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these days, I expect,' he murmured gloomily.
    'No, you won't, Bill darling. You'll take a pretty girl out to supper - like you did the night before last.'
    Mr Eversleigh was momentarily confused.
    'If you mean Dorothy Kirkpatrick, the girl who's in Hooks and Eyes, I - well, dash it all, she's a thoroughly nice girl, straight as they make 'em. There was no harm in it.'
    'Bill darling, of course there wasn't. I love you to enjoy yourself. But don't pretend to be dying of a broken heart, that's all.'
    Mr Eversleigh recovered his dignity.
    'You don't understand at all, Virginia,' he said severely. Men -'
    'Are polygamous! I know they are. Sometimes I have a shrewd suspicion that I am polyandrous. If you really love me, Bill, take me out to lunch quickly.'

The Secret of Chimneys

Chapter 5
    FIRST NIGHT IN LONDON
    There is often a flaw in the best-laid plans. George Lomax had made one mistake - there was a weak spot in his preparations. The weak spot was Bill.
    Bill Eversleigh was an extremely nice lad. He was a good cricketer and a scratch golfer, he had pleasant manners, and an amiable disposition, but his position in the Foreign Office had been gained, not by brains, but by good connections. For the work he had to do he was quite suitable. He was more or less George's dog. He did no responsible or brainy work. His part was to be constantly at George's elbow, to interview unimportant people whom George didn't want to see, to run errands, and generally to make himself useful. All this Bill carried out faithfully enough. When George was absent, Bill stretched himself out in the biggest chair and read the sporting news, and in so doing he was merely carrying out a time-honoured tradition.
    Being accustomed to send Bill on errands, George had dispatched him to the Union Castle offices to find out when the Granarth Castle was due in. Now, in common with most well-educated young Englishmen, Bill had a pleasant but quite inaudible voice. Any elocution master would have found fault with his pronunciation of the word Granarth. It might have been anything. The clerk took it to be Carnfrae. The Carnfrae Castle was due in on the following Thursday. He said so. Bill thanked him and went out. George Lomax accepted the information and laid his plans accordingly. He knew nothing about Union Castle liners, and took it for granted that James McGrath would duly arrive on Thursday.
    Therefore, at the moment he was buttonholing Lord Caterham on the steps of the club on Wednesday morning, he would have been greatly surprised to learn that the Granarth Castle had docked at Southampton the preceding afternoon. At two o'clock that afternoon Anthony Cade, travelling under the name of Jimmy McGrath, stepped out of the boat train at Waterloo, hailed a taxi, and after a moment's hesitation, ordered the driver to proceed to the Blitz Hotel. 'One might as well be comfortable,' said Anthony to himself as he looked with some interest out of the taxi windows. It was exactly fourteen years since he had been in London.
    He arrived at the hotel, booked a room, and then went for a short stroll along the Embankment. It was rather pleasant to be back in London again. Everything was changed of course. There had been a little restaurant there - just past Blackfriars Bridge - where he had dined fairly often, in company with other earnest lads. He had been a Socialist then, and worn a flowing red tie. Young - very young.
    He retraced his steps back to the Blitz. Just as he was crossing the road, a man jostled against him, nearly making him lose his balance. They both recovered themselves, and the man muttered an apology, his eyes scanning Anthony's face narrowly. He was a short, thick-set man of the working classes, with something foreign in his appearance.
    Anthony went on into the hotel, wondering, as he did so, what had inspired that searching glance. Nothing in it probably. The deep tan of his face was somewhat unusual looking amongst these pallid Londoners and it had