Two Bottles of Relish: The Little Tales of Smethers and Other Stories. Lord Dunsany

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СКАЧАТЬ that has committed two murders and is able to walk about at large in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland.’

      ‘I’d be glad to watch him,’ I said, ‘if you think I can do it.’

      But I said it rather hesitatingly, because, though it was very nice of Mr Linley to offer me such a job, I had begun to see by then that it was a pretty important one, and, to tell you the truth, I am not quite the kind of man to be given a big job like that. Maybe I might have been if I’d been brought up to it, and given the chance of handling big jobs early, but I spent all my time pushing Numnumo, and was never given anything bigger, and somehow or other I seemed to grow down to the size of my job; or perhaps the job was only the size of me, and that’s why I was given it, and never given anything bigger. And now here was Mr Linley offering me a job that mightn’t look very big if I did it well, but, if I did it badly and let that man get out his news of where the second front was to be, why, it might cost the lives of thousands and thousands of men. That’s why I said ‘if you think I can do it’, and by the way I said it I sort of showed him I couldn’t: I thought it was only fair. But Linley said: ‘That’s all right, you’re just the man for it.’

      ‘Very glad to do my best,’ I said. ‘Do I go in uniform?’

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s just the point of it. We don’t want to give the idea that the British army is watching him. Or that anybody is. But somehow or other, though you look the perfect soldier in that kit, in plain clothes you might not give quite the impression we want to avoid.’

      Of course I didn’t look the perfect soldier at all, even in uniform, nor I never will. It was nice of him to say it, but I saw his point.

      ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I’ll just go back a few years to the Numnumo days and I’ll hang about somewhere near him and I shan’t look very military.’

      ‘Well,’ said Linley, ‘I’ll let you know. We shan’t want you just yet. We have him watched all right. But, if he got anywhere near a wireless, we’d want someone extra to watch him. He’d have to be watched very close then. Five seconds might do it, and he might pretty well ruin Europe. That’s to say, any of it that’s not ruined already.’

      All this, I may say, was at the end of June, in 1943, when all the plans for the invasion of Europe were ready, and the Germans were still guessing. And, while they guessed, they had to strengthen a line of two or three thousand miles. One word from Steeger, if he had got at the truth, would bring it down to a hundred miles, and save them a lot of trouble. That’s how things were when I parted from Linley that day just after midsummer, and a very nice lunch he gave me before we parted, at a big hotel, in his smart uniform and all, and me no more than a private. We didn’t talk any more about Steeger there, even when there was no one in hearing. He wouldn’t say a word about that sort of thing indoors. Well, I thanked him for all he had done for me, and for remembering me like that, and giving me such a fine lunch; and away I went on a bus back to my barracks. And only a week later I got a letter from Linley. It just said, ‘That job is all fixed up, and your C.O. has been written to.’ And I was sent for to the Orderly Room next morning and given a travelling warrant, and told to report at the War Office on the same day, for special duty, which would be told me when I got there. So off with me up to London and to the department of the War Office that I was ordered to go to, and there I was fitted with a suit of civilian clothes and given a ticket for a concert at the Albert Hall. What I had to do was to go to the seat whose number was on the ticket and sit there and take as much interest as I could in the music, and at the same time watch the man who would sit on my right. That’s all they told me while they were fitting me with my suit of clothes. And then Linley came in while they were brushing my hair, because they said it had too military a look; and Linley made everything clear to me. The concert he said was to be broadcast, and Steeger had chosen a seat right under the microphone, and that had been reported. They were still sure that he had got hold of the secret of the second front, and it was pretty certain that he would say something about it during the interval, and the whole world would hear him. Of course he had to be watched the whole time, but he would probably do it in the interval.

      ‘And how am I to stop him, sir?’ I asked.

      ‘Well, I’ll be there,’ said Linley, ‘on the other side of him, and I think I’ll be able to stop him, but I’ll be glad of your help, especially if he starts to shout out the name of the country that is going to be attacked. You must shout him down then, or stop him any other way. But we don’t think he’ll do that; in fact it’s a thousand to one against, because he’d give away that the enemy had been warned, and also he’d be hanged, which he has taken a good deal of trouble to avoid so far. What he is almost certain to do is to signal, and I’ll be watching for that, but I might be glad of your help.’

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