“Thank you!” Beddoes answered irony with a well-gauged bow.

“For myself, I shall ring Runciman. And then,” Nightingale concluded, kicking aside a sprouting potato which, dislodged by Cobb’s poking, had rolled across the floor, “I’m going to see Majendie.”

He went out into the street with no more than a glance of curiosity at Mrs. Minelli’s door. Later, he would visit her, chiefly to see the ikon; the gold-framed, gem-studded ikon, which thieves would never have omitted to collect had they known of its existence. He was sure, now, that there had been thieves; the same thieves as at Hampstead, or at least under the same direction. He was dealing with their third manifestation. They were a new set; but they planned well. After the second, Golders Green, episode, of which he’d been notified within two hours, he’d organised raids on the premises of every known large-scale receiver, with a speed and strength that had enormously elated his pride; until each party had reported a dismal blank. The very importance of the thefts made their disposal through small dealers almost impossible. Therefore a new hand was at work; presumably, a whole new ring. What really astounded him was that none of the others had split. Since he knew that neither fear nor chivalry would deter them from slitting an upstart’s throat, directly or by means of a hint in the right place, he was forced to conclude that they were as much in the dark as he was. He kicked a cigarette end angrily into the gutter. A blight seemed to have fallen on the faculties of the informed and the informing. He frowned. One very good source, having been treated to a savage beating and left more dead than alive on a waste lot near the Bricklayer’s Arms, was now immured in St. Thomas’s hospital; a fact which no doubt had its relevance. But he hadn’t much hope of doing anything without information. He entered the High Street, sent the police car into Bright’s Row, and walked through the nearest gap into Upper Street. He felt as if he had emerged from a tunnel into daylight. The broad road was bright with neon, electricity and sodium, full of noise and movement from busy pavements and a double stream of traffic. The old High Street, bypassed by the century, atrophied in gloom; yet it ran like an undertone beneath the throbbing prosperity of its supplanter; a sort of memento mori.

He went into a telephone box, planted as if expressly for his convenience, and looked up Runciman’s number. As he dialled he wondered nervously whether the complaint which had caused Runciman’s premature retirement might not have carried him off; nearly a year had passed since he had last had occasion to speak to him. With relief he heard Runciman’s own voice, and pressed the button.