Free The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin Page B

refrained from drunkenness and comported himself in a gentlemanly manner. His only remarkable characteristic was the unfailing spell which he appeared to cast upon young women. At the moment he was sitting before his second small glass of pale sherry and urging black-haired Miriam to the further consumption of chocolates.
    Excusing himself to the girl, who gazed up at him with a kind of holy awe, Fen got Mr. Hoskins outside.
    “Mr. Hoskins,” said Fen with mild severity. “I shall not inquire why you are devoting the golden hours of your youth to the illegal consumption of sherry in that imitation of Chartres Cathedral—”
    “I’m much obliged to you, sir,” said Mr. Hoskins without any special perturbation of spirit.
    “I only wish to ask,” Fen proceeded, “if you will do me a service.”
    Mr. Hoskins blinked and silently bowed
    “Are you interested in the novels of Jane Austen, Mr. Hoskins?”
    “It has always appeared to me, sir,” said Mr. Hoskins, “that the women characters are poorly drawn.”
    “Well, you should know,” said Fen, grinning. “Anyway, there’s a dreary, sordid fellow in there who has a passion for Jane Austen. Could you keep him here for an hour or so?”
    “Nothing easier,” said Mr. Hoskins with benign self-assurance. Though I think perhaps I had better go and pack my young woman off first.”
    “Of course, of course,” said Fen hastily.
    Mr. Hoskins bowed again, returned to the bar, and shortly reappeared, shepherding Miriam with soothing explanations to the door. There he pressed her hand warmly, waved after her, and returned to Fen.
    “Tell me, Mr. Hoskins,” said Fen, seized by a sudden disinterested curiosity, “how do you explain your extraordinary attraction for women? Don’t answer if you think I’m being impertinent”
    “Not at all.” Mr. Hoskins conveyed the impression that he found this query most gratifying. “It’s really very simple: I quieten their fears and give them sweet things to eat. It seems never to fail.”
    “Oh,” said Fen, a little taken aback. “Oh. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Hoskins. And now, if you’ll come back to the bar…” He began to give instructions.
    Cadogan was only too delighted to be released by Mr. Hoskins from his vigil. When he and Fen left the bar Mr. Hoskins and Mr. Sharman were already conversing most amicably.
    “Well, what’s going on?” he inquired when they got outside. He was a trifle hazy after five pints of beer, but his head was aching much less.
    Fen drew him down the passage and they sat down by the reception desk, in two hard wooden chairs of vaguely Assyrian design. Fen explained about the telephone calls.
    “No, no,” he said peevishly, cutting short Cadogan’s startled outcry on the subject of Mr. Rosseter. “I really don’t think he can have done it.” He gave his reasons.
    That’s mere quibbling,” Cadogan answered. “It’s only because you have these romantic fancies about that advertisement—”
    “I was coming to that,” said Fen malevolently. He paused to examine a young and elaborate blonde who was walking by, clad in furs and with very high heels. “Because in fact there is a connection between that advertisement and Miss Snaith.”
    “And what may it be?”
    “This.” With something of a flourish, Fen brought forth the book he had been carrying; it was rather with the air of a prosecuting counsel who has some piece of particularly damaging evidence to reveal. Cadogan studied it without much comprehension. It was entitled The Nonsense Poems of Edward Lear.
    “You may recall,” Fen went on, waving his index finger didactically about in the air, “that Miss Snaith was interested in comic verse. This”—he tapped the book authoritatively—“is comic verse.”
    “You amaze me.”
    “Comic verse of the highest order, moreover.” Fen suddenly abandoned his instructive manner and became aggrieved. There are actually people who imagine that Lear was incapable  of making