Pursuit of a Parcel_An Ernest Lamb Mystery by Patricia Wentworth

Author:Patricia Wentworth [Wentworth, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2016-05-09T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Antony went back to town, dropping the Daimler en route. As soon as he got back to the flat he rang up Colonel Garrett in his office.

“Would you like me to come round and see you, sir?”

“No, I shouldn’t!” The celebrated bark was at its rudest. “I’m busy! Have you got the parcel?”

“No, sir.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“That’s what I thought I might come round and tell you about.”

“All right, all right—come along!” The thump of the receiver jarred the line.

Antony put on his hat and went out again.

He found Garrett terrifying a new typist. Girls in the office being his pet abomination, he was not attempting to restrain himself. The wretched child gave Antony a look of passionate gratitude and fled. It was now so late that with any luck she might hope for a night’s interval before she had to face any more of Colonel Garrett’s dictation.

Antony shut the door after her, observed that girls worked better when they weren’t bullied, and waited for the explosion. But Garrett only looked surprised.

“Who bullies them?”

Antony grinned.

“You do.”

Garrett made the most frightful of his repertory of faces.

“Did you see her nails—half a yard long and bright scarlet? Revolting!”

“The girl’s a nervous wreck. She’ll have hysterics on you right here if you go on shouting at her like that.”

Colonel Garrett’s eyes became fixed in a steely gaze.

“Come here to lecture me on my office manners?”

“No, sir.”

“Then sit down and tell me about this damned parcel!”

Antony told him.

“I thought it wasn’t any good having a pitched battle—attract too much attention for one thing. Lady Maddox is just the sort of woman who goes screaming all over the place about how I’d dragged her husband into some mysterious affair about a parcel and all the rest of it, and I thought I’d rather leave it over until she was gone. I can go down again tomorrow.”

Garrett gave a grunt.

“Comes of having young women mixed up with things—that’s what I say. Fatal! And they bring them into my office! Tchah!”

“Tchah it is! You don’t suppose I want Delia mixed up in this rotten show? I’ll go down tomorrow and bring the parcel back. What I can’t understand is, why wouldn’t Cornelius meet me? He went away at a quarter to ten, as soon as he heard I was coming down. Why? We parted on the most friendly terms. Why won’t he meet me?”

Garrett looked up sharply.

“Wants to get away with the parcel. Don’t want to come and see me. Not too comfortable in his mind about what he’s been up to and what we’re likely to do about it. That’s my guess. Have you got a better?”

“No, I don’t know that I have. It feels funny—that’s all. What about No. 11 Silverthorn Road—did you get anything there?”

Garrett humped a shoulder.

“What did you expect? Told you there wouldn’t be anything.”

“And there wasn’t.” There was the faintest tinge of irony in Antony’s voice.

“There was an empty house. Plenty of empty houses knocking about these days. Old crater out behind and not much back wall left.

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