Dictator's Way (8 page)

The tyre marks were closely scrutinized as well, but they had less to tell for there seemed little about them to serve for any possible identification. At Bobby's suggestion, however, he and Inspector Rose, who was early on the scene, compared them carefully with those made by Mr. Judson's car. But these last were faint and all that could be said was that there existed a general similarity.

“Du Guesclin Twenty with Dunlop tyres,” Rose remarked, “that was Judson's car, and those marks by Dictator's Way were made by the same size and make, most probably. But then there are hundreds of Du Guesclin's Twenties on the roads.”

Bobby agreed, and, no other discovery of any importance having been made, he went back to his rooms to get a wash, a shave, and breakfast before beginning the tasks to which his superintendent had assigned him.

A look in the telephone directory gave Waveny's address, but when Bobby dialled his number there was no reply. The address was that of a block of service flats not far distant and Bobby thought the best thing to do was to go there at once. But before he did so he rang up a large tobacco firm and made some inquiries about that inexpensive and not very well-known brand of Swiss cigars of which stumps had been found in The Manor garden. In reply Bobby received an offer to supply him at a cut rate two and a half per cent below that he would be charged anywhere else, and the information that the cigar was one popular with members of the catering trades, especially those of foreign birth.

Bobby expressed his thanks both for the offer and for the information, and continued on his way to the block of service flats. There he was informed by the maid he found in possession, busy tidying up the rooms, that Mr. Waveny had gone out an hour or so previously – unusually early for him, she admitted – and that he had not said anything about either where he was going or when he would be returning. The maid indicated with some dignity that had he done so she would have considered that he was taking a liberty. All tenants knew that at whatever hour of the day or night they either went or returned their rooms would always be in a state of perfect readiness for them and the restaurant on the premises equally ready at any hour of the day or night to provide them with meals.

A little abashed by such efficiency Bobby retreated and from the nearest call-box rang up headquarters to report. In return he was informed that the owner of the car of which he had noted the number was a Miss Olive Farrar and that her address was in a street just behind Piccadilly. He was accordingly to proceed thither, enter into tactful conversation with Miss Farrar, see if she appeared to have anything interesting to say, and try to make an appointment for her to call at Scotland Yard, since any information she had to give would be of considerable importance.

Bobby had supposed that the address given would be that of another block of flats. He found instead an exceedingly smart little hat shop, the whole of its window given up to the display in splendid isolation of what Bobby's masculine intuition told him must be a hat. Otherwise he might have thought it was a bundle of bits of ribbon, lace, three straws, and an artificial flower or two tied up together ready for the dustbin. Two girls were gazing at it in a state of almost religious ecstasy, and as Bobby paused he heard one of them say in a tone of timid defiance:

“I could make it up all right myself if I could remember how.”

And the other answered:

“It wouldn't have the chick if you did.”

Bobby thought this remark mysterious, since he could see no sign of any chicken, or any egg or hen either, for that matter. He supposed you did something like pulling a hidden string and then a chicken appeared on a kind of jack-in-the-box principle. Only afterwards did it occur to him that ‘chic' had been intended.

The name above the shop – if indeed so common a designation may be given to an establishment so rare and precious – was ‘Olive' in gold script with olive branches twining in and out and round the lettering, and Bobby, hoping there was no mistake, but a trifle nervous about it, penetrated within.

The interior was very wonderful, a discreet and most successful mingling of the temple and the cocktail bar. The temple atmosphere resulted from the prevailing hush, a kind of reverential calm indeed, from the soft, subdued lighting, from the rich embroidered hangings that hinted of the mysteries they concealed. The cocktail suggestion came from the presence of an obvious cocktail cabinet with a sofa table like a bar before it, from two chromium stools drawn up to this table, from a mildly ‘daring' figure that stood near and served as a cigarette lighter. From somewhere in the distance a deep, husky voice chanted:

“Travellers are only seen between the hours of two and four in the afternoon on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“But,” said Bobby timidly, “I'm not a traveller.”

