Cloak of Darkness by Helen MacInnes Read Free Book Online Page A

waited. When you arrived, I was all set to follow you into the station, find what train you were taking. But you didn’t arrive.”
    “He was in a taxi outside the Red Lion, invited me in, with a thirty-eight and silencer pointed at my stomach. Then it was Marble Arch and the Underground to Tottenham Court Road, and then a short walk to a hotel room.” Renwick glanced once more at the kitchen door. “Details later, if requested.”
    Gilman’s tall, thin figure drooped into a chair. “We were really quite worried, Bob.”
    “Worried?” burst out Claudel. “I was practically having fits. Thought I had slipped up, somehow missed you. And then, with almost two hours gone and no show, I went into the station. I had a feeling that we had been tricked. I asked the information desk—a nice girl, pretty, very helpful—if the train to Oxford was modernised. Certainly. All trains from Paddington—”
    The kitchen door opened, and Nina carried in a tray. “They are doing a good job, I hear,” Renwick said.
    “Who?” asked Nina.
    “British Railways. Thanks, darling.” Renwick began his supper.
    “Still haven’t beaten the French records,” Claudel said, “but they’re on the way. For instance, in every train running out of London—except from Fenchurch Street—all old-style single compartments have had their walls ripped out and central gangways made. No more privacy.” He smiled over at Renwick.
    “I heard about that,” Gemma volunteered. “Privacy is thought to encourage vandalism and attacks on women.”
    “And it did,” said Gilman. “But no more having a quiet compartment to oneself. Frankly, I didn’t know that all railway carriages had been altered.”
    “It only proves we don’t travel in trains very much,” Renwick observed. He was eating soup and sandwich in record time. So we were all misled—even Moore: his idea of British trains had probably come from the movies he had seen. Renwick shook his head.
    “We may have to,” Gilman said, and led the talk into a possible scarcity of petrol for cars, even with the North Sea oil pouring out by the barrel-load. Rumour had it that it was being used up too quickly: people didn’t realise that it couldn’t last forever.
    “What does?” Claudel asked. “Carpe diem —seize the day.”
    “And seize half an hour before we start heading for bed,” Renwick said. “That meeting we have scheduled for tomorrow—I think we’d better discuss its agenda right now and be prepared for any opposition we’ll meet from Thomson and Flynn.” He rose, the last half of his sandwich in his hand. “No, darling,” he told Nina, “you stay here with Gemma. We’ll move into the small room.” His study, it was supposed to be; but Nina, thinking a year ahead, had been suggesting it would make a wonderful nursery. Not much of anything at the moment, except a dumping ground for the unpacked crates of bibelots and boxes of books which had so far defeated arrangement. Wall space for shelving was limited in this living-room with its large windows, its mantelpiece trying to make an electric fire look natural, its radiator that produced more groans than heat, its doorways. “Gemma, you might have some ideas about bookcases. I vote we take down the pictures, except for the two painted by Nina. What do you think?” And with that he could start leading Gilman and Claudel into the temporary box room with no more delay.
    In alarm, Nina said, “But there are no chairs, darling.”
    “Honey, they are the most nicely dusted crates we’ve ever sat on.”
    Nina, bless her, had made curtains and installed them, bright coral stripes on white to brighten the sea-green walls. They were heavy enough to be opaque and, once they were drawn and the light switched on, no curious neighbour from the block of flats across the street could see three men choosing three of the most solid-looking boxes.
    “Cosy,” Claudel said.
    “All eight by twelve feet,” Renwick agreed. He looked