[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
answer?
The smug shaking of Junior Inspector Pryke s head continued until Teal could
have kicked him.
I have a theory of my own, he said, which I d like to work on-unless
you ve got something definite that you want me to do.
You go ahead and work on it, replied Teal blisteringly. When I want
something definite done, I shan t ask you. In another minute you ll be telling
me that the Assistant Commissioner is the High Fence.
The other stood up, smoothing down the points of his waistcoat. In spite of
the situation for which he was responsible, his uncrushable superciliousness
was reviving outwardly untouched; but Teal saw that underneath it he was hot
Page 39
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
and simmering.
That wouldn t be so wild as some of your guesses, he said mysteriously.
I d like to get the Saint-if anyone can be made a Chief Inspector for failing
to catch him, they d have to make a Superintendent of anyone who did it.
Make you a Superintendent? jeered Teal. With a name like yours?
It s a very good name, said his junior tartly. There was a Pryke at the
Battle of Hastings.
I ll bet he was a damn good cook, snarled Mr. Teal.
VIII
For Simon Templar there was an indefinite period of trackless oblivion, from
which he was roused now and again to dream curious dim dreams. Once the
movement of the cab stopped, and he heard voices; then a door slammed, and he
sunk back into the dark before his impression had more than touched the fringe
of consciousness. Once he seemed to be carried over a gravel path: he heard
the scrunch of stones, and felt the grip of the hands that were holding him
up, but there was no power of movement in his limbs. It was too much trouble
to open his eyes, and he fell asleep again almost immediately. Between those
momentary stirrings of awareness, which were so dull and nebulous that they
did not even stimulate a desire to amplify them, stretched a colourless void
of languorous insensibility in which time had no landmarks.
Then there was the feeling of a hard chair under him, a constriction of cords
about his wrists and ankles, and a needle that stabbed his forearm. His
eyelids felt weighted down almost beyond his power to lift, but when he
dragged them up once he could see nothing. He wondered vaguely whether the
room was in darkness, or whether he was blind; but he was too apathetic to
dwell earnestly on a choice between the alternatives. There was a man who
talked softly out of the blackness, in a voice that sounded hazily familiar,
asking him a lot of questions. He had an idea that he answered them, without
conscious volition and equally without opposition from his will. Afterwards,
he could never remember what he said.
Presently the interval of half-consciousness seemed to merge back without a
borderline into the limitless background of sleep.
When he woke up again his head ached slightly with a kind of empty dizziness,
and his stomach felt as if it had been turned inside out and spun round on a
fly-wheel till it was raw and tender. It was an effort to open his eyes, but
not such a hopeless and unimportant feat as it had seemed before. Once open,
he had more difficulty at first in focusing them. He had an impression of bare
grey boards, and his own feet tied together with strands of new rope. The
atmosphere was warm and close, and smelt nauseatingly of paint and oil. There
was a thrumming vibration under him, coupled with a separate and distinct
swaying movement: after a while he picked an irregular splash and gurgle of
water out of the background of sound, and induced his eyes to coordinate on a
dark circular window framed in tarnished brass.
So you re waking up for a last look round, are you? growled a voice
somewhere to his left.
Simon nodded. Shifting his gaze gingerly about, he made out more details.
There was an unshaded electric bulb socketed into the low ceiling which gave a
harsh but sufficient light. He was in the cabin of a boat-a small craft, by
the look and motion of it, either a canal tug or a scrap-heap motor cruiser.
Page 40
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
From the rows of orderly lights that drifted past the portholes on both sides
of the cabin, he deduced that they were running down the Thames.
The man who had spoken sat on an old canvas sack spread out on the bare
springs of a bunk. He was a thickset prognathous individual with thin reddish
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]