'Nothing to do with crime, I'm afraid-very small bean.'

'Well, let's hear about it.'

Tommy told his story without undue apologies for the triviality of it. Ivor, he knew, was not a man to despise triviality.

Ivor, indeed, went straight to the point which had brought Tommy on his errand.

'And your wife's disappeared, you say?'

'It's not like her.'

'That's serious.'

'Serious to me all right.'

'So I can imagine. I only met your missus once. She's sharp.'

'If she goes after things she's like a terrier on a trail,' said Thomas.

'You've not been to the police?'

'Why not?'

'Well, first because I can't believe that she's anything but all right. Tuppence is always all right. She just goes all out after any hare that shows itself. She mayn't have had time to communicate.'

'Mmm. I don't like it very much. She's looking for a house, you say? That just might be interesting because among various odds and ends that we followed, which incidentally have not led to much, are a kind of trail of house agents.'

'House agents?' Tommy looked surprised.

'Yes. Nice, ordinary, rather mediocre house agents in small provincial towns in different parts of England, but none of them so very far from London. Mr. Eccles's firm does a lot of business with and for house agents. Sometimes he's the solicitor for the buyers and sometimes for the sellers, and he employs various house agencies, on behalf of clients. Sometimes we rather wondered why. None of it seems very profitable, you see.'

'But you think it might mean something or lead to something?'

'Well, if you remember the big London Southern Bank robbery some years ago, there was a house in the country-a lonely house. That was the thieves' rendezvous. They weren't very noticeable there, but that's where the stuff was brought and cached away. People in the neighbourhood began to have a few stories about them, and wonder what these people were who came and went at rather unusual hours. Different kinds of cars arriving in the middle of the night and going away again.'

'People are curious about their neighbours in the country. Sure enough, the police raided the place, they got some of the loot, and they got three men, including one who was recognized and identified.'

'Well, didn't that lead you somewhere?'

'Not really. The men wouldn't talk, they were well defended and represented, they got long sentences in jail and within a year and a half they were all out of the jug again. Very clever rescues.'

'I seem to remember reading about it. One man disappeared from a criminal court where he was brought up by two warders.'

'That's right. All very cleverly arranged and an enormous amount of money spent on the escape. But we think that whoever was responsible for the staff work realized he made a mistake in having one house for too long a time, so that the local people got interested. Somebody, perhaps, thought it would be a better idea to get subsidiaries living in, say, as many as thirty houses in different places. People come and take a house, mother and daughter, say, a widow, or a retired army man and his wife. Nice quiet people. They have a few repairs done to the house, get a local builder in and improve the plumbing, and perhaps some other firm down from London to decorate, and then after a year or a year and a half circumstances arise, and the occupiers sell the house and go off abroad to live. Something like that. All very natural and pleasant. During their tenancy that house has been used perhaps for rather unusual purposes! But no one suspects such a thing. Friends come to see them, not very often. Just occasionally. One night, perhaps, a kind of anniversary party for a middle-aged, or elderly couple; or a coming-of-age party. A lot of cars coming and going. Say there are five major robberies done within six months but each time the loot passes through, or is cached in, not just one of these houses, but five different houses in five different parts of the countryside. It's only a supposition as yet, my dear Tommy, but we're working on it. Let's say your old lady lets a picture of a certain house go out of her possession and supposing that's a significant house. And supposing that that's the house that your Missus has recognized somewhere, and has gone dashing off to investigate.'

'And supposing someone doesn't want that particular house investigated-It might tie up, you know.'

'It's very far-fetched.'

'Oh yes-I agree. But these times we live in are far-fetched times. In our particular world incredible things happen.'

Somewhat wearily Tommy alighted from his fourth taxi of the day and looked appraisingly at his surroundings. The taxi had deposited him in a small cul-de-sac which tucked itself coyly under one of the protuberances of Hampstead Heath. The cul-de-sac seemed to have been some artistic 'development'. Each house was wildly different from the house next to it. This particular one seemed to consist of a large studio with skylights in it, and attached to it (rather like a gumboil), on one side was what seemed to be a little cluster of three rooms. A ladder staircase painted bright green ran up the outside of the house.

Tommy opened the small gate, went up a path and not seeing a bell applied himself to the knocker. Getting no response, he paused for a few moments and then started again with the knocker, a little louder this time.

The door opened so suddenly that he nearly fell backwards.

