Dark Interlude E-Book

Peter Cheyney

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

SHAUN ALOYSIUS O'MARA came round the shadow of the low wall that bounded the end of the little church. He stepped unsteadily over the wall; began to walk through the small graveyard towards the yew-tree grove.
It was hot. The sun beat down pitilessly; there was no air. O'Mara stumbled over a low headstone, cursed horribly; saw over his shoulder the short figure of the curé; the dingy worn and shiny soutane; the thin white face.
He began to laugh. He laughed at the priest. He began to sing a ribald song in the Breton tongue. The curé shrugged his shoulders; disappeared into the cool darkness of the porch. O'Mara heard his footsteps die away. He thought that the sound of worn shoes on the stone flags was a strange sound.

Leseprobe

DARK INTERLUDE

(The Terrible Night)

Peter Cheyney

1947

© 2022 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782383835813

Contents

1: O'Mara

2: Tanga

3: Ernestine

4: Rozanski

5: Eulalia

1: O'Mara

SHAUN ALOYSIUS O'MARA came round the shadow of the low wall that bounded the end of the little church. He stepped unsteadily over the wall; began to walk through the small graveyard towards the yew-tree grove.

It was hot. The sun beat down pitilessly; there was no air. O'Mara stumbled over a low headstone, cursed horribly; saw over his shoulder the short figure of the curé; the dingy worn and shiny soutane; the thin white face.

He began to laugh. He laughed at the priest. He began to sing a ribald song in the Breton tongue. The curé shrugged his shoulders; disappeared into the cool darkness of the porch. O'Mara heard his footsteps die away. He thought that the sound of worn shoes on the stone flags was a strange sound.

He was half drunk. He was always at least half drunk. Pints and gallons of spirits, of cheap beer, of cachasa of veritable cognac that was veritable methylated spirit and colouring, had deadened his metabolic processes. Gallons of cheap-cut, laced and doctored wine, had filled his veins with acid, yellowed his eyes, sagged his facial and stomach muscles.

O'Mara was tall and big. Once he had looked like a handsome bull. A well-kept, superior, fierce and handsome bull. Now the skin under his blue eyes was faded and pouchy; the fresh complexion had turned to the greyish hue of the near third-stage drunkard. The fair shining hair that had curled back from an intelligent forehead in waves that made most women envious was long, dank, dirty, bedraggled.

He stepped over the low boundary wall on the far side of the graveyard. There was no shadow here. The sun descended on his bare head without mercy. He could feel it burning through the thick hair on the top of his head, heating the brown and dirty skin of his neck.

He was dressed in a pair of blue velveteen trousers that were baggy at the top and narrow over the broken shoes. He had no socks. As he walked, the trouser legs rode up and you could see his unwashed ankles. He wore a shirt that had been a middle-blue and was now dark blue with dirt and sweat. The shirt was open at the neck; his broad, tanned chest had burst the buttons.

He walked into the yew-tree grove. The damp shadows of the grove; the cool dark box-like square made by the thick arching yew trees, was like an icebox. Outside, it was as hot as hell, he thought. Here, inside the grove, it was as cold as death.

He stumbled over a root, fell; was too tired to get up. He lay there muttering.

He was sorry for himself. The last good eighth of his brain said: This is the third stage—self-pity, weakness; sickness; tremors in the left arm and leg; a feeling of approaching paralysis at night; an inability to remember.

O'Mara thought that maybe you could play this game too well. Maybe you could overplay your hand. This drink business was an overrated pastime.

But if the last eighth was still working you were all right; that was what Quayle had said. Quayle had said it would be all right for him because he was O'Mara who could do anything; get away with anything.

He thought: Goddam Quayle. Quayle knew everything. Every goddam thing. Quayle was the boyo for telling you what you could do or what you couldn't do.

O'Mara lay on the damp earth cursing Quayle; mouthing appalling epithets; unspeakable comparisons.

Sometimes you forgot things. That was marvellous. It was going to be marvellous for him if he forgot where he'd hidden the coramine and the heroin and the syringe case. That was going to be very good.

