“No. I — but what we need is a drink!” Gideon put down his pipe, opened a cupboard and took out a bottle of Black and White whisky, two glasses, and a half-full syphon. Then poured the drinks, glad to have something to do, and pushed a glass over. “Cheers!”
“Cheers!” Hobbs sounded almost fervent.
They drank, Gideon the more sleepily; and as they did so, the bell of Big Ben, so close to the window out of sight, chimed one o’clock.
“We see each other at least once a week,” Hobbs told him. “Even during her — I nearly said, her ‘affaires’.”
“I quite thought she was going to marry a young man named Peter,” Gideon confessed.
“Yes,” said Hobbs. “It looked that way, for a while. But she has had a succession of boy-friends for some time now, and often brings them round to see me.”
“Good God!”
Hobbs drank again and smiled wryly.
“You see — she does tend to see me as ‘Uncle Alec’.”
There was silence. During it, Gideon remembered one phrase he had let pass, and realised how true it must be: “I am in love with Penny. Very deeply in love.” And yet she fell in love or at least was attracted by young man after young man and paraded them before Alec, for approval or in happiness. How hurtful that must be! He imagined he could see the measure of the hurt in the other man’s eyes.
“I see.” Gideon shook his head. “Yes, I think I’m beginning to see a lot. Alec — why did you keep it from me?”
“There was nothing else to do.”
“But surely—” Gideon hesitated, and Hobbs’ wry smile came again.
“You know, George, you would have disapproved very much. You would have been very calm and understanding, had I come to tell you, but you would have taken it for granted that it was calf-love from Penelope — and for me, a delayed rebound after Helen’s death. And you would have taken every chance you could to separate us. Or at least, keep us apart. It would have become an issue between you and me, and might have interfered with our work here, and—” Hobbs broke off as if not certain whether to go on. Then he finished very simply: “With our friendship, George.”
After a pause, Gideon asked: “And it won’t, now?”
“I hope not,” Hobbs told him. “I don’t think it either will or need. Had anything developed before, then you would have had to be told. But if, as was more likely, Penelope met a young man, really fell in love, and married, our association would have faded and you need never have known. I think I was right not to tell you.”
Gideon grunted, non-committally, finished his drink, and demanded: “Does Kate know? Is that how you’ve come to realise she isn’t well?”
“Yes.”
Gideon almost groaned: Kate had been in this conspiracy, too — Kate, letting it go on behind his back! He picked up the big pipe again and began to squeeze the bowl.
“But only recently,” Hobbs added, almost hastily.
“Oh, How recently?”
“Precisely three weeks. Penelope wasn’t happy about keeping it-us-from her. She didn’t like the secrecy, yet she felt sure it was the only thing to do. Three weeks ago, when you were in Paris for the Euro-Police Conference, remember? I spent Sunday at your home. We told Kate how often Penny and I were meeting, and asked her advice.”
“On whether to tell me?” Gideon growled.
“Yes.”
And Kate, his Kate, whom he knew with such intimacy -for whom he had such love — had advised: no! She had preferred to share their secret, alone, had thought it better kept from him. What had she expected? That he would go berserk? Rave? Act the outraged father? Kate! Inwardly, he groaned.
“She said she would like to talk to you about it,” Hobbs went on. “She was afraid it would upset you — not the friendship, but the fact that we’d kept it from you for so long.” Bless Kate! “She said she would think about it herself; she wasn’t really sure how she felt.” Hobbs sounded deliberately matter-of-fact, but Gideon thought most of his tension really had gone completely.
“When she took so long to tell you, Penny asked her why. She said she wasn’t feeling well enough to cope; that if you were upset by it, she wanted to be at her best. At her strongest. Penny told me this, so I looked in to see Kate, yesterday.”
“Oh,” said Gideon, and Hobbs hesitated again, then told him, quietly: “She isn’t well, George. She’s getting stabbing pains in her chest. She’s terribly afraid of cancer.”
Gideon opened his mouth but did not speak: tensed his hand about the pipe till it hurt, but did not relax his grip. The noise of the traffic, the brightness of the day, the files on his desk-even Alec Hobbs-all seemed to vanish in one vast blur as he felt this awful shock go through him.
Kate — cancer! Oh, God, no! He was gripped by an icy fear that literally would not let him move. Then, slowly, gradually, it eased; but only to leave him very, very tired. He put out his hand to the telephone: it rang, as he touched it.
“There’s still no answer from your house, Mr. Gideon,”
Gideon grunted again: “Keep trying.” Now the silence was in no way reassuring, he could imagine her-ill. Ill- and alone in the house. Ill — and unable to reach the telephone.
He snatched up the one which went straight through to the Information Room, and as it was answered,
