“Excuse me,” the man said, quietly. He was un-mistakably American.
“Can I help you?” Rollison asked.
“Can you —” there was a moment’s hesitation before the speaker went on. “Can you tell me where Piccadilly is?”
Rollison was as nearly sure as he could be that his accoster had switched questions at the last moment. He looked into the healthy, olive-skinned complexion and the honey brown eyes as he answered.
“That’s very easy. Go along there —” he pointed —”take the first left and then the first left again. It’s no more than a hundred yards.”
“Thank you,” the man said, and turned and walked off.
Rollison got into his car, so pre-occupied that he hardly noticed the dents and holes in the body, eased out of the parking place and went in the opposite direction to that of the American. He did not notice the two detectives, drove by side streets towards Park Lane and finally into Hyde Park, joining a fast-moving stream of traffic. Grice’s men were obviously watching both the flat and Loman. Soon, he was driving along the Edgware Road, with its small shops and its crowds, then along a street which was cut in two by a stream of water: the Regent’s Canal; for a few hundred yards, the countryside seemed to be in the heart of London. Somehow, the hint of rural England was more impressive here than in the great parks themselves.
And there was room to park!
He sat still for at least three minutes. Several cars passed but no driver or passenger took any notice of him. Some small boys were tossing stones into the Canal, birds darted, two ducks appeared to float by. He got out of the car at last and crossed the road, walked fifty or sixty yards to a house numbered 68. He turned in, walked on to a ramp to the front door, and pressed a bell-push. Almost immediately an elderly woman with the figure of a teenager opened the door.
“Yes?” she said, slightly querulous — and then her expression changed to one of warmth and welcome. “Why, it’s Mr. Rollison! Come in, do.” She stood aside to allow him to pass in a narrow passage. “Percy will be delighted to see you. He really will!”
She pushed the door open on to a room of photo-graphs; the walls were covered with them, from floor to ceiling, and there were more on filing cabinets and tables. In the window, sat a big, broad-faced man, whose face was lined either from pain or anxiety.
His eyes lit up, and he touched the metal arm of his chair and swung himself round; it was an invalid chair, which he had needed for as many years as Rollison had known him.
His handshake was powerful enough to crush un-suspecting visitors.
“Rolly!”
“Percy.”
“You look magnificent!”
“You look as if you’re bearing up.”
“Just about,” roared Percy Bingham. “You’re just about right, as usual. Well, now! How can I help you?”
Rollison, sitting in an old-fashioned button-back Victorian sofa, refused a cigarette, and said :
“You can find me an actor, six feet six or seven, lean as a lamp, stands and walks with a slight stoop, has a long, lean face and a spade-like jaw. He must be around twenty-five to thirty years old and able to speak with the accent of a man from the great south west of America.”
After a moment’s pause, Percy retorted:
“That’s a tall order.” They both laughed, before Percy asked: “What do you want him for?”
“Probably, attempted murder,” Rollison answered.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Percy said. “Now leave us alone, unless you want to be frightened out of your wits.” The smile he gave the woman as she went out was one of deep affection. “What else can you tell me, Rolly?”
“He may be in training to impersonate a man who answers the description I’ve just given you.”
“Well,” said Percy Bingham, pouring a little brandy into small, bow-shaped glasses. “I know of only three possibles. Eyes?”
“Honey-coloured.”
“I know of only one possible,” Percy said, with abso-lute certainty. “If there is an actor who fits, this is your man. Of course your man may not be an actor.”
“I think he is,” Rollison said. “Only an actor could do what I think this man is going to do. Can you find out if he’s free?”
“Yes, of course.” Percy gave a twist to his chair so that he was close to a row of three-drawer filing cabinets, one red, one black, one green. He pulled open the middle drawer in the green cabinet and ran through a number of cards under the letter K. Deftly, he selected one card, glanced at it, then handed it to Rollison while he wheeled himself closer to the telephone and began to dial.
