I had not thought out what was going to happen now or where I should go. Obviously he could not trail me indefinitely through a network of lanes. If he came close enough to see what turnings I took he would arouse suspicion. If I let him follow me without noticing him, so should I.
The best game for the moment seemed to be to lose him. What would he do then? Return to the Long Down presumably, or perhaps visit the cottage in my absence and attend again to the larder. In either case he would take the shortest way and, if I could get ahead of him, I should at last be able to see his face.
Thought of the larder reminded me that I was very hungry. I bought some biscuits in the village shop. When I came out he was at the other end of the street, looking at a rack of picture postcards hung up in the entrance to the post office.
As I started to walk in his direction he went on ahead, taking the road I expected. He may have intended that I should pass him. Once clear of Stoke, the road ran between high hedges and was little used, especially at lunchtime. He would not have dared to allow himself time for any luxurious revenge, but a quick killing and a getaway across the fields was easy.
Now at last my choice of open country was paying off. I vanished into the courtyard of a pub, passed through it and through the kitchen garden into a field beyond. There, under cover of a haystack, I took a quick look at the inch ordnance map. As I thought, there were no obstacles and the contours favored me. If I hurried I could get ahead of him.
I was out of breath and bleeding from barbed wire and hawthorn when I reached the road from Stoke to Hernsholt. I found as good a place as his own on the Long Down. I could watch him coming along the road until he reached a bend, and I could then slither down to the hedge and see him pass me on the other side of it at a distance of two or three yards.
I ate my biscuits in peace, for he took a long time to arrive. He may have guessed that I had gone into the pub and waited for me to come out. At last I saw him, the pair of us separated only by a thin screen of wych-elm.
The man who passed me was utterly unlike my mental picture of him. He could have taken a room opposite my house and never been suspected. Dressed as a high civil servant, with umbrella and briefcase, he might have passed with a nod through any police cordon which was guarding me. Isaac Purvis’s description of him as a gentleman was right. He belonged to what it is the fashion to call the Establishment — though I have never had a satisfactory definition of what the devil, if anything, the Establishment means.
His age was close to my own, between forty and forty-five. He wore a brown tweed suit of excellent cloth and a lighter brown cap. His hair — so far as I could see it — was dark, and graying at the temples. He was a heavy man, six feet tall and weighing all of thirteen stone, but moving lightly with a hint of well-trained muscles. For the minor details — his nose was strong and regular, his eyes brown, and he had marked, untidy black eyebrows.
I was sure I had never seen him before. I couldn’t have forgotten such a man, however emaciated, if he had been a prisoner in Buchenwald. And his nationality was, on the face of it, obviously British. But he might not be. I couldn’t say why. Manner when alone, perhaps. I wanted a little more eccentricity from him. An Englishman of that class plays with his thoughts when he is alone and only looks formal if there is someone to see him.
On the other hand, he had no variety of thoughts to play with. He had only one. I never saw such a set and concentrated expression; he might have been tracking me one single bend of the road behind me. And the spring when he caught up would be as deadly as any tiger’s — merciless, for that man believed he was executing those whom the law had not considered quite worthy of death. Yet a general motive was not enough to account for such patience and dedication. There must surely be a precise and personal motive. What was it? I expected to know as soon as I saw him, but I still did not.
It was now that a plan occurred to me, partly because I was close to one of the badger setts which were my cover for staying in the district, partly because I was most reluctant to spend another night at the Warren.
My intention was to trap him unhurt — or only slightly hurt. The case against him for the murder of the postman was building up. He must have been seen in my suburb, and here he was again on my tail. Looking at it, however, from a weary inspector’s point of view, there was still no evidence but the word of an ex-Gestapo officer who very deservedly saw things under his bed, and could give no clear and sane motive for being persecuted by someone who was not in Buchenwald — or, indeed, by anyone who was.
If this fellow was of irreproachable character and standing — which was the impression he gave me —he could not be arrested, only questioned and then carefully watched while his description was circulated to German police. That was not good enough. That would not put him out of action and give me freedom from fear.
Clear evidence. A charge upon which he could be held in jail while full investigation of him was made. Those were what I must have. And if he would kindly look back once more to see if I were coming along the road behind him, I thought I could get them.
I gave him three minutes, then climbed a gate into the road and followed. I felt pretty safe. There was no reason for him to hang about or double back. What he ought to do before giving me up altogether was to sit down in comfort by a line of firs above and to the right of the road. From there he could probably see Stoke and certainly see me, strolling innocently along right into that shot from the hedge which I had so dreaded the night before.
I did not oblige him by going all the way, but turned off to the left along a field path. The country was open. If he were up among the firs he could see all my movements through his glasses — a most expensive pair which I envied — until I arrived at the patchy cover where the badger sett was.
It was a typical badger fortress, under a tangled mass of thorn and blackberry about twenty yards long, which ran at right angles to a muddy stream. If I had really been intending to study the two or three families which lived in it — there were too many runways for easy observation — I should have crossed the stream and squatted wetly among the rushes to watch them drink and possibly play. But that was an impossible place to tie out the goat for the tiger.
At the other end of this thick wall of vegetation, and a few feet away from it, was a solitary, stunted alder. I cut and twisted a few branches to form a seat in the tree. To make it perfectly clear what I was doing I sat in it and tested it. I also took out my notebook and jotted down details of the badger paths and scratching trees. All the time I was careful to remain in sight of the firs on the higher ground.
But my guess that he was there proved wrong. My guess that he was watching me was right. That was typical of all our moves, his as well as mine. There were too many ifs, and each of us was inclined to mistake a queen for a pawn.
While I was working on the alder, something disturbed the birds upstream where the banks were overgrown. I paid no attention. A couple of minutes later I went round to the other side of the badger fortress, found a place where the vegetation was thin and searched the stream with my glasses. He was there all right, and he had not come down from the firs or I would have seen him. He must have been waiting for me where the road crossed the stream — an admirable place for the temporary disposal of a body. When I turned off into the footpath I had been dangerously close.