Free Hide My Eyes by Margery Allingham Page B

else that was concrete had emerged. The one thing certain was that he had no intention of letting Richard get away from him. Every tentative effort which the young man made to escape was parried neatly and some new inducement offered to keep him by his side.
    Richard was interested because none of the usual explanations appeared to fit the bill. Moreover, since he was particularly anxious to discover what kind of people had got hold of Annabelle without actually spying on her, the opportunity seemed heaven-sent. The more he discovered the less he liked, and he decided to stay with the man for a bit.
    The Lagonda was parked in Curzon Street and they walked through to collect it and drove to the northern side of the West End, leaving the car in a little alley which Gerry knew of just behind Minton Square. It was very full but he took an immense amount of trouble to get in, and Richard was struck by the contrast between the driving skill he was displaying and the fuddled facetiousness he was attempting to convey.
    The wooden box was now safely in the boot. It had not proved practicable to carry it around with them on their quest for refreshment, and they had stowed it away on their first stop. Gerry looked in the back for it as they got out and was reassured as he remembered.
    “You can’t leave anything in an open car,” he explained. “The whole blessed place seems to be on the twist these days. The Midget is just along here on the right. Some people call it Edna’s, after the woman who runs it. If you’ve not met her before you may find her amusing.”
    He took the other man’s elbow and guided him out of the cobbled lane into the street which ran at right angles to it. There, beside a small and expensive antique shop, they found a flight of oak stairs leading up on to the first floor. A discreet sign written in copperplate so that it suggested a large visiting card assured them that Edna’s Midget Club was open to members only.
    At the top of the flight a small vestibule had been constructed out of the landing and in it sat a commissionaire with a visitors’ book open on a table before him. He had a large friendly face and practically no top to his head, so that the peaked cap which lay by his elbow suggested the lid of a mustard pot.
    He greeted Gerry with a great crow of pleasure.
    “No-it-isn’t-yes-it-is-’ullo-’ullo-’ullo,” he said pleasantly. “Nice to see you again, sir. You’ve bin missed, I’ll say you’ve been missed.”
    He dipped the pen in the ink, pushed the book forward and winked.
    “Jeremy Blah-blah and Mr. Richard Wah-wah,” he announced, blotting the entry with pride. “Straight in, sir. Go and get your welcome home.”
    The man in the trench coat hesitated, his face alight with the shamefaced laughing apology which Richard had begun to consider characteristic of him. Despite its admissions it was by no means unattractive and it suited the lean face and softened its deeply scored lines.
    “Is she there?” he murmured.
    The commissionaire raised his eyes and suddenly showed all his yellowing teeth in mock ferocity.
    “All ready to eat yer,” he whispered and shook with silent laughter which made him scarlet in the face.
    Gerry smiled at him briefly and his forehead wrinkled like a piece of corrugated paper.
    “Here’s for it,” he said to Richard and pushed open a door on the right.
    The Midget Club was smart of its kind and what was called by its habituées ‘exclusive, sort of’. It occupied the whole of the first floor of the small period house and was composed of a single L-shaped room divided by a large archway in which had once hung the panelled double doors of a more gracious age. Now most of the ornamentation had been achieved with paper, a design of white candelabra on grey on the darker walls and an explosion of gilt stars upon crimson on the lighter ones. In the first and smaller half of the room there was a long bar, its supports painted to simulate flat Regency