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Lucy Clover had two visitors that day. The first was a man with a poker face. In fact, he was poker in every way. He betrayed neither his emotion nor his philosophy, his age nor his nationality, but although he was English he had no particular characteristic of his race, and might have been Chinese. Even his weight was deceptive; he was small and stocky. But since he was not a boxer or a jockey, no one was interested in his weight. His initials, by which he was known to his few intimates, suggested some association with the turf, but actually they merely stood for the rather unimpressive name of George Gem.

As he ascended the self-working lift of the block of flats in which Lucy Clover lived, he appeared to be half-asleep. No one would have believed that he noticed anything. He had cultivated this disarming semblance. But he noticed everything. Often, he admitted to himself, too much. Of what use, for example, was it to know that there was a small scratch beneath the third button of the lift, that the lift gave a tiny click as it passed each floor, and that the atmosphere inside the slowly-ascending boxlike compartment had a faint mingling of stale scent with its stuffiness? Such details merely clogged the mind, and had to be pushed away when they obtruded.

Lucy Clover opened the door of her flat to him.

“Mr. Gem?” enquired Mrs. Clover.

“Correct,” answered G.G. No, it was not her scent. “Mrs. Clover?”

“Yes. Please come in.”

She led him to a small sitting-room. Of course, it might be her scent, for it had been stale, and the scent of today is not necessarily the scent of yesterday. The clock wasn’t going. It had stopped at twenty-three minutes to four. A pity you could never tell whether a clock had stopped a.m. or p.m. There might be some way. Nothing’s impossible....

“Sit down, Mr. Gem.”

G.G. sat down. Damn hard chair.

“And now please tell me. Do enquiry agents trace people?”

“That is one of their jobs,” answered G.G.

“I had an idea that you only watched or followed them,” said Lucy.

“She’s been on the stage,” thought G.G. while he responded, “We often have to trace a person before we can watch or follow them.”

“Yes. I see. Now one more question before I begin. When talking confidentially to an enquiry agent, can you be had up for slander or anything?”

“Nothing,” G.G. assured her, “is ever repeated against a client’s interest.”

“That’s most satisfactory, Mr. Gem. Then I want you to trace, please, a bloody blackguard who has gone off with a lot of my money.”

Empty, unwashed-up tumbler on small table. Probably contained a pick-me-up.

“Can I have the particulars?” asked G.G., patiently.

“Here they are,” replied Lucy, “and I think you’ll agree that they are gory! The individual is supposed to be named Bloggs, but I’ll bet that’s not the name on his birth certificate. Edward P. Bloggs. I don’t know what the P. stands for, but I could make it something! He advertised for a sleeping partner with some capital, and like a fool I answered the advertisement. He came to see me here in this flat, and I’m bound to say he seemed nice enough, in fact he was so nice that I sometimes think he must now have turned into someone else. I don’t mean that I fell for him, but he had a pleasant easy direct manner, and there was no doubt, no doubt at all, that my two thousand pounds would be doubled in six months.”

G.G. nodded. He recognised the formula.

“What was the business?” he enquired.

“It called itself Spare Parts Limited,” answered Lucy. “Have you ever heard of it?”

“No.”

“Then you’ve lost your chance, because now you never will. Mr. Bloggs has walked out on me and his staff, and where he’s walked to is what you’ve got to find out.”

She made a dramatic gesture and then leaned back in her chair, as though to say, “Now it’s your turn.”

“I shall require a few more particulars,” said G.G.

“There aren’t any more,” replied Lucy.

“I expect I shall find some if you will answer a few questions. What is the address of Spare Parts Limited?”

“Not 156, Rolliter Way, Balham, as I was first told. It’s—wait a moment, I wrote it down somewhere—yes, 3, Partington Wall, E.C.”

G.G. entered it in his notebook.

“I suppose you were given the wrong address deliberately.”

“Well, yes, of course.”

“When did you find out?”

“A few days ago, when I called—or tried to.”

“Only a few days ago?”

“Yes. I was beginning to get the wind up.”

“And Mr. Bloggs was not at that address?”

“Nor was anybody else! There isn’t any such address. It was the same with the solicitors.”

“What solicitors?”

“Messrs. Swallow, Bird and Swallow. Have you ever heard of them?”

G.G. shook his head.

“I don’t expect anyone else has, either. Their address was supposed to be 66, Tabard Inn, W.C.2, but that doesn’t exist, either.”

“But what were your dealings with Swallow, Bird and Swallow?” enquired G.G., wondering why God had made the world so easy a place for sharks to live in. “Did the transaction go through them?”

“Yes,” answered Lucy, trying not to look ashamed. “He—Mr. Bloggs—said I would need a solicitor, and he sent one to me next day——”

“Here? To your flat?”

“Yes. Why not?”

G.G. smiled faintly.

“There was no reason why not,” he remarked, “from Mr. Bloggs’s point of view. Did all the transactions take place here?”

“Did they?” murmured Lucy. “Yes. They must have.”

“Because there wasn’t anywhere else—anywhere else at all—where they could have taken place?”

“Only at Mr. Bloggs’s hotel, as the other addresses didn’t exist. Yes, I know quite well I’ve been a fool, Mr. Gem, and deserve to have lost all I have, but your job is to pretend I’m just a victim of bad luck.”

“The hotel does exist, though?”

“Yes, Wray’s Hotel, Baker Street.”

“And that is Mr. Bloggs’s last known address?”

Lucy nodded.

