Detective Story - Chapter 1

In a way, I should have known how this would all end. I've watched enough films to know that when dame walks into your office offering double, it means trouble. I should have known better, but it was an unusually cold September. Frost was forming on the window panes and breath hung in the air like smoke from a cheap cigarette. I was idly twirling just such a cigarette in my fingers, contemplating the cold walk to buy another packet when a knock came at my door. I called for the knocker to enter. In came two, wrapped in expensive tweed and lined with fur. To say that this woman struck a fine figure was an understatement. She looked like old money to me, but then I hadn't seen enough to be any judge.

'I hope I have the right address,' she said as she looked around her.

Maybe it was the way I was wearing a trilby indoors that gave the game away, maybe it was the raincoat hanging on the old-fashioned coat stand in the corner, but her smile said that she had found what she was looking for. Reaching into her antique clutch-purse she pulled out a cigarette case. Flipping a Davidoff Slim between her lips, she knew that I'd already have a lighted match half way to her. I didn't disappoint. Breathing smoke out of her mouth and nose, she seated herself across from me.

'This isn't easy for me to do. I'm not normally a suspicious person, Mr. Sherman.'
'No one likes to think of themselves as suspicious, madam. But it's an instinct like any other.'
'Well, you see... You'll forgive me if I come straight to the point. I am willing to offer you a great deal of money if you can locate this woman.'
A photograph appeared from her purse.
'Double your normal fee, if necessary.'
'You just want to know where she is?' I asked, taking the photo of a young blonde walking out of a doorway.
i turned the picture over in my hands.
'That's her address on the back. I hope you can start right away. This matter is, I hope, not serious, but urgent all the same. I believe that she has become involved with... unsuitable elements.'
'When was this photo taken?'
'She was leaving the Bronze Peach nightclub in a taxi. It was the last time that I saw her.'
'What's this girl called?'
'Her real name is Sabrina. Sabrina Dart. But most people know her as Forbes. Don't ask me why.'

I didn't ask and after we had settled my fee she gave me her card and asked me to be in touch. It looked like I had another stray debutante to chase around. Tedious work, but it pays well. Rich fathers will cough up everything they have if they think that their little girl might be in trouble. But this Virginia Appleby - her card had her name spelled out in embossed gold - didn't seem like the kind to have children. I lit my last cigarette and decided to buy more on the way to the club.