Shaking my head, I stumbled towards the door. The old fellow was nice enough, but strange.
Out in the main room, Mr Ambrose awaited me, displeasure evident in every unmoving line of his face.
‘We’re getting out of here,’ he stated. ‘The lips of that man Gurney are sown shut! I cannot get a single word out of him. This was a waste of time. We'll have to try something else.’
I raised an eyebrow. Or maybe both. Control over my facial muscles was rather difficult to maintain at the moment.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, of course!’
‘You got nothing at all, did you?’
‘No.’
‘Not the tiniest-winiest tiddly bittly bit of information?’
‘I am not in the habit of repeating myself, Mr Linton. No, I got nothing. Now let’s go.’
‘Tut-tut…’ I smirked at him. Or maybe I drooled at him a little. What did it matter? This was great! The little yellow piggies were doing pirouettes, just for the special occasion of my triumph. ‘N-not so fast, Sir. I think I have some interesting news for you…’
‘…there was this drunk old fellow, you know, really drunk, you could really, really tell from the way he spockle- spak- spoke…’
Mr Ambrose listened to my account with his usual facial expression - or lack thereof. In fact, both Mr Ambroses did. There seemed to be two of him at the moment. Sometimes there were even three, but most of the time there were only two. They were swaying slightly and going in and out of focus.
‘…and I totally conned him! Just like that! And he started bubbleabable…babbling…and… what was I talking about again? Barman? Another round of pig’s snouts… no… eyes…? Oh, to hell with it! So I got him talking and…’
The blurry, stony-looking Ambrose in front of me morphed into two again, neither looking very pleased. Under normal circumstances, I might have been terrified - I mean, two Mr Ambroses to hound me all day, trying to drive me insane? Please! Every girl has her limits! But right now, there was this warm, fuzzy-glowy-gargantuan-greatly-gubbledly-wobbledy-wonderful feeling inside, and not even the thought of two Mr Ambroses to deal with at once could faze me.
Why should it? I was a strong woman! Strong and brilliant and all-powerful! Ha! Let all men cower before me! Right now, I knew I could squish them all like bugs and conquer the world - even if it did seem slightly blurred.
‘…and he said he followed him there,’ I finished my account, ‘and saw him there, because he went there, and he followed him. And he told me, and now we know. Isn’t that just peachy, slug? Um, I mean… Sir? We know what we wanted to know. Although I can’t for the life of me remember why exactly we wanted to know. Bugger! Well, I’m sure it'll come back to me once I’ve conquered the world. Do you think I should start with Spain, or rather France?’
His facial expression didn’t change. Somehow, he still managed to suddenly radiate twice as much cold disapproval. ‘Mr Linton?’
‘Yessir!’
‘You neglected to mention where this man you were conversing with actually went.’
‘Oh. Really? How strange. Um… well…’
‘Yes?’
I tried to sort through my foggy mind to find the answer to this conundrum. It wasn’t easy. Finally, the answer popped out of the mist.
‘Duck Road!’ I exclaimed. ‘He went to Duck Road, number 97!’
‘Mr Linton, there is no such place as ‘Duck Road’ in London.’
‘Sure there is! It wasn’t a native duck, though. Some kind of foreign little beast… from the East, I think.’ I snapped my fingers, or at least tried to. Somehow, my twenty-seven fingers got tangled up in each other. ‘East India Duck Road! He went to a large house on East India Duck road! Number 97!’
Mr Ambrose gave me a long, long look. Even in my current conquer-the-world mood, I felt that look.
‘Mr Linton… is it possible that you are talking about East India Dock Road, not Duck?’
I put my plans for conquering France and squashing all men like cockroaches aside for the moment and considered this. ‘Possible,’ I conceded.
‘Of course!’ Mr Ambrose’s eyes flashed, and he looked past me, half-speaking to himself. ‘East India Dock Road! The East India Company!’
‘I still think it was “Duck”, though,’ I told him. He didn’t pay any attention to me.
‘Yes, the East India Company… and Dalgliesh is the main shareholder. One more piece of the puzzle.’
I blinked up at him. ‘I always get those wrong. I always try to use the piece with the blackberry as the nose for the dog in the background. Are you going to help me conquer the world now, Sir?’
His gaze snapped back to me.
‘Mr Linton?’
‘Yessir! Right here, Sir!’
‘I again have a question for you.’
‘Shoot! But please not me.’
‘Mr Linton, did you consume even more alcohol?’
‘Certainly not, Sir! I never drink on dudelty… dudley… on duty.’ A burp escaped me, and I quickly covered my mouth with my hand. ‘That’s what the soldiers in novels always say when they’ve been drinking, anyway.’
‘You did drink even more!’
‘How did you know that?’ I demanded. ‘I told you no, like any good little soldier!’
He ignored my question, taking a threatening step closer. ‘Why did you consume even more alcohol? I gave you express orders not to!’
I nodded sagely. I remembered that.
‘Yessir! But then I remembered that I simply love disobeying your orders.’ I grinned. ‘I suppose I’m not a soldier, am I? Not so good with following orders.’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘Blast! Well, I’m still going to conquer the world. Want to help me?’
‘No.’ He sounded terse for some reason, and not at all eager to help me with my big project of world domination. Strange… Very strange…
‘At the moment, what I want to do, Mr Linton, is to go to number 97 East India Dock Road, and to tear it down brick by brick. But considering the state you are in, that will have to wait. Come on.’
A firm hand grasped my elbow and started to lead me towards the exit, away from the suspicious innkeeper and the dancing yellow piggies on the wall. I waved goodbye to them and smiled brightly.
