Cat Among the Pigeons Read Online Free PDF

it—divert attention away from Joan—leave an ordinary everyday note. Then leave a message with someone else to be given to Joan in England. He wrote rapidly—
    Dear Joan—Dropped in to ask if you’d care to play a round of golf this evening but if you’ve been up at the dam, you’ll probably be dead to the world. What about tomorrow? Five o’clock at the Club.
    Yours, Bob.
    A casual sort of a message to leave for a sister that he might never see again—but in some ways the more casual the better. Joan mustn’t be involved in any funny business, mustn’t even know that there was any funny business. Joan could not dissimulate. Her protection would be the fact that she clearly knew nothing.
    And the note would accomplish a dual purpose. It would seem that he, Bob, had no plan for departure himself.
    He thought for a minute or two, then he crossed to the telephone and gave the number of the British Embassy. Presently he was connected with Edmundson, the third secretary, a friend of his.
    â€œJohn? Bob Rawlinson here. Can you meet me somewhere when you get off? … Make it a bit earlier than that? … You’ve got to, old boy. It’s important. Well, actually, it’s a girl … ” He gave an embarrassed cough. “She’s wonderful, quite wonderful. Out of this world. Only it’s a bit tricky.”
    Edmundson’s voice, sounding slightly stuffed shirt and disapproving, said, “Really, Bob, you and your girls. All right, 2 o’clock do you?” and rang off. Bob heard the little echoing click as whoever had been listening in, replaced the receiver.
    Good old Edmundson. Since all the telephones in Ramat had been tapped, Bob and John Edmundson had worked out a little code of their own. A wonderful girl who was “out of this world” meant something urgent and important.
    Edmundson would pick him up in his car outside the new Merchants Bank at 2 o’clock and he’d tell Edmundson of the hiding place. Tell him that Joan didn’t know about it but that, if anything happened to him, it was important. Going by the long sea route Joan and Jennifer wouldn’t be back in England for six weeks. By that time the revolution would almost certainly have happened and either been successful or have been put down. Ali Yusuf might be in Europe, or he and Bob might both be dead. He would tell Edmundson enough, but not too much.
    Bob took a last look around the room. It looked exactly the same, peaceful, untidy, domestic. The only thing added was hisharmless note to Joan. He propped it up on the table and went out. There was no one in the long corridor.
    II
    The woman in the room next to that occupied by Joan Sutcliffe stepped back from the balcony. There was a mirror in her hand.
    She had gone out on the balcony originally to examine more closely a single hair that had had the audacity to spring up on her chin. She dealt with it with tweezers, then subjected her face to a minute scrutiny in the clear sunlight.
    It was then, as she relaxed, that she saw something else. The angle at which she was holding her mirror was such that it reflected the mirror of the hanging wardrobe in the room next to hers and in that mirror she saw a man doing something very curious.
    So curious and unexpected that she stood there motionless, watching. He could not see her from where he sat at the table, and she could only see him by means of the double reflection.
    If he had turned his head behind him, he might have caught sight of her mirror in the wardrobe mirror, but he was too absorbed in what he was doing to look behind him….
    Once, it was true, he did look up suddenly towards the window, but since there was nothing to see there, he lowered his head again.
    The woman watched him while he finished what he was doing. After a moment’s pause he wrote a note which he propped up on the table. Then he moved out of her line of vision but she could just hear