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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

Even a 'Blue' call ' are unanswerable London's radio schedules round the world are desperately tight and their erous nuisance Strangways had never suffered the ignominy of a 'Blue' call, let alone a 'Red', and was as certain as could be that he never would do so Every evening, at precisely six-fifteen, he left Queen's Club, got into his car and drove for ten minutes up into the foothills of the Blue Mountains to his neat bungaloith the fabulous view over Kingston harbour At six twenty-five he walked through the hall to the office at the back He unlocked the door and locked it again behind him Miss Trueblood, who passed as his secretary, but was in fact his No 2 and a for in front of the dials inside the du cabinet She would have the earphones on and would be n, WXN, on 14 ant knees Strangould drop into the chair beside her and pick up the other pair of headphones and, at exactly six twenty-eight, he would take over from her and wait for the sudden hollowness in the ether that e

It was an iron routine Strangas a man of iron routine Unfortunately, strict patterns of behaviour can be deadly if they are read by an enemy

Strangways, a tall lean ht eye and the sort of aquiline good looks you associate with the bridge of a destroyer, walked quickly across the h the light mosquito-wired doors and ran down the three steps to the path

There was nothing very much on hisair and the iven him his three spades There was this case, of course, the case he orking on, a curious and complicated affair that M had rather nonchalantly tossed over the air at hi well A chance lead into the Chinese coht-for the present the ways as he strode down the gravel path and into Rich very odd indeed

Strangways shrugged his shoulders Of course it wouldn't turn out like that The fantastic never materialized in his line of business There would be soinations and the usual hysteria of the Chinese

Autoways'sslowly towards him down the sidewalk They were about twenty yards away He calculated that they would pass him a second or two before he reached his car Out of shaways felt for a coin He ran his thue to make sure it was a florin and not a penny He took it out He was parallel with the beggars How odd, they were all Chigroes! How very odd! Strangways's hand went out The coin clanged in the tin cup

“Bless you, Master,” said the leading man “Bless you,” echoed the other two

The car key was in Strangways's hand Vaguely he registered theof the white sticks ceased It was too late

As Strangways had passed the last man, all three had swivelled The back two had fanned out a step to have a clear field of fire Three revolvers, ungainly with their sausage-shaped silencers, whipped out of holsters concealed as With disciplined precision the three ways's spine-one between the shoulders, one in the small of the back, one at the pelvis

The three heavy coughs were always's body was hurled forward as if it had been kicked It lay absolutely still in the small puff of dust from the sidewalk

It was six-seventeen With a squeal of tyres, a dingyfrom the four corners of its roof took the T-intersection into Richroup on the paveways's body when the hearse slid to a stop abreast of them The double doors at the back were open So was the plain deal coffin inside The three h the doors and into the coffin They climbed in The lid was put on and the doors pulled shut The three Negroes sat down on three of the four little seats at the corners of the coffin and unhurriedly laid their white sticks beside the over the backs of the seats They put the coats on over their rags Then they took off their baseball caps and reached down to the floor and picked up black top hats and put them on their heads

The driver, who also was a Chinese Negro, looked nervously over his shoulder

“Go, lanced down at the luminous dial of his wrist watch It said six-twenty Just three minutes for the job Dead on time

The hearse made a decorous U-turn and moved at a sedate speed up to the intersection There it turned right and at thirty hway towards the hills, its black plunal of its burden and the three ht with their arms crossed respectfully over their hearts