Read Online A Mysterious Affair of Style by Gilbert Adair - Free Book Online Page B

than a tragic and, as is frequently said on such occasions, stupid mishap.
    A late postscript in the
Daily Sentinel
made delicate mention of the Sloots family’s grief, in particular that of her mother, who was still under sedation. There was no mention at all, however, in any of the newspapers he scanned, of how the tragedy had affected Alastair Farjeon’s ‘tame little wifie’. And then the news, like the world itself, moved on.
    Which is just about when Trubshawe’s doorbell rang and he heard someone impatiently hallooing him through its letter-box even before he had time to open the door.
    ‘Eustace, hello!’ it boomed.
    That voice again!
    On this occasion, though, as he owned up to himself, hearing it thrilled him to the core.
    She was standing on the doorstep in one of the hairiest and tweediest outfits he had ever seen worn, voluntarily, by a woman.
    ‘Miss Mount!’ he boomed back. ‘What a very pleasant surprise!’
    ‘I rather thought it might be,’ she replied complacently.
    ‘But wait,’ he said, just as he was about to invite her in, ‘how is it you know where I live?’
    Like most of his colleagues at the Yard, Trubshawe had always kept his home number off-limits, even into retirement, as there were just too many ex-convicts at large who would have been delighted to learn, merely by turning thepages of the telephone directory, the current whereabouts of the copper who had been responsible for putting them out of commission. Thrilled as he was to encounter Evadne Mount again, a policeman he had always been and, if only by virtue of his own sense of self, a policeman he still was, and it was as a policeman that he was mightily interested in discovering how she had contrived to track him down.
    ‘My, but aren’t you the suspicious one!’ she laughed, wagging a podgy finger at him. ‘You might have said how glad you were to see me instead of subjecting me to an instant interrogation.’
    ‘Of course I’m glad to see you, Evie,’ said Trubshawe, made aware of how rude he had been. ‘Very glad. That goes without saying.’
    ‘Yes, but it would have been nicer if you’d said it. I haven’t come to nit-pick, though. How have you been these last few weeks?’
    ‘Oh, well, you know …’ came the policeman’s characteristically wary response. ‘Much as ever. I’ve been doing a bit of gardening now that the Spring’s here and, if I say so myself, it’s all beginning to look –’
    He interrupted himself.
    ‘Very neat, Evie, very neat.’
    ‘What is?’ she asked, all innocence.
    ‘Changing the subject the way you just did. I asked you how you obtained my home address.’
    ‘If you must know, I got it from Calvert.’
    ‘Calvert?’
    ‘Inspector Thomas Calvert? You remember him, don’t you? You ought to. According to him, you took him under your wing when he was just a bobby on the beat.’
    ‘Of course I remember Tom Calvert. Most promising newcomer to the Force I ever came across. But how do you happen to be acquainted with him?’
    ‘You may or may not have heard, but Calvert was the copper assigned to that dreadful business at Alastair Farjeon’s villa. The fire? We talked about it with Cora at the Ivy, but you’ve probably forgotten all about it by now.’
    ‘No,’ said Trubshawe, ‘I haven’t forgotten’ – and, in his heart of hearts, he somehow knew that Evadne Mount knew he hadn’t forgotten.
    ‘Well,’ she went on, ‘he was investigating the affair and he questioned a few of Farje’s acquaintances to discover whether they might be able to throw some light on the subject and Cora was one of those questioned and it so happened that I was in her Mayfair flat when she was being interviewed by him and, in short, that’s how I met him. A sweet young man, very bright, very sharp. He’ll go far, I fancy.’
    ‘He certainly will,’ replied Trubshawe gruffly, ‘as soon as he learns not to give out confidential information, like the addresses of former Scotland Yard