“Hullo,” he said to Evans. “Are you having a time doing up old London?”
“I’m having a time, all right; but I don’t know that it’s the kind of time you mean.”
“Well, whatever kind of time it is, don’t overdo it.”
As he spoke, Lindsay’s eye followed a figure on the other side of the street, walking in the same direction that Evans had been going when they met. Evans, following his glance, saw a man with a businesslike step walking by. The man turned down the first side street, and as he turned under the street light at the corner, Evans caught a glimpse of a sallow face. When the sound of his footsteps had died away, Lindsay said in a manner that seemed more than half-joking:
“It looks to me as if you were being shadowed; that man stopped when you stopped, then crossed the street. What are you up to, anyway?”
“I don’t believe any one wants to bother about shadowing me,” said Evans.
“You’d better let me go along and look after you, or some fellow will get you with a sandbag while you’re up in the clouds thinking about wave lengths or frequencies or something.”
“Come along,” said Evans, “I’ll be glad enough to have you.”
“I guess I’d better mind my own business,” said Lindsay; “but watch your step, old man.”
They parted, and Evans told himself that, of course, Lindsay was joking. Yet, as he walked on through the lonely streets, he wished his young friend was still with him. Just before he reached his hotel, he heard a strangely familiar tread on the pavement a long way behind him. Looking round as he turned to enter the hotel, he saw dimly in the darkness a block away the form of a man; and though obviously too far off to warrant any valid judgment, Evans couldn’t escape the feeling that it was the same man that he and Lindsay had just noticed. At the same moment there flashed into his mind an uncomfortable feeling that it was the same man he had seen on Trinity Street in Cambridge when he was saying good-night to Heringham after their first talk. Evans laughed at himself for letting the darkness and the strange blue street lights make him wax superstitious. Of course it was all a trick of imagination; no one would waste time shadowing him—a mere warrant officer. Yet it was with a keen sense of relief that he found himself safe inside his room at the hotel.