I was on the point of making a run for it after the Chief, but managed to restrain myself. And just as well I did, as Gordon was standing just a couple of yards away, safety catch off and pistol at the ready.
As soon as the door closed behind the Chief, the woman picked up the telephone. It was answered in a matter of seconds.
“Mr Flint,” she said. “A man has just left my office. He’s wearing a black reefer jacket and a blue cap… Yes, a sailor… I want you to follow him and note where he goes and who he meets. Understood? Good. Thank you.”
She put down the receiver, stood up and looked at her watch.
“I’m away to have lunch with my auditor,” she said to Gordon. “Meanwhile I want you to go to Prince’s Dock. Valkyrie is due to sail tonight and I want you to check that everything on board is in order. The last time I talked to Captain Verloc he wasn’t exactly sober. I’m worried. I hope we haven’t employed a drunk as skipper.”
“I’ll go and check things,” Gordon said, helping her put on her coat.
“What are we to do with the ape?” the small man with the knuckledusters wondered.
“Lock it up,” the woman answered. “Or tie it up somewhere. And try not to injure it.”
“As you say, ma’am,” the small man said as Gordon and the woman left the room.
I was left alone with the two thugs. I learnt that the fellow with the knuckledusters was called Carl and the man with the flick knife, Kevin.
Kevin had staggered over to the bar and wrapped a handful of lumps of ice in a towel. He pressed this against his sore nose and split lip.
“That yellow-bellied sailor caught me off guard!” he whined. “Next time I see him he’ll get a taste of my knife!”
“You’ve got yourself to blame,” Carl said. “You’re too slow. And too fat! A stuffed hippo could have dodged that punch.”
“Keep your mouth shut, you!” Kevin muttered.
Carl turned his eyes in my direction. They were cold and dismissive, as if he were looking at rubbish he’d been left to clear up.
“What shall we do with the ape?” he said.
“Let’s take it up to the marshalling yard and chuck it in front of a train. We can say it escaped,” Kevin suggested.
“Not a bad idea at all,” Carl said as he thought it over. “But Moira will be mad at us because she wants us to keep the beast alive, doesn’t she? I think we should just chain it to the bar in here.”
Carl left the room and returned a few minutes later with a chain and a couple of padlocks. They soon had me chained tight to the steel leg of the counter. The counter must have weighed several hundredweight so there was little chance of me pulling free.
“Right then!” Carl said to Kevin. “Time to get out on the town and make ourselves useful. Old Grimsby has fallen behind with his monthly payments. Time to go and teach him a lesson!”
The events of that afternoon were so strange and unexpected that I really didn’t have time to feel frightened. Now, however, a shudder of fear ran through me. Real fear. What would happen when the Chief came back? What if Kevin and his flick knife decided to exact revenge?
At the same time, my head was buzzing with questions. How could that woman know about the pearl necklace? Could she actually be Jack Shaw’s daughter, Rose Henderson?
That just didn’t seem likely. If she was, why hadn’t she said so? On top of that, I’d just heard Carl and Kevin call her Moira.
And what had happened to the detective? Was he aware the Chief and I had been tricked into coming here? Had he, in fact, been part of the plot in some way?
At five to three Moira returned, her high heels ringing like pistol shots on the parquet flooring as she marched over to her desk. Gordon came into the room almost immediately after her. He looked worried.
“Well, how did you get on at the docks?” she asked in an impatient voice. “Is the Valkyrie ready to sail?”
Gordon slumped down in one of the chairs in front of the desk.
“The vessel is ready for departure,” he said with a sigh. “But Captain Verloc isn’t, I’m sorry to say. He’s disappeared. According to the crew he was drunk as a lord when he staggered ashore yesterday evening and no one has any idea where he was off to. I think he’s lost his nerve. It is a fairly risky journey, you know.”
Moira swore quietly through clenched teeth.
“I shall make very sure that he regrets this! But first we have to find a replacement. The delivery is already late and we don’t want to get on the wrong side of Mr Luciano in New York. The vessel has to leave Glasgow tonight!”
Gordon shook his head, concern showing on his face.
“It’ll be difficult to get hold of a new skipper at such short notice,” he said. “Particularly for a job of this kind…”
Gordon was interrupted by a knock on the door. A lanky man with a hooked nose, bald head and sunken cheeks entered. He was wearing bedroom slippers and a creased jacket with patched elbows.
“Mr Flint,” Moira said, not bothering with greetings. “What do you have to report?”
Mr Flint cleared his throat and spoke in an unusually wheezy voice. “That seaman you asked me to follow… Well, he took a bus to the Park District…”
“To the Park District?” Moira repeated in surprise.
“That’s right,” Mr Flint continued. “When he got there, he made his way to a hotel on Park Terrace and tried to contact someone called Lord Kilvaird. When the concierge told him the young lord wasn’t at home, the seaman asked to speak to the lord’s mother instead. But she wasn’t available either. On hearing that, the seaman became impatient and said he had to get back a precious piece of jewellery that Lord Kilvaird was looking after for him. He demanded to know where he could find the lord or his mother. But the concierge refused to tell him.”
“So what happened then?” Moira asked.
“The seaman was thrown out by the hotel security men. But he continued to cause trouble and eventually the police were called. At that point, he vanished very quickly and I lost him.”
Moira dismissed Mr Flint with a wave of her hand and he left the room. She stroked her chin in thought.
“So it’s young Lord Kilvaird who has the necklace now. I’d have never imagined Koskela had such posh contacts… Who’d have thought it?”
Gordon snorted. “Lord Kilvaird is not as posh as he sounds,” he said. “I know the fellow and he’s a good-for-nothing. He spends his nights at the poker and roulette tables gambling his old mother’s money away. And just the other day I heard a rumour…”
Gordon broke off abruptly.
“What kind of rumour?” Moira asked.
“A rumour about a necklace actually,” Gordon said. “Let me check it. Can I use your telephone?”
Moira pushed the telephone across to him. After a brief muttered conversation Gordon hung up.
“Bad news, I’m afraid,” he said. “The word in the town, is that Lord Kilvaird joined in a poker school at a Maryhill gambling club a couple of nights ago. The place is called Dionysos and it’s owned by a Greek with an unpronounceable name. They were playing for very high stakes and Lord Kilvaird staked a pearl necklace—a necklace of inestimable value, apparently.”
Moira’s expression remained fixed, but her colour darkened.
“And? What happened then?” she asked.
“The Greek had a straight flush and won the pot,” Gordon said in a sorrowful voice. “So the necklace is his now!”
“Oh no!” Moira said. “Those pearls are mine. Mine and no one else’s!”