That evening McCann took Miss Carter into his confidence. He had considered the pros and cons carefully and decided that the very slight risks would be outweighed by the help she could give.
“I’m looking for a gang of crooks,” he said bluntly and without preamble. “I’m helping the police. They think that the gang may have headquarters somewhere in this end of Mayfair.”
Miss Carter accepted this change of role from Secret Service ace to private investigator with so little surprise that McCann was momentarily disquieted, until he reflected that women were mostly the same in this respect. Try to deceive them about the quality of their butter ration or half an ounce of knitting wool and they would be on to you like a knife, but a whopping fundamental lie would almost always go over big.
“What do you want me to do?” said Miss Carter. They were sitting in her private living-eating-office room, and she looked very domestic and practical as she drove her needle through a much patched silk stocking.
The fantasy of the situation struck the Major very forcibly. Here was one of the most efficient police forces in the world, using all its resources, doing a job of work with a picked team directed by one of the most able practical intelligences he had ever met – and there, on the other hand, was a retired army Major (really only a Substantive Lieutenant, he reminded himself) and Miss Carter, a publican and the daughter of a publican.
Talk about the mouse and the lion!
He realised that his hostess’s question still wanted answering.
“You and Glasgow,” he said, “have lived in this little corner of London for a great number of years and, between you, you must know a great number of people in it. I want to know anything about this area which strikes you as mysterious or inexplicable or even novel. Anybody who’s come here in the last few years who seems to be doing anything they shouldn’t. You know how people talk. That Mr. Jones, who has a lovely office but no one knows quite what his business can be. And that Mrs. Robinson who has a flower shop, but sells a great deal more than flowers, dear me, yes.”
“I see,” said Miss Carter, she traced a complicated demilune with her needle. “It’s going to be a big job, isn’t it?”