“Annabel English,” she said, twisting her hands in her lap.
“What are you? Just a little dame with plenty of dough, running round lookin’ for a good time?”
She nodded. Duffy lit a cigarette. “Yeah! I bet you are, and I bet you have a pretty nice time of it What’s this Cattley to you?”
Her face flushed and she hesitated. “I—I asked him to get material on the… the underworld.” She stopped. The colour in her face was deep.
Duffy groaned. “For the love of Mike, don’t tell me you’re writing a book or something,” he pleaded; “a Society-dame-looks-on-the-underworld stuff?”
“I thought it would be amusing,” she said. “It’s about the White Slave traffic….”
He threw up his hands. “So you thought you would write a book on the White Slave traffic, did you?” he said, dragging smoke into his lungs and letting it drift from his nostrils. “And you’ve to pick on the worst hoodlum in town to help you. Well, I reckon you’d better change your ideas and write a book on blackmail. You’re going to get a grandstand seat in this racket, and if you ain’t careful you’re going to pay plenty.”
She looked up swiftly, her face resentful. “What am I to do?”
Duffy slid off the table. “You ain’t doing a thing at the moment. I’m getting that camera back. That’s the first thing.”
He walked over to the telephone. “Take a look in the book and see if you can find Daniel Morgan in it,” he said, spinning the dial. She got to her feet and began to rustle through the directory While he was waiting for the line to connect he let his eye run over her as she leant forward over the table. “Annabel English,” he thought. “A swell name and a nice little job.”