commissionaire with a grin. He had thoroughly enjoyed listening to the women on the subject of Anthony’s shortcomings. ‘He’s an eccentric millionaire.’
‘Aren’t we all,’ said the taxi driver looking at Anthony and his unwanted companions disparagingly. ‘I’m not taking that lot on board. This is a cab, not a circus turn. Millionaire! Pull the other one, mate.’
He put in the clutch and drove off, leaving Anthony on the pavement. Anthony sighed in exasperation and, leaving the women arguing on the pavement, made for the underground. It was hopeless, of course. He couldn’t buy a tuppenny ticket with a sovereign, so had to stop at the news kiosk for change, which meant further delays.
There were lots of trains leaving from Waterloo, he thought despondently, as he stood on the station concourse. Lots of trains from which, if you made the right connections, you could get to any destination in Britain. His hand curled over the white feather in his pocket. If it wasn’t for those blasted women he’d have caught the man in the top hat and the woman in the blue coat.
Maybe – just maybe – it was as well he hadn’t. After all, what would he have said? If he had caught them, he might have given the game away. Cavanaugh said they were looking for a gentleman and the man in the top hat was a gentleman, sure enough. What’s more, he was certain he’d seen him somewhere before. And the woman? His stomach turned over as he recalled that fraction of a second when she’d looked in his direction.
‘Would you recognize either of them again?’ asked Sir Charles, when Anthony telephoned his private line from Waterloo station.
Oh yes, he would certainly recognize them again. He couldn’t, although he didn’t say as much to Sir Charles, get the woman in blue’s face out of his mind.
There was something else too, he added to himself as he plunged back into the underground. Whatever star anger meant, it meant something to the woman in blue. Somehow or other, he would see her again.
Fortunately, MacIntyre, the porter at Sadlers, remembered him well, otherwise Anthony might have had trouble being admitted to his old club.
‘I’ve been abroad,’ he said, as carelessly as he could, trying not to laugh as MacIntyre’s raging curiosity visibly diminished. That respectable doctors should turn into tramps, inebriate or not, the minute they set foot abroad was clearly nothing more than MacIntyre expected and part of the dangers inherent in foreign travel. ‘I don’t suppose my rooms are still free?’
They weren’t, much to MacIntyre’s sorrow. ‘Another gentleman’s got them now,’ he said, apologetically. ‘He’s a very nice gentleman,’ he added, as if that made up for it somehow. There were, however, two fine quiet rooms at the back, next to the fire escape. He was sure that Mr Walbreck, the secretary, would be glad to arrange everything for him.
Richard Walbreck, the secretary, did indeed arrange everything. That had all been simple enough, thought Anthony. He could only wish the task of finding Frankie would prove as simple. It sounded impossible to hunt through the biggest city on earth for someone called Frankie, but he had hopes that someone would remember Cavanaugh.
Following Sir Charles’s suggestion, he didn’t start his hunt until his new uniform arrived. He unpacked the box, put on his clothes and, knotting his tie, looked at the military figure reflected in the mirror. It struck Anthony as sheer make-believe. To be a colonel with no regiment and no men had a comic opera, Gilbert and Sullivan quality about it that was as unlikely as his mission.
He wasn’t sure if he liked what he saw in the mirror. He’d spent months trying to be unremarkable and the uniform, with its green cap-ribbon and tabs, singled him out as a member of the Intelligence Service. But that, according to Sir Charles, was a very good reason for wearing it. Sir Charles reassured him that he couldn’t have a better camouflage than khaki. It would also, he had added with a grin, save him from being presented with any more white feathers.
During the next couple of days, Anthony tried to hunt up his old friends, but most of them had joined up and Cavanaugh’s acquaintances proved even more elusive. There were men who remembered the passing American visitor but, despite Sir Charles Talbot following up every lead, there was no result. They seemed, thought Anthony with frustration, on the afternoon of the fourth day, to be getting nowhere. Even