There emerged then from the background a stately vision of imperial dignity, tall, slender, magnificently languid, attired in flowing robes that rustled and trailed as their wearer advanced. She paused. She surveyed Bobby. Bobby's impression was that she controlled with difficulty a shudder of repugnance. She conquered herself, and, but not hopefully, for somehow Bobby did not look to her like one of those rare and valued males who occasionally dropped in and ordered half a dozen hats to be sent round at once to Miss So-and-so, for her to choose as many as were wanted, she said:

“Can I help you?”

“Is Miss Olive Farrar here?” Bobby asked.

“Madam is out at present,” the vision answered, accompanying the words by a slightly surprised lifting of mathematically curved eyebrows.

“Could you tell me where I can find her?”

“If you care to leave your name and a message,” came the cold reply, “I will communicate them to Madam on her return.”

Bobby produced his official card. The vision thereupon became almost human. She shook with indignation. A kind of cold fury came upon her. She pointed at Bobby a long white finger, ending in a nail pointed like an arrow and stained as with the gore the arrow had drunk. She said intensely:

“If ever there's a revolution in this country, if ever there's Bolshevism – bombs and things,” she explained to make it clear, “it'll be because of the way you chase motorists.”

Bobby retreated nervously, scared of where that stabbing finger might stab next, for he did not wish his blood to add to its crimson hue. Useless, the finger followed him still.

“Only last week,” said the vibrant, quivering voice, “a client hadn't left her car outside more than an hour or two and she had almost nearly made up her mind when a policeman called her out to tell her she would be summonsed. She came back and she flung the hat she had almost nearly chosen right in my face and we haven't seen her since – and she owes us nearly fifty pounds.”

“Dear, dear,” said Bobby.

“If you ask me,” declared the girl, “in this country, we want Hitler.”

“Too bad,” said Bobby. “Er – Miss Farrar's private address?”

“Is it speeding or obstruction?” she inquired, quite human now. “It isn't dangerous driving, is it? If you've got the summons with you, you might as well leave it.”

Bobby explained that it wasn't a summons, that it wasn't even motoring, but that it was important. The girl explained that this was Miss Farrar's private as well as her business address. She occupied two rooms above for living purposes. She was out at the moment and would not be back for some time. She had mentioned that she was lunching with a friend. It was someone she was to meet at the Twin Wolves and as that was some distance away it would probably be well on in the afternoon before she returned. Bobby might try again about half-past three or four.

The reference to the ‘Twin Wolves' had been dropped casually but Bobby was evidently expected to be impressed. The ‘Twin Wolves' was indeed a recent discovery of the people who like to consider themselves ‘smart'. Anyone can discover a little restaurant in Soho, and as for the Ritz and the Savoy the difficulty is to avoid discovering them. But to find in an entirely out of the way quarter of the town a restaurant of such quality was quite a thrill, and there's not a gossip writer on any London paper but would sell his immortal soul for something new to talk about. So they had fallen with avidity on the ‘Twin Wolves' and its almost romantic suburban isolation. Now it was the rage.

To tell your friends you were dining at the Savoy was merely snobbish, to say you knew a wonderful little place in Soho entirely commonplace, since so did everyone else, but to remark that you were motoring out to the suburbs for dinner and that nothing would induce you to say whether you were bound for Brixton, Islington, or Kilburn, that did indeed make your friends stare and talk and wonder. Then you chatted a little about the ‘Twin Wolves' – you didn't mind giving the name of the restaurant, but not its address, you didn't want it overrun and ruined in a week or two – and you expatiated on the absolutely marvellous food. The wines you agreed could be matched in the West End, for rare wines are a matter of money and the expert knowledge that money can buy. But cooking's an individual thing, a thing of taste, of instinct, of innate genius. Think of the great Boulestin, had he ever had a lesson? Was not his pre-eminence due to such a direct gift from Heaven as that which enabled Pascal to re-write Euclid for himself at the age of ten? The same sort of thing at the ‘Twin Wolves', only there even
in excelsis
. One awe-stricken patron had been heard to murmur that there they could turn cold boiled mutton into ambrosia and make nectar out of stewed tea.

