Читать книгу Seven Sins онлайн

64 страница из 79

"Nothing left to scrub, what?" said the K.C. "Othello's occupation gone."

A lorry pulled up. It had come from Southampton during the night, and the driver and his mate climbed out of the cab, stretching their cramped limbs, and joined the group at the stall.

"We ain't late for the news, Bill, are we?" asked the driver.

"Two minutes yet," was the prompt reply. "Bread and butter with yours?"

"Bread an' what!" growled the other. "Give it its right name, chum."

"Margarine is good for us, as a matter of fact; Lord Woolton told me so," said Michael Corcoran. "Got to prefer it to butter, myself."

"Every man to his fancy," muttered the milkman. "But give me the stuff what I used to bring round in the good old days. Cows makes better butter than what coconut trees does."

Another customer appeared. He glanced in a doubtful way at the group about the stall, and then diffidently joined it.

This was a young Royal Air Force officer, a tall slim fellow with the lines of an athlete. He had dark brown wavy hair and very steadfast blue eyes, beneath straight brows. But in the group about the stall, there were two trained observers. The hair which showed beneath the new arrival's cap was slightly dishevelled; his shoes were dirty; and palpably he had not shaved that morning. This, in conjunction with the type of man and the tradition of the Royal Air Force, gave rise to speculation in the mind of the officer from Vine Street, and in that of Michael Corcoran, K.C. Charitably, they formed identical, but inaccurate deductions (a thick night); Corcoran furtively winked at the police sergeant, and the sergeant winked back. They understood one another.