fine," the young man answered. "Got a drink. Name isn't Ricky.""Not Ricky?" Reggie shook his head frowning. "Could've sworn you were good old Ricky Davis, chap I knew at school. Well, how're things?"

"Good," the young man answered. "Have a drink?"

"Got one," Reggie said. "Got to go now. It's been nice seeing you again, Ricky."

He started to weave his way back to the bar. Suddenly he stopped, his eyes focusing in fascination on the figure of a man at the bar. A man who had appropriated the seat which Reggie had vacated.

The man was small and dark. His eyes were narrow and inscrutable. He was the same person Reggie had seen at the club. The breath left Reggie's lungs in a rush. Obviously the man had followed him here!

As he stood, transfixed, in the middle of the floor, the man turned and looked straight at him, a peculiar thoughtful expression on his dark face. After studying Reggie for a long interval he turned slowly back to the bar.

Reggie swallowed what was left of his drink in one gulp, but the liquor had no effect on him. After the shock he'd received it would take liquid dynamite to bolster him up.

He reeled back to the tall young man who was leaning against the wall.

"Ricky!" he cried hoarsely. "I'm being followed. Axis agents are after me."

"Name isn't Ricky," the tall young man said. "Why?"

"Why what?" Reggie said blankly. He seemed to have fumbled the conversational ball. He wished the young man would speak with more clarity and add a few articles and pronouns to his sentences.

"Why are they following you?" the young man said peevishly. "Nothing better to do?"

"That's just it," Reggie said. "I don't know why I'm being followed. But everywhere I go this little man sticks to me like a postage stamp."

"Where is he now?"

Reggie pointed dramatically at the dark little man.

"At the bar. He took the stool I left. He's right between that fat old man and that young girl with the red hair."

The tweed-clad young man stared in the direction of Reggie's pointing finger, then he frowned and glanced down at Reggie.

 Prev. P 4/17 next