“Not badly damaged at all. It was picked by an expert. We shall have it replaced immediately.” He listened. “No. I haven’t heard from Hans Meyer at all. I seem to recall his mentioning several interviews he had scheduled for today. What? Let me think… yes… that’s it. He said he was staying at the Royal Court.” He listened again. “Oh, of course, Mr. Jennings. If anything freshly sinister erupts, I shall be on the line immediately. Good afternoon.” He rang off and then said to Alma, “I’m very hungry.”
“I’ll fix something.” As she went to the kitchen, Hitchcock took the sheet of notes from his pocket and reread them. He reread them again and then again until he heard Alma call him to the kitchen. As he entered the kitchen, the phone rang.
“Yeeessss?” Hitchcock inquired, as Alma dished eggs and bacon onto two plates. “How very peculiar. Thank you very much, Mr. Jennings. If I hear from him, I’ll let you know. “
“What’s very peculiar?” asked Alma.
“Hans Meyer has checked out of his hotel and left no forwarding address.”
Eight
At five that afternoon, Angus McKellin was in the kiosk across the street from the Hitchcocks’ house reporting to Detective Superintendent Jennings. “Mrs. Hitchcock went out to do some shopping at about three P.M. but wasn’t gone long. She went to the butcher’s and the greengrocer’s around the corner, and when she returned I could see she was carrying what looked like the afternoon newspapers.”
“Cinema people do a bit of reading,” commented Jennings glumly. “I suppose there should be two of you doing the surveillance, one to cover her and one to cover him, but we’re too damned shorthanded here.”
“Actually, sir,” said McKellin, “ever since we come back from Hyde Park, I’ve had this feeling that I’m being watched.”
“Don’t be neurotic.”
“I try not to be, sir,” he said, wondering what it was to be neurotic.
“When’s your replacement due?”
“In three hours’ time, sir. The fog seems to be worsening. Bleeding awful for June.”
“Be grateful you’re not a bride. We’ll speak again later.” He hung up. There was another call waiting for him. “Jennings here. Yes, Mr. Hitchcock?”
“Something slipped my mind when I reported the robbery. It’s about Nancy Adair.” He repeated the curious fact that she apparently hadn’t reported the murder of Martin Mueller to one of her newspaper contacts.
“Yes, that is curious,” agreed Jennings, cursing himself for not having thought of that himself, but then he was swamped with so much, the occasional lapse in the detecting process was forgivable. He tried never to be too hard on himself. “Good thinking, Mr. Hitchcock.”
“And there’s something else,” Hitchcock said matter-of-factly.
“There’s nothing in the newspapers about Mueller’s murder.”
“Oh, that too, of course. How clever of you to guess we’ve bought the afternoon dailies. But actually, Mr. Jennings, I thought you’d like to know we’re expecting a visit momentarily from Hans Meyer.”
Jennings leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. “Did you ask him where he was staying?”
Hitchcock replied, “He said he’d moved in with a friend to save on expenses. Do you want him to contact you?” And for what reason, wondered Hitchcock.
“Yes, I’d appreciate that. By the way, for your information, I’ve had a tracer on Miss Adair. She seems to be operating out of her hired car. “
“How very odd!” commented Hitchcock.
“She doesn’t seem to have a fixed address. No telephone, not even ex-directory.”
“Neither listed nor unlisted,” Hitchcock was telling Alma who was studying the sheet of notes Hitchcock had drawn up from Regner’s manuscript.
“Probably camping out in some bed-sitter in Earl’s Court,” suggested Alma. “That type is prone to live that way.” Hitchcock repeated her suggestion to Jennings.
“Yes, that is a thought,” said Jennings blandly. “By-the-by, have you had that lock on your door replaced?”
“Can’t be done until morning. But no matter, we’re in for the night. I’ll have Hans phone you when he gets here. How much longer will you be in your office?”
“Oh, indefinitely, I should think. Good-bye, Mr. Hitchcock. “
Hitchcock joined Alma at the table, drew up a chair, and reclaimed his sheet of notes. “Now let me see. The director, thinking he has murdered his assailant and fearing the police, goes to the church where Orwell sought food and refuge. Now, who the hell is Orwell?”
“George Orwell,” Alma informed him. “The writer. In his memoir, Down and Out in Paris and London, he’s terribly poor and sleeping in doss houses and begging meals from charity. He frequented a church near King’s Cross Station where the kindly vicar fed vagrants bread and tea.”
“Do you suppose there’s still a kindly vicar dispensing tea and kindness and possibly information at this church?”
“Probably. England’s up to its hips in kindly vicars. The way they seem to proliferate, I should think we should consider a plan to enter the business of exporting them.” She thought for a moment. “What possible information would one get from a vicar other than the quickest directions to heaven?”
“If I knew, my dear, I wouldn’t be questioning.” He tapped his finger on the sheet of notes. “But here it is.” He read aloud. “‘Seeks refuge at church Orwell knew and information from vicar.’” Hitchcock was humming under his breath. “Damn! Now I’m humming that bloody melody. I say, do you suppose the vicar at that church might have connections with Germany? You know what I mean, someone in Germany who is passing information to him which he passes on to Whitehall. Do you suppose that could be it?”
“Oh, I do hope so!” said Alma with unrestrained enthusiasm. “It’s such a delicious idea. Why haven’t we thought of using something like that?”
“We can’t think of everything, although God knows we try. Now let me see… after the church, the man goes out into the countryside, his destination somewhere in the Midlands, the village of Medwin and a woman named Madeleine Lockwood. Where’s that map of Great Britain gone to?”
Alma went to the sitting room to search for the map. She found it in the
