They passed another policeman and Mr Davis waved his hand. His companion was very silent. The boy's shy, Mr Davis thought, he's not used to walking about town with a man like me: it excused a certain roughness in his behaviour; even the suspicion Mr Davis had resented was probably only a form of gawkiness. Mr Davis, because the day was proving fine after all, a little sun sparkling through the cold obscured air, because the kidneys and bacon had really been done to a turn, because he had asserted himself in the presence of Miss Maydew, who was the daughter of a peer, because he had a date at the Metropole with a little girl of talent, because too by this time Raven's body would be safely laid out on its icy slab in the mortuary, for all these reasons Mr Davis felt kindness and Christmas in his spirit; he exerted himself to put the boy at his ease. He said, 'I feel sure we've met somewhere. Perhaps the house surgeon introduced us.' But his companion remained glumly unforthcoming. 'A fine sing-song you all put on at the opening of the new ward.' He glanced again at the delicate wrists. 'You weren't by any chance the boy who dressed up as a girl and sang that naughty song?' Mr Davis laughed thickly at the memory, turning into the Tanneries, laughed as he had laughed more times than he could count over the port, at the club, among the good fellows, at the smutty masculine jokes, 'I was tickled to death.' He put his hand on his companion's arm and pushed through the glass door of Midland Steel.
A stranger stepped out from round a corner and the clerk behind the inquiries counter told him in a strained voice, 'That's all right. That's Mr Davis.'
'What's all this?' Mr Davis asked in a harsh no-nonsense voice, now that he was back where he belonged.
The detective said, 'We are just keeping an eye open.'
'Raven?' Mr Davis asked in a rather shrill voice. The man nodded. Mr Davis said, 'You let him escape? What fools...'
The detective said, 'You needn't be scared. He'll be spotted at once if he comes out of hiding. He can't escape this time.'
'But why,' Mr Davis said, 'are you here? Why do you expect...'
'We've got our orders,' the man said.
'Have you told Sir Marcus?'
'He knows.'
Mr Davis looked tired and old. He said sharply to his companion, 'Come with me and I'll give you the money. I haven't any time to waste.' He walked with lagging hesitating feet down a passage paved with some black shining composition to the glass lift-shaft. The man in the gas-mask followed him down the passage and into the lift; they moved slowly and steadily upwards together, as intimate as two birds caged. Floor by floor the great building sank below them, a clerk in a black coat hurrying on some mysterious errand which required a lot of blotting paper, a girl standing outside a closed door with a file of papers whispering to herself, rehearsing some excuse, an errand boy walking erratically along a passage balancing a bundle of new pencils on his head. They stopped at an empty floor.
There was something on Mr Davis's mind. He walked slowly, turned the handle of his door softly, almost as if he feared that someone might be waiting for him inside. But the room was quite empty. An inner door opened, and a young woman with fluffy gold hair and exaggerated horn spectacles said, 'Willie', and then saw his companion. She said, 'Sir Marcus wants to see you, Mr Davis.'
'That's all right, Miss Connett,' Mr Davis said. 'You might go and find me an ABC.'
'Are you going away—at once?'
Mr Davis hesitated. 'Look me up what trains there are for town—after lunch.'
'Yes, Mr Davis.' She withdrew and the two of them were alone. Mr Davis shivered slightly and turned on his electric fire. The man hi the gas-mask spoke and again the muffled coarse voice pricked at Mr Davis's memory. 'Are you scared of something?'
'There's a madman loose in this town,' Mr Davis said. His nerves were alert at every sound in the corridor outside, a footstep, the ring of a bell. It had needed more courage than he had been conscious of possessing to say 'after lunch', he wanted to be away at once, clear away from Nottwich. He started at the scrape of a little cleaner's platform which was being lowered down the wall of the inner courtyard. He padded to the door and locked it; it gave him a better feeling of security to be locked into his familiar room, with his desk, his swivel chair, the cupboard where he kept two glasses and a bottle of sweet port, the bookcase, which contained a few technical works on steel, a Whitaker's, a Who's Who and a copy of His Chinese Concubine, than to remember the detective in the hall. He took everything in like something seen for the first time, and it was true enough that he had never so realized the peace and comfort of his small room. Again he started at the creak of the ropes from which the cleaner's platform hung. He shut down his double window. He said in a tone of nervous irritation,' Sir Marcus can wait.'
'Who's Sir Marcus?'
'My boss.' Something about the open door of his secretary's room disturbed him with the idea that anyone could enter that way. He was no longer in a hurry, he wasn't busy any more, he wanted companionship. He said, 'You aren't in any hurry. Take that thing off, it must be stuffy, and have a glass of port.' On his way to the cupboard he shut the inner door and turned the key. He sighed with relief, fetching out the port and the glasses, 'Now we are really alone, I want to tell you about these hiccups.' He poured two brimming glasses, but his hand shook and the port ran down the sides. He said, 'Always just after a meal...'
The muffled voice said, 'The money...'
'Really,' Mr Davis said, 'you are rather impudent. You can trust me. I'm Davis.' He went to his desk and unlocked a drawer, took out two five-pound notes and held them out. 'Mind,' he said, 'I shall expect a proper receipt from your treasurer.'
The man put them away. His hand stayed in his pocket. He said, 'Are these phoney notes, too?' A whole scene came back to Mr Davis's mind: a Lyons' Corner House, the taste of an Alpine Glow, the murderer sitting opposite him trying to tell him of the old woman he had killed. Mr Davis screamed: not a word, not a plea for help, just a meaningless cry like a man gives under an anaesthetic when the knife cuts the flesh. He ran, bolted, across the room to the inner door and tugged at the handle. He struggled uselessly as if he were caught on barbed wire between trenches.
'Come away from there,' Raven said. 'You've locked the door.'
Mr Davis came back to his desk. His legs gave way and he sat on the ground beside the waste-paper basket. He said, 'I'm sick. You wouldn't kill a sick man.' The idea really gave him hope. He retched convincingly.