“I shall never be able to thank you.”
“Just do that regularly and you’d be surprised,”
Rollison retorted.
“Please don’t make light of it,” she pleaded, and tears were close to her eyes. “You saved my life.”
“If I did, I also saved mine.”
“I would never have believed anyone could have acted so quickly. It wasn’t until Baby Blue Eyes explained that I realised what had happened. The motor-cyclist actually threw a bomb.”
“Which makes him a bad man.”
“And if it had come into the car —”
“It didn’t,” Rollison interrupted. “Pamela Brown, we’ve no time to brood on might have beens. He certainly meant to kill the pair of us and whether he was after one or the other or both we’ll soon find out. Do you know why anyone should want to kill me?”
In a subdued voice, Pamela answered: “No.”
“That makes two of us. Do you want to be interviewed by the Airport Police and then by the men from the Yard?”
Slowly, she shook her head.
“Not really,” she said.
“Then now is your only chance to avoid it,” Rollison told her. “If you take all the short cuts you’ll see —”
“Oh, I know where the taxis are,” she interrupted.
“You’ll really let me go?”
“I shall expect dinner tonight, tete a tete, at my flat.” Her eyes lit up.
“That would be lovely!”
“Don’t get yourself killed before then,” he warned. “And be careful crossing the road.”
She was already sliding along the seat towards the far door, looking at him but groping for the handle. She found it and opened the door, turned to get out, then stopped on the edge of the seat, turning her head as she cried:
“What’s the name of the street where my car is parked?”
“Hood Lane,” he replied without hesitation.
“Thank you,” she said, got out, bent down to stare at him intently for a few moments, and then went on fervently: “Bless you.
“Lucky Pamela,” he said aloud.
She probably
Certainly he knew how lucky he was, too, but — he did not understand the situation at all. Why try to kill him? Why follow him and the girl to the airport? He had another feeling, which made him shiver; he must have been followed but he hadn’t noticed the motorcyclist until he had pulled the car up here. Once he had the girl, he had not even troubled to keep a look-out. On such an affair as this, he must not be even momentarily careless twice.
Why
There was no point in asking himself that question, but he simply had to find out. And there were only two ways in which to do so. One, through Pamela Brown whose address was imprinted on his mind from the envelopes in her handbag; the other, through Thomas G. Loman. He sat back, feeling bleak and grim, and it passed through his mind that he had not even got out to examine the damage to the car.
He got out.
At least a dozen dents showed, and two places where the metal was actually jagged; that made him tighten his lips . . . Two minutes later when tall, lanky, fair-haired Alex Paterson came up with another detective and the youth, the sight of the jagged edges of metal torn by pieces which had been flung into the air by the bomb made their lips tighten, too.
“That was a hand grenade,” he remarked.
“Yes,” Rollison said. “These gentry will stop at nothing, will they?”
“What do you know about these gentry, Mr. Rollison?” asked Paterson.
“They appear to be able to operate on both sides of the Atlantic,” Rollison answered. “And those on this side are deadly. That is absolutely all I know, although I hope to learn much more.” He looked grimly into Paterson’s face and went on: “In fact I am going to. Has Loman come round yet?”
“No,” answered Paterson.
Rollison looked at him steadily, pondered, and asked: “How soon can we make sure no one throws a hand grenade at him?”
“My
Throughout all this, the young man with the piercing blue eyes watched Rollison intently, and now Rollison
