Page 72 of Peril in Piccadilly
“We had to try,” I told him as I headed for the door to the outside with him right behind.
“Of course we did. And now we get to try elsewhere.”
He opened the door for me and held it while I passed through. I walked into what appeared to be a small squall of icy needles that had blown up while we had been inside. “Brrr!”
“I hope he’s somewhere warm and dry,” Crispin agreed. “The tobacconist next. Come along.”
I latched onto his arm for the walk back across the street.
An hour later,when Tom finally emerged from behind the double doors of number 49, we had inquired of clerks in every shopfront up and down the block, from Sweetings to the tube entrance, whether any of them had seen Christopher—or Kitty—the day before. And a few had done, but not in a way that had helped. No one had noticed him leave, or the matter of his leaving. He had been there, and the next time they looked through the window, he’d been gone. In some cases, that had been because he had moved positions: circled the small block or gone into one of the other shopfronts where someone else had seen him. Eventually, no one had seen him anymore, and that was that.
“Seemed a shame,” the chap at the confectionary store said. “Pretty girl like that, made to wait around for some bloke who couldn’t bother to be on time. If I’d been off the clock, now…”
He shook his head sadly. We smiled and thanked him, and said nothing about the fact that the pretty girl had been a young man, and that the bloke he’d been waiting for had been inside Sweetings lunching with me.
But eventually we ran out of shopfronts and clerks, and we retreated around the corner to Crispin’s Hispano-Suiza. And shortly after that, Tom made his way around the corner towards us, as well.
“What news?” I asked him when he had climbed into the passenger seat and had sat back with a heartfelt sigh.
He shook his head without raising it from the headrest.
“Nothing?”
“Not a thing.” He turned his head to glance at Crispin. “You?”
“Nothing, either,” the latter said. “The church was empty.”
“Several of the shop clerks noticed him,” I added. “A few even said something to him—greetings mostly, I think—but no one saw him leave. He was there, and then he was gone.”
“Same with the upstairs,” Tom said. “It took a bit of time to talk my way past security, and then more time to talk to everyone. A few people noticed him outside—they thought he was a woman—but for the most part they were all in their offices during the timeframe. A handful left for lunch or came back during the time Kit was outside, and remembered seeing him. No one saw him with anyone else except for one of the secretaries?—”
I caught my breath quickly.
“—who saw him with you.”
I sank back against the seat and avoided Crispin’s sympathetic look in the mirror.
“What about Wolfie?” he asked. “Did anyone remember seeing him?”
Tom shook his head. “One man in a dark suit is much like another. Not like an eye-catching young woman—or a young man in drag—in a cloche hat with violets on it.”
“Even though Wolfgang is exceptionally handsome?” I inquired. “Nobody noticed him?”
“If anyone notices him,” Crispin said, “it would probably be because of the scar. He’s notthathandsome.”
He certainly was. Not that I was about to get into an argument about it. I had better things to do than try to convince Crispin that Wolfgang was good-looking, especially when I knew that Crispin had every reason to reject the premise.
“Was there a German specialist inside?” I asked instead, and Tom nodded. Instead of commenting on it, though, he said, “Get going, St George, if you please. There’s no point in us sitting here.”
“I’d be happy to,” Crispin said, “if you’ll tell me where you want me to go.”
“Back to Scotland Yard, I suppose. Perhaps one or more of my inquiries were answered while we were out.”
Crispin shrugged and started the motorcar. Tom turned his attention back to me and my question. “Yes, indeed, there was a German liaison upstairs. He didn’t know who Natterdorff was, but he was interested in hearing about him.”
“Surely they keep track of the foreigners who come here,” Crispin said as he maneuvered the motorcar carefully back onto Queen Victoria Street in the direction of the Embankment and Scotland Yard.
“Yes and no,” Tom said. “The chap upstairs looked him up at my request, and Natterdorff had the appropriate papers when he arrived here in late July. He also had enough money to support himself, and didn’t need to apply for an employment permit from the Labor Secretary.”
