He got the story out of her inch by inch. She told us she’d been asleep, and voices coming from her father’s study had woken her. She’d gone down. The study door was ajar and she peeped in. Brodey was up against the wall with his hands in the air. A man in a brown suit was threatening him with a gun. She heard the brown man say: “Okay, if that’s the way you want to play it. Come on, we’ll go for a ride.” She wanted to get help, but she was too scared to move. The brown man hustled Brodey out of the room. It was dark in the passage and neither of them saw her. They went out the front door, and a moment or so later she heard a car drive away. Then I showed up.
Davis and I exchanged glances.
“Seen this guy before?” Davis asked.
She shook her head. She was shivering with shock and looked as if she’d pass out any moment.
Davis tried to make her take another drink, but she wouldn’t; she kept saying: “You must get him back. Please. Don’t sit there. Get him back.”
“We’ll get him back,” Davis assured her, “but we must know who took him. What was this guy like?”
“Short and thickset,” she said, putting her hands over her eyes. “He was horrible—like an ape.”
“Did he have a scar down the side of his face?” Davis asked, stiffening.
She nodded.
“Know him?” I asked.