turned towards him, thinking absurdly: Baby Blue Eyes. There was a baffled look in those eyes, which were a most remarkable blue, and Rollison had an impression that he was suffering from shock.
“May I know your name?” asked Rollison.
“Eh? Oh. Yes, of course. Fisher. Jack Fisher. I — I can’t get over what you did and what happened. You —”
“Mr. Fisher,” Rollison interrupted, “what time do you come off duty?”
“Oh. Four o’clock, I’m on early turn.”
“I’d very much like to talk to you when you’re free,” Rollison said. “Perhaps we could have a drink.”
“At
“Yes, of course.”
“The place with the trophies?” asked Jack Fisher, and then apparently he realised he was being naive, and straightened up. “I’d like that very much, sir. I live in Fulham so I’m not very far away from you.”
“Shall we say five o’clock?” suggested Rollison. “The address is on the card.”
“Five o’clock,” said Baby Blue Eyes. “On the dot. I’ll look forward to it enormously.”
Paterson came away from the car at that moment, while the man with him began to pick up pieces of metal from the ground; only then did Rollison notice that the man had cleared the dirt and grass off the windscreen. There were three chips in the glass, obviously caused by metal fragments, but no other damage. Paterson glanced at this and said:
“When they say safety glass they mean safety.”
“Yes,” Rollison said, heavily. “Can you have this cleaned up for me?”
“I’ll fix it. You just leave the keys,” Paterson promised. “Get in my car, will you?”
His was a Morris 1800, and Rollison got in next to the driver’s seat, heard Paterson give instructions to his solitary man, and then saw another carload of policemen arrive. Paterson did not wait to talk to them but joined Rollison and started off. He kept silent until they were through the tunnel and on the way to a small group of buildings between two of the main terminals. The red cross denoting First Aid was at one driveway and they turned into this. As he swung into a parking place, Paterson said:
“I talked to Grice, at the Yard.”
“Good.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Why should I?” asked Rollison. “Does he still think I know more than I’ve admitted about this affair?”
“I got that impression,” Paterson answered, coming to a standstill. He had to move his bony knees to one side in order to get them clear of the dashboard : moving, he was an ungainly man. “And when I told him there had been an attempt to murder you, he asked me to make sure you’re protected — he’ll send a couple of men to take over from mine, Mr. Rollison.”
This meant that Rollison was going to be followed wherever he went.
“Everyone is being most considerate,” he observed drily. “It may be hard to believe, but I’m more interested in seeing Thomas G. Loman than I am in hearing how worried everyone is about me.”
He flashed a smile, and Paterson laughed.
There were two men at the entrance to the two-storey hospital building and another just inside, and when Rollison and Paterson went into a narrow passage off the main one, another man was at the swing doors. At least, the danger was being taken seriously. Paterson led the way, pushing open a door marked ‘Private’ and Rollison found himself in a small, square, green-painted hospital ward with one bed.
On this, his feet thrusting out at the foot, was a man who lay on his back, with his eyes closed and nothing, at this distance, to suggest that he was alive.
6
IN ONE CORNER of the room a small man sat, with a pocket book in his hands. He stood up slowly, gaze fixed on Paterson, who was looking at the bare feet, which were almost at right-angles from the heels. From this angle the toes, particularly the big toe, looked huge. A nurse pushed her way past Rollison and lifted the blanket which draped over the bony ankles, pulled it down and placed it over the feet. It covered them from the top but gave them no real protection. But it was warm in here.
“I told you to watch his feet,” the nurse said.
The small man did not answer.
“All right, nurse, thanks,” said Paterson, and he looked at the small man. “Has he moved, Jones ?”
“Only his feet,” said Jones. “It seems like a reflex action to me.”
“Has he said anything?”
“Every now and again he gives a kind of snore,” announced Jones.
“What is a ‘kind’ of snore?”
“It’s a gulp, really,” answered Jones. “I can’t really explain, but — oh! There’s one corning!”
Exactly what happened, Rollison could not tell. Some kind of muscular contortion appeared to take place in the tall man’s midriff, his chest heaved, and he gave a gasping sound, something between a yawn and a groan; this
