Загадочные события во Франчесе / The Franchise Affair

“Oh, I see. No. Oh, no, it isn’t anything like that. It is something much more serious. It’s Scotland Yard.”

“Scotland Yard!”

To that douce country lawyer and gentleman, Robert Blair, Scotland Yard was as exotic as Xanadu, Hollywood, or parachuting. As a good citizen he was on comfortable terms with the local police, and there his connection with crime ended. The nearest he had ever come to Scotland Yard was to play golf with the local Inspector; a good chap who played a very steady game and occasionally, when it came to the nineteenth, expanded into mild indiscretions about his job.

“I haven’t murdered anyone, if that is what you are thinking,” the voice said hastily.

“The point is: are you supposed to have murdered anyone?” Whatever she was supposed to have done this was clearly a case for Carley. He must edge her off on to Carley.

“No; it isn’t murder at all. I’m supposed to have kidnapped someone.

Or abducted them, or something. I can’t explain over the telephone. And anyhow I need someone now, at once, and—”

“But, you know, I don’t think it is me you need at all,” Robert said. “I know practically nothing about criminal law. My firm is not equipped to deal with a case of that sort. The man you need—”

“I don’t want a criminal lawyer. I want a friend. Someone who will stand by me and see that I am not put-upon.

I mean, tell me what I need not answer if I don’t want to, and that sort of thing. You don’t need a training in crime for that, do you?”

“No, but you would be much better served by a firm who were used to police cases. A firm that—”

“What you are trying to tell me is that this is not �your cup of tea’; that’s it, isn’t it?”

“No, of course not,” Robert said hastily. “I quite honestly feel that you would be wiser—”

“You know what I feel like?” she broke in.

“I feel like someone drowning in a river because she can’t drag herself up the bank, and instead of giving me a hand you point out that the other bank is much better to crawl out on.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“But on the contrary,” Robert said, “I can provide you with an expert puller-out-of-rivers; a great improvement on my amateur self, I assure you.