‘Got anything?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Ah! Well, it won’t do, Colin, d’you hear? Won’t do. Crescents indeed!’

‘I still think,’ I began.

‘All right. You still think. But we can’t wait for ever while you’re thinking.’

‘I’ll admit it was only a hunch,’ I said.

‘No harm in that,’ said Colonel Beck.

He was a contradictory man.

‘Best jobs I’ve ever done have been hunches. Only this hunch of yours doesn’t seem to be working out. Finished with the pubs?’

‘Yes, sir. As I told you I’ve started on Crescents. Houses in crescents is what I mean.’

‘I didn’t suppose you meant bakers’ shops with French rolls in them, though, come to think of it, there’s no reason why not. Some of these places make an absolute fetish of producing French croissants that aren’t really French. Keep ’em in a deep freeze nowadays like everything else. That’s why nothing tastes of anything nowadays.’ 

I waited to see whether the old boy would enlarge upon this topic. It was a favourite one of his. But seeing that I was expecting him to do so, Colonel Beck refrained.

‘Wash out all round?’ he demanded.

‘Almost. I’ve still got a little way to go.’

‘You want more time, is that it?’

‘I want more time, yes,’ I said. ‘But I don’t want to move on to another place this minute. There’s been a kind of coincidence and it might-onlymight -mean something.’

‘Don’t waffle. Give me facts.’

‘Subject of investigation, Wilbraham Crescent.’

‘And you drew a blank! Or didn’t you?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Define yourself, define yourself, boy.’

‘The coincidence is that a man was murdered in Wilbraham Crescent.’

‘Who was murdered?’

‘As yet he’s unknown. Had a card with a name and address in his pocket, but that was bogus.’

‘Hm. Yes. Suggestive. Tie up in any way?’

‘I can’t see that it does, sir, but all the same…’

‘I know, I know. All the same…Well, what have you come for? Come for permission to go on nosing about Wilbraham Crescent-wherever that absurd-sounding place is?’ 

‘It’s a place called Crowdean. Ten miles from Portlebury.’

‘Yes, yes. Very good locality. But what are you here for? You don’t usually ask permission. You go your own pigheaded way, don’t you?’

‘That’s right, sir, I’m afraid I do.’

‘Well, then, what is it?’

‘There are a couple of people I want vetted.’

With a sigh Colonel Beck drew his reading-desk back into position, took a ball-pen from his pocket, blew on it and looked at me.

‘Well?’

‘House called Diana Lodge. Actually, 20, Wilbraham Crescent. Woman called Mrs Hemming and about eighteen cats live there.’

‘Diana? Hm,’ said Colonel Beck. ‘Moon goddess! Diana Lodge. Right. What does she do, this Mrs Hemming?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘she’s absorbed in her cats.’

‘Damned good cover, I dare say,’ said Beck appreciatively. ‘Certainly could be. Is that all?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s a man called Ramsay. Lives at 62, Wilbraham Crescent. Said to be a construction engineer, whatever that is. Goes abroad a good deal.’

‘I like the sound of that,’ said Colonel Beck. ‘I like the sound of that very much. You want to know about him, do you? All right.’ 

‘He’s got a wife,’ I said. ‘Quite a nice wife, and two obstreperous children-boys.’

‘Well, he might have,’ said Colonel Beck. ‘It has been known. You remember Pendleton? He had a wife and children. Very nice wife. Stupidest woman I’ve ever come across. No idea in her head that her husband wasn’t a pillar of respectability in oriental book dealing. Come to think of it, now I remember, Pendleton had a German wife as well, and a couple of daughters. And he also had a wife in Switzerland. I don’t know what the wives were-his private excesses or just camouflage. He’dsay of course that they were camouflage. Well, anyway, you want to know about Mr Ramsay. Anything else?’

‘I’m not sure. There’s a couple at 63. Retired professor. McNaughton by name. Scottish. Elderly. Spends his time gardening. No reason to think he and his wife are not all right-but-’

‘All right. We’ll check. We’ll put ’em through the machine to make sure. Whatare all these people, by the way?’

‘They’re people whose gardens verge on or touch the garden of the house where the murder was committed.’

‘Sounds like a French exercise,’ said Beck. ‘Where is the dead body of my uncle? In the garden of the cousin of my aunt. What about Number 19 itself?’ 

‘A blind woman, a former school teacher, lives there. She works in an institute for the blind and she’s been thoroughly investigated by the local police.’

‘Live by herself?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what is your idea about all these other people?’

‘My idea is,’ I said, ‘that if a murder was committed by any of these other people in any of these other houses that I have mentioned to you, it would be perfectly easy, though risky, to convey the dead body into Number 19 at a suitable time of day. It’s a mere possibility, that’s all. And there’s something I’d like to show you.This.’

Beck took the earthstained coin I held out to him.

‘A Czech Haller? Where did you find it?’

‘I didn’t. But it was found in the back garden of Number 19.’

‘Interesting. You may have something after all in your persistent fixation on crescents and rising moons.’ He added thoughtfully, ‘There’s a pub called The Rising Moon in the next street to this. Why don’t you go and try your luck there?’

‘I’ve been there already,’ I said.

‘You’ve always got an answer, haven’t you?’ said Colonel Beck. ‘Have a cigar?’

I shook my head. ‘Thank you-no time today.’

‘Going back to Crowdean?’

‘Yes. There’s the inquest to attend.’ 

‘It will only be adjourned. Sure it’s not some girl you’re running after in Crowdean?’

‘Certainly not,’ I said sharply.

Colonel Beck began to chuckle unexpectedly.

‘You mind your step, my boy! Sex rearing its ugly head as usual. How long have you known her?’

‘There isn’t any-I mean-well-therewas a girl who discovered the body.’

‘What did she do when she discovered it?’

‘Screamed.’

‘Very nice too,’ said the colonel. ‘She rushed to you, cried on your shoulder and told you about it. Is that it?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said coldly. ‘Have a look at these.’

I gave him a selection of the police photographs.

‘Who’s this?’ demanded Colonel Beck.

‘The dead man.’

‘Ten to one this girl you’re so keen about killed him. The whole story sounds very fishy to me.’

‘You haven’t even heard it yet,’ I said. ‘I haven’t told it to you.’

‘I don’t need telling,’ Colonel Beck waved his cigar. ‘Go away to your inquest, my boy, and look out for that girl. Is her name Diana, or Artemis, or anything crescenty or moonlike?’

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘Well, remember that it might be!’