She smiled as she sat dwarfed in his hide armchair, with the trophy wall behind her. Rollison was sitting on the arm of another chair. It was a little after eleven o’clock, and Jolly would soon bring coffee.

“Ah,” said Rollison. “I am a professional, remember. Jolly insists. My services will cost you a fortune.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter!”

“So now we flaunt our riches,” murmured R ollison.

“If you mean that I believe you’re a fool if you can get what you want by paying for it, but don’t, then I’m flaunting my riches,” agreed Ada. “Not that it matters. No money in the world would buy your services if you didn’t want to give them. I’ll soon talk to Jolly about money, if you’ll say you’ll help. I do hope you will.”

“I might,” conceded Rollison.

“You don’t know what it’s about yet.”

“I could make a guess. The police are helpless and hopeless. That man Grice is utterly impossible, how on earth he even became one of the Big Five at Scotland Yard you can’t imagine. We wouldn’t have him in the packing department at Jepsons. And it’s really such a simple thing, all he has to do is find the men who attacked poor Jimmy Jones. The brutes. If beasts like these men can get away, absolutely nothing’s safe. Women will soon be afraid to open the front doors to strangers!”

Ada listened to all this while slowly clenching her small right fist; then shook it at him in mock anger.

“You’ve been talking to Reggie.”

“Not I.”

“That man Grice, then.”

“Well, we had a chat over a tankard,” admitted Rollison. “Jolly and I half expected you’d want quick results, and didn’t think you’d have much luck.”