“Order the taxi now,” suggested Mr. Eagles, with his mouth full, “so’s to be in readiness, like.”
“And ’ave it tickin’ up the thruppences for nothing? Think they’ll call that legitimate expenses? Not ’arf. ‘You pay that out of your own pocket, my man,’ that’s what they’ll say, the lousy skin-flints.”
“Well, ’ave yer grub,” suggested Mr. Eagles, pacifically.
Sergeant Lumley inspected his kipper narrowly.
“’Ope it’s a good one, that’s all,” he muttered. “Looks oily, it do. ’Ope it’s cooked. Eat a kipper what ain’t properly cooked through and you gets kipper on your breath for the rest of the day.” He forked a large portion into his mouth without pausing to remove the bones, and was obliged to expend a painful minute rescuing them with his fingers. “Tcha! it beats me why Godamighty wanted to put such a lot of bones into them things.”
PC. Eagles was shocked.
“You didn’t oughter question the ways of Godamighty,” he said, reprovingly.
“You keep a civil tongue in your ’ed, my lad,” retorted Sergeant Lumley, unfairly intruding his official superiority into this theological discussion, “and don’t go forgettin’ what’s due to my position.”
“There ain’t no position in the eyes of Godamighty,” said PC. Eagles, stoutly. His father and his sister happened to be noted lights in the Salvation Army, and he felt himself to be on his own ground here. “If it pleases ’Im to make you a sergeant, that’s one thing, but it won’t do you no good when you comes before ’Im to answer to the charge of questionin’ ’Is ways with kippers. Come to think of it, in ’Is sight you an’ me is just the same as worms, with no bones at all.”
“Not so much about worms,” said Sergeant Lumley. “You oughter know better than to talk about worms when a man’s eating his breakfuss. It’s enough to take any one’s appetite away. And let me tell you, Eagles, worm or no worm, if I have any more lip from you-Drat that telephone! What did I tell you?”
He pounded heavily across to the insanitary little cupboard that held the instrument, and emerged in a minute or two, dismally triumphant.
“That’s ’im. Kensington, this time. You ’op out an’ get that taxi, while I settle up ’ere.”
“Wouldn’t the Underground be quicker?”
“They said taxi, so you damn well make it taxi,” said Sergeant Lumley. While Eagles fetched the taxi, the sergeant took the opportunity to finish his kipper, thus avenging his defeat in religious controversy. This cheered him so much that he consented to take the Underground at the nearest suitable point, and they journeyed in comparative amity as far as South Kensington Station, and thence to the point indicated by Hector Puncheon, which was, in fact, the entrance to the Natural History Museum.
There was nobody in the entrance-hall who resembled Hector Puncheon in the least.
“Suppose ’e’s gone on already?” suggested P.C. Eagles.
“Suppose ’e ’as,” retorted the sergeant. “I can’t ’elp that. I told ’im to telephone ’ere if ’e did or to let them know at the Yard. I can’t do no more, can I? I better take a walk round, and you sit ’ere to see as they don’t come out. If they do, you be ready to take up this other bird’s trail and tell Puncheon to set ’ere till I come. An’ don’t let your bird see you talking to Puncheon, neether. And if they comes out and you see me a-follerin’ of them, then you foller on be’ind an’ keep yourself outer sight, see?”
Mr. Eagles saw clearly-as indeed he well might, for he knew quite as much about his duties as Sergeant Lumley. But the worm still rankled in the sergeant’s breast. Mr. Eagles strolled over to a case of humming-birds and gazed at it with absorbed interest, while Mr. Lumley went heavily up the steps, looking as much as possible like a country cousin bent on seeing the sights.
He had been in the entrance-hall about ten minutes, and had almost exhausted the humming-birds, when he saw something reflected in the glass case which made him sidle softly round so as to command a view of the staircase. A portly person in an overcoat and a top-hat was coming slowly down, one hand thrust deep into his overcoat pocket, the other swinging carelessly at his side. P.C. Eagles looked past him up the stair; there was no sign, either of Hector Puncheon or of Sergeant Lumley, and for a moment the constable hesitated. Then something caught his eye. In the gentleman’s left-hand overcoat pocket was a folded copy of the Morning Star.
There is nothing unusual about seeing a gentleman with a copy of the Morning Star. The readers of that great organ periodically write to the editor, giving statistics of the number of passengers on the 8.15 who read the Morning Star in preference to any other paper, and their letters are printed for all to read. Nevertheless, P.C. Eagles determined to take the risk. He scribbled a hasty note on the back of an envelope and walked across to the doorkeeper.
“If you see my friend that came in with me,” he said, “you might give him that and tell him I can’t wait any longer. I got to get along to my work.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the gentleman in the overcoat pass out through the swing-door. Unobtrusively, he followed him.
Upstairs, at the top of a dark staircase barred by a trestle bearing the words “No Entrance,” Sergeant Lumley was bending anxiously over the inanimate form of Hector Puncheon. The reporter was breathing heavily in a way the sergeant did not like, and there was a nasty contused wound on his temple.
“Trust your amachoors to make a mess of it,” reflected Sergeant Lumley, bitterly. “I only ’ope as that Eagles ’as got ’is ’ead screwed on the right way. But there you are. I can’t be in two places at once.”
The man in the overcoat walked quietly down the street towards the Underground Station. He did not look back. A few yards behind him, P.C. Eagles sauntered casually along in his wake. His eyes were on his quarry. Neither of them saw a third man, who emerged from nowhere in particular and followed a few yards behind P.C. Eagles. No passer-by gave so much as a second glance to the little procession as it crossed Cromwell Road and debouched upon the station.
The man in the overcoat glanced at the taxi-rank; then he seemed to change his mind. For the first time, he looked back. All he saw was P.C. Eagles purchasing a newspaper, and in this sight there was nothing alarming. The other follower he could not have seen, because, like the Spanish Fleet, he was not yet in sight, though P.C. Eagles might have seen him, had he been looking in his direction. The gentleman appeared to reject the notion of a taxi and turned into the station entrance. Mr. Eagles, his eyes apparently intent upon a headline about Food-Taxes, wandered in after him, and was in time to follow his example in taking a ticket for Charing Cross. Pursued and pursuer entered the lift together, the gentleman walking across to the farther gate, Eagles remaining modestly on the hither side. There were already about half a dozen people, mostly women, in the lift, and just as the gate was shutting, another man came in hurriedly. He passed Eagles and took up a central position among the group of women. At the bottom of the shaft, they all emerged in a bunch, the strange man pressing rather hastily past the man in the overcoat, and leading the way towards the platform, where an eastward-bound train was just running in.
What exactly happened then, P.C. Eagles was not quite clear about at the time, though, in the light of after events he saw plainly one or two things that were not obvious to him then. He saw the third man standing close to the edge of the platform, carrying a thin walking-stick. He saw the man in the overcoat walk past him and then suddenly stop and stagger in his walk. He saw the man with the stick fling out his hand and grasp the other by the arm, saw the two waver together on the edge and heard a shriek from a woman. Then both toppled together under the advancing train.