He began to recite poetry. If you could remember poetry, you were all right. That meant that your brain was still working—more or less. Then he made up his mind to think about himself logically. He was O'Mara—although that was a fact that he divulged only to himself. He was Shaun Aloysius O'Mara who had been born and reared in County Clare. And he could play the piano and ride a horse. He was a good shot; could sail a boat. He spoke four languages. That was who he was and that was what he had been like.

Now he was Philippe Garenne. Not-so-good Philippe. A dirty, drunken sot who worked for Volanon at the Garage Volanon on the other side of the estuary. In a minute he would get up and go out of the yew-tree grove and walk to the hill and look over the sunlit estuary. And there on the other side would be the fisherman's cottages and the pseudo hotel that was empty, and the cinema that the Germans had gutted. And on the right, near the quay, where the boats were moored, would be the Garage Volanon and the Café Volanon just beside it. And the louse Volanon would be standing at the door of the café smoking his curved pipe filled with rank Caporal, wondering where the no-good drunken Philippe was.... Goddam Volanon... to hell with the Café Volanon... to eternal damnation with the Garage Volanon!

He got up. Slowly he got up. He stood there in the cool grove, thinking about the nervous pain in his left arm.

The pain would go in a little while. Of course it would come back. It would be back to-morrow; it always came back to-morrow.

He began to think about Eulalia. Now his face changed a little. It became softer. The Senhorita Eulalia Guimaraes... some Senhorita. The delightful and lovely and alluring Senhorita Eulalia Guimaraes who lived in a delightful and lovely apartment in the Edificio Ultramar, at Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro. His mind swam into a picture that had passed, that seemed to have existed such a long time ago.

He saw himself. He was coming out of the bathroom and the sun poured through the open windows of the drawing-room and shone on the off-white carpet; on the primrose-painted walls. He was dressed in a striped dressing-gown—broad stripes of cigar-ash grey and black crêpe-de-chine. Definitely a dressing-gown. He wore nothing beneath the robe and he walked across the off-white carpet on his bare feet. Good well-shaped feet that gripped at the carpet like a cat's paws. He walked across the carpet to the radiogram and put on a record. The soft music of the tango seemed heated with the sunshine.

He stood in front of the radiogram nodding his head to the music; smoking a small black cigar whose perfume he could still smell.

And when he turned round, Eulalia stood in the doorway of the little hall that led from her room. She was dressed in a lacy wrap and he could see the tiny velvet mules beneath. Her hair was dark and her face pale and long, and her lips were cherry colour and her eyes were long and lovely and brown. When she smiled the sun became brighter and the smile curved her mouth and you felt that you wanted to do something about it at once. That you must.

She put her hand against the wall and smiled at him. She said: "It has been said that one can be too happy. This happiness is too sweet to be permanent, my Shaun. Almost..."

She went away. He laughed because she was talking nonsense. Sweet nonsense.

He stood there in front of the radiogram listening to the strains of the hot sweet tango, moving his shoulders and his feet in time with the music.

And the bell rang.

And the sound of the door-bell ringing was like coming into the yew-tree grove of which he was then unaware. It was as if someone had laid a dead cold hand on your bare chest. That was how the sound of the door-bell seemed to him.

He went quickly to the door and opened it. Outside, Willis—the Engish messenger from the Embassy—stood smiling, with the note in his hand.

O'Mara could hear Eulalia saying: "This happiness is too sweet to be permanent, my Shaun. Almost..."

He took the note, and Willis went away. He opened the note. It was the transcript of a coded message, probably sent in the diplomatic bag by Quayle. It said laconically:

COME BACK STOP IMMEDIATELY STOP PLAYTIME IS OVER STOP QUAYLE.

And that was that.

And he had dressed and written the note to Eulalia whilst she was still in her bathroom. He had written:

I'm sorry, Eulalia, but there is someone else. There has been for some time. I've got to go. Shaun.

And he had sneaked out and left his clothes; everything. Because that was the easiest way to do it. Easiest for her; for him; and it stopped a lot of questions. Even questions that do not get further than the mind.

That was Mr. Quayle that was.... Come back... playtime is over.... Goddam Mr. Quayle.

And now he was standing in the yew-tree grove where it was cold on a hot day. He was standing and wondering and trying to think with a mind that was three parts numb with bad liquor and the other part not-so-interested.

But the drink thing was necessary. Or so it seemed. And who the hell was he to argue anyhow. Nobody ever argued with Mr. Quayle. Well, not more than about twice.... Not about anything that mattered.

