The Girl from Heavytree Farm

Chapter Seven: Return to Curzon Street

CHAPTER SEVEN 

Dinner was a peaceful meal. George talked amusingly of his experiences that day interviewing Bridges & Westbury's agent; Raymond commented on some minor events in the English Midlands which had been recorded in the newspapers; Leon talked about Nurse Wilson's researches and his progress, assisted by Raymond, in establishing the physical cause of typists' hand and wrist injuries. 

'I must encourage our friends at Middlesex Hospital to do further investigations,' he said. 'This requires more than the resources of our small laboratory.' 

The Three seemed relaxed in each other's company, but Mirabelle sensed tensions. They were keeping the conversation neutral, and when she mentioned the bad penny, all three seized on the topic as a safe subject for speculation and concentrated on that to the exclusion of all else. She was quite glad when the meal came to an end without anyone mentioning Spain or the political situation on the European continent. 

They made their way back to 233 Curzon Street, and gathered in George's first floor office\/ reception room to discuss the Bridges & Westbury case. When all their evidence to date was on the table, they had the following information: 

Bridges & Westbury had a large number of completed properties in the City of Westminster which they were extremely anxious to sell, 'almost at any price', as George put it. It appeared that they had over-invested in the land market and had been badly hit by the economic slump which followed the war. 

Although they had safety measures in place for the protection of their workforce, as Leon had discovered, and their rates of pay were reasonable (although on the low side), in fact use of cheap materials, work that was done too quickly and without sufficient care, and lack of efficient oversight meant that building work was unsafe and dangerous accidents occurred. 

They were receiving most of the Westminster City Council contracts, but were being paid at a level which meant that they couldn't be making any profit on the job. To judge from the correspondence that Mirabelle had seen, they were expected to take on every contract that was offered to them. 

John Chadwell, also known as RS, was responsible for issuing said Council contracts, and so could be assumed to know something about them. In addition, he had before last Easter been associated with one 'MG' who might have been Minnie Gray, one of Monty Newton's former associates whose work had involved inveigling young men to parties, where they played at cards and lost large sums of money. Minnie had disappeared around the time of the ill-fated Arts Ball, which she had been expected to attend, but failed to appear. 

'In short,' said George, 'we appear to have a building contractor and architect who are being - shall we say blackmailed? - into accepting uneconomic contracts, by a man who has probably been involved with a notorious female escort, and who may have incurred extensive debts as a result. At this stage of the investigation, however, I suggest we don't leap to hasty conclusions, but concentrate on following up our current leads. 

'Leon, you should go to Scotland Yard with Mirabelle this evening and talk to our friends in the records office about the possible identity of RS. 

'Raymond, take that bad penny into the laboratory and test it. It is possible that it came via Chadwell - it came into Mirabelle's possession while she was in his office. 

'Tomorrow, Mirabelle will pay a visit to Middlesex Hospital at the early morning visiting hour to talk to Joan Murphy about her former colleague. She may be able to give us some information.' 

They all agreed on this line of action, and it was only when she and Leon had left the house that Mirabelle wondered what George was going to do.