Trouble Brewing by Dolores Gordon-Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

sailed for Rio de Janeiro on the Saturday and, as far as he was concerned, Valdez was now out of the country. A note was put on the file to check Valdez’s details against any unnamed accident victims and that, I’m afraid, was that.’
    â€˜Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right is doing . . .’ Jack refilled his pipe. ‘Now we
do
know, let’s see where it gets us. Valdez and Helston are both missing and the
a priori
assumption is that the two events are connected. They met that morning and, whatever the cause of the disagreement, the meeting left Helston shaken. If there’s a connection, they must have met again. It sounds as if they should have gone to Oddenino’s, but for some reason they didn’t. So where did that second meeting take place? Not at Valdez’s hotel or the desk clerk would have mentioned it. Yes?’
    â€˜Yes. Valdez was by himself when he left the hotel, that’s for sure.’
    Jack frowned. ‘What was Valdez wearing? Evening clothes?’
    â€˜No. I asked that. His evening things were in his wardrobe.’
    â€˜Helston was wearing evening dress.’ Jack frowned. ‘That probably explains Oddenino’s, by the way. I don’t think they let you in unless you’re properly togged up. You’d think if they’d arranged to have dinner together, Valdez would be in evening clothes as well.’
    â€˜Maybe he didn’t know Oddenino’s rules. He’s a South American, after all.’
    â€˜Yes, but he’s not Tarzan of the Apes, is he? He’d just had a holiday in Paris, for heaven’s sake. The fact that no one enquired for him at Oddenino’s makes me think it was Valdez he was planning to dine with but the pair of them met up and decided to go elsewhere. Mrs Jaggard said Helston had always seemed perfectly friendly towards Valdez. Valdez left his hotel saying he might be spending the night “with a friend”. If Mark Helston was the friend, you’d think Valdez would be wearing evening dress.’
    â€˜Valdez could have hoped to have made a friend in the course of the evening, if you see what I mean,’ suggested Bill delicately. ‘At a night club, perhaps?’
    Jack grinned. ‘So he could, but if he was planning a night on the town, he’d still be wearing evening dress. Who the devil could the friend be, Bill? Mrs Jaggard said she thought Valdez had been to this country before, but he wasn’t a frequent visitor. The question of dress is a real poser.’ He shook his head in irritation. ‘The more I think about it, the odder it seems. If Helston and Valdez met, where did they meet? Where did they go? Not at Helston’s flat or any of his clubs, either. Neutral ground. Somewhere both men have access to.’
    â€˜A pub?’ suggested Bill, looking around the rapidly filling bar of The Heroes.
    â€˜Perhaps. I can’t help thinking that, as Helston was in evening dress, that makes a pub a little unlikely at that early hour of the evening. Not impossible, but it wouldn’t be my first choice. A hotel bar seems a better bet.’
    â€˜They could have simply bumped into each other on the street,’ suggested Bill.
    â€˜So they could, but unless one of them resorted to violence right away, they’d still have to go somewhere. I wish we could have got onto this sooner. The chance of anyone remembering two men having a drink nearly four months ago is pretty slight. Did Helston run a car?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Bill. ‘It’s still in the garage. Helston last used it before Christmas.’
    â€˜So we can wash that out.’ Jack drummed his fingers on the table. ‘We’ve assumed they’ve met, presumably in some public place, and one of them either impulsively or with malice aforethought, decides to make away with the other. Not in a hotel bar. They’re nasty, crowded places to do a murder in and people