The thing was not fair. Because when you wanted to be something; when the time came you would have no guts; no morale; no anything. You would be a drunken sot. And if you were not a drunken sot, the time wouldn't come. So anyway you were in hell. Thank you, Mr. Quayle, thank you very much.... Goddam you, Mr. Quayle, and I hope it keeps fine for you and that you fall in front of a motor bus on a foggy day and to hell with you.

His stomach heaved; he began to feel sick. He stood leaning against a tree waiting for the tremor to pass.

Someone had said of him—someone—Ricardo Kerr, he thought it was—"O'Mara would charm you, would eat and drink with you, converse with you, play cards with you, win money off you, take your girl off you, swear unfailing loyalty to you, and if necessary kill you." That was what Ricky Kerr had said. He wondered what Ricky would say if he could have a look now.

O'Mara realised that he must have a drink. Some sort of drink. Even if it was that lousy firewater that Volanon cooked up in the back room. You had to have a drink when you felt like he did. There was no argument about it.

And that meant that he had to walk round the estuary and go back to the Garage Volanon and eat dirt and tell Volanon that he was sorry about last night when he had spat in the face of Tierche, the fish factor. Volanon had been quite peeved about that. But, anyway, what the hell could he do? He had to have some sort of help in the garage and even the drunken O'Mara was better than nothing. Three days a week he could work anyhow—sometimes....

He would have to walk round the estuary, and he would sweat some of the liquor out of him, and he might be better. Maybe something was going to happen to-dayw—maybe. It hadn't happened for months and it probably wouldn't, and anyway in about another five weeks he would be all set for the fourth stage, and that was when you started seeing things on the wall.

O'Mara moved slowly out of the yew-tree grove and began to walk along the green fringe that edged the high cliff. On the other side of the estuary he could see Volanon standing at the door of the Café....

O'Mara moved away along the cliff. It would be funny, he thought, if he fell over. And it might save a great deal of trouble. But he wouldn't. No, sir... not to-day, sir.... No, Mr. Quayle... not to-day and goddam you, Mr. Quayle.

The curé in the faded soutane came out of the church and walked to the edge of the graveyard. He watched O'Mara as he moved stupidly along the cliff path.

He said: "Poor Philippe... poor Philippe...."

2: Tanga

O'MARA lay on the ground, his back resting against the white-washed wall that bounded the Garage Volanon. He seemed to regard the broken shoe of his right foot with interest, but he did not see the shoe. When a lizard scuttled from a crevice in the sunlit wall, disappeared into another crevice, O'Mara jerked spasmodically. He relaxed after his brain realised that he had really seen the lizard.

There had been no work that day. After last night when Volanon had given him the rough edge of his tongue, O'Mara had decided it would be a good thing to remain as sober as possible for a few days; as sober as possible—possible being the operative word. He concluded that he did not like lizards. He thought that life would go on in exactly the same way as it was going on at the moment. It would go on like that permanently, except that each day he would be a little more drunken—a little more stupid. And then in the winter it would rain and he would probably die of pneumonia.

O'Mara, who had never considered the possibilities of death, found himself vaguely amused at the thought. He concluded that there was never a chance of anything happening; that he was part of a picture that was constant; that would continue. A rather dreary picture in the beautiful setting created by the sunlight which flooded this side of the estuary; which illuminated the red roof and white walls of the garage.

And then it happened.

The Typhoon car shot round the corner out of the narrow main street of the little fishing village. The driver was expert, for the car was long and at the speed at which it was going it was necessary to skid the car. It came round the corner at a good thirty-five; accelerated down the dirt road that led towards the arm of the estuary; slowed down; stopped directly outside the garage.

O'Mara did not move. The pain had come in his left arm. His left leg was beginning to tremble. These were the usual symptoms for this time of the day. They called it all sorts of names. A doctor from a neighbouring town had been nice enough to describe it as a sort of false angina. Actually, it was drink, more drink, and Caporal cigarettes—lots of them. That and not eating and nerves.

O'Mara regarded the broken shoe on his right foot with even more interest. Now he felt a little cold. Supposing this was it! Was he good enough? Had he got the guts? Out of the corner of his eye he watched the car. The door opened and a woman's leg emerged—a beautiful leg; superbly clad; the stocking of the sheerest silk. O'Mara knew the leg. He thought: My God... it's happened! Tanga!

