The Intercity Inquiries Bureau had its only office in Lime Court, one of the several alleys off Fleet Street where the houses of blackened brick huddle together like gentlefolk in reduced circumstances eking out their means by discreet commerce. The Bureau occupied the whole of the top floor of number six, a group of attics approached by wooden stairs which for the first three floors were wide and gentle and for the final flight steeply breathtaking, designed for Georgian servants.
The managing director of the firm sat at a cluttered table so enclosed with filing cabinets that his method of approach to the swivel chair posed an immediate problem to the questing eye. He was not at ease because his caller’s name was familiar to him as a man who had friends in high places and who was therefo
