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turned and drove into Sloane Square without a glance in the direction of his house. He found a parking space in Sloane Street, pulled in and rapidly wrote in his diary seven sets of numbers. They belonged to the seven cars parked along Bywater Street. What should he do? Stop a policeman? Whoever he was, he was probably gone by now. Besides there were other considerations. He locked the car again and crossed the road to a telephone kiosk. He rang Scotland Yard, got through to Special Branch and asked for Inspector Mendel. But it appeared that the Inspector, having reported back to the Superintendent, had discreetly anticipated the pleasures of retirement and left for Mitch-am. Smiley got his address after a good deal of prevarication, and set off once more in his car, covering three sides of a square and emerging at Albert Bridge. He had a sandwich and a large whisky at a new pub overlooking the river and a quarter of an hour later was crossing the bridge on the way to Mitcham, the rain still beating down on his inconspicuous little car. He was worried, very worried indeed.
    VI
    TEA AND SYMPATHY
    It was still raining as he arrived. Mendel was in his garden wearing the most extraordinary hat Smiley had ever seen. It had begun life as an Anzac hat but its enormous brim hung low all the way round, so that he resembled nothing so much as a very tall mushroom. He was brooding over a tree stump, a wicked looking pick-axe poised obediently in his sinewy right hand. He looked at Smiley sharply for a moment, then a grin slowly crossed his thin face as he extended his hand. "Trouble," said Mendel. "Trouble." Smiley followed him up the path and into the house. Suburban and comfortable. "There's no fire in the living-room--only just got back. How about a cup of tea in the kitchen?" "But why did he ask you in?" Smiley blinked and coloured a little. "That's what I wondered. It put me off my balance for a moment. It was lucky-I had the parcel." He took a drink of tea. "Though I don't believe he was taken in by the parcel. He may have been, but I doubt it. I doubt it very much." "Not taken in?" "Well, I wouldn't have been. Little man in a Ford delivering parcels of linen. Who could I have been? Besides, I asked for Smiley and then didn't want to see him--he must have thought that was pretty queer." "But what was he after? What would he have done with you? Who did he think you were?" "That's just the point, that's just it, you see. I think it was me he was waiting for, but of course he didn't expect me to ring the bell. I put him off balance. I think he wanted to kill me. That's why he asked me in: he recognised me but only just, probably from a photograph." Mendel looked at him in silence for a while. "Christ," he said. "Suppose I'm right," Smiley continued, "all the way. Suppose Fennan was murdered last night and I did nearly follow him this morning. Well, unlike your trade, mine doesn't normally run to a murder a day." "Meaning what?" "I don't know. I just don't know. Perhaps before we * go much further you'd check on these cars for me. They were parked in Bywater Street this morning." "Why not do it yourself?" Smiley looked at him, puzzled, for a second. Then it dawned on him that he hadn't mentioned his resignation. "Sorry. I didn't tell you, did I? I resigned this morning. Just managed to get it in before I was sacked. So I'm free as air. And about as employable." Mendel took the list of numbers from him and went into the hall to telephone. He returned a couple of minutes later. "They'll ring back in an hour," he said. "Come on. I'll show you round the estate. Know anything about bees, do you?" "Well, a very little, yes. I got bitten with the natural history bug at Oxford." He was going to tell Mendel how he had wrestled with Goethe's metamorphoses of plants and animals in the hope of discovering, like Faust, "what sustains the world at its inmost point." He wanted to explain why it was impossible to understand nineteenth-century Europe