He turned to Miss Macpherson, said “Do you think you can have those figures ready by lunch-time tomorrow?” received her affirmative; asked if she knew the names and addresses of Simpson’s executors; wrote them down in his note-book.
“Ready now,” he told Patricia: and, as an afterthought, “How much petrol have you got?”
“I filled up just before coming out.”
“Good.” He looked at his wrist-watch. “Then I think, if you don’t mind, we’ll run down to Harrow to see Mrs. Simpson.”
§ 3
The drive to Harrow, through traffic and tramlines for the most part, gave little opportunity for conversation.
“Are you very worried?” she managed to ask.
“Yes,” he confessed, “I am.”
They drew up, at about six in the afternoon, before an unpretentious, comfortable villa in an unpretentious, comfortable side-street. It was the usual English suburban home, a doll’s house of red-brick and stucco: two lime trees sheltered the little iron gate; on either side of the gravelled path which led to the front door, tiny well-clipt lawns gave on to laurel-bushes. As they came up the path, a half-seen figure moved behind the muslin curtains of the dining-room window.
Ringing the ivory knob of a well-polished brass bell-push, they were welcomed by a maid in cap-and-apron; ushered, through a marble-papered hall with a mahogany hat-stand, into an over-furnished room (piano and sofa prominent) whose long French windows looked out on “the garden”—a narrow strip of lawn ending in a fence crowned with trellis-work and scant ivy.