Mrs. Pargeter's Point of Honour Read Free Page B

Pargeter’s most treasured heirloom – her husband’s address book. The late Mr Pargeter, an adoring and solicitous spouse, had left his widow well-provided for in the financial sense, but from beyond the grave he had also given her a far more valuable protection. In his varied and colourful business career, the late Mr Pargeter had worked with a rich gallery of characters of wide-ranging individual skills, and it was these whose names filled the precious address book. As a result, if ever his widow came up against one of those little niggling challenges which bother us all from time to time – finding a missing person, gaining access to a locked building, removing property without its owner’s knowledge, replacing a lost document, or even obtaining one which had had no previous existence – all she had to do was to look up in the book the number of a person with the appropriate skills, and her problem would be instantly resolved. Such was the loyalty inspired by her late husband amongst his workforce that the words on the telephone, ‘Hello, this is Mrs Pargeter’ prompted immediate shelving of all other work and dedicated concentration on her requirements.
    She had worked so often with Truffler Mason that she had almost forgotten he’d had a life before he became a private investigator. But she was gratefully aware of his unrivalled knowledge of criminal behaviour, his proficiency at obtaining information from people, and his encyclopaedic list of contacts when less sophisticated manpower was required. The fact that in learning these skills he had not followed the traditional career path of a detective was something to which Mrs Pargeter never gave a moment’s thought.
    When Truffler’s tall presence came to greet her at the door of his outer office – a space only marginally less dusty than the inner sanctum – she commented on the absence of his secretary Bronwen.
    â€˜Ah, yes, she’s off for a while,’ Truffler Mason intoned, in his customary voice, a deeply tragic rumble which made Eeyore sound as bouncy as Little Noddy.
    â€˜Not ill, I hope?’
    â€˜No, no, she’s got married.’
    â€˜Again?’ Mrs Pargeter asked doubtfully. She knew that Bronwen’s marital history was a catalogue of unsatisfactory skirmishes and pitched battles, that in fact it shared many features with the Hundred Years War.
    â€˜Again,’ Truffler concurred gloomily. ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard all about it for months. Love’s young dream this time. They were meant for each other. They’re blissfully happy. This time it’s for ever.’
    â€˜So are you going to have to hire someone else?’
    He shook his huge head. ‘No, give it a couple of weeks . . . she’ll be back.’
    From long, but unjudgemental, knowledge of the hygiene standards that obtained in his office, Mrs Pargeter refused Truffler Mason’s offer of a cup of coffee, but made no attempt to wipe the dust from the seat towards which he ushered her. He coiled his long body down into his own chair the other side of the desk, and listened intently while she brought him up to date with her visit to Chastaigne Varleigh.
    â€˜Mrs Chastaigne is dying, you see, Truffler,’ said Mrs Pargeter.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ he responded automatically, in a voice more doom-laden than ever.
    â€˜No need to be. She’s very philosophical about it. Knows that the best bit of her life was while Bennie was alive. Knows that she’s had the great privilege of living in comfort surrounded by beautiful things . . .’
    He nodded. Though Truffler Mason had never actually been to Chastaigne Varleigh, he’d heard on a secret grapevine of its amazing hidden art collection. ‘So what does she want from us, Mrs P?’
    She grimaced. ‘It’s the beautiful things, Truffler . . .’
    â€˜What, all that stuff Bennie Logan nicked for