Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 5, No. 19, November 1944

She burst in like a whirlwind, that pleasant, spring morning two or three years ago. She almost snorted through her aristocratic nose. And this despite the fact that Lady Patricia was normally one of those languid ladies, with a bored blank eye and a sullen under-lip, who would have made an ideal heroine for Mr. Coward.

“She refuses to fill up an official form, sir,” Colonel March was told. “And she’s got a blasted Pekingese with her. But she showed me a note from the Commissioner himself—”

“Send her up,” said Colonel March. Lady Patricia subsided into a chair in a whirl and flop of furs, nursing the Pekingese. As a famous beauty, she perhaps photographed better than she looked. It was a highly enamelled sort of beauty, and her jaw looked as hard as porcelain.

She found herself facing a large, amiable man (weight seventeen stone) with a speckled face, a bland eye, and a cropped moustache. He was teetering before the fire, smoking a short pipe; and Inspector Roberts stood by with a notebook.

“I want you to find him,” Lady Patricia said crisply.

“Find him?” repeated Colonel March. “Find whom?”

“Frankie, of course,” said Lady Patricia, with some impatience. “My fiancé. Surely you’ve heard of him?”

Light came to Colonel March. Any newspaper-reader will remember the political reputation which was being made at that time by the Right Hon. Francis Hale, youngest of the Cabinet Ministers. Francis Hale was young. He was rich. He was intelligent. He had a great future ahead of him.

Anything that could be said against him was, so to speak, to his credit. Francis Hale always did the correct thing, even to becoming engaged to the impoverished daughter of an impoverished peer. He was a teetotaller, a non-smoker, and a man of almost painfully strait-laced life. Colonel March privately considered him a good deal of a stuffed shirt.

“As far as I’m concerned,” said Lady Patricia coolly, “I’m finished with him. We’ve done everything for that man. Everything! The right people, the right places, the right contacts. And I do hope I’m broadminded. But when he turned up to make a speech at that Corporation banquet, tight as a tick and practically blind to the world—!”

Now it has been stated before that nothing ever surprised Colonel March. This, however, came close to it.

“And,” continued Lady Patricia, flirting her furs, “when it comes to that red-haired hussy — actually carrying on with her in public — well, really!”

Colonel March coughed.

In fact, he covered his happy smile only just in time. To any normal human being there is something heartening, something wholly satisfying, about seeing any stuffed shirt go on the razzle-dazzle. The colonel was no exception to this rule. But he caught sight of her eye, and was silent. Lady Patricia Mortlake was no fool. Also, it struck him that she had rather a mean eye and jaw.

“I dare say you think this is all very funny?” she inquired.

“Not at all.”

“And I dare say,” she continued, opening her veiled eyes and cuddling the dog with dangerous quietness, “you wonder why this concerns the police?”

“Since you mention it—”

“But it would interest the police, I hope, to hear that Frankie has disappeared? Throwing his whole department into confusion at a critical time; to say nothing of the inconvenience to my parents and me? It

would interest you to hear that he vanished out of that horrible office in Piccadilly, where heaven knows what has been happening?”

Colonel March regarded her grimly.

“Go on,” he invited.

“He’s been acting queerly,” said Lady Patricia, “for over a. month. Ever since he first saw this.”

From under her coat she took out a copy of a famous literary weekly, of the conservative and highbrow order, and unfolded it. She turned to the advertisements. With the tip of a scarlet finger-nail she indicated one advertisement printed in bold black type. It said simply:

William and Wilhelmina Wilson, 250A, Piccadilly. Nothing more.

“It’s been appearing in only the best papers,” the girl insisted. “And every time Frankie sees it, he seems to go off his head.”

Colonel March frowned.

“What,” he asked, “is the business of William and Wilhelmina Wilson?”

“That’s just it! I don’t know.”

“But if they’re in a legitimate business, they must be listed?”

“Well, they’re not.” Her upper lip lifted defiantly. “I know, because we’ve had a private detective after Frankie. The detective says they sell vacuum cleaners.”

Though Inspector Roberts had ceased in despair to take notes, Colonel March betrayed only an expression of refreshed interest. He continued to teeter before the fire, and puff at his short pipe.