Detective and mystery stories; Legal stories; Leithen, Edward (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
I won't forget that walk home in a hurry. It was a fine July
twilight. The streets were full of the usual crowd, shop-girls in
thin frocks, promenading clerks, and all the flotsam of a London
summer. You would have said it was the safest place on earth. But I
was glad we had the policeman with us, who at the end of one beat
passed us on to his colleague, and I was glad of Chapman. For I am
morally certain I would never have got home alone.
The queer thing is that there was no sign of trouble till we got into
Oxford Street. Then I became aware that there were people on those
pavements who knew all about me. I first observed it at the mouth of
one of those little dark side-alleys which run up into mews and small
dingy courts. I found myself being skilfully edged away from Chapman
into the shadow, but I noticed it in time and butted my way back to
the pavement. I couldn't make out who the people were who hustled
me. They seemed nondescripts of all sorts, but I fancied there were
women among them.
This happened twice, and I got wary, but I was nearly caught before
we reached Oxford Circus. There was a front of a big shop
rebuilding, and the usual wooden barricade with a gate. Just as we
passed it there was a special throng on the pavement and I, being
next the wall, got pushed against the gate. Suddenly it gave and I
was pressed inward. I was right inside before I realised my danger,
and the gate was closing. There must have been people there, but I
could see nothing in the gloom.
It was no time for false pride. I yelled to Chapman and the next
second his burly shoulder was in the gap. The hustlers vanished and
I seemed to hear a polite voice begging my pardon.
After that Chapman and I linked arms and struck across Mayfair. But
I did not feel safe till I was in the flat with the door bolted.
We had a long drink and I stretched myself in an armchair, for I was
as tired as if I had come out of a big game of Rugby football.
"I owe you a good deal, old man," I said. "I think I'll join the
Labour Party. You can tell your fellows to send me their whips.
What possessed you to come to look for me?"
The explanation was simple. I had mentioned the restaurant in my
telephone message, and the name had awakened a recollection in
Chapman's mind. He could not fix it at first, but by and by he
remembered that the place had cropped up in the Routh case. Routh's
London headquarters had been at the restaurant in Antioch Street. As
soon as he remembered this he got into a taxi and descended at the
corner of the street, where by sheer luck he fell in with his
Wensleydale friends.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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