CHAPTER 12Darcy Atwater looked up blankly at the grey little man peering at him, rather like a starved mouse, from under the barrage of pewter plates plastered about the door frame. Then he said,
“Oh. You’re one of the johnnies from Scotland Yard, aren’t you. Come in. What’s happening? Sit down. Have a drink—have this drink.”
He pushed the glass with four large fingers of clear golden liquid across the table.
“—The thought of it turns my stomach.”
It turned Mr. Pinkerton’s, too. The late Mrs. Pinkerton had been a fanatical teetotaler. Indeed, except medicinally, Mr. Pinkerton had never in his life touched spirits, nothing beyond a tall cool glass of lager, from time to time, and that not because he really liked it, but to show he could have it if he wanted it. He pushed the glass back
