Read Online The Summer Soldier by Nicholas Guild - Free Book Online

a
half.
    There were a couple of adolescent boys in
dark blue gym shorts kicking a rugby ball back and forth between
them on the playing field. They took no notice of the solitary
figure who passed quickly down toward the road that led back to the
underground platform.
    Should he have stayed, he wondered, and taken
care of friend Hornbeck the second he stepped in through his front
door? No, he thought not. Who could tell when Hornbeck would come
home? Guinness didn’t think it would have been all that good an
idea to try making his escape when the whole area was clogged with
school kiddies on their way home. Regardless of the major’s
assurances, he didn’t particularly want anything tying him into
this mess.
    And besides, he didn’t know enough about the
man’s habits to risk it.
    But then, where? And when? Some place where
there wouldn’t be mobs of people around, all of them just dying to
serve as crown witnesses. Some place away from London, yes. And
Hornbeck was leaving London in just a few days, now wasn’t he? He
was going to Yorkshire on business in just four days. Guinness
remembered the set of keys he had found in Hornbeck’s night
table.
    It took about three quarters of an hour of
cross checking between a street map and the London telephone
directory to assemble a list of all the parking lots within walking
distance of Ellerslie Road. There were four of them, and on the
third one Guinness hit pay dirt.
    “Hello.”
    “Hello, is this the Frithville Gardens
Garage? This is Mr. Hornbeck. I wonder if you could tell me whether
I’m paid up through the end of this month? I’m taking a little
trip, you see, and I don’t want to lose my space while I’m gone.
Could you check that for me please?”
    “What did you say the name was?”
    “Hornbeck.”
    Over the telephone cable he could hear the
rustling of pages. He wondered if this guy would have recognized
Hornbeck’s voice; he wondered how successful his British accent
was. He wondered if the guy would ask him the damn car’s color.
    “What kind of a car was that, Mr.
Hornbeck?”
    “A Jaguar.”
    “Yes, sir. It’s paid through the month.”
    “Thank you.”
    Well, now he knew where Hornbeck kept his
car. He looked up the advertisement for the Frithville Gardens
Garage, and they were open until two in the morning. Give the night
man half an hour to lock up, and make it quarter to three before he
paid his visit. That gave him nearly nine hours.
    Guinness took a shower, dressed with care,
and walked over to one of the big hotels ringing Hyde Park for a
roast pork dinner. From there he took a cab to the Garrick Theatre
and watched a performance of She Stoops to Conquer. It was a good
performance, very roughhouse and bawdy. Afterward he dropped in on
a pub just off Leicester Square and nursed a gin fizz through
several dart games with the actor who had played Diggory.
    He was enjoying it all enormously, he
discovered. And not just the roast pork and the play and the dart
games, either. He was getting a big kick out of getting ready to
nail this guy. It was fun, as if friend Hornbeck had suddenly
become all those legions against which it had been the business of
his life to conduct war. He was getting his revenge, and, as the
Italians say, revenge is a dish that tastes better cold.
    At ten minutes to three he was around the
back of the garage. There was an exposed iron stairway up to a
locked door on the second story, but beside it was a saloon door
window held together in the middle by an old fashioned clasp lock.
By hanging way out from the top of the stairway, keeping hold of
the railing with one hand and one foot, Guinness managed to work
the lock open with his knife blade. He thought sure he would fall
and break his neck swinging over to crawl through the window, but
he managed it in one piece.
    It was dark as a tomb inside, and noiseless.
Every footfall sounded like an explosion in a cave.
    There were no less than twelve Jaguars. It
took half an hour