Spinelli was buying the bottle of brandy, stuffing it hurriedly into the pocket of his coat. And he was buying two packs of cigarettes, which probably meant that there was still some time to pass before his interview. Nobody paid any attention to him; each was elaborately unconscious of his presence. As the first to leave began drifting out the door, he took a sudden resolution and followed them.
Groups were breaking up in the moonlit road before the house. An argument waxed, passed, and faded away under ringing footfalls down the road. Somebody, in an unmusical baritone, was singing, "Me Old Corduroys"; and the countryside was so quiet that the loud voice almost seemed to have an echo from the sky. A woman, giggling-tipsy, went skipping towards the bus stop on somebody's arm. Already the lights were going out in the house.
Presently it was dark and silent again; an incredible silence, in which Hugh hardly dared to breathe. He was against the side of the tavern, wondering vaguely whether they let loose a dog at night. Somebody raised a window over his head, and afterwards he could even hear a creak as somebody tumbled into bed.
Spinelli was sitting in the front seat of his parked car, no lights on. He had not attempted to start it. He shifted constantly; at intervals he would strike a match for a cigarette, and peer at his watch; and he seemed to be steadily drinking. Afterwards Hugh could never tell how long a time it was, but he had a cramp in every muscle. The moon had begun to decline: a watery moon, with heat clouds banking up around it…
There was a faint thunder, as stealthy as somebody's footstep. Hugh could hear cattle stirring in the stable yard. Stiff and half drowsy, he jerked alert as he heard the door of the car opening softly. His quarry slid down, and the bottle bumped against the door. Then he was off up the road; he seemed cold sober.
Until he was out of hearing of the tavern, Spinelli moved with great care, and Hugh had to exercise a greater. But halfway up the hill Spinelli stepped out into the center of the road. At the low stone wall bordering the churchyard he unexpectedly stopped, and leaned on the wall. He giggled to himself. He looked up at the square church tower, where the moon made shadows with the ivy, the queer little porch, and the toppling headstones in the yard. Then he made a magniloquent gesture.
" 'Each in his narrow cell forever laid,' " Spinelli said aloud, " 'the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.' Nuts!”
Something described a circle in the air, and there was a smash of a botde breaking against stone.
Spinelli moved on.
That defiance, which had genuinely shocked Hugh, seemed to give Spinelli a fresh courage. For the pursuer's part, his impulse was now to overtake Spinelli, tap him on the shoulder, measure him for one on the jaw, and lay him out senseless along the side of the road. A neat, clean proceeding which anybody must approve of, and which would avoid endless trouble; certainly ease the strain of this night. He had no particular fear of the man's gun. He doubted that Spinelli, even in an extremity, would have the nerve to use it. In a rather vague way, as he considered his idea, he puzzled over the intricacies of the man's character as he had seen them revealed that night; Spinelli was a case for either a well-administered beating or a mental specialist, according to your view of the matter. He—