“He was to have moved to 19a, Fenner Crescent, W.2., the day after tomorrow, but—but——”

“Yes?”

“That doesn’t exist, either.”

“Quite. Now when did Mr. Bloggs leave Wray’s Hotel?”

“I think it was Thursday. It may have been Friday. Thursday or Friday. Yes, Friday or Thursday. Anyhow, they’ll tell you if you call. Do you know, my head is beginning to spin, is yours?”

“No, ma’am, to me the situation is becoming plainer and plainer. Wray’s Hotel will probably be the best base for my next enquiries, but you can still help me a little more, if you will. These solicitors——”

“It was one of the Swallows who called,” interrupted Lucy, with a sudden longing to get it all over. The interview with Jerry Haines had been much more agreeable. Probably because there she had been a fool among fools, while now she lacked mental company. “I made my cheque out to him——”

“What is your bank?”

“The National Provincial.”

“Thank you. Yes?”

“What? Oh, Swallow. He called here, and he had a long moustache and side whiskers.”

“Was Mr. Bloggs clean shaven?”

Lucy sighed.

“I see you are wondering what I’ve been wondering! It’s a horrible thought!” She shuddered at herself. “Oh, no! Surely not! It couldn’t really and truly have been the same person! Not really and truly!”

“I doubt it, ma’am,” answered G.G., to her relief. “That risk would have been too great, although Mr. Bloggs is obviously a man who takes risks. But you would probably have recognised the voice, if not the face, quite leaving out the figure——”

“Oh, yes, the figure was different! I’m sure of it! At least, I think it was. And so was the voice—oh, yes—although, of course, one can change one’s voice rather more easily than one’s figure, can’t one?”

“We shall probably find,” said G.G., “that the alleged Mr. Swallow was an accomplice of Mr. Bloggs, working possibly on a commission basis. I shall not trouble you much more just now, ma’am, but before I go I do need as detailed a description of these two men—assuming them to have been two men—as you can possibly supply. Now, then. First Mr. Bloggs.”

He held his pencil poised over his notebook, and Lucy did her best. And when at last George Gem left her, she leaned back in her chair, and wondered whether it was all worth while. “Because, even if we get Mr. Bloggs,” she reflected, “what are we going to do with him?” It was highly unlikely that he would still have her two thousand pounds in returnable form, and, vile though he was, the prospect of sending him to prison for several years did not give Lucy Clover any particular pleasure.

The second visitor of the day was Jerry Haines. He called just as she was finishing a solitary, gloomy tea, and she welcomed him graciously. He was a nice, ingenuous young man, and she was in a mood for something agreeable to take unpleasant tastes out of her mouth.

“I hope you’ve brought me some news?” she said, hopefully.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I have,” answered Jerry.

Her heart leapt.

“Have you found him?”

“Who? Oh, Bloggs!” He shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not. I’ve a hunch we never will.”

Lucy smiled disappointedly, but she said, “Don’t give up hope, Mr. Haines. I’ve a hunch that we’re going to.” She lowered her voice dramatically and unnecessarily. “There’s a sleuth on the track!”

“A sleuth?”

“Yes, a detective.”

Jerry looked surprised.

“Do you mean the police are after him already?”

“Well, no, not the police exactly—yet. It’s a private detective. I’ve engaged him. He was here only a couple of hours ago filling his notebook with particulars. So that’s my news, and now what is yours? Tell me over a luke-warm cup of tea.”

While unfolding his story Jerry watched his hostess anxiously for her reactions. The project did not depend upon her, for it had been agreed that if the new staff could not turn up in full force, six-sevenths of the complete complement would be sufficient to go on with, but there was something about Mrs. Clover, something he could not quite define, which Jerry felt would add useful ballast to the ship. He had tried to define it unsuccessfully on his way to her flat. That she could be exceedingly foolish had been amply proved. Yes, she could match them all in financial folly! But—what? She had enterprise. She did not sit down under her punishment, however deserved. She had exploded non-existent addresses, if somewhat tardy in the process, she had tracked a genuine one through Telephone Enquiries. She had bearded the staff of Spare Parts Limited in their den with formidable if fictitious ferocity, and now she had engaged a private detective to chase Mr. Bloggs. Coupled with something engagingly amusing in her personality, this was not bad going.

But Jerry had not really expected in his heart that Lucy Clover would do more than listen to his tale with polite interest, and he was genuinely astonished when she exclaimed:

“I must say, it sounds delightful!”

“You don’t mean that?” he answered.

“Of course I do! A real adventure! And those two funny old people must be a scream!” She paused, as though doubting her term. “Or do I mean quite that?”

“They seem rather nice to me,” said Jerry. “I know they got under Tim O’Hara’s skin. And—and that old house in the middle of a small private park sounds rather jolly, too.”

“Yes, doesn’t it?”

“And, of course, if the whole thing turned out too ridiculous or impossible, we’d only have to stick it for a month.”

“Quite true.”

There was a pause. Regarding him curiously, she asked, “And are you all really and truly going, then?”

“We are. Are you?”

Jerry often wondered what her reply would have been if, at that moment, the telephone bell had not rung. He watched her lift the receiver, he noticed the sudden change in her expression, he saw her eyebrows (rather surprisingly they were her own eyebrows) go up, and he heard her say, at the conclusion of a period of intense listening, “Yes, I see—yes, very interesting—yes, I will be.” Then she replaced the receiver, with the oddest expression.

“I’m joining your party,” she said.