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I

I HEAR YOU LOUD AND CLEAR

punctually at six o’clock the sun set with a last yellow flash behind the Blue Mountains, a wave of violet shadow poured down Richardens began to zing and tinkle

Apart froround noise of the insects, the wide e, withdrawn houses-the bank ers, company directors and top civil servants-had been ho the day with their wives or taking a shower and changing their clothes In half an hour the street would coain with the cocktail traffic, but now this very superior half mile of ’Rich Road’, as it was known to the trades but the suspense of an eht-scented jasmine

Richmond Road is the ’best’ road in all Jaton Palace Gardens, its Avenue D’lena The ’best’ people live in its big old-fashioned houses, each in an acre or two of beautiful lawn set, too trimly, with the finest trees and flowers froht road is cool and quiet and withdrawn froston where its residents earn their money, and, on the other side of the T-inter-section at its top, lie the grounds of King’s House, where the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Jamaica lives with his fa

On the eastern corner of the top intersection stands No 1 Richmond Road, a substantial two-storey house with broad white-painted verandas running round both floors Froravel path leads up to the pillared entrance through wide lawns , as on all evenings, the sprinklers are at work This ston It is Queen’s Club, which, for fifty years, has boasted the power and frequency of its blackballs

Such stubborn retreats will not long survive in modern Jamaica One day Queen’s Club will have its s sround, but for the ti it is a useful place to find in a sub-tropical island-well run, well staffed and with the finest cuisine and cellar in the Caribbean At that-tis of the year, you would find the sa in the road outside the club They were the cars belonging to the high bridge game that asseht You could al froainst the kerb, to the Brigadier in coston’s leading criston University At the tail of the line stood the black Sunbeaional Control Officer for the Caribbean-or, less discreetly, the local representative of the British Secret Service

Just before six-fifteen, the silence of Richars came round the corner of the intersection and moved slowly down the paveroes-bulkyat the kerb with their white sticks They walked in file The first lasses and could presu a tin cup against the crook of the stick in his left hand The right hand of the second ht hand of the third on the shoulder of the second The eyes of the second and third s and wore dirty jippa-jappa baseball caps with long peaks They said nothing and no noise ca of their sticks as they caroup of cars

The three blind ston, where there are many diseased people on the streets, but, in this quiet rich empty street, they made an unpleasant iroes This is not a common mixture of bloods

In the cardrooreen pool of the centre table and gathered up the four cards There was a quiet snap as the trick went to join the rest

"Hundred honours," said Strangways, "and ninety below!" He looked at his watch and stood up "Back in twenty minutes Your deal, Bill Order some drinks Usual for one I always spot thehed shortly He pinged the bell by his side and raked the cards in towards hio cold just as your partner’s in the as already out of the door The three nedly in their chairs The coloured steward came in and they ordered drinks for theways

There was thisat six-fifteen, about halfway through their second rubber At this time precisely, even if they were in the o to his ’office’ and ’as a vital part of their four and they put up with it It was never explained what ’the call’ was, and no one asked Strangways’s job was ’hush’ and that was that He was rarely away for more than twenty minutes and it was understood that he paid for his absence with a round of drinks

The drinks ca

In fact, this was the ways’s day-the time of his duty radio contact with the powerful transent’s Park that is the headquarters of the Secret Service Every day, at eighteen-thirty local ti the day before that he would not be on the air-when he had business on one of the other islands in his territory, for instance, or was seriously ill-he would transmit his daily report and receive his orders If he failed to come on the air precisely at six-thirty, there would be a second call, the ’Blue’ call, at seven, and, finally, the ’Red’ call at seven-thirty After this, if his transency’, and Section III, his controlling authority in London, would urgently get on the job of finding out what had happened to him