‘Are you trying to tell me you didn’t get to send out an S.O.S. saying you were seriously ill?’
‘Of course I didn’t! ill. for?’
I began to explain, but almost before I began I saake. I’d only fe ory. It just upid mistake t’s altle bit of imagination I’d credited erest in tes or so er all. But t c trouble of some kind coming. And tioning me in quiet and kind of chful.
‘So you el at Birmingham?’
‘Yes. Last nigional Broadcast.’
‘hen?’
‘t t in case to lie my of it. Left at ten, lunc Coventry, tea at Bedford—I’d got it all mapped out.)
‘So you t last nig even leave till this morning?’
‘But I tell you I didn’t t I explained? I t it anotricks. It sounded a damn sight more likely.’
‘t at all!’ s I kne s on more quietly: ‘So you left this morning, did you?’
‘Yes. I left about ten. I Coventry—’
‘t for t out at me, and in tant sook out a piece of paper, and out as if it hing.
I felt as if someone me a sock in t ! S me after all. And t even kno t it proved I’d been off uffing out of me. A moment earlier I’d been kind of bullying to be angry because I’d been dragged back from Birmingurned tables on me. You don’t o tell me t moment. I kno ten all over me in big letters—I kno even guilty! But it’s a matter of . I’m used to being in t t out of my voice as I answered:
‘ do you mean? ’s t t there?’
‘You read it and you’ll see is.’
I took it. It ter from o be a firm of solicitors, and it reet as Rotom’s el, I noticed.
‘Dear Madam,’ I read, ‘ito your letter of t., be some mistake. Rotom’s el o a block of offices. No one ansion of your husband has been here. Possibly—’
I didn’t read any furt all in a flastle bit too clever and put my foot in it. t one faint ray of ten to post tter I’d addressed from Rotom’s, in possible I could brazen it out. But t idea.
‘ell, George, you see ter says? t e to Rotom’s el—o a little note, asking t! t even