‘He sounds all right,’ thought Tommy. ‘He looks all right, he speaks all right, but all the same -‘ He waved frantically at a taxi which gave him a direct and cold look, increased its speed and drove on. ‘Swine,’ thought Tommy.
His eyes roved up and down the street, seeking for a more obliging vehicle. A fair amount of people were walking on the pavement. A few hurrying, some strolling, one man gazing at a brass plate just across the road from him. After a close scrutiny, he turned round and Tommy’s eyes opened a little wider. He knew that face. He watched the man walk to the end of the street, pause, mm and walk back again. Somebody came out of the building behind Tommy and at that moment the man opposite increased his pace a little, still walking on the other side of the road but keeping pace with the man who had come out of the door. The man who had come out of Messrs.
Partingdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale’s doorway was, Tommy thought, looking after his retreating figure, almost certainly Mr Eccles. At the same moment a taxi lingering in a pleasant tempting manner, came along. Tommy raised his hand, the taxi drew up, he opened the door and got in.
‘Where to?’ Tommy hesitated for a moment, looking at his parcel. About to give an address he changed his mind and said, ’14 Lyon Street.’ A quarter of an hour later he had reached his destination. He rang the bell after paying off the taxi and asked for Mr Ivor Smith. When he entered a second-floor room, a man sitting at a table facing the window, swung round and said with faint surprise, ‘Hullo, Tommy, fancy seeing you. It’s a long time. What are you doing here? Just tooling round looking up your old friends?’ ‘Not quite as good as that, Ivor.’ ‘I suppose you’re on your way home after the Conference>’ ‘Yes.’ · ‘All a lot of the usual talky-talky, I suppose? No conclusions drawn and nothing helpful said.’ ‘Quite right. All a sheer waste of time.’ ‘Mostly listening to old Bogie Taddock shooting his mouth off, I expect. Crashing bore. Gets worse every year.’ ‘Oh! well ‘ Tommy sat down in the chair that was pushed towards him, accepted a cigarette, and said, ‘I just wondered – it’s a very long shot – whether you know anything of a derogatory nature about one Eccles, solicitor, of the firm of Messrs. Partingdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale.’ ‘Well, well, well,’ said the man called Ivor Smith. He raised his eyebrows. They were very convenient eyebrows for raising.
The end of them near the nose went up and the opposite end of the cheek went down for an almost astonishing extent. They made him on very little provocation look like a man who had had a severe shock, but actually it was quite a common gesture with him. ‘Run up against Eccles somewhere have you?’
‘The trouble is,’ said Tommy, ‘that I know nothing about him.’
‘And you want to know something about him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hm. What made you come to see me?’
‘I saw Anderson outside. It was a long time since I’d seen him but I recognized him. He was keeping someone or other under observation. Whoever it was, it was someone in the building from which I had just emerged. Two rums of lawyers practise there and one fu’m of chartered accountants. Of course it may be any one of them or any member of any one of them.
But a man walking away down the street looked to me like Eccles. And I just wondered if by a lucky chance it could have been my Mr Eccles that Anderson was giving his attention to?’
‘Hm,’ said Ivor Smith. ‘Well, Tommy, you always were a pretty good guesser.’
‘Who is Eccles?’
‘Don’t you know? Haven’t you any idea?’
‘I’ve no idea whatever,’ said Tommy. ‘Without going into a long history, I went to him for some information about an old lady who has recently left an old ladies’ home. The solidtor employed to make arrangements for her was Mr Eccles. He appears to have done it with perfect decorum and effidency. I wanted her present address. He says, he hasn’t got it. Quite possibly he hasn’t.., but I wondered. He’s the only clue to her whereabouts I’ve got.’