Redcap by Philip McCutchan Page A

and overseas contacts, and was also the technical expert on certain matters. “In the meantime, go home and look after the ladies. Get your Miss Delacroix to rustle you up a meal, and then get some sleep.”
    “Very good, sir.”
    Latymer stood up, stretched. He said, “You’re not to leave your flat at all for any reason whatever—I’ll want you at the end of a telephone from now on, Shaw. Meanwhile,” he added more kindly, “don’t worry about those girls while you’re out of the country. I’ll not forget to have them watched! They won’t come to any harm.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “All right, Shaw. Off you go now. I’ve got a lot to do. I won’t keep you waiting long.”
    In something of a daze Shaw left the room, went through Miss Larkin’s office into the corridor with its dark panelling, down the broad, thickly-carpeted staircase. Out in Trafalgar Square the day was bright and fresh, everything was peaceful and ordinary. Shaw could scarcely find it in his heart to believe that a threat could possibly exist to the peace mechanism, that any man, any country, could seek to disrupt all this, to stop the world going on as usual about its lawful occasions, its happy occasions, to bring everything to a sudden end.
    But he hadn’t liked the look in Latymer’s face when the Old Man had hinted about direct danger to that great new liner, now thrusting through the seas, unsuspectingly, into the Mediterranean blue. And Latymer had seemed to believe implicitly in his hunch. That was bad. Latymer’s hunches weren’t often wrong.
CHAPTER FOUR
    A little later Shaw ran quickly up the steps to his flat, turned his key in the lock and went in. He found Thompson sitting in the hall drinking a cup of tea.
    Shaw chucked his hat on the stand. “Hullo there, Thompson. All quiet—no visitors?”
    “No, sir, quiet as mice.” Thompson stood up, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.
    “Are the young ladies in the sitting-room?”
    “Yes, sir.” The ex-petty officer hesitated. “Miss Delacroix, she did ask me to have my cuppa in there, but the other young lady, she’s a bit upset like, and so I thought, well, she won’t want to be bothered, sir.”
    Shaw clapped him on the shoulder, crinkled up his nose in a smile. He said, “Thanks for staying, anyway. Better get along now. Mr Latymer may want you.”
    “Aye, aye, sir.” Thompson gave him a critical look, screwing up his leathery face in concern. He said warningly, “You look like you need a rest, sir.”
    “Probably, but I’ll be all right.” As Thompson picked up his cap and let himself out of the flat, Shaw walked on into his sitting-room. Judith Donovan—as Shaw naturally thought of her—was over by the window, looking out into the bright day and the sunshine, looking unseeingly into space. She seemed so forlorn, Shaw thought anxiously ... he felt a rush of pity, of sympathy for her, so young, so defenceless. She was very pale, with big dark circles under her eyes. She hadn’t heard him come in; she was far away, probably seeing again that terrible bullet-swept driveway. That would be a scene she couldn’t ever forget, Shaw knew.
    Quietly he walked across the room to where Debonnair was sitting on the floor by the fireplace, long nyloned legs drawn up. She had been making a pretence of reading a book, and she’d glanced up as Shaw came into the room, and had put her book aside, given him a warning glance and inclined her head towards Judith.
    He asked in a low whisper, “How’s she taking things, Deb?”
    She said, “Not too well. She’s been terribly weepy.”
    He shook his head. “She ought to see a doctor. Have some kind of a sedative and go to bed.”
    She nodded, and her fair hair caught the sunlight. “Yes,” she said, “I know. I told her. She won’t hear of it. I gave her a couple of aspirins and a nip of your whisky, and that’s just as far as she’d listen to me.”
    He said quietly, “I’ll see what I can do.”
    As he