C.R.C. (Customers Reactions Classified), apparently didn't know anything about her, or her background."
I thanked him and rang off.
Chapter 12
Three days later Ginger rang me up.
"I've got something for you," she said. "A name and address. Write it down."
I took out my notebook.
"Go ahead."
"Bradley is the name and the address is Seventy-eight Municipal Square Buildings, Birmingham."
"Well, I'm damned, what is all this?"
"Goodness knows! I don't. I doubt if Poppy does really!"
"Poppy? Is this -"
"Yes. I've been working on Poppy in a big way. I told you I could get something out of her if I tried. Once I got her softened up, it was easy."
"How did you set about it?" I asked curiously. Ginger laughed.
"Girls-together stuff. You wouldn't understand. The point is that if a girl tells things to another girl it doesn't really count. She doesn't think it matters."
"All in the trade union so to speak?"
"You could put it like that. Anyway, we lunched together, and I yapped a bit about my love life - and various obstacles - married man with impossible wife - Catholic - wouldn't divorce him - made his life hell. And how she was an invalid, always in pain, but not likely to die for years. Really much better for her if she could die. Said I'd a good mind to try the Pale Horse, but I didn't really know how to set about it, and would it be terribly expensive? And Poppy said yes, she thought it would. She'd heard they charged the earth. And I said 'Well, I have expectations.' Which I have, you know - a great-uncle - a poppet and I'd hate him to die, but the fact came in useful. Perhaps, I said, they'd take something on account? But how did one set about it? And then Poppy came across with that name and address. You had to go to him first, she said, to settle the business side."
"It's fantastic!" I said.
"It is, rather."
We were both silent for a moment.
I said incredulously: "She told you this quite openly? She didn't seem scared?"
Ginger said impatiently: "You don't understand. Telling me didn't count And after all, Mark, if what we think is true the business has to be more or less advertised, hasn't it? I mean they must want new 'clients' all the time."
"We're mad to believe anything of the kind."
"All right. We're mad. Are you going to Birmingham to see Mr Bradley?"
"Yes," I said. "I'm going to see Mr Bradley. If he exists."
I hardly believed that he did. But I was wrong. Mr Bradley did exist.
Municipal Square Buildings was an enormous honeycomb of offices. Seventy-eight was on the third floor. On the ground-glass door was neatly printed in black: C.R. Bradley, Commission Agent. And below, in smaller letters: Please Enter.
I entered.
There was a small outer office, empty, and a door marked Private, half ajar. A voice from behind it said:
"Come in, please."
The inner office was larger. It had a desk, one or two comfortable chairs, a telephone, a stack of box files, and Mr Bradley sitting behind the desk.
He was a small dark man, with shrewd dark eyes. He wore a dark business suit and looked the acme of respectability.
"Just shut the door, will you?" he said pleasantly. "And sit down. That chair's quite comfortable. Cigarette? No? Well now, what can I do for you?"
I looked at him. I didn't know how to begin. I hadn't the least idea what to say. It was, I think, sheer desperation that led me to attack with the phrase I did. Or it may have been the small beady eyes.
"How much?" I said.
It startled him a little, I was glad to note, but not in the way that he ought to have been startled. He did not assume, as I would have assumed in his place, that someone not quite right in the head had come into his office.
His eyebrows rose.
"Well, well, well," he said. "You don't waste much time, do you?"
I held to my line.
"What's the answer?"
He shook his head gently in a slightly reproving manner.
"That's not the way to go about things. We must proceed in the proper manner."
I shrugged my shoulders.
"As you like. What's the proper manner?"
"We haven't introduced ourselves yet, have we? I don't know your name."
"At the moment," I said, "I don't really think I feel inclined to tell it to you."
"Cautious."
"Cautious."
"An admirable quality - though not always practicable. Now who sent you to me? Who's our mutual friend?"
"Again I can't tell you. A friend of mine has a friend who knows a friend of yours."
Mr Bradley nodded his head.
"That's the way a lot of my clients come," he said. "Some of the problems are rather - delicate. You know my profession, I presume?"
He had no intention of waiting for my reply. He hastened to give me the answer.
