What Breaks A Detective.

Chapter 7

Smart spent what was left of the night in his own London flat, the comfort of that being a risk he was willing to take due to the fact it was so close to his brother's.

Despite his tiredness, he leapt out of bed at nine the following morning, and made it to the Yard by half past. It was early, so not many people were about, and, taking off his hat and coat in order to make himself less recognisable, Smart managed to sneak up to his office without anyone stopping him.

As he opened the door, he smiled to himself. Bentley had been in. The place looked like a geometric drawing.

His desk had been moved precisely to the middle of the room, the curtains had been ironed, as had the rug, placed perfectly in parallel with all four walls and exactly six inches from his desk, as had the chair cushions, it appeared, and the chair covers, and, Smart decided, literally everything else that could possibly be ironed without going up in flames. The man had even ironed the wallpaper, for hell's sake. There wasn't a crease in sight. Anywhere. Every book on his shelves was also the right way up, and-Smart groaned-in order of size, not alphabet. That was going to take him some time to reorganise. To make it worse, everything he had collected to do with Allie's fall had been categorically removed.

This one fact made it much easier for Smart to kick back on his perfectly aligned desk chair, moving it out of position, and put his feet up on the spotlessly dusted desk without feeling guilty.

Smart did think it was rather beautiful to sit in such a tidy space, but he knew it wasn't practical, and also that it would never last.

Neither, it seemed, did the fact that nobody knew Smart was here.

Barnes let Smart's office door swing open silently (Bentley had oiled the hinges) and stood there, looking thunderous.

"Toby" he began curtly. "Why is there a Pinkerton's man standing in Admin calling to see you when you're supposed to be on holiday?"

"This is how I spend my holidays, Barnes" Smart replied cheekily. "Doing clever stuff."

"Why is there a Pinkerton's man in Admin calling to see you?" Barnes repeated dangerously.

"Because he was called over here by Allie a couple of days before she fell off the bridge" Smart admitted, licking his lip gingerly. "Can you get someone to bring him up?"

"I'm going to get your brother" Barnes warned.

"No" Smart pleaded, jumping up from his desk and half-running to the door. "I need you to hear this. It's about the Stephenson gang, and it'll explain why none of them are telling us anything."

Barnes regarded the young Detective Inspector heavily.

"You know what you need?" the older man asked. "A young lady. To keep you from working yourself so hard."

"I'm trying to find her" Smart replied bluntly.

Barnes shook his head sadly and plodded off down the stairs. Smart returned to his desk, nudging the rug just a little askew as he did so.

He whipped a notepad and pencil from his desk drawer. Hell, Bentley had tidied the inside of the drawers too. Smart hated to think how long that must have taken his secretary. Strangely, he was actually starting to like the boy.

Smart wrote:

What was Allie trying to achieve?

If she wanted us to think she was dead, why are the knives the wrong way around?

If she wanted us to think she was alive, then what the hell is going on?

"Detective Smart."