Chapter 36: A Legacy or Trussed

Harry listened sympathetically to my account of my trip to the dungeon. He looked across at Freddie who was sitting back with his feet up on his desk, staring away and out through the window, apparently disinterested. The envelop and paper lay discarded on Clegg's desk, ignored. As I concluded he swung himself around to face me.

"Fine, fine," he said.

"With respect, Freddie," I responded, "it isn't fine by my books. What are we going to do?"

"Do?" said Freddie. "Oh, I'm not sure we need to do anything. Well not about the dungeon anyway, not right now. I think I know what's going on. If that letter was meant to irritate me, it has certainly done so. The only problem is that it also confirms what I suspected. I think we may know where young Tricia is. Harry done some research haven't you?" Harry nodded with a grim smile. "And we have a little job set up."

"I thought you were leaving me to get on with this?" I said.

"Larry, you don't want to believe everything I say. I don't even always believe me, myself. Now I am assuming you want to join in with this?"

Harry leant forward with a conspiratorial air. "You remember that first burglary you came out with Tricia and me on?" he said. I nodded. "Well, I think we need to go on another."

"We're going to rescue her?"

"No, not exactly," said Freddie. "There's some collateral I want to pick up first. Just in case of any problems."

"Does this help Tricia?" I asked.

"We think so. Maybe. Certainly it'll make me feel better about things," Freddie said. They wouldn't explain any more but I trusted their judgement. I certainly hadn't come up with any ideas.

A day later, we ended up outside of an office in a run down building not far from our Whitechapel office. The dimpled glass panel on the door carried some old fashioned black and gold lettering. "Shuster, Siegel & Kent," it said, "Solicitors & Commissioners for Oaths".

I took one look at the threadbare carpet outside the door and the damp stain spreading from a corner of the window frame. "Super," I said, "really super."

"Don't worry about it," said Freddie. "We're only borrowing it. It's just what we need for this job."

Clegg knocked on the door. A voice from inside called, "It's open. Turn the handle." Freddie led the way. The girl sitting at the desk looked up, evidently surprised by the idea of customers. "Uhhuh?" she asked. I'd known women that were more articulate with a two inch rubber ball in their mouth.

Clegg persevered. "Good afternoon."

The girl sat with her arms folded. "They're not here. None of them. Mr Shuster's out. Mr Siegel's away and Mr Kent is not coming in this week."

"Oh, dear," said Freddie, at his most conciliatory, "I had hoped to be able to consult with one of your team. Is it really just yourself here?"

"Oh, what? Well. No. There's her."

"Her?"

"She's their para — whatsit. Parallel?"

"Para-legal?"

"S'wot I said. Miss Lane, she is. But they don't usually let her talk to anyone."

"I'm sure she'll be able to help," Clegg said patiently, "Even if it's just to suggest whether Mr Kent, Mr Siegel or Mr Shuster would be best able to help us with our problem. Perhaps you could show us through."

"S'pose so. You'd better come through." She got up and showed us past her desk, not towards either of the three large glass panelled doors behind her but to a solid wooden door between two enormous filing cupboards. Whereas each of the glass panelled doors proclaimed the identity of their occupants in gold lettering there was simply a card pinned to this door with the word "Lane" handwritten on it in felt tipped pen. The receptionist opened it without knocking. The office's occupant didn't seem surprised to be disturbed without warning. "Gentlemen for you," said the receptionist.

The smartly dressed girl behind the desk looked up with a smile. "Hullo," she said. "How can I help?" The smile turned to a look of alarm as she watched Clegg pull a gun from his jacket. In the same moment Harry had one hand over the receptionist's mouth and another around her waist, pulling her back against him and stifling her cries.

"We need to borrow your offices for a while," Clegg said. "I do hope you won't mind." The girl's hands flew to her mouth. The receptionist was kicking spiritedly against Harry's hold. He swung her around and slammed her against a rack of files. File boxes fell to the floor with a crash. Her struggles subsided a bit.

I knew what to do. I took the reel of tape from my pocket, grabbed the girl in the chair by the wrists and taped them to the arms of her seat. A wad of sponge followed the tape from my pocket. I pushed it into her resisting mouth and taped over it. I taped each of her ankles over to the legs of the chair and did the same with her knees. It left her a bit exposed; she didn't look happy with the way that Freddie was checking out her legs.

Harry wrestled the receptionist to the floor. She was still struggling, squealing and kicking as he wrenched her wrists behind her to tape them together. He didn't seem bothered by her efforts. He taped her ankles as he had done her wrists and then ran a short strip of tape between wrists and ankles bending her backwards in a vicious hog tie. He wound more tape around her arms and chest.

We finished the two of them off with pads over their eyes, wax ear plugs and tape to keep it all in place; there was no need to bother them with what we were up to. Not that I knew what was going on anyway. I still didn't see how this was helping to get Tricia back.

It was a little while later when we'd installed ourselves in Shuster's office that Clegg's four guests arrived. Two of them were women in their mid-forties, two of them young girls. The two older ones looked rather similar; both carried themselves with the air of women that had gone through life without too many problems and seemed as if they felt that their future lives should continue in the same vein.

"Ah, excellent. Come in," said Clegg, waving them through into Shuster's office. "Come in."

The taller of the two women peeled off her gloves. "I hope this isn't going to take too long," she said.