‘Should I know him?’ Adam asked.
‘He writes lyrics and one-acters for German Reed — the musical entertainments in the Gallery of Illustration, that theatre just around the corner. If you recall we saw one together last year. Some nonsense about haunted castles in Scotland and pictures coming to life and stepping out of their frames. Was it entitled Ages Ago? Something like that.’
The moustachioed gentleman inclined his head ever so slightly in response to Jardine’s greeting.
‘He knows you, it would seem,’ Adam remarked.
‘I was introduced to him at Gatti’s the other night.’
‘I remember the piece we went to see now. Nonsense, as you say, but enjoyable nonsense.’
‘Gilbert is a talented man. No doubt the world will hear more of him before long.’
A waiter materialised at their table. He took their orders for coffee and disappeared as swiftly and silently as he had arrived.
‘So this is to be our last meeting for a while,’ Jardine said. ‘Before you shake the dust of England from your feet for several months?’
‘Yes, Fields has arranged it all. As soon as the long vac is upon him, we travel once again to Greece.’
‘And which of the beauties of ancient Hellas draws you there this time?’
‘We go to Athens. Whether we travel further depends on what we find there.’
Jardine raised his eyebrows questioningly.
‘We shall be on the trail of lost manuscripts,’ Adam said. ‘Of this writer Euphorion I have mentioned. Fields has an acquaintance in the French School at Athens who claims to have seen a manuscript of which Cambridge scholarship knows nothing.’
‘I thought that anything of which Cambridge scholarship knew nothing was scarcely deemed knowledge.’ The young painter crossed his arms behind his head and leant back against his seat. ‘Well, it is not a journey I envy. Although I shall be sorry to see you go. London is a dreary enough place as it is in the summer.’
‘You will have no distractions. There will be no excuses for not finishing King Pellinore and the Questing Beast.’
‘True. Although I seldom find it difficult to fashion an excuse for not working. But I shall miss the mysteries which seem to have followed you around town in the last month: the maiden in possible distress; the men murdered just as you were eager to converse with them.’
‘I fear that they must all remain mysterious, Jardine.’ Adam sounded sombre and downcast. ‘The maiden in possible distress, together with her mother, has disappeared from Brown’s.’
‘She deserted you on the dance floor at Cremorne, did she not?’ the painter remarked, with the slightest hint of malice in his voice.
‘Not quite on the dance floor,’ Adam said defensively. ‘We spent some time together. We talked of several inconsequential subjects. We danced. And then she said that she must return to Brown’s before her mother returned from Lombard Street. We walked together to the gate where the cabs gather. As you can imagine, I offered to accompany her back to her hotel.’
‘Of course. The very least a gentleman could do. But she spurned your offer?’
‘She did. “I’m not in the least bit afraid of a London cab by myself,” she said, and before I could make any reply, she had climbed into one. In truth, she all but jumped into it and shouted for the cabbie to take her to Albemarle Street. She disappeared in the general direction of town within seconds.’
Adam was only slightly ashamed of himself for providing this largely fictional account of Emily Maitland’s departure. Cosmo’s curiosity about the young woman was obvious but his friend felt little urge to satisfy it. He was so far from understanding Emily’s motivations himself that he had no desire to tell Jardine any more and then be obliged to listen to the discourse on the fickleness and unpredictability of women that the painter would inevitably give.
‘So Cinderella had to flee the ball.’ Cosmo continued to probe for further information.
‘And long before midnight’s witching hour. It was barely seven in the evening. The gardens were only beginning to grow busier.’
‘This capricious belle of Cremorne left you none the wiser as to her reasons for seeking you out in the first place?’
Adam shook his head. The ghostly waiter shimmered into view again, served them with their coffee and departed.
‘You have visited Brown’s in the days since?’
‘Twice. I was there only yesterday.’ In truth, Adam had been to Albemarle Street more than twice since the meeting at Cremorne but he was embarrassed to admit to his friend how frequently he had haunted the hotel in hopes of catching a glimpse of Emily. Indeed, he was shy of admitting even to himself how eager he was to see her again. ‘But they are no longer there. I can only assume that they must have done as Miss Maitland suggested that they might and travelled to Switzerland.’
Jardine took a silver cigarette case from his pocket. He selected a cigarette, tapped it gently on the case and put it in his mouth. The waiter, miraculously reappearing from whatever spectral limbo he inhabited when his services were not required, held out a match. Jardine sucked in smoke from the first pull on the lit cigarette and blew it out. He nodded his thanks to the waiter, who left them once again.
‘Meanwhile the dead men are doing no talking,’ the artist said.
‘Indeed not. The police inspector in charge of investigating their deaths, who is either one of the greatest fools in Christendom or a man of subtle and devious wisdom — I cannot decide which — appears to have convinced himself that Creech was killed in the course of a bungled robbery. Quint believes that he is interested only in pinning the murder on somebody. Anybody would do and this man Stirk has simply been singled out as the unfortunate sacrificial lamb.’
Jardine shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that, in this wicked world, Quint’s theory might well be true.
‘And the other man?’ he asked.
‘The inspector seems to care little for the fate of poor Jinkinson. He was associating with villains and received much what he deserved for doing so. That appears to be the police opinion on the matter.’
‘But you have not been content with the police view of the killing.’ Jardine blew out smoke again and sipped at his black coffee. ‘You tell me that you have played the intrepid explorer and ventured into the city’s most abandoned and desolate regions. With Quint as your improbable Virgil, you proved a latterday Dante and descended into the pits of hell in search of news of the lost soul of this fellow Jinkinson.’
‘If you consider Holywell Street and the Palace of Westminster to be the pits of hell,’ Adam said.
‘Oh, I do. Particularly Westminster.’
‘Certainly one of its inhabitants seems to have played the very devil with at least one poor woman.’
‘I would be astonished if only one of the members of the House had proved a devil with the women.’
‘Well, there is but the one of whom I know. As you say, doubtless there are plenty of others. But I am sure it was Garland who ruined Ada.’
‘The woman your late friend Jinkinson was seeing?’
‘The very one. I am convinced that she was Garland’s maid and that he seduced her. Then he turned her out of his house.’
‘And Jinkinson was employed by Creech to find her.’
‘Jinkinson discovered a great deal about Garland’s women. He located the pied-à-terre where Garland kept the actress he visited. He told me about that love nest himself. But he omitted to mention Ada.’
Adam now reached over to extract a cigarette from his friend’s case which was still lying on the table. Before he had completed the manoeuvre, the waiter was there again, holding a flaming match. The man was certainly earning his tip.