The Case of the Prodigal Daughter by Christopher Bush

Author:Christopher Bush
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2022-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

Bertha brought in some tea. There was no hurry. It wasn’t the first corpse that had been fished from the Thames and it wouldn’t be the last. It had been identified and now Jewle had it, so to speak, on his hands. It was a case of murder, but you still gained nothing by rushing around.

“Looks as if you’re in this right up to the ears,” he said. “You think you could lend an occasional hand?”

That was just polite flummery. He knew well enough it’d be harder to keep me out than ask me in. Not that I didn’t think I’d have something to contribute. In fact I was contributing already. As soon as we’d stepped into my office I’d made for the files. We have an elaborate cross-reference system and it didn’t take more than two or three minutes to find the name Dorne.

“Here he is,” I said. “March 1952. He was living at that same address in Ferris Street. We used him for five days and paid him for a week. The job was tailing a man suspected of fraud.”

“How does a man get in what you called the pool?”

“It’s easy,” I said. “A small man has slack times so he goes to a big agency and says he’s free if they should need a man at any time. His credentials are examined and he’s probably in. If we want an extra man urgently we ring another agency. They mayn’t have a man to spare but they’ll suggest ringing So-and-so. In this case we rang Dorne.”

“In other words, you were satisfied, or someone like you was, with his credentials at that time.”

I said that was so. I also said that we must have been satisfied with him because, though we’d never had any reason for complaint, I’d certainly have remembered his name if there had been: even though it was four years ago.

“And you haven’t employed him since?”

“Couldn’t have,” I said. “No entry.”

“Then there’s something I’d like you to do,” he said. “It’ll come better from you than us. Get hold of the agencies you usually ring and find out what they have on him.”

It was a job that Norris would be glad to do. Then I had a question of my own.

“I didn’t see the actual wound, but Dorne was stabbed?”

“In the back,” he said. “At a guess, I’d say with a flick-knife. Almost certainly pierced the heart.”

“And whoever did it didn’t want identification, which was why he was naked.”

“That’s it; and then he was dumped. It might have been straight in or from a boat.” He gave a wry smile as he noted that in his book. “Nice and handy if he has friends who go in for that sort of thing. And what about friends?”

I reminded him there’d probably be plenty at Painter’s place. Then there was what I’d been told about the waitress, Molly Wilson. She and Dorne were said to be pretty close.

He made a note.

“And now to the thumb-screws,” he said. “You

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