word (cunningly hand-printed in reverse for mirrored presentation) upon the chart behind him.
Half an hour later Biggadyke strode from the shop, leaving Hoole, punctiliously professional, smiling in the doorway and holding against his waistcoat his lightly clasped, white little hands.
Before crossing to where a long, pale grey sports car was parked on the opposite side of the road, Biggadyke glanced quickly to left and right. He had begun to step out for the other pavement before realizing that there had been something odd about those glimpses of Watergate Street. He looked again to the right. Yes, the roadway seemed to bulge and shimmer. He blinked hard and looked up at the buildings. They appeared normal at first, then the horizontal lines of the roofs and parapets slowly sagged and blurred. And at the edge of every solid object there was an aura of intense violet light.
Biggadyke resolutely shut his eyes and shook his head. When he again peered around him, squinting past half lowered lids the view was more nearly in focus. He saw his car quite clearly—almost unnaturally clearly—in front of him. He reached for the door handle. To his surprise, he grasped nothing; he had to take fully two more steps before he could touch the car.
Feeling by now that mixed shame and alarm that the sudden failure of a physical function arouses in men normally robust, Biggadyke was at the same time aware of Hoole’s responsibility for his condition and determined to deny him the satisfaction of seeing any evidence of it. He swung himself into the driving seat, started the engine, and, with a hideous tattoo of defiance from its exhausts, swung the big car into the centre of the road and aimed it as best he could on a mean course between the rows of curiously undulating shops.
He navigated the rest of the length of Watergate Street successfully, if only because it happened to be almost clear of traffic, the level crossing at its lower end having been closed a short time before. Only the Borough Bridge needed to be crossed; then he could turn off the square into the broad sanctuary of the White Hind’s car park and rest until his sight returned to normal.
The car was on the bridge, moving slowly forward. Biggadyke knew that there would be a policeman on point duty where the bridge carriageway entered the square. He peered with painful concentration through the windscreen and searched among the luminous, lunging shapes ahead for one that might be a blue helmet.
He was still searching when an angry shout reached him from behind. Instinctively he glanced back. There the helmet was, bobbing in the intolerable glare of the sunshine.
In that instant, the front of the sports car folded before the massive radiator of a cattle truck and Biggadyke, flung like soft clay upon his admirable multi-dialled dashboard, closed his troublesome eyes and slept.
If the noise of the collision reached the ear of Mr Hoole, ministering to his second customer of the day in the quiet, softly lighted upper room, he gave no sign of being either disturbed or elated by whatever speculation it raised in his mind. “Head back just a fraction,” he murmured. “That’s fine.” He delicately manipulated the dropper. One little globule fell neatly into the corner of each eye of the knowledgeable Mrs Courtney-Snell, who smiled and said: “Distending the pupil, eh, Mr Hoole?”
“Exactly!” replied Hoole admiringly. Mrs Courtney-Snell was not a National Health patient.
“Belladonna tincture,” added Mrs Courtney-Snell. “And I’m not to worry if I cannot focus properly for an hour or two afterwards. The effect is disturbing but temporary. Isn’t that so?”
“But how right you are! I can see that a mere occulist cannot pull any—ah—wool over your eyes, madam!”
Mrs Courtney-Snell condescendingly chuckled and settled back to enjoy a nice, long eye test.
In St Luke’s Square the point duty policeman strode up to Biggadyke’s car and wrenched open the door. At the sight of the collapsed driver he swallowed his wrath and sent the handiest intelligent looking citizen to telephone for an ambulance.
Biggadyke recovered consciousness before it arrived. He moaned a little, and swore a great deal. The policeman, bending down to make him as comfortable as possible on the pavement, surreptitiously sniffed his breath. It was innocent of alcohol.
“Mind you,” he confided later to a colleague who had arrived to help, “it could have been drugs. Perhaps they’ll know at the hospital when they take a look at him. I wish it had been the booze, though, like it was last time. He’d not have got away with it again.”
The second policeman shook his head. “Don’t be too sure of that, either. Big’s got the luck of the devil. When they chucked out that case at the Assizes it was like giving a life-saving medal to a bloke who’d done in his granny.”
“One thing; he didn’t actually kill anyone this time,” said the point duty man, and he stepped into the roadway to disperse once again the clot of inquisitive onlookers that threatened to dam what traffic could still trickle past Biggadyke’s corrugated car.
He was not to know that killing was the theme of some frank observations being made at that moment by Biggadyke himself as he lay in a small private ward of Chalmsbury General Hospital.
“There’s a certain little gentleman in this town, duckie,” he informed the plain young nurse whose cold fingers explored his wrist, “who’ll be coming in here soon after I leave. But, by God, you’ll have your work cut out to find
The nurse frowned slightly and transferred her gaze from her watch to a corner of the ceiling. Her lips made tiny counting movements. Then she replaced Biggadyke’s hand on the sheet with the air of a shopper rejecting a fly-blown joint. After stooping to write on the chart clipped to the foot of the bed, she stepped to the door.
“When are you coming back to keep me warm, nurse?” Biggadyke, even in distress, was sensitive to a situation’s demands upon his virility.
The girl paused in the doorway, turned, and spoke for the first time since his arrival. “Please ring the bell if you wish to move your bowels.”
Chapter Two
The news of Stanley Biggadyke’s accident was borne to the
Mr Grope had a large, harmless face like a feather bolster. So loose and widely dispersed were his features
