“In the office of the cigarette firm?”
“No.”
“By the way, was there no staff attached to the latter concern?”
Kerry chewed viciously.
“No business of any kind seems to have been done there,” he replied. “An office-boy employed by the solicitor on the same floor as Kazmah has seen a man and also a woman, go up to the third floor on several occasions, and he seems to think they went to the Cubanis office. But he’s not sure, and he can give no useful description of the parties, anyway. Nobody in the building has ever seen the door open before this morning.”
The Assistant Commissioner sighed yet more wearily.
“Apart from the suspicions of Miss Margaret Halley, you have no sound basis for supposing that Kazmah dealt in prohibited drugs?” he inquired.
“The evidence of Miss Halley, the letter left for her by Mrs. Irvin, and the fact that Mrs. Irvin said, in the presence of Mr. Quentin Gray, that she had ‘a particular reason’ for seeing Kazmah, point to it unmistakably, sir. Then, I have seen Mrs. Irvin’s maid. (Mr. Monte Irvin is still too unwell to be interrogated.) The girl was very frightened, but she admitted outright that she had been in the habit of going regularly to Kazmah for certain perfumes. She wouldn’t admit that she knew the flasks contained cocaine or veronal, but she did admit that her mistress had been addicted to the drug habit for several years. It began when she was on the stage.”
“Ah, yes,” murmured the Assistant Commissioner; “she was Rita Dresden, was she not—The Maid of the Masque? A very pretty and talented actress. A pity—a great pity. So the girl, characteristically, is trying to save herself?”
“She is,” said Kerry grimly. “But it cuts no ice. There is another point. After this report was made out, a message reached me from Miss Halley, as a result of which I visited Mr. Quentin Gray early this morning.”