Chapter 13
Four men were discussing the verdict at the adjourned inquest
upon Victor Bidlake, at Soto’s American Bar about a fortnight
later. They were Robert Fairfax, a young actor in musical comedy,
Peter Jacks, a cinema producer, Gerald Morse, a dress designer, and
Sidney Voss, a musical composer and librettist, all habitues of the
place and members of the little circle towards which the dead man
had seemed, during the last few weeks of his life, to have become
attracted. At a table a short distance away, Francis Ledsam was
seated with a cocktail and a dish of almonds before him. He seemed
to be studying an evening paper and to be taking but the scantiest
notice of the conversation at the bar.
“It just shows,” Peter Jacks declared, “that crime is the
easiest game in the wor