So it was to be she. Tanga de Sarieux, whom he had met once and remembered often. He remembered the slow, quiet voice, the delightful French accent.

She got out of the car. She walked towards the garage. She disappeared through the open sliding doors into the cool shadows. She walked with the supreme aplomb, the grace of carriage, that was part of her make-up. O'Mara thought: What a hell of a woman! He found himself trembling a little.

The afternoon was very quiet. There was no breeze from the sea. There was the buzzing and droning of flies—the noises that come with the hot summer; that make the silence more definite. Inside the garage, O'Mara could hear Tanga's cool, clear voice demanding attention from somebody. He looked at the car. The front near-side tyre was nearly flat. So that was it!

Some minutes passed. Tanga came out of the garage. She walked towards the car, followed by Volanon. Volanon was fat, greasy and sweating. His stained linen trousers were tied round his middle with a piece of cord. His belly sagged over the top.

He said: "If that's all it is, Madame, we'll soon fix it for you. If I can get this drunken imbecile to work." He looked towards O'Mara. He called: "Hi, Philippe... come along, my drunken sot. Change this wheel. The spare is on the back."

Tanga looked at O'Mara. She said coldly: "Do you think he could change a wheel? He looks drunk to me."

Volanon shrugged his shoulders. He said: "Madame has reason. He is drunk. He has never been sober. He has everything—a variety of maladies. One looks at him and imagines that also he has the cafard. But always he is able to work after a style."

Tanga said: "Why don't you change the tyre?"

Volanon said with dignity: "But, Madame, I am the proprietor."

Tanga began to laugh. Volanon, a shadow crossing his face and with a final scowl at O'Mara, turned; went towards the garage. Inside the doors, he turned. He called back:

"Madame is requested to pay me—not to give money to the drunken Philippe."

Tanga nodded. O'Mara could hear the rope-soled shoes of Volanon pattering away into the recesses of the garage. He planned to get up. He got up. He got up by the process of turning over on his knees, pushing himself up into a kneeling position, putting his two hands on the top of the low wall and pulling. With difficulty he achieved a vertical position. He stood for a moment leaning against the wall; then walked slowly towards the car. She looked at him with distaste.

She said: "The jack is in the back. There is a lock on the spare wheel. Here is the key. Also I am in a hurry. You will be quick?"

O'Mara said: "But of course. That is understood." He continued more formally: "Madame, speed is the essence of our work in this supreme and high-class organisation. It will not take me very long to change the wheel."

She said: "Good."

O'Mara went on: "But it would seem to me that you have a puncture. If you want the puncture repaired before you go on—and I would advise you to have it repaired—it will take a little time."

She asked: "How much time?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "A half an hour," he said.

Tanga looked across the estuary. She looked across to the other side, to the green hill with the tiny church and graveyard on the top.

She said: "There is a villa somewhere in this place called Côte d'Azur. I believe it is not far. I might go there and return in an hour to collect the car. I take it that the puncture would be mended by then?"

O'Mara said: "Definitely." He was leaning against the bonnet of the Typhoon, looking at Tanga. He looked at her with eyes that were hungry but inoffensive. He looked at her in the way that the old O'Mara could look at a woman and not annoy her—with a peculiar mixture of humility and insolence, admiration and question.

He looked for what seemed to him a long time. He thought: So it's going to be this one. He realised—as he had never realised before; even before the drink business had become necessary—that she had everything—beauty, intelligence, and that peculiar but supremely necessary nous that was an essential part of the make-up of an artiste in the odd profession to which she belonged; to which he belonged—or did he?

She wore a tunic and skirt of buttercup colour crêpe-de-chine, and her mouth was the colour of raspberries. Her face was beautiful and with an alluring dignity that belonged essentially to her. In her ears she wore small amber flower ear-rings that matched her clothes. Her hair was black, dressed in a page-boy bob for driving; tied with an amber ribbon. Her shoes were of white buckskin, and she wore yellow buckskin driving gauntlets.

O'Mara thought to himself that if you saw this woman once or twice you would forget all about Eulalia. He thought that Eulalia would fade into the remote past. That was how he felt at that moment.

