Tanner’s Virgin

He disappeared into the back, then reappeared a few moments later. “If you’ll step into the back room, sir, our Mr. Talbot will see you.”

Our Mr. Talbot was a red-faced man with uncommonly large ears. He sat at a rolltop desk dipping coins into a glass of clear liquid and wiping them on a soft rag. The solution, whatever it was, managed to turn the coins bright and silvery while staining the tips of our Mr. Talbot’s fingers dark brown.

“Carradine,” he said. “Never met the gentleman, but I do recall the name. Late summer, I think. Don’t believe he was here long. Have you tried the owner?”

I hadn’t. He gave me a name and address and telephone number, and I thanked him. He said, “Not a collector, are you?” I admitted that I wasn’t. He grunted and resumed dipping coins. I thanked the clerk on the way out and called the building’s owner from a booth down the block.

A voice assured me the man was out and no one knew when he might be returning. I thought for a moment, then called again and a

He told me what I wanted to know. A Mr. T. R. Smythe-Carson had taken a third-floor office under the name of Carradine Imports in late July, paid a month’s rent in advance, left before the month was over, and provided no forwarding address.

For form’s sake, I looked for Smythe-Carson in the telephone directory. He wasn’t there, and I wasn’t surprised.

There are some nights when I envy those who sleep. I have not slept since World War 2.1, when a sliver of North Korean shrapnel entered my mind and found its way to something called the sleep center, whereupon I entered a state of permanent insomnia. I was eighteen when this happened, and by now I can barely remember what sleep was like.

In the past few years scientists have taken an interest in sleep. They’ve been trying to determine just why people sleep, and what dreams do, and what happens when a person is prevented from sleeping and dreaming. I could probably answer a few of their questions. When a person is prevented from sleeping and dreaming he embraces a wide variety of lost causes, studies dozens of languages, eats five or six meals a day, and uses his life to furnish those elements of fantasy that other men find in dreams. This may not be how it works for every absolute insomniac, but it’s how it works for the only absolute insomniac I know, and for the most part I’m quite happy with it. After all, why waste eight hours a night sleeping when, with proper application, one can waste all twenty-four wide awake?

Yet there are times when sleep would be a pleasure, if only because it provides a subjectively speedy way to get from one day to the next when there is absolutely nothing else to do. This was one of those times. Nigel and Julia had repaired to their separate bedrooms. There was no one in London whom I wanted to see. The hunt for Smythe-Carson and Carradine would have to wait until morning. Meanwhile…

Meanwhile what?

Meanwhile I bathed and shaved and put on reasonably clean clothes and drank tea with milk and sugar and fried up some eggs and bacon and read part of a collection of the Best Plays of 1954 (which were none too good) and stretched out on my back on the floor for twenty minutes of Yoga-style relaxation. This last involves flexing and relaxing muscle groups in turn, then blanking the mind through a variety of mental disciplines. The mind-blanking part of it was easier than usual this time because my mind was very nearly empty to begin with.

Then I read fifty pages of an early Eric Ambler novel, at which point I remembered how it ended. Then I picked up that morning’s copy of the London Times, which I had already read once, which is generally enough. I had a go at the bridge and chess columns and the garden news, and then I turned to the Personals. Halfway down the first column it occurred to me that I had a particular reason to check out the Personals, and halfway down the third column I found the reason.

IF YOU ARE female, under 40, unmarried, intelligent, adventurous, free to travel, opportunity awaits you! Do not mention this ad to others but reply in person at Penzance Export, No. 31, Pelham Court, Marylebone.

“Of course it’s Smythe-Carson again,” Nigel said the next morning. “Quite the same sort of message, isn’t it? He’s stopped mentioning the high pay and has-”

“And has abandoned Carradine in favor of Penzance,” Julia put in.

“And Smythe-Carson for something else, no doubt. And took new offices, but hasn’t left Marylebone. I don’t know just where Pelham Court is, Evan. Julia?”

I said, “I was there last night.”

“No one home, I don’t suppose?”

“No. The building was locked.” I had guessed it would be, but I found the ad around 3:30 and had four hours to kill before Nigel and Julia would get up, and there are times when pointless activity is preferable to inactivity.

“So whatever he was doing before-”

“He’s doing it again,” I said.

“I wonder what it is.”

I stood up. “Whatever it is, I’ll find out soon enough. And I’ll find out just what the hell happened to Phaedra, and-”

“How?”

I looked down at Julia. “Why, I’ll ask him, I suppose.”

“But don’t you suppose he’s bent?” I looked puzzled. “I’m sorry, you people say crooked, don’t you?”

“Oh.” Two countries, I thought, divided by a single language. “I’m certain he’s working some sort of racket. Oh.” I nodded slowly. For the past few days I had operated on the vague assumption that Phaedra had gone on a tour or taken some form of legitimate employment, after which something went awry. Thus I had shown her photograph to travel agents and employment agencies and had inquired after her by both of her names, in the full expectation of getting an honest answer to an honest question. That line wouldn’t work with Mr. Smythe-Carson.

“You might call the police,” Nigel suggested.

I thought it over. But if S-C was working a racket, or playing some version of foreign intrigue, it was more than possible that Phaedra was involved to a point where official attention might be a bad idea. Besides, I wasn’t entirely certain how I stood with the police – they might turn out to be displeased with my presence in their country.

“I could go round if you’d like,” Nigel went on. “Pass myself off as an inspector from the Yard. I’ve played the bloody part often enough, and the moustache would go well with the role. Or do you think that would just put the wind up him?”

“It might.”

“Or I could disguise myself as female, under forty, unmarried. Somehow I don’t think that would wash. You might do some sort of exploratory research, Evan. Inquiring about the position on behalf of a female relative, that sort of thing. Give you the feel of the man-”

Julia said, “Of course you’ve both overlooked the obvious.”

We looked at her.

“You ought to send an unmarried female under forty to find out exactly what’s going on. Fortunately I know just the girl. She’s had a bit of acting experience, she’s considered moderately attractive and intelligent, and she’s bloody adventurous.” She stood up, a thin smile on her freshly scrubbed face, a light dancing in her eyes. “I hereby volunteer my services,” she said.

So of course we both told her that it was a ridiculous idea, not to say dangerous, not to mention foolhardy. We pointed out that she might compromise herself in any of a number of ways and added that we could not possibly let her risk herself in such a fashion.

And, of course, three hours later I was looking through a tea shop window on Pelham Court, waiting for her to return from the offices of Penzance Export just across the street.