“Would it have happened?”

“Shawn is important, very important, doing work only he can do. This could prey on his mind so much that he would be unable to carry on with it.”

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to talk freely to me or someone at the Yard,” Roger said. “We can’t blunder about in the dark. Go back and tell Marino that, will you? Tell him we can play hush-hush as well as he can, but if he wants results quickly, we’ve got to know everything. And I don’t care a damn what arrangement the Ambassador and the Assistant Commissioner or the Queen’s High Admiral might come to. Use my car. I’ll wait until the doctor arrives.”

“What’s got into you?” she demanded.

“I ought to be on the telephone, ought to have told the Yard everything an hour ago, to warn all ports and airfields, all railway termini, every kicking-off point from England. The police ought to be on the look-out for the boy, have his description in every police station, in every newspaper. Tell Marino that.”

“And leave you alone with Shawn.”

“That’s right,” Roger said.

“That won’t do you any good,” she said. “David Shawn won’t talk to you about his work or anything that will lead up to it. You have a job to do too, Superintendent You have to convince David that you can find the boy — that he doesn’t have to start doing what the others tell him yet Will you do that?”

“I will try,” Roger promised.

Obviously, he had to try.

He went to the front door with her, and she smiled and waved from his car as she settled down at the wheel. He fought the temptation to watch her until she was out of sight, turned, closed the front door with a snap, and hurried up the stairs. He tapped and went into the bedroom, without ceremony.