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It was late afternoon by the time I left my client's rather palatial residence. It was still too early for dinner and there was nothing to call me home at this hour. So there was a little time to drop by the office. Not that it was anything special; just a modest little place in a low-rent cavern. It was somewhere to meet prospective clients, or them to wait for me if they felt like it. Few people can be bothered. The office was a single room with a door with my name painted on the glass. A bit faded now, but does the job of announcing my credentials. The office door is never locked, which simply saves on repairs, not to mention complaints from the landlord. Anything within - whether useful, magical, grey-area legal or just personal - is either without value or rather carefully concealed against even quite a professionally thorough search and, in a few cases, protected by glamours of their own. The building itself is a low free-standing block in the human style, maintained to a standard best regarded as "barely acceptable". I passed though the foyer, watching my step carefully on the worn and ripped doormat and made my way past the sand-bucket contained a week's selection of cigarette ends to the stairwell. The landlord was far too cheap to install anything resembling an elevator. My office is on the fourth floor. I trudged up the dusty concrete stairs, ignoring the stairwell walls painted in the inevitable shade of faded institutional green and with my head still mulling over the case I had just completed. I expected that I would spend a few quiet hours this afternoon putting my thoughts in order and writing a few short notes for the file, perhaps with the aid of the medicinal whiskey bottle I keep in the deep desk drawer for this very purpose. As I approached the turn in the stairs between third and fourth floors, I belatedly became aware of somebody making their way down. It was a dame, wrapped in a long expensive-looking fur coat made of the pelts of numerous small animals. She held the wrap tightly closed at the throat, as if she was cold, even though the stairwell was not particularly chilly. She threw me several curious glances as she made her way down the steps while stood politely to one side at the turn of the stairwell and tipped my hat politely. Just after she passed me, she seemed to come to some kind of conclusion, spun on her heels - very high stiletto heels, indeed - let go of the edge of the coat and pointed directly at me. "Are you Findo Gask, the detective?" she asked, in that breathless way that too many dames adopt when talking to anything in trousers. "That's me," I replied, tipping my hat again and smiling in a friendly kind of way, "How can I be of service?" "I need your help," she whispered, moving much closer to me in a confidential kind of way, "I need your help very much." Now, I'm no stranger to having females press their ample charms on me at the slightest acquaintance. I'd like to think that, at least sometimes, it's because of my muscular build and rugged good looks. Yeah, I'm flattering myself. More often than not such forward attentions are because the lady in question wants something, or perhaps wants to distract me from something. The trick, of course, is to play along, pant a little like an over-enthusiastic puppy at the appropriate moments, and wait until you find out what is really going on. As a distraction, I had to admit that this chick was the business. Definitely hot stuff. She was a tall and well-proportioned female with smooth mahogany skin that told of expensive cosmetics and beauty therapies, with a slight hint that the buffed and bronzed appearance met a certain professional requirement. Not a streetwalker, though: she had class and style, of a sort; more likely an actress, perhaps, or some kind of entertainer. I took her hand, slipped her arm though mine companionably and made to guide her back up the stairs. "Let's retire to my office," I said affably, "And you can tell me all about it."
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Part 3