And again her fingers moved over the piano-keys.
Downstairs, under the moon, the sleek black car still waited before the door of number 16. Inside the car, his thick arms round the steering-wheel, John Stannard sat where he bad been sitting for some time. Once more he heard the strains of Someday I’ll Find You drifting down from the lighted windows on the top floor.
This time Stannard trod on the starter. As the motor throbbed into life, he revved it to a hum which deepened into a roar. Then, very gently, he put the car in gear and drove off towards Kensington High Street.
Chapter 2
On the following morning, Friday July 11th, the blue-and-white flag was up at Willaby's in Bond Street to show that there would be an auction that day.
Martin Drake saw it as he turned out of Brook Street at a quarter to eleven. London in 1947, dazzling under its first really warm summer since the beginning of the war, winked with show-windows against dingy brick or stone. It heated the body and strengthened the spirits. Martin, freshly shaven and as well-dressed — as clothes-coupons permitted, felt his own spirits lift.
But that always happened on a sunny morning. It was the night he dreaded.
He hadn't, Martin reflected, been drunk at Ruth Callice's flat last night. Merely a trifle muzzy, and blackly depressed. He had an impression that some remark, some reference made by Stannard (he could not remember it now) ought to have had significance. But his mind was closed to so many things. He had almost become maudlin in the presence of Ruth Callice's obvious sympathy. He was so fond of Ruth that under any other circumstances… but there were no other circumstances.
Jenny!
The silent oration he addressed to himself ran something like this: