Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

By the time he had finished this spiel Mayburgh was even redder in the face than usual. Oliphant said, “I’m not suggesting that you haven’t done your best with the resources at your disposal. But the official view is that the enquiry needs wider handling. I’m to tell you that unless you can produce concrete results in the next fortnight, the matter will have to be handed over to Central. Meanwhile, I’ll alert all the other stations in the area to give you any help you need. So, if you do chance on a line, you can hunt it hard.”

When he had departed, it was Inspector Barley who broke the silence. He said, “I feel, sir, that the first thing to do is to subject the case to a complete reassessment. If I might take all the papers home and be allowed a few days off routine duty...”

“You’ll need a pantechnicon to get that lot home,” said Mayburgh sourly. “But go ahead.”

Barley was not dismayed. He foresaw days of a kind of work that was much to his taste.

On that same day, Hugo was summoned to the office of Colonel Arbuthnot. It was in a building which overlooked St. James’s Park and seemed to be connected with the Ministry of Pensions. The colonel dismissed a pretty, dark-haired girl to whom he was dictating and listened with interest to what Hugo had to tell him. (The girl, who had managed to arrange things so that she could overhear what went on in the colonel’s office, also listened with interest and spent some time that evening on the telephone.)

“What you say,” said the colonel, “fits in with our information from other sources. You spent some time in Italy, I believe. Then I expect you know how the drug trade is organised there.”

“I know what every schoolchild seems to know. That the raw opium comes across from Turkey and is processed into morphia and heroin under the auspices of the mafia, who attend to its export and sale.”

“Remarkably well-informed schoolchildren,” said the colonel. “The one point they may not have appreciated is that the mafia control the export of the hard stuff to North America and to many European countries — Belgium in particular. But they do not, at the moment, handle its export to this country, though they would much like to do so. If the victim of this latest killing was, in fact, Carlo Frossinone — equipped with a forged passport and having overcome his reluctance to help—”

“Or, more likely, been frightened into helping.”

“Quite so. Then it follows that the assassin was one of the London-based gangs which do handle the import and sale of hard drugs and would do anything to stop the mafia muscling in.”

“And the method of killing was designed to suggest that it was the work of the Knifeman?”

“Typical camouflage. And now that we appreciate the position, we can get the Metropolitan Police Drugs Squad and the Customs and Excise Investigators — a very shrewd bunch — onto the killer. Working together they should soon be able to lay hands on him. And I am much obliged to you—”

“Different sort of man to Mayburgh,” said Hugo, reporting to Mr. Piggin. “Very pleasant, I thought.”

“So I’ve always found,” said Mr. Piggin. “I wound up his father and his grandfather. Talking of which, I’ve got a job for you. An old lady called Mrs. Trumpington — a new client, so handle her carefully — wants to make a will. She is bedridden and cannot come to us, so you are to go round tomorrow and take her instructions. Here’s the address. Carlton Mansions—”

As he surveyed Carlton Mansions Hugo surmised, from the appearance of the building, that Mrs. Trumpington must be a lady of means. His surprise was increased by the appearance of the man who opened the door to him and ushered him into a handsomely furnished flat. Had he met him casually he would have taken him for a senior businessman, a man of authority, who would have taken the chair at board meetings. A second equally impressive but younger man was standing with his back to the fire.

Hugo, hearing the door click shut behind him, had the uncomfortable feeling that he had walked into something that it might be difficult to get out of.

Before he could open his mouth, the older man said, in a voice that matched his appearance, “Let us cut all corners. There is no Mrs. Trumper here.”

“Trumpington,” amended the younger man.

“Trumpington. Yes. She was, in any event, a myth. I am glad your father sent you, because it is specifically with you that we wished to speak. To discuss with you a professor of economics at Perugia University called Carlo Frossinone.”

Now how the devil, thought Hugo, would they know anything about him. Then he remembered the black-haired girl in Colonel Arbuthnot’s office and ceased wondering.

“I understand that you identified the man who was killed on the train as being this professor and have accordingly alerted the security services to the possibility that he was murdered by one of the London drug gangs. Correct?”

Hugo nodded.