A woman stood on the doorstep. At first sight Tommy's first impression was that this was one of the plainest women he had ever seen. She had a large expanse of flat, pancake-like face, two enormous eyes which seemed of impossibly different colours, one green and one brown, a noble forehead with a quantity of wild hair rising up from it in a kind of thicket. She wore a purple overall with blotches of day on it, and Tommy noticed that the hand that held the door open was one of exceeding beauty of structure.

'Oh,' she said. Her voice was deep and rather attractive. 'What is it? I'm busy.'

'Mrs. Boscowan?'

'Yes. What do you want?'

'My name's Beresford. I wondered if I might speak to you for a few moments.'

'I don't know. Really, must you? What is it-something about a picture?' Her eye had gone to what he held under his arm.

'Yes. It's something to do with one of your husband's pictures.'

'Do you want to sell it? I've got plenty of his pictures. I don't want to buy any more of them. Take it to one of these galleries or something. They're beginning to buy him now. You don't look as though you needed to sell pictures.'

'Oh no, I don't want to sell anything.'

Tommy felt extraordinary difficulty in talking to this particular woman. Her eyes, unmatching though they were, were very fine eyes and they were looking now over his shoulder down the street with an air of some peculiar interest at something in the far distance.

'Please,' said Tommy. 'I wish you would let me come in. It's so difficult to explain.'

'If you're a painter I don't want to talk to you,' said Mrs. Boscowan. 'I find painters very boring always.'

'I'm not a painter.'

'Well, you don't look like one, certainly.' Her eyes raked him up and down. 'You look more like a civil servant,' she said disapprovingly.

'Can I come in, Mrs. Boscowan?'

'I'm not sure. Wait.'

She shut the door rather abruptly. Tommy waited. After about four minutes had passed the door opened again.

'All right,' she said. 'You can come in.'

She led him through the doorway, up a narrow staircase and into the large studio. In a corner of it there was a figure and various implements standing by it. Hammers and chisels.

There was also a clay head. The whole place looked as though it had recently been savaged by a gang of hooligans.

'There's never any room to sit up here,' said Mrs. Boscowan. She threw various things off a wooden stool and pushed it towards him.

'There. Sit down here and speak to me.'

'It's very kind of you to let me come in.'

'It is rather, but you looked so worried. You are worried, aren't you, about something?'

'Yes I am.'

'I thought so. What are you worried about?'

'My wife,' said Tommy, surprising himself by his answer.

'Oh, worried about your wife? Well, there's nothing unusual in that. Men are always worrying about their wives. What's the matter-has she gone off with someone or playing up?'

'No. Nothing like that.'

'Dying? Cancer?'

'No,' said Tommy. 'It's just that I don't know where she is.'

'And you think I might? Well, you'd better tell me her name and something about her if you think I can find her for you. I'm not sure, mind you,' said Mrs. Boscowan, 'that I shall want to. I'm warning you.'

'Thank God,' said Tommy, 'you're more easy to talk to than I thought you were going to be.'

'What's the picture got to do with it? It is a picture, isn't it-must be, that shape.'

Tommy undid the wrappings.

'It's a picture signed by your husband,' said Tommy. 'I want you to tell me what you can about it.'

'I see. What exactly do you want to know?'

'When it was painted and where it is.'

Mrs. Boscowan looked at him and for the first time there was a slight look of interest in her eyes.

'Well, that's not difficult,' she said. 'Yes, I can tell you all about it. It was painted about fifteen years ago-no, a good deal longer than that I should think. It's one of his fairly early ones. Twenty years ago, I should say.'

'You know where it is-the place I mean?'

'Oh yes, I can remember quite well. Nice picture. I always liked it. That's the little hump-backed bridge and the house and the name of the place is Sutton Chancellor. About seven or eight miles from Market Basing. The house itself is about a couple of miles from Sutton Chancellor. Pretty place. Secluded.'

She came up to the picture, bent down and peered at it closely.

'That's funny,' she said. 'Yes, that's very odd. I wonder now.'

Tommy did not pay much attention.

'What's the name of the house?' he asked.

'I can't really remember. It got renamed, you know. Several times. I don't know what there was about it. A couple of rather tragic things happened there, I think, then the next people who came along renamed it. Called the Canal House once, or Canal Side. Once it was called Bridge House then Meadowside-or Riverside was another name.'

'Who lived there-or who lives there now? Do you know?'

'Nobody I know. Man and a girl lived there when first I saw it. Used to come down for weekends. Not married, I think. The girl was a dancer. May have been an actress-no, I think she was a dancer. Ballet dancer. Rather beautiful but dumb. Simple, almost wanting. William was quite soft about her, I remember.'