It has to be recorded that for two whole days Christina Alberta did not even take the obvious step of going to the police. She had a queer instinctive knowledge of the danger of bringing the police and the social system generally to bear upon her odd little Daddy. She had an innate distrust of official human beings. It was Paul Lambone who induced her to go to the police. He had the grace to be ashamed of his unhelpfulness, and after an interval of two clear days he came round to the Lonsdale Mews to offer his generous but sluggish help once more. He caught her having tea with Fay.
“Christina Alberta,” he said, looking a very large comfortable figure of sorrow, “I’ve been worrying and worrying about you all the time. I didn’t help enough. I thought he’d come back of his own accord and that all the fuss was a little premature. Have you heard anything?”
Christina Alberta was torn between the desire to snap his head off and the realization that he was, after his fashion, quite sincerely friendly to her and could be very useful.
“Say it!” said Lambone. “You’ll be better, my dear, after you’ve said it and then we can talk matters over.”
He got the reassurance of a smile. He brightened visibly. He was the sort of man who would hate to feel hated even by a cockroach. “I won’t sit in that chair, thanks,” he said to Fay. “It’s too comfortable. And at any moment we may think of something, and I may have to leap up and act.
“Spartan,” he said, sitting down.
“Eh?” said Fay.
“Spartan. My doctor tells me to say it before every meal and especially before tea. I don’t know why. Magic or Coué or something. Are these things cocoanut cakes? I thought so.... Good they are. And what are we going to do about it, Christina Alberta?”
He became sane and helpful and more and more like the man who wrote What to Do on a Hundred and One Occasions. He made Christina Alberta admit to bankruptcy, and made it clear to her that it was her duty to accept a loan of twenty-five pounds from him. He then dealt with the point about reporting the disappearance to the police, and convinced Christina Alberta upon that. If Mr. Preemby had fallen into bad hands the sooner the police looked for him the better. But he did not think that likely; he was much more inclined to the idea that Preemby had made a disturbance and been taken up. He guessed he would be dealt with as a mental case. He had consulted those useful books The Justice of the Peace and the Encyclopædia Britannica, and displayed the excellence of his mental digestion. Christina Alberta perceived that he had in him the makings of a competent barrister.
He carried off Christina Alberta in a taxi to Scotland Yard. “Either they’ll tell us there or tell us where we shall be told,” he said.