You had to know the ropes, too. If you were one of the common herd you sat downstairs and might even order such things as – excuse their mention – steak and kidney pie, fish and chips, or even suet pudding, yes, suet pudding itself as often as not with raisins in it. But, being instructed, you found the almost hidden stairs at the back, and in the long, plain room upstairs, you could be served with Etrurian delicacies as ‘Oie farcie à l'imperial' or ‘poulet pourri caesarian'. The restaurant was in fact kept by a fat little Etrurian, long resident in England. His name was Troya – Thomas Troya – and his recent leap to fame was said to be accounted for very largely by the culinary genius of his second wife. During the lifetime of Mr. Troya's first wife and during his brief widowhood, the ‘Twin Wolves' had been a restaurant good among others of its class but in no way remarkable. But after his second marriage Mr. Troya had begun to serve to his more favoured customers national Etrurian dishes – and even in Paris itself Etrurian dishes and Etrurian cooking are famous. Gradually the news had spread. The Etrurian Ambassador himself had paid a visit there – incognito, of course – and was reported to have sworn that he would recommend the proprietor for the ‘Insignia of the Tearing Vulture', the highest Etrurian order. The smart young Etrurian attaches, too, would sometimes whisper its praises to those of their English friends they thought worthy of the knowledge, and indeed at the Embassy it was a common joke that as a result of his visits there the Military Attaché, Major Cathay, had so much increased his girth he had had to order an entirely new set of uniforms. It was said, too, that in an effort to bring his figure back to its former more graceful outline he was beginning to make a point of walking to and from the remote district of London where the ‘Twin Wolves' still so modestly existed. For very wisely Mr. Troya turned a deaf ear to all suggestions that he should migrate to the West End, to all offers of capital from friendly financiers ready to advance him any cash needed for the change.

“No, no,” he would say, “here I am freehold. Up there, it is for the landlord one works and for the mortgage holder. One becomes simply a cow to be milked. Is it too much,” he would demand with the Etrurian's dramatic gestures, “to ask of those who understand how to dine, that they should take just one little car drive?”

Of all this Bobby was well aware. He had in fact dined at the ‘Twin Wolves' himself, though modestly and on the ground floor, not in the privileged upper chamber. As it happened, the ‘Twin Wolves', though situated in a suburb respectable even among suburbs, was within a short distance of a district to which, as by some natural instinct, half the less dangerous but more violent of London's criminals seemed to gravitate, so that duty had called Bobby to the neighbourhood more than once. He had entered the ‘Twin Wolves' by chance, and had been amused afterwards to find that his modest cutlet had been eaten in so renowned a temple of gastronomy.

He had heard, too, though he had not been personally concerned, the tale of how a gang of roughs from the adjoining district already mentioned had thought it would be a good idea to invade the premises and demand food without payment, and of how the fierce little proprietor, a carving knife in one hand and a soup ladle in the other, had headed a charge of his staff that had driven the invaders pell-mell into the street so that on the arrival of the police there had been nothing for them to do but pick up one of the gang knocked senseless by a swinging blow from the aforesaid soup ladle. Subsequent dark threats of vengeance had induced Mr. Troya to apply for permission to keep a pistol in his office, a pistol which had been the chief booty of a burglary carried out later on, apparently in pursuit of the threatened vengeance. Now Mr. Troya carried both the new pistol he had obtained and the evening's receipts back to his home each night, and had let it be known that if he were interfered with, he meant to shoot.

However Bobby made no mention of all this to the presiding priestess of Miss Farrar's establishment. He thanked her, said how sorry he was to have troubled her and to have missed Miss Farrar and how he hoped that if he came again he would have better luck. Therewith he departed and in due time arrived at the ‘Twin Wolves'. He passed through what might be called the steak and kidney pie section, found the half hidden stairs at the back and ascended them, conscious that two or three of the waiters were watching. He wondered why, for he could never bring himself to believe that his tall form, well disciplined bearing more alert and lively than that of most soldiers, something even in his way of looking around as if all he saw might be of interest to him, were all a little apt to suggest police to those who had any reason to suppose that police might be interested in them.