A Share in Death

The brass knocker winked brightly at him as he closed the door. The morning had turned fair and blowy while he’d been inside. A piece of yellow paper fluttered under the Midget’s wiper like a butterfly trapped in the sun. He’d collected a parking ticket for his trouble—the local traffic constable, at least, was vigilant.

Kincaid retrieved the ticket and stuck it into his wallet. He folded the Midget’s top down, lowered himself into the driver’s seat and sat in the silent street, thinking. What to do, now, with this unexpected information? He couldn’t ignore it. Why, in the name of all that was competent, hadn’t Nash’s men searched the room already? It had been nearly thirty-six hours since Sebastian’s body had been discovered, and Nash had only sent a W.P.C. to break the news—he hadn’t even interviewed the mother, for Christ’s

 

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sake. Actually, he amended, “thank god” might be a better qualification, as he couldn’t imagine that Nash would have done anything to ease her distress.

 

Nash would have to be told, there was no help for it. And help, decided Kincaid, was just what he needed. He turned the key in the ignition and lifted the car phone from its cradle.

 

Kincaid counted himself extremely fortunate in his immediate superior. Chief Superintendent Denis Childs was an intelligent man whom Kincaid liked personally and respected professionally—and Kincaid knew that the luck of the draw could have just as easily given him a chief like Nash, although he liked to think that a copper of Nash’s caliber would never make it past Detective Constable at the Yard.

 

Denis Childs was a massive man, dwarfing Kincaid’s rangy six feet, and with his olive skin and bland inscrutability of feature, he sometimes made Kincaid think of an Eastern potentate—one finger on the political pulse and the other on his harem.

“Sir,” Kincaid said, when they were finished with the standard greetings, “I’ve run into a little problem.”

“Oh, you have, have you?” Childs said equably, with his usual disinclination to be ruffled. “And just how little is it?”