'Hullo?
Is that Museum 0488?
Can you tell me if anyone of the name of Baker lives there?
Oh; who is that speaking?
A night porter.
Yes. Yes, I understand.
Not offices.
No, no of course.
Can you give me the address?
Yes, it's rather important.'
He paused. He called to us over his shoulder. 'I think we've got him,' he said.
Oh, God, don't let it be true.
Don't let Baker be found.
Please God make Baker be dead.
I knew who Baker was.
I had known all along.
I watched Frank through the door, I watched him lean forward suddenly, reach for a pencil and a piece of paper.
'Hullo?
Yes, I'm still here.
Could you spell it?
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Good night.'
He came back into the room, the piece of paper in his hands.
Frank who loved Maxim, who did not know that the piece of paper he held was the one shred of evidence that was worth a damn in the whole nightmare of our evening, and that by producing it he could destroy Maxim as well and truly as though he had a dagger in his hand and stabbed him in the back.
'It was the night porter from an address in Bloomsbury,' he said.
'There are no residents there at all.
The place is used during the day as a doctor's consulting rooms.
Apparently Baker's given up practice, and left six months ago.
But we can get hold of him all right.
The night porter gave me his address.
I wrote it down on this piece of paper.'
Chapter twenty-five
It was then that Maxim looked at me.
He looked at me for the first time that evening.
And in his eyes I read a message of farewell.
It was as though he leant against the side of a ship, and I stood below him on the quay.
There would be other people touching his shoulder, and touching mine, but we would not see them.
Nor would we speak or call to one another, for the wind and the distance would carry away the sound of our voices.
But I should see his eyes and he would see mine before the ship drew away from the side of the quay.
Favell, Mrs Danvers, Colonel Julyan, Frank with the slip of paper in his hands, they were all forgotten at this moment.
It was ours, inviolate, a fraction of time suspended between two seconds.
And then he turned away and held out his hand to Frank.
'Well done,' he said.
'What's the address?'
'Somewhere near Barnet, north of London,' said Frank, giving him the paper.
'But it's not on the telephone.
We can't ring him up.'
'Satisfactory work, Crawley,' said Colonel Julyan, 'and from you too, Mrs Danvers.
Can you throw any light on the matter now?'