Third Girl

"Look through the ones that I have searched in case I have missed anything." "The Personal column, you mean?" "Yes. I thought there would be the name David perhaps. A girl's name. Some pet name or nickname. They would not use Norma. An appeal for help, perhaps, or to a meeting." Miss Lemon took the papers obediently with some distaste. This was not her kind of efficiency, but for the moment he had no other job to give her. He himself spread out the Morning Chronicle. That was the biggest field to search. Three columns of it.

He bent over the open sheet.

A lady who wanted to dispose of her fur coat… Passengers wanted for a car trip abroad… Lovely period house for sale.

Paying guests… Backward children.

Home-made chocolates… "Julia. Shall never forget. Always yours." That was more the kind of thing. He considered it, but passed on. Louis XVth furniture.

Middle-aged lady to help run an hotel.

"In desperate trouble. Must see you. Come to flat 4.30 without all. Our code Goliath." He heard the doorbell ring just as he called out: "Georges, a taxi," slipped on his overcoat, and went into the hall just as George was opening the front door and colliding with Mrs. Oliver. All three of them struggled to disentangle themselves in the narrow hall.

Chapter Twenty-Two

FRANCES GARY, carrying her overnight bag, walked down Mandeville Road, chattering with the friend she had just met on the corner, towards the bulk ofBorodene Mansions.

"Really, Frances, it's like living in a prison block, that building. Wormwood Scrubs or something." "Nonsense, Eileen. I tell you, they're frightfully comfortable, these flats. I'm very lucky and Claudia is a splendid person to share with - never bothers you. And she's got a wonderful daily. The flat's really very nicely run." "Are there just the two of you? I forget.

I thought you had a third girl?" "Oh well, she seems to have walked out onus." "You mean she doesn't pay her rent?" "Oh, I think the rent's all right. I think she's probably having some affair with a boyfriend." Eileen lost interest. Boy friends were too much a matter of course.

"Where are you coming back from now?" "Manchester. Private view was on. Great success." "Are you really going to Vienna next month?" "Yes, I think so. It's pretty well fixed up by now. Rather fun." "Wouldn't it be awful if some of the pictures got stolen?" "Oh, they're all insured," said Frances.

"All the really valuable ones, anyway." "How did your friend Peter's show go?" "Not terribly well, I'm afraid. But there was quite a good review by the critic of The Artist, and that counts a lot." Frances turned into Borodene Mansions, and her friend went on her way to her own small mews house farther down the road.

Frances said "Good-evening" to the porter, and went up in the lift to the sixth floor.

She walked along the passage, humming a little tune to herself.

She inserted her key in the door of the flat. The light in the hall was not on yet.

Claudia was not due back from the office for another hour and a half. But in the sitting-room, the door of which was ajar, the light was on.

Frances said aloud: "Light's on. That's funny." She slipped out of her coat, dropped her overnight bag, pushed the sitting-room door farther open and went in.

Then she stopped dead. Her mouth opened and then shut. She stiffened all over - her eyes staring at the prone figure on the floor; then they rose slowly to the mirror on the wall that reflected back at her her own horror-stricken face.

Then she drew a deep breath. The momentary paralysis over, she flung back her head and screamed. Stumbling over her bag on the hall floor and kicking it aside, she ran out of the flat and along the passage and beat frenziedly at the door of the next flat.

An elderly woman opened it.

"What on earth - " "There's someone dead - someone dead. And I think it's someone I know.

David Baker. He's lying there on the floor… I think he's stabbed… he must have been stabbed. There's blood-blood everywhere." She began to sob hysterically. Miss Jacobs shook her, steadied her, lowered her on to a sofa and said authoritatively: "Be quiet now. I'll get you some brandy." She shoved a glass into her hand. ^Stay there and drink it." Frances sipped obediently. Miss Jacobs went rapidly out of the door along the passage and through the open door from which the light was pouring out. The living-room door was wide open and Miss Jacobs went straight through it.

She was not the kind of woman who screams. She stood just within the doorway, her lips pursed hard together.

What she was looking at had a nightmarish quality. On the floor lay a handsome young man, his arms flung wide, his chestnut hair falling on his shoulders. He wore a crimson velvet coat, and his white shirt was dappled with blood.

She was aware with a start that there was a second figure with her in the room. A girl was standing pressed back against the wall, the great Harlequin above seeming to be leaping across the painted sky.