From out of nowhere they appeared, heading in his direction. He could count five of them, all men, dressed in their busker suits, on which were sewn thousands of colorful buttons; more colorful buttons were sewn on the caps they wore jauntily. The banjo plucked and the sticks clacked and three men danced, albeit clumsily, and Hitchcock was very frightened. The buskers looked like sinister phantoms conjured up by some unseen demon, conjured up to find Hitchcock and terrorize him. He began to back away, but the buskers were fanning out, surrounding him.
“Money for the buskers,” demanded one of the dancers, with a weasel’s face and a rat’s nose.
“Money for the buskers,” said the one clacking the sticks; ugly warts were covering his face, and scraggly yellow straws were hanging down from under his cap.
“Give us your money, guv,” said the third busker, and a thin stilettolike weapon appeared from under his jacket.
Hitchcock wanted to shout, but his vocal cords were paralyzed with fear. His money, he mustn’t part with his money, he would need it for the odyssey ahead of him. On the other hand, he mustn’t part with his life, as then both odyssey and money would be pointless. If he tried to escape, he knew he could never outrun them. They were not only younger, though he was still what he considered to be a youthful thirty-six, but they were each of them a good four stone lighter than he was. Still, he continued to back away.
“The lolly, guv, the lolly.” This busker had a running nose that he wiped on the back of his hands.
Where are the police, wondered Hitchcock, at this hour of the night? Why aren’t they abroad to protect innocent subjects of the king? But then, on the other hand, a constable was the last person Hitchcock wanted to deal with this night.
Then he heard the agonizing screeching of tires as an automobile drew to a stop beside him.
“Get in quickly!” shouted a woman’s voice.
The door to the passenger’s side was pushed open, and Hitchcock jumped into the car, pulling the door shut as, with a further agonizing screeching of tires, the car drove away at top speed, rescuing Hitchcock from the menace of the thieving buskers.
“Thank you, thank you very much,” gasped Hitchcock, as he reached for a handkerchief with which to mop his sweaty brow.
“How lucky I came along, Mr. Hitchcock.”
Hitchcock turned for a better look at the woman. He recognized Nancy Adair.
“As is frequently said,” murmured Hitchcock, a very wary expression on his face, “‘out of the frying pan…’”
Ten
And exactly where are you driving?” Hitchcock asked Nancy Adair, who was hunched over the steering wheel, straining to see ahead through the fog.
“Wherever you tell me. But we’re not going to get too far in this dreadful fog.”
“Miss Adair. Among the many things I learned from my father, I learned the following: ‘He travels farthest who travels alone.’ Did you learn anything comparable from your father?” She said nothing. “You did have a father? They’re quite inexpensive.”
“Oh, yes. I had a father. And we’re wasting petrol tooling around like this. Where do you wish to go?”
He squinted through the windshield and could see they were somewhere near Kensington Gardens. “Pull over.”
“Why?”
Hitchcock was wondering if she thought he was her captive. “I want to talk to you.”
“It would save time if we talked while driving to your destination.”
“My destination is the nearest curb. Now pull over.” She parked the car and turned to him. “Well?”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Sheer luck.”
“I don’t believe you. You’ve been trailing me.”
“I want a story.”
“I gave you the interview.”
“It was charming. I know there’s a better story. Ever since the murder at your cottage, I knew something hot was coming to a boil.”
“Why didn’t you sell that information to the newspapers?”
“Because I thought they’d already gotten it from their informants at Scotland Yard.” Hitchcock look quizzical. “Don’t be naive, Mr. Hitchcock. The newspapers have spies, well-paid informants, all over the place. Everyone’s for sale. Everyone has a price.”
“How cynical.”
“It’s a dog-eat-dog world, right?”
“I’m not a fool, Miss Adair. I may be slightly bewildered at the moment, and at a disadvantage, but I realize you’ve been trailing me for several days, ever since you started badgering my secretary and my wife to set up the interview. You were outside the studio yesterday waiting for me to come out, and when I did, you followed me to the cottage. You almost ran us off the road.”
“In truth, that was quite foolish of me. I thought by forcing your car to stop, I could get my interview then.”
“That was rather a desperate and dangerous measure. You might have killed all of us.” Hans Meyer. My God, Hitchcock thought suddenly, Hans Meyer. He never came to the flat. Instead, those brutes appeared.
“I could see your chauffeur was quite expert at the wheel. I wasn’t worried.”
“How did you know where to find me tonight?”
She was lighting a cigarette. It was French, and the odor was unpleasant. Hitchcock rolled down his window and then couldn’t decide which was worse, the smoke or the fog.
“It began after the interview. When I left your house, there was a man at the opposite side of the street standing near the phone kiosk. I’d seen him there when I arrived for the interview. It was quite obvious you were under police surveillance.”
“Yes. I recently gathered that.”
“So my instincts told me there was a better story to be had. Tonight, I drove by your house to see if the surveillance was a twenty-four-hour vigil. I saw you come chasing out of your building and rush to the kiosk. But you didn’t use the phone—”
“The wires were cut.”
“Ah! Then you went tearing down the street and I lost you in the fog for a while. You’re terribly quick on your feet, Mr. Hitchcock,” she said, gracefully not adding, for a man his
