At its hub was a small traffic island, planted with flowers. Five benches, each commanding a view along a road, had been provided on the island for the benefit of such aged persons as were spry or rash enough to scuttle across the surrounding speedway.
On one of the benches someone was sitting now. Leaper noticed him too late to conceal his own presence and was much mortified to see the man beckon to him. It was Barrington Hoole.
“You’re Kebble’s boy,” said Hoole, with the air of an entomologist naming a not very rare beetle. “Are you running away from your indentures?”
Leaper sniffed and looked sullen. “Beg pardon?”
The optician settled himself more comfortably against the back of the seat and studied him. “Off to sea, I suppose,” he observed amiably.
“I’m on a job.”
“Ah.” Hoole turned his gaze to a lighted window in a house on the opposite corner and began to hum softly. He seemed to have forgotten Kebble’s boy.
Leaper felt that he was being underestimated. His annoyance turned suddenly to boldness. “What,” he demanded, “are you doing out at this time, Mr Hoole?”
Hoole accepted the challenge without any sign of resentment. “My housekeeper’s on the prowl,” he said simply.
Leaper took several seconds to digest this. Then he wiped the end of his sharp nose with a nervous flick of knuckles and asked: “Do you mean she’s mixed up with this bomb business?”
“Of course not. She prowls at home, boy.” He looked closely at his watch. “I usually give her a couple of hours to tire herself out and get back to bed. I could lock my bedroom door, but that would just encourage her.”
“Does she prowl every night, Mr Hoole?”
“Good gracious, no. Once a month. Cyclical, you know.”
“Like a loony?” Leaper, instructed by the
“My housekeeper is perfectly sane,” Hoole corrected him. “It is simply that she is amorously tidal, so to speak. But tell me”—he lowered his head suddenly and looked over his pince-nez—“what is this job you say you are doing? Has Kebble sent you?”
Leaper was not sure how much he ought to say to this man with a plump, polished face, benign but watchful eyes, and the upsetting habit of following up every observation with a little whinnying sound at the back of his nose. But he saw that he would have to give some account of himself or risk a complaint reaching his employer; Hoole, after all, was a friend of Mr Kebble. And perhaps the unlikely behaviour of his housekeeper was the true reason for his sitting on a traffic island at midnight. At least he did not appear to be carrying an infernal machine.
“I just thought I’d have a look round,” Leaper said, “in case there was anything doing?”
“Doing?”
“Well, yes—anything out of the way. Sort of.” The youth gestured helplessly.
Hoole leaned forward. “You believe you might meet our demolition expert: is that it?”
“I don’t know,” Leaper said, feeling suddenly apprehensive. Hoole’s glasses, gleaming in the moonlight, hid whatever expression lay in his eyes. All Leaper could see was the smooth, sustained smile.
“Mmm,” went Hoole, like a fat gnat. “Mmm...well, see you don’t get into trouble, boy.” He rose and pulled his waistcoat tidily over his paunch. “And don’t go leaning up against any statues, will you?”
Leaper watched him cross the pavement and stroll off along a road that would lead him into East Street. He was tempted at first to follow, but baulked at the thought of being lured into a second encounter that night with the bland, yet oddly intimidating Mr Hoole.
While he hesitated and listened to the gentle, unhurried footsteps of the departing optician he heard another sound. It was the click of a front gate latch.
Moving round the island, he looked along the radial streets. The first two were empty. The third also seemed so, but as he was about to turn away he thought he noticed a movement twenty or thirty yards along. He stared at the spot and soon saw, a little further away, a shape detach itself from the darkness of a wall, cross a patch of moonlit pavement, and merge into the shadow beyond.
Leaper launched himself gratefully into the role of the silent pursuer.
Adopting a crouching half-run and almost brushing the walls and fences that gave him cover, he reduced the distance between himself and the other traveller on the long, straight street until he was able to slacken pace and keep about twenty yards behind.
Whoever it was he followed seemed to be taking care to walk quietly, but rather in consideration of the hour than in fear of being observed. He maintained short, steady steps and did not glance behind or to either side. He was short, of slim build, and swung only one arm. Beneath the other was a narrow case or package of some kind. Leaper wondered if it were primed.
Almost at the end of the street, where it became a lane serving only a sewage farm and a rose nursery, the small, purposeful figure turned to the right. Leaper reached the corner just in time to see it disappear through a narrow opening between a hedge and a high corrugated iron fence.
Leaper knew this fence; it surrounded the yard and transport bays of the Chalmsbury Carriage Company. The entrance, though, was further along; the path taken by his quarry merely skirted the fence. He could not think where it might lead, unless it was to the canal that cut through the fields about quarter of a mile away. Leaper did not greatly care for canals. They ran lovers’ lanes a close second as the haunt of stranglers, slashers and assailants with staring eyes.
It was with slightly diminished enthusiasm, therefore, that he peeped round the hedge. The path, a cindered track bordered on one side by bushes and rank grass and flanked on the other by the iron fence, was deserted. He
