Tony Walker

Oh, I called on the landlord on the way and told him I'd let him know about the bungalow.

Then I caught my train and in due course drove straight to Scotland Yard.

I went up and saw my friend there.

I produced the glass and asked him if his people could identify the marks.

He said, ''Probably not.''

But he sent it down to the fingerprint department and asked me where it had come from.

I said, never mind, let's have the identification first.

He said, all right.

They're awfully quick, these people.

The clerk was back in three minutes with a file of papers.

They knew the girl all right.

They told me her name and showed me her photograph.

Not flattering.

Quite an adventurous lady from all accounts.

In the early part of her career, she'd done time twice for shoplifting, chiefly in the book department.

Then she'd what they call taken up with a member of one of those race gangs one sometimes hears about.

My pal went on to say that there had been a fight between two of these gangs, in the course of which her friend had got shot.

She had managed to get him away in a car, but it had broken down somewhere in Norfolk, so she had left it and the dead man in someone's garage, and had started off for Norwich in a lorry, only she never got there.

on the way the lorry had skidded and both she and the driver a fellow called williams had been thrown out and they had rammed their heads against a brick wall which every one knows is a fatal thing to do at least it was in their case

I said, look here, it's all very well, but you simply can't know all this.