CHAPTER VI
A Detective At Herons' Holt.
I.
Bolt Buildings, Westminster, is a colossal red structure reared upon the site of frightened-looking little houses which fell beneath the breaker's hammer coincident with the falling in of their lease. Here you may have a complete floor of rooms at from three to five hundred a year; or, high under the roof, you may rent a single room for forty-five pounds.
Mr. David Brunger, Private Detective and Confidential Inquiry Agent, appeared on the books of the Bolt Buildings management as lessee of one of these single rooms. The appearance of his quarters as presented to the visitor had, however, a more pretentious aspect.
Shot to the topmost floor in the electric lift, passing to the left and up five stairs in accordance with the lift boy's instructions, the intending client would be faced by three doors. Upon the first was inscribed:
DAVID BRUNGER (Clerks).
Upon the middle door:
DAVID BRUNGER (Private).
And upon the third:
DAVID BRUNGER (Office).
These signs of large staff and flourishing business were in keeping with the telling advertisements which Mr. David Brunger from time to time caused to appear in the Press.
“Watch your wife,” said these advertisements, adding in smaller type that had the appearance of a whisper: “David Brunger will watch her.” “What keeps your husband late at office?” they continued. “David Brunger will find out. Confidential inquiry of every description promptly and cheaply carried out by David Brunger's large staff of skilled detectives (male and female). David Brunger has never failed. David Brunger has restored thousands of pounds' worth of stolen property, countless missing relatives. David Brunger, 7 Bolt Buildings, Strange Street, S.W. Tel. 0000 West.”
In London, with its myriad little eddies of crime and matrimonial infelicity, there is a neat sum to be made out of detective work. Scotland Yard wolfs the greater part of these opportunities; there are established names that absorb much of the remainder. In the surplus, however, there is still a livelihood for the David Brungers. For if the Brungers do not go nosing after silken petticoats covering aristocratic but wanton legs; if the Brungers do not go flying across the Continent, nose to ground, notebook in hand, after the fine linen worn by my lord who is making holiday with something fair and frail under the quiet name of Mr. and Mrs. Brown; if the Brungers are not employed to draggle silken petticoats and fine linen through the Divorce Court, there is work for them among humbler washing baskets. Jealous little shop-keepers have erring little wives, and common little wives have naughty little husbands: these come to your Brungers. And if, again, the Brungers do not dog the footsteps of your fifty-thousand-pound men, your embezzlement-over-a-period-of-ten-years men, your cheque-forging men—if the Brungers are invited to do no dogging after these, there are pickings for them in less flashy crimes. Hiding in cupboard work while the sweated little shop-assistant slips a marked shilling from the till, hiding in basement work while a trembling little figure creeps down and pilfers the stock—these are the pranks that come to your Brungers.