“My name is Carter,” he said at last. He spoke with an American accent. “Joe Carter. I just got in from Chicago. And I’ve got a problem.”

“I can see that,” I muttered.

He glanced at me with one eye. The other eye looked somewhere over my shoulder. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“I’m Nick Diamond.”

“I don’t need a smart-aleck kid. I’m looking for a private detective.”

“That’s him over there,” I said, indicating the desk and my big brother, Tim.

“You want a coffee, Mr. Carver?” Tim asked.

“It’s not Carver. It’s Carter. With a t,” the American growled.

“I’m out of tea. How about a hot chocolate?”

“I don’t want a hot anything!” Carter sucked on the cigarette. “I want help. I want to hire you. What do you charge?”

Tim stared. Although it was hard to believe, the American was offering him money. This was something that didn’t happen often. Tim hadn’t really made any money since he’d worked as a policeman, and even then the police dogs had earned more than him. At least they’d bitten the right man. As a private detective, Tim had been a total calamity. I’d helped him solve one or two cases, but most of the time I was stuck at school. Right now it was the week of vacation—six weeks before Christmas, and once again it didn’t look like our stockings were going to be full. Unless you’re talking holes. Tim had just seven cents left in his bank account. We’d written a begging letter to our mom and dad in Australia but were still saving up for the stamp.

I coughed and Tim jerked upright in his chair, trying to look businesslike. “You need a private detective?” he said. “Fine. That’s me. But it’ll cost you fifty a day, plus expenses.”

“You take traveler’s checks?”

“That depends on the traveler.”

“I don’t have cash.”

“Traveler’s checks are fine,” I said.

Joe Carter pulled out a bundle of blue traveler’s checks, then fumbled for a pen. For a moment I was worried that he’d be too drunk to sign them. But somehow he managed to scribble his name five times on the dotted lines, and slid the checks across. “All right,” he said. “That’s five hundred dollars.”

“Five hundred dollars!” Tom squeaked. The last time he’d had that much money in his hand he’d been playing Monopoly. “Five hundred dollars . . .?”

Carter nodded. “Right. So now let me tell you where I’m coming from.”

“I thought you were coming from Chicago,” Tim said.

“I mean, let me tell you my problem. I got into England last Tuesday, a little less than a week ago. I’m staying in a hotel in the West End. The Ritz.”

“You’d be crackers to stay anywhere else,” Tim said.