‘Don’t worry about that.’
‘It’s a relief, I can tell you. I expect you know that I’ve only had two cases out of town…’
In the end, Gently found himself quite liking this young man. He had a proper sense of his own inadequacies and an even properer respect for his elders and betters. An engaging young man — one who would probably go far! Gently began to feel an almost avuncular regard for him.
‘At Liverpool Street, then?’
It was past eight o’clock. In his satisfaction, Gently had not forgotten to phone Mrs Jarvis.
‘No — come to my place. We’ll drive down for a change.’
‘It’s Finchley, isn’t it — Elphinstow Road?’
It wouldn’t have surprised Gently even if Stephens had known the number.
CHAPTER TWO
After his office — bound routine of the last few months Gently was possessed of a guilty feeling, as though he were off on a secret spree. As he was shaving he made ridiculous faces in the mirror, and several times he caught himself grinning idiotically at nothing. A shadow had been lifted, the shadow of new responsibilities. Once more he was off on his own cherished authority. Like a virtuoso, who, for a time, has been obliged to assist the orchestra, he was released again to his independent rhapsodies.
‘And some they whistled, and some they sang.’
The most nonsensical of things kept running through his mind. At breakfast he astounded Mrs Jarvis by reciting a verse from a ballad, though why it should seem so apposite he couldn’t have explained, even to himself.
‘Are you going to be away for long, Superintendent?’
She regarded him, he noticed, with a blend of reproval and concern. Stephens, who arrived early, had brought an enormous suitcase with him. His face shone as though he had scrubbed it and he had recently clipped his small, downy moustache.