[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.""He was most polite, I'll give him his due for that.He was smooth and courteous in theway that some foreigners are.""Huh?" Bransome pricked up his ears."You think he was a foreigner?""I'm sure of it.He had the mannerisms.He spoke with complete fluency but had aslightly guttural accent.""Did you phone the two from the plant and tell them about this?""No, Rich, I didn't.Should I have? There didn't seem to be anything worth telling.""Forget it-it's not important."He gossiped a bit more, learned how the children were behaving, swapped a littlebadinage, warned her that his return home might be delayed a few days.Hanging up, he leftthe booth in a hurry, feeling that his call had taken dangerously long.He walked the streetswhile stewing over this latest information and wondering what it really meant.If the last mysterious visitor were in fact the person he suspected him to be, and ifDorothy's instinct ran true in identifying him as a foreigner, his original diagnosis must be wrong.The fellow was not a cop in plain clothes or an official agent of any kind.He was awatcher, no doubt of that, but not one appointed by authority.So firstly someone had phoned, supposedly from the plant, and got no satisfaction.Then Reardon and a stooge had called in person; therefore, for reasons unknown, theformer had not followed him from the station but had gone to Hanbury a day or two later.Possibly Reardon had considered it advisable to report back, discuss the matter withsomebody and double-check with Dorothy before taking off in pursuit.Then there was this final caller, a foreigner.The only logical conclusion was that twoseparate and distinct groups were mutually interested in his movements.Neither of them were police.Yet the police were the only ones with a right to be interested and with a motive fornailing him down.The more he thought it over the crazier it seemed.There must be methodin all this madness.A solution lay somewhere if only it could be found.* * *Bransome spent the night in a small rooming-house in the suburbs.It was a sleazydump a few grades better than a rat-hole but its owner, a sour-faced, angular female, lookedfully capable of keeping her trap shut and minding her own business.This virtue, Bransomesuspected, brought her a steady clientele of people who had reasons for wantingabove-average privacy.He had found the place by asking the advice of the corner newsboy,a wizened and toothless character who evidently regarded a straw mattress as a statussymbol.By ten o'clock Bransome was back in the center of the city.He sought and found thepublic library, applied for an almanac and settled down to consult it in the reading room.Itturned out that there were numerous Lake Thisses and Lake Thattas, several Laketowns,Lakevilles, Lakehursts, Lakeviews, and no less than four Lakesides.Only the latterinterested him.He dug out more details about them.One had a population of four hundred,another a mere thirty-two.Although he knew nothing about the hardware trade heconsidered it an intelligent guess that neither of these two was large enough to support abusiness of that type.The other Lakesides looked more promising, each havingapproximately two thousand citizens.Which of the pair should he try?After some thought he decided that there was no way of identifying the right one hereand now, not even by phone calls.He'd have to take a chance and go and look at them.From the expenditure point of view it was sensible to choose the nearer of the two for firstinspection.It would be a waste of valuable time and hard-earned cash to travel farther thanhe had to.He made his way to the main-line station, keeping watch around him on the approachroad, at the ticket office and on the departure platform.All stations, bus or train, were focalpoints of cross-country movement and therefore, he theorized, the favorite haunts ofwatchers and seekers.They were like water-holes in arid country: they functioned ascommon meeting-places for the hunters and the hunted.So he remained on the alert until histrain arrived.By the time he climbed aboard he had discovered nobody paying himextra-special attention.The journey took a large part of the day.In the early evening he walked into the mainstreet of a small, easy-going town set in heavily wooded country.A long, narrow lakeglistened on the southern side.Bransome entered a cafeteria, had coffee and sandwiches,spoke to the attendant."Know of a hardware store near here?""Addy's," responded the other."One block up and around the corner.""Has it changed ownership recently?""I wouldn't know, George.""Thanks!" said Bransome, thinking that in a place this size everybody usually knowseverything about everybody else.Leaving, he looked along the street and found it impossible to tell which way was "up" and which "down." Oh, well, it didn't matter; he'd make a guess at it.Turning right, he walkedone block, rounded the corner and found he had chosen correctly.He was facing a smallAddy's Hardware.store that carried on its signboard the words: Pushing open its door, hewent inside.There were two customers in the shop, one buying a coil of fence-wire, the otherinspecting an oilstove.The former was being served by a lanky youth with a duck-tail haircut.The latter was being attended by a thickset, bespectacled man who glanced up asBransome entered, gave a brief flash of surprised recognition and continued talking aboutthe oilstove.Bransome sat himself on a keg of nails, and waited until the buyers had beenserved and taken their departure.Then he said, "Hi, Henny!"youFar from delighted, Henderson growled, "What do want?""That's what I call a hearty welcome," said Bransome."Aren't you pleased to see an oldcolleague?""I was under the impression that I knew you only by sight and name.If we're close palsit's news to me.""Sight and name are plenty good enough to start an everlasting friendship, aren't they?""You didn't come all this way just to kiss me," Henderson gave back nastily."So getdown to brass tacks.What d'you want?""A talk with you-in private.""Who sent you here?""Nobody.Not a soul.I've come entirely on my own initiative.""A likely story," commented Henderson, openly irked."I presume you found my addressin your crystal ball?""No, I did not.""Then how did you get it? Who gave it to you?""I can explain in full and to your satisfaction if we can have a discussion somewherenice and quiet." He held up a stalling hand as Henderson was about to make a retort, andadded, "This is no place for chewing the fat or coming to blows.How about my seeing youlater, after you've closed the store?"Henderson frowned and said unwillingly, "All right.Make it eight o'clock.Ring at the sidedoor."Bransome left as another customer came in.Outside, he recalled Reardon's remark tothe effect that a discreet watch was being kept upon Henderson.Such observation wouldtake note of all visitors and, perhaps, succeed in identifying one wanted elsewhere.Helooked up, down and across the street in hope of spotting the watcher, but that individualwas excessively discreet or possibly off duty.Nobody was keeping an eye on the place sofar as he could detect
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]