Any of the younger generation who still used the outdated term at all would probably mean by “gentleman” a person who was well-spoken and apparently well-educated. But I had a feeling that in the mouth of an old and prejudiced agricultural laborer accustomed to judge from unconscious depths of instinct and experience, the word implied the manner and clothes of someone born to the ownership of the land. That suggested the phrase in my Austrian friend’s letter — a man with plenty of money and unlimited time at his disposal.
On the other hand, surely my enemy could not be English? But Isaac Purvis would be unreliable on that point. He was an authority on manner, not on accent and sentence rhythm. It was most improbable that anyone in the district could guess that I myself, for example, was of foreign birth —though a careful listener with some knowledge of other languages might detect it.
All the same, I reminded myself that any doubt was still a doubt and that it might be wise to act as if my cell had passed me a preliminary warning. I avoided the Nash road and the short track which led from it to the Warren. I went home across the fields, passing cautiously through the willow screen to my back door.
The evening sun flooded into the kitchen through the open window. All the sounds were peaceful. Under the window the mongrel from the Long Down was snoring. Above it a bee and two bluebottles were noisily trying to get out in the one place where it was impossible. A chewed mess of brown paper and string was on the floor. The veal cutlets which I had left on the kitchen table were inside that damned dog — as for a moment I called it.
I think I had already opened my mouth to rouse it from its stertorous slumber when I realized that its position under the window, its f ailing asleep instead of escaping with the loot, its continuing to sleep when I was an angry foot away from it were all wholly unnatural. I backed out through the door, remembering that the executioner of Sporn, Dickfuss and Weber liked to be in at the death.
The summer silence was still absolute, except for the cawing of a rook. I disappeared into the willow copse, keeping the house between myself and the garden, and reached the shelter of the boundary hedge. A deep ditch, taking the water which poured off the Long Down after rain as well as the winter overflow of the spring, bounded three sides of the garden. Very slowly I followed this round to the front gate and back again, inspecting every shrub and patch of cover where a man could crouch and keep the cottage under observation. I had no intention whatever of surprising him, for I had foolishly left the pistol in my suitcase under my bed. I merely wanted to satisfy myself that he was not in the house.
There was nothing to be gained by funking the next step. I had produced the situation I intended to produce. If I cleared out now or ran dithering to the police I should merely have a quite illusory period of peace while the big, dark, clean-shaven gentleman occupied himself with his presumably gentlemanly pursuits and waited.
I took the carving knife from the kitchen and a rolled-up rug for a shield. Then I went through those upstairs rooms with all the old technique I could remember—flinging open each door, guarding my back and letting the rug enter first. There was no doubt that on my own ground I was alone.
Having recovered that miserable .22 I sat down in the living room, first brushing the chair with my hands. I could very well be finished off by the schoolboy trick of a drawing-pin in my seat. But that was carrying imagination a little far. I ordered myself not to overdo precautions. Steady routines would be indispensable and sufficient — like shaking out boots in the tropics before putting them on.
Now what exactly had happened? The first plain fact was that the tiger had decided that speed of action was safer than hanging about and giving a clue to his identity; even if I did have police protection, both they and I were likely to take things easy for the first few days. He must already have got my address through the carpenter. He’d had some stroke of luck there. I could not believe he had taken the risk of calling at the house.
My return from Bletchley had been observed and my departure for the Haunch of Mutton. Having satisfied himself that the cottage was not watched, he had walked in and poisoned the cutlets. His next move was doubtful. He might be safely on his way to London, awaiting with interest whatever the papers had to tell him, or he might be still close at hand.
The dog was not yet dead. That had to be explained. If you could not be certain how much time you had to play with, surely you would use a fast poison? Probably he could not lay his hands on one which was quite tasteless. After all he had not the resources of a government or a terrorist gang behind him. He worked cautiously and alone for his own lonely revenge.
I examined the cottage for any conceivable clue to his movements and from old habit looked for a microphone, though I could not imagine what use he could make of it. This led me to the discovery that the telephone had been cut outside the kitchen where it entered the house.
That was a puzzle. Suppose I had discovered the break before I had supper? Suppose there was an arrangement with the police that they were to call at fixed hours and turn up at once if they had no reply? Both these points must have occurred to the man before he cut the telephone. My tentative answer was that the drug did not work instantaneously or imperceptibly. There was half a minute while the victim felt so queer that his one impulse was to telephone a doctor.
The cutting of the telephone. The dog still snoring strongly. Together they answered the question of whether this dedicated executioner had returned to London. He had not. He was waiting close by. He intended — if nobody called and the coast was clear — to finish me off with a knife. And it would be in the character of the man who spent three days on Walter Dickfuss to have arranged that when I awoke I should find him sitting by my side.
I give all this analysis of my thoughts as accurately as I can; but at the time my approach to the problem far more resembled the wordless pictures in an animal brain than the calculations of a computer. I remember balancing the automatic on my palm and chattering at the filament of sunlight reflected on the blue barrel. I remember, too, that my arm was trembling. A lack of recent practice in crawling through ditches may have accounted for that, for I still had not realized what the odds against me were.
Indeed, at this point they seemed to be strongly in my favor. I had only to He up in a position where I could command all entrances to the kitchen in order to disable the brute. Even if the light were too poor for accuracy and I killed him, the dog would be sufficient evidence of self-defense. I was quite confident that I could detect his approach, however silent and cautious. His background was certainly formidable, but presumably he had not been trained in forest fighting nor had the ears of a watcher of small mammals.
I was already turning over in my mind possible cover and field of fire when it occurred to me that it was most unlikely he had seen me slipping through the willows and entering the house from the back. In that case, from his point of view, I had not yet come home and eaten my supper.
Then there was nothing for it but to creep out again unnoticed and return plainly and openly by the front gate. It would be far from a pleasant walk. Still, the man could have shot me from ambush any time in the last unsuspecting twenty-four hours and had presumably refrained because he dared not risk attracting police or neighbors. It was unlikely that he would risk it now while the cutlets were waiting.
I put the .22 back in my pocket, slung my binoculars round my neck and entered the willow copse. On the west side of it was a tall oak, strangled by ivy which was thick enough to hold. I scrambled up and perched myself comfortably thirty feet above the ground.