The cat took my remark in poor part. He turned his back on me and began to switch his tail.

‘I’m sorry, your Majesty,’ I said.

He gave me a cold look over his shoulder and started industriously to wash himself. Neighbours, I reflected bitterly! There was no doubt about it, neighbours were in short supply in Wilbraham Crescent. What I wanted-what Hardcastle wanted-was some nice gossipy, prying, peering old lady with time hanging heavy on her hands. Always hoping to look out and see something scandalous. The trouble is that that kind of old lady seems to have died out nowadays. They are all sitting grouped together in Old Ladies’ Homes with every comfort for the aged, or crowding up hospitals where beds are needed urgently for the really sick. The lame and the halt and the old didn’t live in their own houses any more, attended by a faithful domestic or by some half-witted poor relation glad of a good home. It was a serious setback to criminal investigation.

I looked across the road. Why couldn’t there be any neighbours there? Why couldn’t there be a neat row of houses facing me instead of that great, inhuman-looking concrete block. A kind of human beehive, no doubt, tenanted by worker bees who were out all day and only came back in the evening to wash their smalls or make up their faces and go out to meet their young men. By contrast with the inhumanity of that block of flats I began almost to have a kindly feeling for the faded Victorian gentility of Wilbraham Crescent.

My eye was caught by a flash of light somewhere half-way up the building. It puzzled me. I stared up. Yes, there it came again. An open window and someone looking through it. A face slightly obliterated by something that was being held up to it. The flash of light came again. I dropped a hand into my pocket. I keep a good many things in my pockets, things that may be useful. You’d be surprised at what is useful sometimes. A little adhesive tape. A few quite innocent-looking instruments which are quite capable of opening most locked doors, a tin of grey powder labelled something which it isn’t and an insufflator to use with it, and one or two other little gadgets which most people wouldn’t recognize for what they are. Amongst other things I had a pocket bird watcher. Not a high-powered one but just good enough to be useful. I took this out and raised it to my eye.

There was a child at the window. I could see a long plait of hair lying over one shoulder. She had a pair of small opera glasses and she was studying me with what might have been flattering attention. As there was nothing else for her to look at, however, it might not be as flattering as it seemed. At that moment, however, there was another midday distraction in Wilbraham Crescent.

A very old Rolls-Royce came with dignity along the road driven by a very elderly chauffeur. He looked dignified but rather disgusted with life. He passed me with the solemnity of a whole procession of cars. My child observer, I noticed, was now training her opera glasses on him. I stood there, thinking.

It is always my belief that if you wait long enough, you’re bound to havesome stroke of luck. Something that you can’t count upon and that you would never have thought of, but which justhappens. Was it possible that this might be mine? Looking up again at the big square block, I noted carefully the position of the particular window I was interested in, counting from it to each end and up from the ground. Third floor. Then I walked along the street till I came to the entrance to the block of flats. It had a wide carriage-drive sweeping round the block with neatly spaced flower-beds at strategic positions in the grass.

It’s always well, I find, to go through all the motions, so I stepped off the carriage-drive towards the block, looked up over my head as though startled, bent down to the grass, pretended to hunt about and finally straightened up, apparently transferring something from my hand to my pocket. Then I walked round the block until I came to the entrance.

At most times of the day I should think there was a porter here, but between the sacred hour of one and two the entrance hall was empty. There was a bell with a large sign above it, saying PORTER, but I did not ring it. There was an automatic lift and I went to it and pressed a button for the third floor. After that I had to check things pretty carefully.

It looks simple enough from the outside to place one particular room, but the inside of a building is confusing. However, I’ve had a good deal of practice at that sort of thing in my time, and I was fairly sure that I’d got the right door. The number on it, for better or worse, was No. 77. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘sevens are lucky. Here goes.’ I pressed the bell and stood back to await events.

Colin Lamb’s Narrative

I had to wait just a minute or two, then the door opened.

A big blonde Nordic girl with a flushed face and wearing gay-coloured clothing looked at me inquiringly. Her hands had been hastily wiped but there were traces of flour on them and there was a slight smear of flour on her nose so it was easy for me to guess what she had been doing.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘but you have a little girl here, I think. She dropped something out of the window.’

She smiled at me encouragingly. The English language was not as yet her strong point.

‘I am sorry-what you say?’

‘A child here-a little girl.’

‘Yes, yes.’ She nodded.

‘Dropped something-out of the window.’

Here I did a little gesticulation. 

‘I picked it up and brought it here.’

I held out an open hand. In it was a silver fruit knife. She looked at it without recognition.

‘I do not think-I have not seen…’

‘You’re busy cooking,’ I said sympathetically.

‘Yes, yes, I cook. That is so.’ She nodded vigorously.

‘I don’t want to disturb you,’ I said. ‘If you let me just take it to her.’

‘Excuse?’

My meaning seemed to come to her. She led the way across the hall and opened a door. It led into a pleasant sitting-room. By the window a couch had been drawn up and on it there was a child of about nine or ten years old, with a leg done up in plaster.

‘This gentleman, he say you-you drop…’

At this moment, rather fortunately, a strong smell of burning came from the kitchen. My guide uttered an exclamation of dismay.

‘Excuse, please excuse.’

‘You go along,’ I said heartily. ‘I can manage this.’

She fled with alacrity. I entered the room, shut the door behind me and came across to the couch.

‘How d’you do?’ I said.

The child said, ‘How d’you do?’ and proceeded to sum me up with a long, penetrating glance that almost unnerved me. She was rather a plain child with straight mousy hair arranged in two plaits. She had a bulging forehead, a sharp chin and a pair of very intelligent grey eyes.

‘I’m Colin Lamb,’ I said. ‘What’s your name?’

She gave me the information promptly.

‘Geraldine Mary Alexandra Brown.’

‘Dear me,’ I said, ‘that’s quite a bit of a name. What do they call you?’

‘Geraldine. Sometimes Gerry, but I don’t like that. And Daddy doesn’t approve of abbreviations.’

One of the great advantages of dealing with children is that they have their own logic. Anyone of adult years would at once have asked me what I wanted. Geraldine was quite ready to enter into conversation without resorting to foolish questions. She was alone and bored and the onset of any kind of visitor was an agreeable novelty. Until I proved myself a dull and unamusing fellow, she would be quite ready to converse.

‘Your daddy’s out, I suppose,’ I said.

She replied with the same promptness and fullness of detail which she had already shown.

‘Cartinghaven Engineering Works, Beaverbridge,’ she said. ‘It’s fourteen and three-quarter miles from here exactly.’