Ann was running the bath.
“Have they gone?”
“Yes. I’ve locked up. I think it’s beginning to rain.”
I wasn’t going to tell her that I thought Joe was still in the
building. There was nothing she could do about it, and it would
only worry her.

“I shan’t be long, Harry.”
“That’s all right. Don’t hurry. I haven’t looked at the paper
yet.”

I sat down in the dining-room and glanced at the evening
newspaper. It didn’t hold my attention. When I heard Ann
splashing in the bath, I got up, turned off the light, took off my shoes and went down the stairs again, making no sound I
stood just inside the doorway of my office, looking down the
length of the garage that was faintly lit by the light of the moon.

I listened. After a while I heard the scrape and splutter of a match lighting and then I smelt tobacco smoke. There was
no light showing under the door of the partitioned room. What
was Joe doing there in the dark? I stood listening for some minutes, but for an occasional creak of a chair or the sound of feet shifting on the floor. I could hear nothing. He wasn’t doing anything. He was just sitting in the darkness.

I went back upstairs. Ann had finished her bath and was
running mine. I turned off the dining-room light again, went into the bedroom and undressed.

After my bath I told Ann I couldn’t remember if I had
turned off the light in the office and I went downstairs again. I stood listening, I could hear nothing. The partitioned room was still in darkness.

I gave up. There was nothing I could do. The only
explanation I could think of at the moment was that Berry
suspected I would try to get into the locked room and had left Joe on guard to keep me out. I went upstairs again.

My mind was too active for me to sleep. Long after Ann
had fallen asleep, I lay in the darkness, staring across the
room at the faint moonlight coming through the window. The
rain had ceased now. Eagle Street was silent.

Tomorrow night I should be alone. Try as I could I wasn’t
able to keep Gloria from creeping into my thoughts. I struggled against the temptation of thinking about her. Even if I did decide to get into touch with her tomorrow, she would be
certain to have nothing more to do with me. I had let her down
badly, and she wasn’t likely to give me another chance to do it
again.

I felt bad about the way I had told her I would come to
her flat and then hadn’t even telephoned her to say I couldn’t come. At least, I should telephone her tomorrow, I told myself, and explain. I wouldn’t go further than that.

I would tell her Ann knew about her, and I couldn’t meet her again. That was the least I could do. Once I had made this decision, my mind relaxed and I went to sleep.

I must have slept four or five hours. I woke suddenly to
find the grey light of dawn coming through the curtains. I heard a car engine start up, and I instantly thought of Joe.
I slid out of bed and went over to the window and parted
the curtains.

There was a mail van standing by the opposite kerb. Two
postmen were waiting by it, and as I watched, I saw Bill come
out of the sorting office, nod to the other two who got into the van.

Bill then consulted his watch, made a note of the time,
and climbed in beside the driver.
The van drove off.

I peered at my wrist watch. It was half-past three.
“What is it, Harry?” Ann asked sleepily.
“It’s all right. I thought I heard a car drive up, but it was only a mail van.”

I got back into bed and settled down once again. Then
suddenly I recalled what Bill had told me when he had
announced his promotion:
You mightn’t believe it, but every so often we carry
valuables in these ‘ere vans, and when we do, yours truly in
the future will look after the driver and see no one gets the
wrong ideas about the stuff.

Then on Monday before we quarrelled, he had said: Not
much doing at the moment, but next week we’ve got an important consignment to take care of. Keep that under your
hat. Harry.

I found myself, wide awake now. Was it this consignment
that Dix was after? Was be planning a mail robbery? That
would explain why he had taken space in my garage and not
the shop at the top of the road- My garage was directly in front of the sorting office.

That would also explain why Joe was in the partitioned room. He could be checking on the movements of the mail vans. I remembered that Dix had insisted on that particular space in the garage: the one with the window that
looked right on the sorting office.

I felt a trickle of cold sweat run down my face. If Dix was
planning a hold-up, then Bill would be in danger. I knew Bill
well enough to be sure he wouldn’t submit tamely to a hold-up:
he might get badly hurt.
My heart was bumping unevenly against my side. I also
could be involved in this.

If the police discovered that Dix had used my garage to watch the movements of the vans and had paid me seventy-five pounds for the use of my place, might
they not imagine I was one of the gang?

My first reaction was to tell Bill and lot him decide what
was best to do. Then another idea occurred to me. I wasn’t
anxious for Bill to find out I had been so easily duped by Dix, always supposing I had been duped. The best way surely
would be to talk first to Gloria.

If I told her bluntly what I
suspected, she might have information about Dix that would confirm my suspicions, and then if I was sure Dix was planning a robbery I could go to Bill.

I would see Gloria tomorrow, I decided, and have it out
with her. I suddenly wondered if she were one of the gang.
Surely not: she had her own business, was well off, had a flat in Bond Street.

No, it was absurd to think she was one of them. Dix just happened to be a friend of her. She couldn’t be held responsible for her friends. But she might know
something about him once I had told her what I suspected.

I tried to stifle the elation I felt at the thought of seeing
and talking to her again. There was nothing to be elated about,
I told myself. I had to see her. There was no question of going back on my promise to Ann.

There would be no nonsense
between us, I would talk to her about Dix, hear what she had
to say, and then leave. If it hadn’t been that I didn’t want to worry Ann about my suspicions of Dix I would have told her had to see Gloria again. But if I were wrong, if Dix were all right, and my suspicion a mistake, there was no point in getting Ann worried over nothing.

There would be time to tell Ann all about it when I had
some proof.

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