Anne Belinda_A Golden Age Mystery by Patricia Wentworth

Author:Patricia Wentworth [Wentworth, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2016-06-16T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

From a public telephone-box John called up Mr. Lewis Smith:

“Look here, I want a private detective—inquiry agent—you know the sort of thing.”

Mr. Lewis Smith sounded rather surprised.

“What on earth for?”

“I want one.”

The surprise turned to mild amusement.

“All right—have one. But why ask me? We don’t keep ’em on tap.”

“Don’t be an ass! Can’t you put me on to one?”

“Well—let me see—you might try Messing. Here’s the address. But, I say, if you’re still on the same tack, for the Lord’s sake go easy.”

John rang off. He was sick to death of warnings and discretion. He meant to find Anne Belinda, whatever happened or whoever stood in the way. As a preliminary, he found Mr. Messing, and didn’t very much like the look of him.

Mr. Messing sat at a writing-table with everything very businesslike about him, and a clerk in the outer office. John did not like Mr. Messing’s fingernails, or his tie, or his beady eyes, or his sharply pointed nose; he did not like the way he did his hair. He frowned as he said:

“I—er—I want to trace someone. That’s the sort of thing you undertake, isn’t it?”

Mr. Messing opened a most impressive ledger and discreetly covered all the entries with blotting paper.

“You’d be surprised,” he said affably, “if I were to tell you some of the people we have traced. But that’s the drawback to confidential work like ours—one can’t talk about it, can’t advertise oneself. Of course one’s work gets known. Now”—he poised a ready pen—“you want to trace someone, you said?”

Mr. Messing had no accent; he had only the sort of voice which is so associated with an accent that there is something startling about its absence.

“I want to trace a girl called Annie Jones,” said John rather gruffly. (“Beastly place! Perfectly revolting sort of fellow! Absolutely damnable to have him ferreting about after Anne. But must find her. Tell him as little as possible. How little can one tell him?”)

“Annie Jones—” Mr. Messing poised his pen.

“Yes. She came out of Holloway yesterday.”

“Have you been to the police?”

“No—certainly not. She came out yesterday, and she went to see some friends in the country, and got back to Waterloo at about half-past six—and her friends are anxious because they don’t know where she is, and they’re afraid she hasn’t got much money.”

“’M—the friends’ address?”

“I can’t give you that. It doesn’t matter in the least. All that matters is to find out where she went when she got back to London.”

“Has she any friends in London?”

“She hasn’t communicated with them—they don’t know anything. They’re anxious.”

“’M—description?”

Beastly—unutterably beastly to have to describe Anne Belinda to a fellow like this. All the same she’d got to be found.

“Dark hair, cut short.” (He remembered her long, dark plaits with a curious pang.) “Pale face.” (She couldn’t go on being so dreadfully pale as she was when she held his arm and looked at him with blind blue eyes.)

“Face pale—”

“Eyes dark blue. Dark lashes.” (They wouldn’t go on being drenched with tears.)

“Dress?”

“A grey coat and skirt, and a sort of black cap that hid her hair.

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