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pushed him off the step, and said angrily, ‘Go on – go to your death, you fool.’
    The door slammed into place and for a moment he stood looking at it, and then he turned and walking down through the tangled garden, let himself out into the rain-swept square.

CHAPTER THREE
    W HEN Fallon reached the meeting place he found Murphy waiting for him. The boy was sitting behind the wheel of an old Austin reading a newspaper. Fallon walked quickly round to the other side of the car and opened the door. Murphy looked up, an expression of alarm on his face. He smiled with relief. ‘God help us, Mr. Fallon. I thought you were the polis.’
    Suddenly Fallon felt desperately sorry for the boy. He wanted to tell him that this was how it would always be. That there was no romance and no adventure in it at all. That from now on he would live with fear. But he said none of these things. He looked into the boy’s eager, reckless young face and saw himself twenty years ago. He smiled and said, ‘Do you smoke?’ Murphy nodded and they lit cigarettes and sat back in comfort while the rain drummed on the roof.
    ‘Do you like the car?’ Murphy asked. Fallon nodded, and the boy went on. ‘I got it a bit cheaper, but I thought it would be less conspicuous. Did I do right?’
    Fallon laughed lightly. ‘You used your head,’ he said. ‘And that’s the only thing that keeps men like us out of the hands of the police.’
    Murphy flushed with pleasure. ‘Will you have a look at that stuff I was telling you about, Mr. Fallon?’
    Fallon nodded and the boy took the car away from the kerb in a sudden burst of speed. ‘Steady on!’ Fallon told him. ‘No sense in being picked up for dangerous driving.’
    Murphy slowed down a little and they proceeded along the main street through light traffic at a steady pace. Fallon leaned back in his seat and tipped his hat down over his eyes. Until this moment he had given the problem of how he was to get Rogan off the train no immediate thought. He considered the business soberly. At first sight it was impossible. There would be at least four detectives with Rogan. They would be well armed and in a reserved compartment. Possibly even in a reserved coach. He shook his head. It looked bad and it was one of those tricky jobs which depended on circumstances and couldn’t be properly planned beforehand. The car braked to a halt and Murphy switched off the engine. ‘We’re here. Mr. Fallon,’ he said.
    They were parked in a back street beside a high stone wall, and beyond the wall the tower of a church lifted into the sky. Fallon looked out in puzzlement. ‘Are you sure this is it?’ he said.
    The boy grinned. ‘Don’t worry, Mr. Fallon. We’re at the right place. The safest place in the world.’ He produced a bunch of keys from his pocket and got out of the car. There was a solid-looking door set in the face of the stone wall. He opened it with one of the keys and motioned Fallon through.
    Fallon found himself standing at the back of a graveyard. A forest of monuments and gravestones reared out of the ground on all sides and the church stood at the far side, firmly rooted into the ground. Murphy led the way towards the church, picking his route through the graves with care. He halted at a small wooden door that was half sunk into the ground at the base of the church walls so that three small steps led down to it. Murphy took out the bunch of keys again and selecting one of them, tried the door. It failed to open. He cursed and tried again. At the fourth attempt the door opened and he disappeared inside. Fallon followed him cautiously.
    He found himself in the half-darkness of a stone vault. Great arching ribs of stone supported the ceiling and the only light seeped through an iron grill that looked out on to the graveyard. There was a click and Murphy switched on the light. ‘It’s got everything this place, Mr. Fallon,’ he said. ‘Electric light and running water.’ He pointed to the