The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin Read Free Book Online Page A

out in a bright orange dressing-gown to his bath, and climbed once more the staircase to Fen’s study. Here Fen applied himself to the telephone, while Cadogan smoked lugubriously and inspected his nails. In the house of Sir Richard Freeman on Boar’s Hill the bell jangled. He reached peevishly for the instrument.
    “Hello!” he said. “What? What! Who is it…? Oh, it’s you.”
    “Listen, Dick,” said Fen, “your damned myrmidons are chasing a friend of mine.”
    “Do you mean Cadogan? Yes, I heard about that cock-and-bull story of his.”
    “It’s not cock-and-bull. There was a body. But, anyway, it’s not that. They’re after him for something he did in a grocery store.”
    “Good heavens, the fellow must be cracked. First toyshops and now grocers. Well, I can’t meddle in the affairs of the City Constabulary.”
    “Really, Dick…”
    “No, no, Gervase, it can’t be done. The processes of the law, such as they are, can’t be held up by telephone calls from you.”
    “But it’s Richard Cadogan. The poet.”
    “I couldn’t care less if it was the Pope… Anyway, if he’s innocent it’ll be all right.”
    “But he isn’t innocent.”
    “Oh, well, in that case only the Home Secretary can save him… Gervase, has it ever occurred to you that Measure for Measure is about the problem of Power?”
    “Don’t bother me with trivialities now,” said Fen, annoyed, and rang off.
    “Well, that was a lot of use,” said Cadogan bitterly. “I may as well go to the police-station and give myself up.”
    “No, wait a minute.” Fen stared out into the quadrangle. “What was the name of that solicitor—the one Mrs. Wheatley saw?”
    “Rosseter. What about it?”
    Fen tapped his fingers impatiently on the window-sill. “You know, I’ve seen that name somewhere recently, but I can’t remember where. Rosseter, Rosseter… It was—Oh, my ears and whiskers!” He strode to a pile of papers and began rummaging through them. I’ve got it. It was something in the agony column of the Oxford Mail —yesterday, was it, or the day before?” He became inextricably involved in news-sheets. “Here we are. Day before yesterday. I noticed it because it was so queer. Look.” He handed Cadogan the page, pointing to a place in the personal column.
    “Well,” said Cadogan, “I don’t see how this helps.” He read the advertisement aloud:
    “‘Ryde, Leeds, West, Mold, Berlin. Aaron Rosseter, Solicitor, 193A Cornmarket.’ Well, and what are we to conclude from that?”
    “I don’t exactly know,” said Fen. “And yet I feel somehow I ought to. Holmes would have made mincemeat of it—he was good on agony columns. Mold, Mold. What is Mold, anyway?” He went to the encyclopedia and took out a volume. After a moment’s search: “‘Mold,’” he read. “‘Urban district and market town of Flintshire. Thirteen miles from Chester… centre of important lead and coal mines… bricks, tiles, nails, beer, etc…’ Does that convey anything to you?”
    “Nothing at all. It’s my opinion they’re all proper names.”
    “Well, they may be.” Fen restored the book to its place. “But if so, it’s a remarkable collection. Mold, Mold,” he added into tones of faint reproof.
    “And in any case,” Cadogan went on, “it’ll be the wildest coincidence if it’s got anything to do with this Tardy woman.”
    “Don’t spurn coincidence in that casual way,” said Fen severely. “I know your sort. You say the most innocent encounter in a detective novel is unfair, and yet you’re always screaming out about having met someone abroad who lives in the next parish, and what a small world it is. My firm conviction,” he said grandiosely, “is that this advertisement has something to do with the death of Emilia Tardy. I haven’t the least idea what, as yet But I suggest we go and see this Rosseter fellow.”
    “All right,” Cadogan replied. “Provided we don’t go in that infernal red thing of yours.