was a colour print, a good job, and could even be a good likeness, if you made allowance for the touching up. The data on the back read: height, 5 ft. 5 ins.; bust, 34; hips 35; weight, 95 lbs.; waist, 25; colour, blonde; complexion, fair; scars, none; other distinguishing marks, none; age, twenty-eight.
All of which made her just one of maybe twenty million women.
The face was something else. I discounted fifty per cent of what I saw, and what remained still made her something special. I could see why Geeson wanted her back.
The waitress came over and began to sweep away a few non-existent crumbs. I reached for my wallet and took out one of the brand-new bills. Her eyes almost slid from their sockets as I laid it in front of her.
‘Gee!’ She stared at the bill as if she’d never seen one like it before, which she probably hadn’t. ‘Haven’t you got anything smaller?’
‘No, crack it for me, will you?’ I stared again at the colour print, memorising it, studying the bone structure, ears, eyes, hair-line, the shape of the mouth. Faces can be disguised, but some things can never be hidden. By the time the waitress returned with my change, I could have picked out the missing woman from a crowd scene in a movie.
Pug gulped the last of his coffee and reached for the photograph.
‘Anyone I know?’
‘Maybe.’ I passed him the print. ‘Take a look.’
He did, a long one, then whistled.
‘Some dame, eh! Yours?’
‘Colonel Geeson’s. His wife. He wants her back.’
‘A powder.’ He nodded, with the wisdom of the slums. ‘Fell for some rich guy.’
‘The Colonel,’ I explained, ‘has ten million dollars. Try again.’
‘What’s the use? A dame, no kind of dame, ever runs from that kind of dough. You got to find her?’
‘That’s the general idea.’ I could talk to Pug and, sometimes, he managed to put his finger on the one thing so obvious no one would see it. ‘Try it for size, Pug. You’re a woman, good-looking, young, married to a rich guy who is liable to kick the bucket any moment. What would make you run away?’
He thought about it, screwing his eyes and rubbing the scarred knuckles of his hands. Watching him think almost made me feel tired, it was such hard work.
‘Forget it,’ I said wearily. ‘It’s no easier for you than for me.’ I reached out to pick up the print where it was lying on the table between us.
‘Hold it!’ Pug rested one big paw on the photograph. ‘I’ve seen this dame before.’ He frowned with the effort required to think. ‘At the fights. She used to run around with Thornedyke’s mob.’
‘You’re crazy!’ I snatched up the print and put it in my pocket. ‘What would a woman like her be doing with that heel?’
‘Why ask me?’ Pug looked baffled. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen her with him. Let me see,’ he stared up at the fly-blown ceiling. ‘Two years ago? Three? Hell, how can I remember?’
‘After that beating you took last night, you can’t.’ I got up from the table and he trotted after me as I headed for the door.
‘Say, Mike!’ He stood before me and I guessed what was coming. Not a touch, Pug wasn’t a bum, but he had a pathetic belief that I needed him to protect me. Sometimes I did. Sometimes his weight and brawn had saved me from a nasty beating, but I couldn’t see the Colonel’s servants ganging up on me with lead pipes and razors. I had an idea.
‘Listen.’ I took out the print and shoved it into his hand. I took out some money, ten dollars, and put it with the photograph. ‘Make the rounds. Check the hospitals and accident wards. Drop in at the morgue and ask around in the dives. She may have been taken in without identity. She may even be suffering from amnesia or something. Get around and cover the field. If she’s in trouble she may not want publicity. Find her, Pug, and I’ll cut you in a C note.’
‘A hundred bucks.’ He beamed with gratitude. ‘Sure, Mike, I’ll do it.’ He hesitated. ‘You certain that you don’t want me with you, just in case?’
‘Not this trip.’ I shoved him towards the kerb. ‘On your way, sleuth, and don’t report back until you find something.’
I watched as his big figure dwindled and lost itself in the crowd. A waste of time? Sure, but he’d come to no harm making the double-check and, for all I knew, he could strike it lucky. He wouldn’t be looking for Mrs. Geeson, of course, I knew him well enough for that. She would be his sister, his wife, his girlfriend, anything he could think of to legitimise his questions. He might even find her. Might. I doubted it.
But it got him out of my hair.
Glancing at my wristwatch, I saw that the banks would be open by now. I walked half a mile and deposited three of the bills at my bank, grinning as I imagined how the manager would be now that he could meet certain cheques without having to decide between bouncing them back or giving me an overdraft.
From the bank I caught the elevated to Osbourne Heights, changing to a cab in order to ride the couple of miles to my destination. I could have taken a streetcar, but didn’t. I’m not a snob, but I had to keep up a front, and it was lucky I did. The drive must have been all of a mile long. Paying off the cab, I pressed the doorbell and, while I waited, glanced at the weather-stained front of the big, brownstone house and the trimmed lawn before it. I was busy wondering what a convulated piece of moss-covered stone was supposed to represent when the door opened and a discreet cough warned me that I was not alone.
I handed the butler my card. ‘The Colonel probably left orders about me,’ I said. ‘Is he at home?’
‘No, sir.’ The butler glanced at the card in his hand. I’d given him one of my personal cards, the one which doesn’t say anything about my business, but I could see that he wasn’t impressed. ‘The Colonel did mention you, Mr. Lantry. I understand that you wish to question Marie.’
‘Marie?’ I stepped into a hall which could have been hired out as a taxi-dancers’ step-around, and the door swung shut with a click from its patent lock.
‘Madam’s maid,’ explained the butler. ‘I will send for her at once.’
‘Just a minute—er?’
‘Harmond, sir.’
‘You know my name already, Harmond.’ I grinned at him, and some of the ice thawed from his weak old eyes. ‘Are the children at home?’
‘I believe so, sir. Shall I inform them of your presence?’
‘Later.’ I stared at him, trying to read beyond the professional mask. Servants aren’t as dumb as most people like to think, and I’d have wagered half of what I owned that Harmond knew more of what went on in the house than the owner did. If he wanted to he could be a great help.
‘You know why I’m here, Harmond?’
‘No, sir,’ he lied.
‘But you could guess.’
