A Deed Without a Name by Dorothy Bowers

Author:Dorothy Bowers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: golden age crime novels;detective fiction;1940s crime fiction;murder;poison;The Detection Club;British;fair play mystery;clues
Publisher: Moonstone Press
Published: 2019-09-20T13:41:03+00:00

Pardoe, whose anticipation of a useful morning in the company of Herr Speyer had not been realized, was keeping the Rowan House School visit until the afternoon, when a fast train would get him there about the time that small boys exchange classrooms for playing fields, and some masters are at leisure. This meant there was still plenty of time before lunch to pursue the enquiry at its London end, and in Mayfair there was Wynkerrell’s alibi to check.

“Do you know, Tommy,” Pardoe remarked as the taxi swung them from Hyde Park Corner into Hamilton Place and thence into Park Lane as far as its junction with Mount Street, from which point they had elected to walk, “Do you know there’s a bird in this case after all—independent of the professor’s interests, too? Only I can’t make it fit those realistic sketches Mitfold made. I mean it isn’t the same bird.”

“What is it?”

“Tony Wynkerrell’s shop is in Hobby Court—know what a hobby is?”

“Ah. A pastime,” said Salt, who thought it a barmy sort of question. “An’ the prof’s is birds.”

Pardoe laughed. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. All right, there’s three hobbies then—Speyer’s ornithology, Wynkerrell’s business address, and the one I’m thinking of. It’s a bird—a falcon, sort of hawk, you know.”

Salt grunted and turned it over thoughtfully. “An’ why couldn’t these scribblings be ’awks?”

“They’re not.” Pardoe was definite. “I don’t know a great deal about them, but enough to recognize the distinctive characteristics of birds of prey; and Mitfold, who drew well, hasn’t reproduced any of them. But I shall ask Speyer, and I’ll get hold of some good illustrations of the hobby falcon to make sure.”

“It’ll be a bloomin’ nature-study ramble in the end, if you ask me. What ho, is this the ’ole we’re after?”

The sergeant hardly did justice to the expensive obscurity of Grail Street. It might be a mere lane over which modernity and mechanization had muttered their spell, converting stables to garages and grooms’ quarters to flats, but to Pardoe it suggested just the sophistication and tedious way of life with which it was best acquainted. Even its unobtrusive smartness was faintly repellent, for it had the smugness not of gentility but of its opposite; as if it made a point of being raffish. As Wynkerrell himself made a point of unsentimentality. And its dumb, sunless aspect this morning hinted at nocturnal business less drowsy.

Number six was a narrow cottage in white and green. There were two bells. Pardoe rang the one marked “Mrs. James.” When the house remained unresponsive he pressed it again.

“Out,” said Salt laconically, with resigned memory for the call on Speyer.

Pardoe glanced at his watch. “It’s 12:20. These are the night birds, Tommy. They roost by day.”

As he spoke the door opened and a woman in a gaudy, soiled kimono looked at them in hard silence. Art, that had once made her a platinum blonde, was ruthlessly turning her over to nature. She was putting up no fight about it.

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