they were labouring under great emotion, and it occurred to me that they might be parting for good, a happy ending if I may say so to this investigation.’
Again he interrupted me anxiously, ‘You’ll forgive the personal touch?’
‘Of course.’
‘Even in my profession, sir, we sometimes find our emotions touched, and I liked the lady - the party in question, that is.’
‘I hesitated whether to follow the gentleman or the party in question, but I decided my instructions would not permit the former. I followed the latter therefore. She walked a little way towards Charing Cross Road, appearing much agitated. Then she turned into the National Portrait Gallery but only stayed a few minutes… ‘
‘Is there anything more of importance?’
‘No, sir. I think really she was just looking for a place to sit down because next thing she turned into a church.’
‘A church?’
‘A Roman church, sir, in Maiden Lane. You’ll find it all there. But not to pray, sir. Just to sit.’
‘You know even that much, do you?’
‘Naturally I followed the party in. I knelt down a few pews behind so as to appear a bona fide worshipper, and I can assure you, sir, she didn’t pray. She’s not a Roman, is she, sir?’
‘No.’
‘It was to sit in the dark, sir, till she calmed down.’
‘Perhaps she was meeting someone?’
‘No, sir. She only stayed three minutes and she didn’t speak to anyone. If you ask me, she wanted a good cry.’
‘Possibly. But you are wrong about the hands, Mr Parkis.’
‘The hands, sir?’
I moved so that the light caught my face more fully.
‘We never so much as touched hands.’
I felt sorry for him now that I had had my joke - I felt sorry to have scared yet further someone already so timid. He watched me with his mouth a little open, as though he had received a sudden hurt and was now waiting paralysed for the next stab. I said, ‘I expect that sort of mistake often happens, Mr Parkis. Mr Savage ought to have introduced us.’
‘Oh no, sir,’ he said miserably, ‘it was up to me.’ Then he bent his head and sat there, looking into his hat that lay on his knees. I tried to cheer him up. ‘It’s not serious,’ I said. ‘If you look at it from the outside, it’s really quite funny.’
‘But I’m on the inside, sir,’ he said. He turned his hat round and went on in a voice as damp and dreary as the common outside, ‘It’s not Mr Savage I mind about, sir. He’s as understanding a man as you’ll meet in the profession - it’s my boy. He started with great ideas about me.’ He fished from the depths of his misery a deprecating and frightened smile. ‘You know the kind of reading they do, sir. Nick Carters and the like.’
‘Why should he ever know about this?’
‘You’ve got to play straight with a child, sir, and he’s sure to ask questions. He’ll want to know how I followed up - that’s the thing he’s learning, to follow up.’
‘Couldn’t you tell him that I’d been able to identify the man - just that, and I wasn’t interested?’
‘It’s kind of you to suggest it, sir, but you have to look at this all round. I don’t say I wouldn’t do it even to my boy, but what’s he going to think if he ever comes across you - in the course of the investigation?’
‘That’s not necessary.’
‘But it might well happen, sir.’
‘Why not leave him at home this time?’
‘It’s just making matters worse, sir. He hasn’t got a mother, and it’s his school holidays and I’ve always gone on the lines of educating him in his holidays - with Mr Savage’s full approval. No. I made a fool of myself that time, and I’ve got to face it. If only he weren’t quite so serious, sir, but he does take it to heart when I make a floater. One day Mr Prentice - that’s Mr Savage’s assistant, a rather hard man, sir - said, ‘Another of your floaters, Parkis,’ in the boy’s hearing. That’s what opened his eyes first.’ He stood up with an air of