What Breaks A Detective.

Chapter 10

Three hours later, Smart was once again sitting in his office, feet on the desk, hands knitted across his chest in his thinking pose.

The post office had, not to Smart's immediate surprise, drawn a blank with the stamps, but as they sat placidly on his desk in front of him, shining dully in the light from his windows, Smart was getting a pretty good idea of where they came from.

But why they'd come from there, and why they were now in Allie's desk, were questions which he really could only answer one of. The second was ridiculously simple, and gave him a general idea to the first.

The motive behind Allie's act also drew his attention. The way events had fallen, it was like she'd tried to commit suicide but then left the evidence to suggest she was still alive. Smart knew for a fact that anyone investigating Allie's so-called death with a half decent head on their shoulders (so, roughly half of Scotland Yard. Maybe three quarters on a good day) would be able to tell his friend was undoubtedly alive. It was awfully clumsily done.

Then there was the business with the Winter sisters themselves. What conversation had he caught the end of? What did they know about Allie that they didn't want to tell him? What was Rosie going along with? Was Isabel mixed up in this buisness more than he'd initially suspected? And why would they think it would hurt him?

Then there was the whole buisness with Allie's secret investigating. When had she begun, and when had she found the time?

Smart considered this for a good minute before he realised.

There had been ten or so weeks in between his investigation with Allie at the Plaza Majestic, and her escapades at the courthouse. There had also been a good three or four weeks in between the courthouse drama and the start of the incident with the clues that was the beginning of the end.

Plenty of time to be getting on with a secret investigation, and if Isabel had been out of the house with work...

"Bentley?" Smart yelled.

His secretary poked his head through his office door.

"Yes sir?"

"Bring two cups of coffee and come and sit in here" Smart ordered. Bentley seemed to sweat a little nervously.

"Yessir."

As Bentley ducked out again, Smart rolled his eyes. He really wasn't that much of a scary person.

Bentley came back through a few minutes later, balancing two cups of coffee in his hands. He set them down neatly on Smart's desk and then stood awkwardly in front of it.

"Sit down" Smart said derisively, as if that wasn't something he was supposed to have to point out.

Bentley wearily took a seat.

"I want to bounce some ideas off of you, Bentley" Smart began briskly. "Which means you're going to have to stop looking like a startled rabbit and be willing to talk to me like I'm a human being."

The look on Bentley's face gave Smart the impression that his secretary certainly did not think of him as anything even remotely like a human being. He sniffed. This was going to be difficult.

Getting up, Smart removed his coat and hat, slinging them onto a coatstand and turning to Bentley with his arms folded.

Again, Smart wasn't entirely sure, but he was beginning to wonder how much his secretary actually saw and understood in the world beside the obvious untidiness of it all and the end of his own nose. Seeing Smart without his coat and hat on, accessories which Smart knew did make him look about fifteen years older than he actually was, Bentley seemed to be struggling with the fact that his boss was more to his own age than he had previously estimated.

"Drink the coffee, old chap" Smart sighed, scooping his own off the table and crossing to the window, staring out. "That's what it's there for."

"I thought you were older than me" the secretary muttered dumbly, obediently reaching out shaking hands for the coffee as Smart observed him with a nonchalant stare through the reflection of the window.

"How old are you, Bentley?" he asked interestedly, taking a casual sip of his drink.

"Twenty-eight."

Smart spat the coffee out again.

"I thought you must be at least thirty" Bentley carried on, through gulps of coffee, as Smart, still with his back turned, tried his utter hardest not to snigger. It wasn't easy, as his secretary was, in fact, his own senior by four years, tops.

"It's a garmental hazard" he replied levelly, keeping his voice as calm as he could manage and trying not to drop his teacup.

"A what, sir?" Bentley asked politely.

"Basically, I wear a big coat and a big hat, all the time, and it makes me look like an old man" Smart translated.

Bentley seemed to stifle a snort of laughter, so Smart turned loosely to face him again and sat back down in his chair.

"Go ahead and laugh, please" he invited the other man. "I'm not much of a people person myself, but I believe this is what's known as 'breaking the ice'."

Unfortunately for Smart, this made Bentley flip instantly straight back onto the wary.

"Why are you trying to 'break the ice' as you put it, with me, sir?" he asked hesitantly. Smart gave a heavy sigh.

"So you'll stop behaving like a startled rabbit and I can bounce some ideas off of you. That's the whole reason why you're here" he explained. "I do believe I've already said that."

"Right, sir. What ideas would you like me to bounce off?"

Smart so nearly bottled it then and there. What stopped him was the fact that Bentley was, sadly, being entirely serious. He sniffed and settled backwards onto his chair.

"What's the point of faking a suicide if you leave a trail proving you're alive?" he began. Bentley frowned at him.

"I thought the detecting stuff was your job, sir."

Smart dropped his head onto his chest. He sighed. He sat back up with a slightly patronising smile on his face.

"Just let me talk, Bentley, and then you tell me when I'm sounding stupid."

"Yes sir?"

Smart ignored the questioning tone and ploughed on.

"The trail left behind was blindingly obvious. It was set up to imply a survival of a faked suicide. But why fake the suicide in the first place if you left it so you were just going to come out of it alive? If she wanted us to believe she was actually dead, which is usually the point of faking something, then why leave the knife in Newham's chest? Surely that's the one place it would have to be in order to make the suicide look fake? And if she wanted it to look fake and be fake then what was the point of doing it? There must be something I don't know yet. Some reason which would mean Allie having to jump off a bridge and go AWOL for at least a couple of hours..."

Smart flopped back down into his chair. Now that was an interesting point. What if Allie didn't need a long term escape plan, what if she only needed just that little bit more time?

"Sir?" Bentley asked timidly.

"You can go" Smart muttered. "Take the cups."

Bentley bowed out, but Smart's mind was whirling. Say Allie only needed one afternoon. She knew that the American counterparts would be sailing in to replace the gang the Yard had in custody, so what was to say that she wasn't planning to bring the other half in as well...

Smart jumped up, but before he could get anywhere Arthman came bursting into his office, a disgruntled Bentley in tow.

"Arthman!" Smart exclaimed. "Just the man! I think Allie's made some sort of plan to bring in the American counterparts..."

It seemed he had spoken over the American, and now both of them stood stunned at what the other had said. Smart had expressed his suspicions over Allie's plan to capture the American counterparts of Stephenson's gang, while Arthman had shoved in his face a newly opened letter from Allie, telling them how to do it.