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Authors: Michael Gilbert
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see who got out at the stops.
In this manner they proceeded up Park Lane, half-circled the Marble Arch, and turned left into the Bayswater Road. As they passed the bottleneck of Notting Hill Gate the traffic got thicker, and from the lee of a brewer’s dray the Major was able to watch Curly dismount from the bus and turn left into Holland Park Walk, that long and aristocratic thoroughfare which divides the blue-blooded sheep of Holland Park from the lower income group goats of Kensington Gardens.
Some rapid thought was necessary.
The Major decided to stake high on his knowledge of that quarter of London. He turned his car skilfully in front of a blaspheming bus driver, went back a hundred yards and took the sharp right hand corner into Campden Hill. A minute’s run and Kensington High Street was ahead. He ran his car into the cul-de-sac behind the town hall, stopped, and got out, locking the car door quickly behind him.
A brisk walk of fifty yards brought him to the corner of Phillimore Gardens and he stepped into the door of a conveniently placed tobacconist’s shop.
His manoeuvre, he reckoned, had put him a minute or two ahead of Curly. Provided, of course, that Curly came straight on.
Minutes passed and his heart sank.
The lady who owned the shop was fortunately engaged in gossip with a regular customer and took absolutely no notice of him. He abandoned any pretence of being interested in her scanty stock of empty sales cartons, and peered through the misted window.
At that moment Curly appeared.
Two things were obvious at a glance. The first was that his man was getting very near his destination, and the second thing, as a corollary to the first, was that he had been absolutely right in not trying to follow him directly down Holland Park Walk.
Curly would have spotted him at once. Indeed, he had stopped now, on the pretence of lighting a cigarette, and was looking sharply back over his shoulder.
He was so near that McCann could see the boot-button eyes and the greasy black hair grown long in the few months’ release from the army.
At last Curly seemed satisfied.
He straightened up and crossed the Kensington High Street which lay ahead of him.
McCann gave him the length of a cricket pitch and followed circumspectly.
The lady in the tobacco shop abandoned her conversation to glare after him. By his abrupt exit he had deprived her of the legitimate pleasure of telling him that she was “out” of all known brands of cigarettes.
VI
McCann was looking into a shop window. The contents appeared to interest him intensely, judging from the length of time he had stood there, staring at them. He was waiting for Curly to come out of a newsagent’s twenty yards up on the other side.
He was in the middle of the maze of solid middle-class streets which lie in the crook of the Cromwell Road and Earls Court. Behind him the backs of the monster Kensington stores shut off the skyline. To the left showed the bulked mass of the Institutes.
When a full five minutes had run by, McCann began to feel the first faint stirrings of uneasiness. It struck him that some shops had back entrances.
The newsagent’s into which Curly had vanished stood at the end of a block of five four-storied buildings. In each case the ground floor was let as a shop; he could see signs of a greengrocer’s and a chemist’s, and the third looked like some sort of antique shop. The top stories, he fancied, were residential, though one looked as if it might be an office of some sort.
After a moment’s reflection McCann entered the chemist’s shop. This was the second one along from the newsagent’s and therefore the centre of the block.
At first inspection one comforting fact emerged. The shop had no visible back exit, and since all five buildings seemed to be of a standard pattern, there must be strong chance that Curly was still in the newsagent’s. Why was he being so long?
“A packet of cough lozenges, please,” he said to the
In this manner they proceeded up Park Lane, half-circled the Marble Arch, and turned left into the Bayswater Road. As they passed the bottleneck of Notting Hill Gate the traffic got thicker, and from the lee of a brewer’s dray the Major was able to watch Curly dismount from the bus and turn left into Holland Park Walk, that long and aristocratic thoroughfare which divides the blue-blooded sheep of Holland Park from the lower income group goats of Kensington Gardens.
Some rapid thought was necessary.
The Major decided to stake high on his knowledge of that quarter of London. He turned his car skilfully in front of a blaspheming bus driver, went back a hundred yards and took the sharp right hand corner into Campden Hill. A minute’s run and Kensington High Street was ahead. He ran his car into the cul-de-sac behind the town hall, stopped, and got out, locking the car door quickly behind him.
A brisk walk of fifty yards brought him to the corner of Phillimore Gardens and he stepped into the door of a conveniently placed tobacconist’s shop.
His manoeuvre, he reckoned, had put him a minute or two ahead of Curly. Provided, of course, that Curly came straight on.
Minutes passed and his heart sank.
The lady who owned the shop was fortunately engaged in gossip with a regular customer and took absolutely no notice of him. He abandoned any pretence of being interested in her scanty stock of empty sales cartons, and peered through the misted window.
At that moment Curly appeared.
Two things were obvious at a glance. The first was that his man was getting very near his destination, and the second thing, as a corollary to the first, was that he had been absolutely right in not trying to follow him directly down Holland Park Walk.
Curly would have spotted him at once. Indeed, he had stopped now, on the pretence of lighting a cigarette, and was looking sharply back over his shoulder.
He was so near that McCann could see the boot-button eyes and the greasy black hair grown long in the few months’ release from the army.
At last Curly seemed satisfied.
He straightened up and crossed the Kensington High Street which lay ahead of him.
McCann gave him the length of a cricket pitch and followed circumspectly.
The lady in the tobacco shop abandoned her conversation to glare after him. By his abrupt exit he had deprived her of the legitimate pleasure of telling him that she was “out” of all known brands of cigarettes.
VI
McCann was looking into a shop window. The contents appeared to interest him intensely, judging from the length of time he had stood there, staring at them. He was waiting for Curly to come out of a newsagent’s twenty yards up on the other side.
He was in the middle of the maze of solid middle-class streets which lie in the crook of the Cromwell Road and Earls Court. Behind him the backs of the monster Kensington stores shut off the skyline. To the left showed the bulked mass of the Institutes.
When a full five minutes had run by, McCann began to feel the first faint stirrings of uneasiness. It struck him that some shops had back entrances.
The newsagent’s into which Curly had vanished stood at the end of a block of five four-storied buildings. In each case the ground floor was let as a shop; he could see signs of a greengrocer’s and a chemist’s, and the third looked like some sort of antique shop. The top stories, he fancied, were residential, though one looked as if it might be an office of some sort.
After a moment’s reflection McCann entered the chemist’s shop. This was the second one along from the newsagent’s and therefore the centre of the block.
At first inspection one comforting fact emerged. The shop had no visible back exit, and since all five buildings seemed to be of a standard pattern, there must be strong chance that Curly was still in the newsagent’s. Why was he being so long?
“A packet of cough lozenges, please,” he said to the
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