He said: "I think that would be an excellent idea, Madame. I should not have to hurry about repairing the puncture."

He went to the back of the car. He returned after a minute or two with the jack. He sat down on the ground; pushed the jack under the front axle; began to turn the jack handle. He turned it slowly.

Tanga said: "I am interested in this puncture. Is it a puncture or do you think there is a defective valve on the tyre?"

O'Mara said: "Let us examine this proposition." Now the wheel was free on the ground. He rolled himself on to his knees, crawled round and sat in front of the wheel. With fingers that were trembling he began to unscrew the valve cover.

He said: "It is very stiff, Madame, or perhaps my fingers are not as good as they used to be."

She looked over the estuary towards the church. She said softly, in English, with her own peculiar and fascinating accent: "Listen, my delightful, drunken sweet. I think you are wonderful." Then in a louder tone, in French: "Valves are always stiff if they have not been unscrewed. Besides, it is your nasty fine Breton dust which clogs them." She said in English under her breath: "I think you are superb. You are so drunk and you are getting fat and paunchy. What has happened to my beautiful O'Mara?"

O'Mara muttered a wicked word. His fingers were still fumbling at the valve.

She went on softly: "A certain Taudrille will telephone at exactly six o'clock. You understand? This is it, my friend. At exactly six o'clock Taudrille will telephone. You understand?"

He nodded. He said: "Yes. Volanon will not be here at six. I shall take the call. Of course he knows the number."

She said: "Of course, my sweet fool." She was smiling and still looking over the estuary towards the church. She dropped the words at him. He tried not to look at her.

He asked quietly: "And then?"

She shrugged her shoulders almost imperceptibly. She said: "Then it is up to you. Things begin to move. Are you good enough, my delightful, my clever, my drunken Shaun?"

He said: "God knows—I don't. But I have a bottle of coramine. When I take a double dose it pulls me together for quite a bit."

She smiled. Now her eyes were wandering round the estuary. She seemed vaguely interested in the sunlight playing on the water.

She said: "You will need that, my sweet. You will need something to put a jerk into you, especially"—she laughed very softly—"if Taudrille is not able to arrive exactly on time."

O'Mara said: "What the hell does that mean?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

O'Mara could hear the plop-plop of Volanon's rope-soled shoes. Now the valve was off. He said: "Madame, it is not the valve. You have a puncture." He got up; went to the back of the car; produced tools. He took the hub cap off the wheel; began to unscrew the screws.

Volanon came to the door of the garage. He stood watching O'Mara.

Tanga moved away. She said to Volanon: "I have friends here at a villa called the Côte d'Azur. Is it far? I propose to go and see them; to come back in an hour's time. By that time this one tells me that the puncture will be mended."

Volanon said: "Excellent, Madame. In an hour's time, I have no doubt the no-good Philippe will have done the job. But as I shall not be here when you return perhaps you would like to settle now. Then I will tell you where the Côte d'Azur is. It is not far."

Out of the corner of his eye O'Mara saw her give some money to Volanon. They spoke for a few moments whilst he told her the way to the Villa. She walked away. Volanon watched her retreating form. He came over; stood above O'Mara.

He said: "There is a woman, mon vieux. It is a long time since I have seen a woman as lovely as that one. Does it not make your mouth water?"

O'Mara said: "It means nothing to me."

Volanon nodded. "See that you mend her puncture with care," he said. "Don't make a mess of that. She may be a good customer."

He went back into the garage.

O'Mara took the heavy wheel by the spokes; pulled it off. The process pleased him. He was doing something definite. He said to himself: So Taudrille will phone at six o'clock. Now maybe this is all over. Maybe there will be some life again. He trundled the wheel away; leaned it against the low wall. He was surprised to find that he was humming to himself.

IT WAS HALF-PAST three in the afternoon.

Mr. Quayle—whose business was nobody's business—who was just past fifty; inclined to be bald—sat at his desk in his room in the offices of the International Refrigeration Company, in Pall Mall, and considered that life was just as tragically ridiculous as it had been during the war years. If, he thought, the tragedies were not so numerous, the effects were much the same. The effects were possibly more serious because human life in peace-time is held, for some odd and quite unaccountable reason, to be more precious than in time of war.

