Page:The Secret of Chimneys - 1987.djvu/40

 would have been greatly surprised to learn that the Granarth Castle had docked at Southampton the preceding afternoon.

At two o’clock that afternoon Anthony Cade, travelling under the name of Jimmy McGrath, stepped out of the boat train at Waterloo, hailed a taxi, and after a moment’s hesitation ordered the driver to proceed to the Blitz Hotel.

“One might as well be comfortable,” said Anthony to himself, as he looked with some interest out of the taxi windows.

It was exactly fourteen years since he had been in London.

He arrived at the hotel, booked a room, and then went for a short stroll along the Embankment. It was rather pleasant to be back in London again. Everything was changed, of course. There had been a little restaurant there—just past Blackfriars Bridge—where he had dined fairly often, in company with other earnest lads. He had been a Socialist then, and worn a flowing red tie. Young—very young.

He retraced his steps back to the Blitz. Just as he was crossing the road, a man jostled against him, nearly making him lose his balance. They both recovered themselves, and the man muttered an apology, his eyes scanning Anthony’s face narrowly. He was a short, thickset man of the working classes, with something foreign in his appearance.

Anthony went on into the hotel, wondering, as he did so, what had inspired that searching glance. Nothing in it, probably. The deep tan of his face was somewhat unusual looking amongst these pallid Londoners and it had attracted the fellow’s attention. He went up to his room and, led by a sudden impulse, crossed to the looking-glass and stood studying his face in it. Of the few friends of the old days—just a chosen few—was it likely that any of them would recognize him now if they were to meet him face to face? He shook his head slowly.

When he had left London he had been just eighteen—a fair, slightly chubby boy, with a misleading seraphic expression. Small chance that the boy would be recognized in the lean, brown-faced man with the quizzical expression.

The telephone beside the bed rang, and Anthony crossed to the receiver.

“Hullo!”

The voice of the desk clerk answered him.

“Mr. James McGrath?”