My hard-working female friend acted as interpreter. She was disappointed when I denied all knowledge of any Luger. No doubt she had reckoned that a sure couple of quid from the police was a lot better than a mere promise from me.
When the nark had gone she took me to another cafe where I was inspected from various angles and kitchen doors. There was a good deal of mysterious coming and going —Harry fetching Alf, and Alf knowing where Jim might be and so forth. It struck me that in criminal circles far too many people are expected to keep secrets. At last and in a third cafe I met the genuine buyer. He could have been anything from a bookmaker’s runner to a bus conductor. The only quality which one could sense in all that neutral smoothness was contempt for the public.
How was the Luger to be handed over? I put on a show of fear and suspicion, and insisted on a quiet spot where there was no chance of being arrested by the police or set upon by a gang. The rubber lady assisted with a most incompetent translation and made me appear even stupider than the naive, self-confident type of German crook which I was playing. It was perfectly clear to any person of normal intelligence — and he had plenty — that when he brought the money I intended to hold him up with the Luger and grab it. We arranged a meeting at ten-thirty when it would be dark. Curie was to take me to the rendezvous. He explained to her at length where it was — a bombed site off Haverstock Hill.
I telephoned Georgina that I should be home late and bought her a box of chocolates of about the right size to hold a Luger. Then I had some dinner and afterwards picked up my cinematically bosomed sweetheart. I was glad to see that she had been instructed to take me discreetly to Haverstock Hill by bus, not by traceable taxi.
She showed me the bombed site and said she would wait for me. I watched her scuttling off as soon as she believed she was out of sight. It all seemed to be going very well, though I could foresee complications if the buyer brought a companion. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t. His own gun — of course I was praying all the time that he had one —should be quite enough to intimidate me.
I waited for him a quarter of an hour, feeling his presence and once hearing him, while he sensibly satisfied himself that I was alone. After that it was all very quick. He held me up straight away and ordered me to drop my parcel. I whined with surprise and terror. It was quite unnecessary for him to tell me what he would do if I raised my voice. He was most disappointed that the likely box contained only chocolates and came for me, as so many men do when they have lost their tempers, carelessly waving his gun about. I had expected it would be more difficult.
But I really did congratulate myself on finesse — until that is, I examined his automatic. It was a miserable Italian .22, accurate enough for killing but with no stopping power at all. However, it would have to do. I shifted him into the shadow of a wall where he was unlikely to be noticed until he came round, replaced the lid on the box of chocolates, and returned to my suburb and my aunt.
Sprang Trap
I looked out of the bedroom window of the cottage which Ian had found for me with a rising of spirits that I had not felt for years. Not that the scene was in any way unfamiliar; during my months of field work on the smaller mammals I generally rented a room from some kindly old body who was prepared to make my bed and produce simple meals at irregular intervals. The cause of my temporary content was probably relief at being clear of London.
My vulnerability had been getting on my nerves. There was one duty which I hated: attending as principal witness the inquest on the postman. Since time and place were public knowledge, my presence was detestably dangerous. It did have one advantage. If my follower was among the public or idly — possibly hopefully — watching from a side street, he could satisfy himself that I was in no way guarded and would feel more free to ask questions.
Both Ian and I felt certain that he would not try to trace me by writing a letter. If I were submitting to the police all letters from unknown correspondents, he would give some clue, however slight, to the postman’s murderer for the laboratories to work on.
But he could risk telephoning to Georgina or the museum or a few other obvious places to ask for my address. None of them had it. I told them all that I had not yet decided exactly where I would be staying and would let them know later. That would look to him as if I had hidden myself or perhaps as if the police had hidden me.
What would he do then? Ask discreet questions. Try the milkman, for example. No luck. The firm of builders repairing the damage? That wouldn’t do him any good either. I had made a point of telling the chief clerk that the firm could get in touch with me at any time through the museum.
What about the plasterer, painter and carpenter working on the house? It was an obvious place for the police to plant an agent. He’d have to be careful with them. Still, if he were patient and prepared to watch the men home he could be pretty sure that they were what they appeared to be. When at last he risked a question, it would give him what he wanted to know. In a great hurry on leaving the house and pretending to be nervous about gutters and the horrid little portico over the front door I had made a disastrous slip and given the carpenter my real address.
It would take time to pick up the clue; but I counted on the care and patience with which he had arranged the execution of Hans Weber. I reckoned that he would spend at least a couple of weeks in finding out the address, arranging a base for himself and avoiding possible traps. Meanwhile I could familiarize myself with the country and watch badgers.
The cottage which Ian had rented for me was in North Buckinghamshire, in the parish of Hernsholt and about a mile from the village. Far away to the north and east stretched the blue-hazed plain of the south Midlands — elm and oak as far as the eye could reach.
It was, in fact, fairly open pasture, neatly and thickly hedged, with only a few small coverts where foxes bred under the clatter of wood pigeons; but seldom were there fifty yards of hedge without a great tree. Seen over a distance, as from my bedroom window, England seemed to have returned to the temperate forest out of which the Saxons cut and cultivated their holdings. I felt a deeper sympathy for that solid race of pioneers — because I too was still searching for home — than most native English. They have a romantic passion for the still older strains in their ancestry.
The cottage was known as the Warren. It belonged to a widow who had gone out to stay with a son in Australia, and it was still ladylike even when I had packed away all breakable ornaments. It had electricity, a telephone, and a water supply piped from a spring at the back.
Around the spring was a copse of willows. It gave little real cover except at night, but I did not care for it until my eyes were accustomed to its light and shadow. In front of the cottage was a half acre of overgrown garden and, beyond it, the Long Down —a stretch of well-drained upland which had been an airfield during the war. The desolate concrete runways, the air-raid shelters and the aircraft bays were still there. Over and among them sheep and cattle pastured.
Though it was only fifty miles from London my retreat gave such an impression of quiet remoteness that I began to doubt whether the goat could be found. An address written in a casual workman’s notebook seemed a slender connection with me. Yet it was certain that the tiger would haunt my suburb and finally risk approaching the empty house when every other line of inquiry had failed. When he followed me he should be noticeable. The district was without holiday-makers to confuse the issue. There was nothing to do but farm, breed horses or fatten cattle.