This foible—for Mr. Quayle considered it to be a foible—was not helpful to him in his rather peculiar business—a business which specialised in the lives of many people and was, therefore, concerned, on occasion, with the sudden departure from this earth of individuals whose raison d'être would seem to have disappeared.

He considered two lists which lay on the desk before him. They were lists of names. A long list and a short one. The long list represented the number of operatives in Mr. Quayle's rather peculiar organisation who had died or been reported missing in the war years; the shorter list represented those who had merely "disappeared" since.

The desk telephone buzzed. He picked up the receiver. A dulcet voice said: "Mr. Quayle, there are four furniture vans from the Office of Works outside. They seem to have an idea that we're going to move?"

Quayle said: "They're perfectly right, Myra. We are going to move. Tell the man in charge that they will begin to clear the Company's offices at five-thirty. The vans must be loaded by six. They will then go to Golden Square and park on the west side of the square. A foreman from the Office of Works will meet them there with a new driver for each van. He will have his instructions."

She said: "Very well, Mr. Quayle."

He asked: "Where is Ernest Guelvada?"

"At home," she said. "I telephoned him this morning. I told him that I should probably be ringing him again."

Quayle said: "Tell him to be here at a quarter past four." He hung up the receiver.

He picked up the long list. Behind the formal typescript he saw the faces represented by the names. There was Eversley—the young man with the fondness for music. Eversley had been unlucky. He hadn't lasted long. The Nazis had got him in 1944. But he was lucky in a way. He had been shot. And there was Mrs. Gwendoline Ermine—a plump good-figured woman who had spoken German so well, who looked so like a certain type of German woman and who was so pretty and gentle.

Quayle had heard that Mrs. Ermine hadn't died quite so quickly. They'd been rather unkind to her. And there was the clever French girl, Mavrique. They'd got Mavrique in Paris and put her through it and she'd talked quite a lot—because she had to talk—everyone had a breaking point—and they'd got on to Michaelson and Duborg through her. He'd lost them too. Good types those two.

He produced a cigarette lighter. He burned the long list; watched the grey ashes settle in the glass ash-tray. And that was that. Mr. Quayle sighed. It seemed a great pity to him that all those people—some of them very nice people—should finish like that. He thought that most of them had finished like that. He remembered some of them....

He picked up the short list; regarded it carefully. Then he burned it and put it in the ash-tray with the other ashes. He wasn't at all pleased about the short list. The long one represented the fortunes of war but the short one was different.

Mr. Quayle thought he was going to do something about that.

He began to arrange a chessboard in his mind. But the pieces were not Kings and Queens and Knights and Castles and Pawns. The pieces were men and women, and you could call them just what you liked. He began to arrange the new set-up for the next "game," picking his people in his mind; arranging what was to happen as a result of what had happened.

He thought for a long time. He smoked a lot of cigarettes and started many fresh series of thoughts, working away from different theoretic bases; trying out new combinations of ideas but always thinking ahead of the situation which he had already created; which should now be arriving almost at its crucial point. A situation which had already arrived at the point where the not-so-good, the drunken, Philippe Garenne was engaged in finding a puncture in an inner tube at a small and somewhat dilapidated garage on the estuary at Saint Brieuc.

After a while he turned his mind to the present. He was certain of one thing. There was only one man who could function in the little set piece that Mr. Quayle had in his mind. A man who was clever enough, single-minded enough, to function in a manner that might be considered adequate.

Guelvada... that was the man. Ernest Guelvada—otherwise known as Ernie—the man who had been a Free Belgian during the war; who was now an Englishman by virtue of his services. Guelvada, who seemed so happy, and whose heart was filled with an unutterable bitterness against everything Nazi... with a bitterness that occasionally overflowed into his guts with results that were sometimes overpowering for the subject of his acerbity.

Guelvada, thought Quayle, had a sufficiency of hatred to make him quite merciless if and when an entire lack of mercy was necessary; enough brains to be opportunist when the situation required a quick change of front; enough virility and manliness to simulate—at least to simulate if not actually to experience—a certain weakness where a woman was concerned—if the woman was attractive enough and if the "weakness" did not interfere—or seemed not to interfere—with the business immediately at hand.

The man, thought Quayle, must be Guelvada.

