"Mr West had just arrived when you came," Malcolm said. "Perhaps you'd better explain to him what we want."
I sat on the spindly little sofa and said to Norman West that we wanted him to find out where every single member of our extended family had been on the previous Friday from, say, four o'clock in the afternoon onwards, and also on Tuesday, yesterday, all day. Norman West looked from one to the other of us in obvious dismay.
"if it's too big a job," Malcolm said, "bring in some help."
"It's not really that," Norman West said unhappily. "But I'm afraid there may be a conflict of interest."
"What conflict of interest?" Malcolm demanded.
Norman West hesitated, cleared his throat and hummed a little. Then he said, "Last Saturday morning I was hired by one of your family to find you, Mr Pembroke. I've already been working, you see, for one of your family. Now you want me to check up on them. I don't think I should, in all conscience, accept your proposition."
"Which member of my family?" Malcolm demanded.
Norman West drummed his fingers on his knee, but decided after inner debate to answer. "Mrs Pembroke," he said.
CHAPTER FOUR
Malcolm blinked. "Which one?" he asked. "Mrs Pembroke," Norman West repeated, puzzled.
"There are nine of them," I said. "So which one?"
The detective looked uncomfortable. "I spoke to her only on the telephone. I thought… I assumed… it was the Mrs Malcolm Pembroke for whom I worked once before, long ago. She referred me to that case, and asked for present help. I looked up my records." He shrugged helplessly. "I imagined it was the same lady."
"Did you find Mr Pembroke," I asked, "when you were looking for him?"
Almost unwillingly, West nodded. "In Cambridge. Not too difficult."
"And you reported back to Mrs Pembroke?"
"I really don't think I should be discussing this any further."
"At least, tell us how you got back in touch with Mrs Pembroke to tell her of your success."
"I didn't," he said. "She rang me two or three times a day, asking for progress reports. Finally on Monday evening, I had news for her. After that, I proceeded with my next investigation, which I have now concluded. This left me free for anything Mr Pembroke might want."
"I want you to find out which Mrs Pembroke wanted to know where I was."
Norman West regretfully shook his unkempt head. "A client's trust…" he murmured.
"A client's trust, poppycock!" Malcolm exploded. "Someone who knew where to find me damn near killed me."
Our detective looked shocked but rallied quickly. "I found you, sir, by asking Mrs Pembroke for a list of places you felt at home in, as in my experience missing people often go to those places, and she gave me a list of five such possibilities, of which Cambridge was number three. I didn't even go to that city looking for you. As a preliminary, I was prepared to telephone to all the hotels in Cambridge asking for you, but I tried the larger hotels first, as being more likely to appeal to you, sir, and from only the third I got a positive response. If it was as easy as that for me to find you, it was equally easy for anyone else. And, sir, if I may say so, you made things easy by registering under your own name. People who want to stay lost shouldn't do that."
He spoke with a touching air of dignity ill-matched to his seedy appearance and for the first time I thought he might be better at his job than he looked. He must have been pretty efficient, I supposed, to have stayed in the business so long, even if catching Malcolm with his trousers off couldn't have taxed him sorely years ago.
He finished off the glass of champagne that Malcolm had given him before my arrival, and refused a refill.
"How is Mrs Pembroke paying you?" I asked.
"She said she would send a cheque."
"When it comes," I said, "you'll know which Mrs Pembroke."
"So I will."
"I don't see why you should worry about a conflict of interests," I said. "After all, you've worked pretty comprehensively for various Pembrokes. You worked for my mother, Joyce Pembroke, to catch my father with the lady who gave her grounds for divorce. You worked for my father, to try to catch his fifth wife having a similar fling. You worked for the unspecified Mrs Pembroke to trace my father's whereabouts. So now he wants you to find out where all his family were last Friday and yesterday so as to be sure it was none of his close relatives who tried to kill him, as it would make him very unhappy if it were. If you can't square that with your conscience, of course with great regret he'll have to retain the services of someone else."
Norman West eyed me with a disillusionment which again encouraged me to think him not as dim as he looked. Malcolm was glimmer-eyed with amusement.
"Pay you well, of course," he said.
"Danger money," I said, nodding.
Malcolm said, "What?"
"We don't want him to step on a rattlesnake, but in fairness he has to know he might."
Norman West looked at his short and grimy nails. He didn't seem unduly put out, nor on the other hand eager.
"Isn't this a police job?" he asked.
"Certainly," I said. "My father called them in when someone tried to kill him last Friday, and he'll tell you all about it. And you have to bear in mind that they're also enquiring into the murder of Moira Pembroke, whom you followed through blameless days. But you would be working for my father, not for the police, if you take his cash."
"Pretty decisive, aren't you, sir?" he said uneasily.
"Bossy," Malcolm agreed, "in his quiet way."
All those years, I thought, of getting things done in a racing stable, walking a tightrope between usurping the power of the head lad on one hand and the trainer himself on the other, like a lieutenant between a sergeant-major and a colonel. I'd had a lot of practice, one way and anotherat being quietly bossy.
Malcolm unemotionally told West about his abortive walk with the dogs and the brush with carbon monoxide, and after that described also the near-miss at Newmarket.
Norman West listened attentively with slowly blinking eyes and at the end said, "The car at Newmarket could have been accidental. Driver looking about for cigarettes, say. Not paying enough attention. Seeing you both at the last minute… swerving desperately."
Malcolm looked at me. "Did it seem like that to you?"
"No."
"Why not?" West asked.
"The rate of acceleration, I suppose."
"Foot on accelerator going down absent -mindedly during search for cigarettes?"
"Headlights, full beam," I said.
"A sloppy driver? Had a few drinks?"
"Maybe." I shook my head. "The real problem is that if the car had hit us – or Malcolm – there might have been witnesses. The driver might have been stopped before he could leave the sales area. The car number might have been taken."
West smiled sorrowfully. "It's been done successfully before now, in broad daylight in a crowded street."
"Are you saying," Malcolm demanded of me, "that the car wasn't trying to kill me?"
"No, only that the driver took a frightful risk."
"Did any witnesses rush to pick us up?" Malcolm asked forcefully. "Did anyone so much as pass a sympathetic remark? No, they damned well didn't. Did anyone try to stop the driver or take his number? The hell they did."
"All the same, "West said, "your son is right. Hit-and-run in a public place has its risks. If it was tried here, and sirs, I'm not saying it wasn't, the putative gain must have outweighed the risk, or, erin other words -"
"in other words," Malcolm interrupted with gloom, "Ian is right to think they'll try again."
Norman West momentarily looked infinitely weary, as if the sins of the world were simply too much to contemplate. He had seen, I supposed, as all investigators must, a lifetime's procession of sinners and victims; and, moreover, he looked roughly seventy and hadn't slept all night.