Judge Neelon studied Panda for about a half a minute. Then he nodded and said: “Okay. You are off the hook. You don’t have to speak when we have services for Drew. And I will not report you.”
“Thank you, Judge,” Panda said.
“There’s one thing, though, I’d like to know,” the Judge said thoughtfully. “At least, I think I’d like to know it, so I’ll tell you what it is. That day when you were on the table, up there in the jury room? The day I burst in on you and you described your back pain to me in such colorful detail?”
“I remember it, Judge,” Panda Feeney said.
“If I had asked you, that day, if you had that back pain then, what would you have told me? Do you want to tell me that?”
“To be candid, Judge,” Panda Feeney said, “since you’re giving me that option: No, I don’t think that I do.”
Neelon nodded. “Uh-huh,” he said. “And if I were to ask you: Have you ever lied to me? You’d tell me that you never have.”
Panda Feeney nodded. “Yes. And that would be the truth.”
George Sims
Remember Mrs. Fitz!
George Sims lives in a village in Berkshire, England, where he is a dealer in modern rare books. The most recent of his eleven suspense novels, The Rare Book Game (1985) draws on his thirty-year experience in the book trade.
“I am incapable of writing a straightforward detective story because I am primarily interested in describing characters and conveying atmosphere,” Sims comments. “Remember Mrs. Fitz!” substantiates this claim.
Dear Barbara Benyon,
I expect you have already peeked to see who this letter is from. Ha-ha! that was no good as you do not know me and I shall not put my given name but the one assigned to me from The Other Side. Yes, ’tis true, I am only an admirer from afar, but I do know quite a lot about you. For instance that you work at Barclays Bank, in the Strand branch — in fact it was to Messrs. Barclays that I was first indebted for your name, Miss Barbara J. Benyon, on that plaque which you so dexterously and prettily place on the counter.
But I am not one of your customers — I was only in the Strand branch on an errand or “a chore” as Mother used to say — so that will stop you puzzling as to which one I might be. What else do I know about you? Well, that you travel to and from the bank on the No. 11 bus and that you sometimes have lunch at Mario’s on Agar Street. And occasionally you take sandwiches and eat them in Lincoln’s Inn Fields or on the Embankment. Down by the Thames you tend to “moon about” and stare at the famous old river as if it might reveal some of its strange secrets to you, and I do think you are rather “the dreamy, romantic type.” You have a tiny gold watch on a pigskin strap which you consult a good deal at lunch-time, and a gold locket, but no rings I’m glad to say! You are not tall, in fact “five foot two and eyes of blue.” You recently had a summer cold. You read the Daily Mail on the bus in the morning and sometimes you buy the Standard on leaving the bank. All correct so far? Obviously I know where you live. By the way that girl who shares your flat is definitely not the type I should trust but more of that anon.
As for myself? Well I can’t say too much at present but tallish and considered rather good-looking — if you like the dark, Romantic type. Perhaps more of a thinker than a man of action but reasonably outgoing with a good sense of humour, affectionate, responsive and above all sensitive! Much travelled and tanned!
I’ve been told that I’m inclined to be a bit suspicious, someone once said Paranoid (cheek!) and to search out other peoples’ faults but I have not discovered any in you so far. May I be rather personal for a moment and say how much I like some of the frocks and suits you wear to work? But I can’t say that I entirely approved of the rather revealing sunsuits you and your red-headed flat mate wore by the Serpentine last Sunday. And the horrid Lewd way she lay, exposing all she had got! She definitely flaunts herself does that one and is obviously obsessed by the evil Serpent SEX. You see it is true, as Mother used to say, that some girls “have no sense of what is proper.” They taunt men, lead them on and then are surprised when they end up in trouble! But that’s the red headed Tart’s problem, not yours. I see that I’ve been led away by her disgusting goings-on from saying that in your grey dress, the navy one and the dark brown suit you remind me more than somewhat of my Mother and that is really the reason I have written to you. She had tiny feet like you. She always got her “Boots” as she called them at the fashionable Mayfair shop Pinet which was the only place where she could obtain the extra narrow size 3 fitting. I still have a pair of her “Boots” in a special case of which I’ll tell you more some time. It is a very special case with three locks and a combination padlock so you can tell the contents must be important.
Well I must sign off now for “time’s a-fleetin’ ” — without of course any hope of a reply. Think of me just as a shadowy background figure, a humble patient sort of chap who does not intend to interfere with your life at all, but to remain watching over you with the very friendliest of intentions. Believe me ever
Sincerely yours
Laszlo
Dear Busy Bee,
Who sped away from Barclays Bank at lunch-time today and not on her usual stroll to Lincoln’s Inn Fields or the Thames? Who verily raced along the Strand and past the Royal Courts of Justice (Justice! — that’s a joke), then up Chancery Lane? Who had to jump out of the way of a mad lout in a careening black Bentley? Who went into Star Yard and entered the gloomy legal premises of Messrs. Castle, Harding & Walker? That’s right — Barbara Busy Bee. And who followed her and waited ever so patiently outside? Yes — Faithful Laszlo. My Mother always told me that Patience was a great virtue. “Just wait and see.” “Our turn will come,” she used to say. I do hope that there was no very serious reason for you having to consult those legal codgers. If I had to hazard a guess, and it is something that I am rather good at, then I should say trouble at home. By which, of course, I mean trouble with that red-headed Tart who takes men to your flat when you are not there!! Not that I should dream of interfering there unless, of course, I sensed you wanted me to. Sometimes we all have to turn at bay!
I’ve been brooding on this troublesome, indeed worrying, problem of yours despite glares from an ugly, probably disease-ridden, Keeper in a Park which shall remain nameless. I must say that it is a shame you have been forced to go to Law to get that Tart out. “You can’t trust the Law,” Mother used to say. How right she proved to be! Patient, clever, resourceful, “a woman of most unusual qualities,” as they admitted in Court, would you believe that such a woman could end up dying in a prison cell?
Yours sincerely
Laszlo
Dear Barbara Benyon,
Today, rather selfishly I suppose, I want to write about a matter which does tend to weigh me down a bit. I say selfishly because I know I should only be concerned with that Scarlet Woman flat mate who is making your life hell at the moment, and turning your flat into a noisome pit with her SEX goings-on. But this personal matter oppresses me somewhat and I just feel I must get some of it down on paper, set it straight for once and for all. Obviously you can’t reply but I sense that you are “simpatico” and a trouble shared is a trouble halved. Anyway, see what you think.