THE SUBJECT of Mr. Quayle's deliberations turned from a sunlit Piccadilly into St. James's Street. Guelvada was short, very well dressed after the fashion of those good-class tailoring designs which one sees in tailors' shops but of which nobody—except Mr. Guelvada—ever takes the slightest notice. His face was round. His attitude was one of complacent good humour—an attitude which belied his feelings. Within he was not particularly happy. During the war years he had lived in atmospheres so peculiar, so varied and, even for him, so exciting, that the anti-climax of peace—even if that anti-climax were not quite so decided as a lot of people would wish—was inclined to be boring.

He was half-way down St. James's Street before he began to think about Mr. Quayle. This, thought Ernest, would be the pay-off.

Everything was over and finished. Ministers, diplomats and "experts" were meeting in all sorts of places to decide the fate of the world. There would be no more shooting in dark corners; no more sombre and slowly flowing rivers carrying on their bosoms a quiescent corpse. No more knives in dark alleyways; no more tense quiet inquisitions where somebody was made to talk because their talking was necessary to the safety of many others. All these things, thought Guelvada, were passing slowly—if they had not already passed.

He did not like that—not at all. It was as if someone was removing a well-loved woman from his arms, and he powerless to stop the process. Guelvada carried his mind back for a few years—to 1940—to the not very pleasant picture which the body of the young woman whom he then adored had presented after the enemy had finished with her. He licked his lips. Since then he had been settling old scores, delighting in the process. Now it seemed that there would be more scores to settle. He considered this to be unfortunate.

He turned into Pall Mall. A little way down the street outside the offices—Quayle's offices—the International Refrigeration Company—stood two large furniture vans. Guelvada sighed. His guess had been right. This was the pay-off. He turned into the entrance to the offices; went up in the lift to the first floor. He pushed open the door of the main office; walked in. The girl at the switchboard—a demure blonde—said: "Good afternoon...?"

Guelvada said in perfect English: "Good afternoon. My name is Ernest Guelvada. To see Mr. Quayle."

She said: "Will you go straight in, Mr. Guelvada, please."

Guelvada crossed the office; pushed open the oak door on the far side; closed it behind him. On the other side of the room, behind the large desk set at an angle to the corner, Quayle was sitting, smoking a cigarette. He looked up.

He said: "Hello, Ernie."

Guelvada said: "Hello—or possibly farewell. Mr. Quayle, I see the furniture vans are outside."

Quayle said: "You're disappointed, are you?"

Guelvada shrugged his shoulders. "Why not?" he said. "Now what is there left for me?"

Quayle smiled. His large round face, beneath the almost bald head, was benign. He said: "I shouldn't worry too much about that if I were you."

Guelvada said: "Well, I'm glad to hear it. I was only guessing. When I saw the furniture vans outside..."

Quayle interrupted: "The deduction doesn't follow. Anybody can hire furniture vans. Sit down."

Guelvada sat down. Quayle got up, stubbed out his cigarette; began to walk up and down the office. Guelvada sat quietly. He was wondering.

After a little while Quayle said: "The thing you've got to understand, Ernest, is this. The war is officially over. I said officially. Unofficially, all sorts of strange things are happening in a world which is still sitting on a keg of dynamite. The world wants peace badly, but there are quite a lot of people in it who don't think like that. There are lots of opportunities for them to-day. You understand?"

Guelvada said: "You're telling me. I understand perfectly."

"Very well," said Quayle. "It will be obvious to you that the fact that the war is over must affect the technique of rather peculiar organisations like our own—organisations which were able to function in one way whilst the war was on. Now it's got to be in another way. We've got to be a great deal more careful. That means that operatives will have to take more chances."

Guelvada said softly: "One has always taken chances."

"I know," said Quayle. "But there are chances and chances." He smiled at Guelvada. "I'd hate to see you hanged," he said casually.

There was a silence; then Guelvada said: "I get it. Before, one had a chance of a bullet or a knife in the back or something perhaps not so pleasant, but one was never officially hanged. Now there's even a chance of that."

Quayle said: "Exactly."

Guelvada drew a breath of cigarette smoke into his lungs. He said: "A new experience in any event—possibly amusing. I've been shot and stabbed before. I have never yet been hanged."