will be in real danger from the organisation. I strongly urge you to let the Yard take any measures it thinks necessary for your protection.’
‘Very well,’ said Sir Derek. He moved uneasily in his chair and passed his hand over his face. ‘I take it,’ he added wearily, ‘that the Cabinet approves the introduction of the Bill?’
They fell to discussing again the suggested measures. Their behaviour was weirdly solemn. They used parliamentary phrases and politicians’ gestures. It was as though they had so saturated themselves with professional behaviourism that they had lost the knack of being natural. The Home Secretary sat with his eyes fixed on the papers before him, as though sunk in a profound and unwilling meditation.
At last the Prime Minister put the matter to the vote—did the Cabinet consider the introduction of the Home Secretary’s Bill advisable? It did.
‘Well,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘that is as far as we need go.’
The Home Secretary groaned slightly.
They all turned to him. His face was extremely white and he was leaning forward over the table.
‘O’Callaghan!’ exclaimed the Postmaster-General. ‘What’s the matter? You’re ill?’
‘It’s all right. Pain. Pass off in a moment.’
‘Brandy,’ said the Prime Minister and stretched out his hand to a bell.
‘Water,’ whispered Sir Derek. ‘Just water.’ When it came he drank it greedily and then mopped his face.
‘Better,’ he told them presently, ‘I’m sorry.’
They looked uncomfortable and concerned. The Lord Chancellor hovered uncertainly over him. The others eyed him with that horrified ineptitude with which we observe sudden illness in our fellow men.
‘I must apologize,’ said Sir Derek. ‘I’ve had one or two bouts like this lately. Appendix, I imagine. I’ll have to get vetted. It’s an infernal bore for myself and everyone else. I want to stave it off until after this business if I can.’ He drew himself up in his chair, paused a moment, and then got slowly to his feet.
‘Everything settled?’ he asked.
‘Yes, yes. Won’t you lie down for a little?’ suggested the Prime Minister.
‘Thank you so much, P.M.—no, I’ll go home, I think. If someone could tell my chauffeur—’ A secretary was summoned. O’Callaghan turned to the door. The Postmaster-General made as if to take his arm. Sir Derek nodded his thanks, but walked out independently. In the hall the secretary took his coat from the butler and helped him into it.
‘Shall I come out to the car, Sir Derek?’
‘No, thank you, my boy. I’m my own man again.’ With a word of farewell to the Prime Minister he went out alone.
‘He looks devilish ill,’ said the Prime Minister irritably. ‘I hope to heaven it’s not serious.’
‘It’ll be damned awkward if it is,’ said the Postmaster-General. ‘Poor old O’Callaghan,’ he added hurriedly.
In his car the Home Secretary looked out of the window drearily. They turned out of Downing Street into Whitehall. It was a cold, gusty evening. The faces of the people in the streets looked pinched and their clothes drab and uneventful. Their heads were bent to the wind. A thin rain was driving fitfully across the window-pane. He wondered if he was going to be very ill. He was overwhelmed with melancholy. Perhaps he would die of this thing that seized him with such devastating agony. That would save the anarchists and the CID a lot of trouble. It would also save him a lot of trouble. Did he really care tuppence about his Bill or about the machinations of people who wanted to revolutionize the system of British government? Did he care about anything or anybody? He was conscious only of a pallid indifference and an overwhelming inertia. He was going to be ill.
At the top of Constitution Hill his car was held up by a traffic jam. A taxi drew up close beside it. He could see that there was a fare inside, but no more than that. The driver looked several times at O’Callaghan’s chauffeur and called out something which his man answered gruffly. O’Callaghan had the feeling that the person inside the taxi stared in at his window. He was being watched. He had experienced this sensation many times lately. He thought, with a sort of amusement, of the Prime Minister’s anxiety. He pulled a cord and the inside of the car was flooded with light.
‘Give them a good view while I’m about it,’ he thought grimly.
To his surprise the windows of the taxi were lit up as if in answer. He peered across, shading the pane with his hand. The taxi’s fare was a solitary man in a dinner-jacket. He sat with his hands resting on the knob of a stick. His silk hat was worn at a slight angle, revealing a clear-cut and singularly handsome profile. It was an intelligent and well-bred face, with a straight nose, firm mouth and dark eyes. The man did not turn his head, and while Sir Derek O’Callaghan still watched him, the ranks of cars moved on and the taxi was left behind.
‘That’s someone I know,’ thought O’Callaghan with a kind of languid surprise. He tried for a moment to place this individual, but it was too much bother. He gave it up. In a few minutes his chauffeur pulled up outside his own house in Catherine Street and opened the door of the car.
The Home Secretary got out slowly and toiled up the steps. His butler let him in. While he was still in the hall his wife came downstairs. He stood and contemplated her without speaking.
‘Well, Derek,’ she said.
‘Hallo, Cicely.’
She stood at the foot of the stairs and watched him composedly.
‘You’re late,’ she observed after a moment.
‘Am I? I suppose I am. Those fellows jawed and jawed. Do you mind if I don’t change? I’m tired.’
‘Of course not. There’s only Ruth dining.’
He grimaced.
‘I really can’t help it if your sister likes to see you occasionally,’ remarked Lady O’Callaghan tranquilly.
‘All right,’ said her husband wearily. ‘All right.’
He glanced at her inimically and thought how tiresomely good-looking she was. Always so perfectly groomed, so admirably gowned, so maddeningly remote. Their very embraces were masked in a chilly patina of good form. Occasionally he had the feeling that she rather disliked him, but as a rule he had no feeling about her at all. He supposed he had married her in a brief wave of enthusiasm for polar exploration. There had been no children. Just as well since there was a taint of insanity in his own family. He supposed he was all right himself. His wife would have brought out any traces of it, he reflected sardonically. Cicely was an acid test for normality.
She walked away from him towards the drawing-room. At the door she paused for a moment to ask:
‘Have you been worried at all by that pain today?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said O’Callaghan.
‘What a bore it is,’ she murmured vaguely, and went into the drawing-room.
He
