Read The End of the Affair for Free Online Page A

from his pocket in searching for the right one.
    ‘Do sit down. You make me uncomfortable.’
    ‘As you please, sir.’ Sitting down he could see me a little more closely. ‘Haven’t I met you somewhere before, sir?’ I had taken the first sheet out of the envelope: it was the expenses account, written in a very neat script as though by a schoolboy. I said, ‘You write very clearly.’
    ‘That’s my boy. I’m training him in the business.’ He added hastily, ‘I don’t put anything down for him, sir, unless I leave him in charge, like now.’
    ‘He’s in charge, is he?’
    ‘Only while I make my report, sir.’
    ‘How old is he?’
    ‘Gone twelve,’ he said as though his boy were a clock. ‘A youngster can be useful and costs nothing except a comic now and then. And nobody notices him. Boys are born lingerers.’
    ‘It seems odd work for a boy.’
    ‘Well, sir, he doesn’t understand the real significance. If it came to breaking into a bedroom, I’d leave him behind.’ I read: January 18 Two evening papers2d.
     
    Tube return l/8d.
    Coffee. Gunters 2/-
     
    He was watching me closely as I read. ‘The coffee place was more expensive than I cared for,’ he said, ‘but it was the least I could take without drawing attention.’
    January 19
    Tubes2/4d.
    Bottled Beers3/-
    Cocktail2/6d.
    Pint of Bitter1/6d.
     
    He interrupted my reading again. ‘The beer’s a bit on my conscience, sir, because I upset a glass owing to carelessness. But I was a little on edge, there being something to report. You know, sir, there’s sometimes weeks of disappointment, but this time on the second day… ‘
    Of course I remembered him, and his embarrassed boy. I read under January 19 (I could see at a glance that on January 18 there was only a record of insignificant movements): ‘The party in question went by bus to Piccadilly Circus. She seemed agitated. She proceeded up Air Street to the Cafe Royal, where a gentleman was waiting for her. Me and my boy… ‘
    He wouldn’t leave me alone. ‘You’ll notice, sir, it’s in a different hand. I never let my boy write the reports in case there’s anything of an intimate character.’
    ‘You take good care of him,’ I said.
    ‘Me and my boy sat down on a proximate couch,’ I read. ‘The party and the gentleman were obviously very close, treating each other with affectionate lack of ceremony, and I think on one occasion holding hands below the table. I could not be certain of this, but the party’s left hand was out of sight and the gentleman’s right hand too which generally indicates a squeeze of that nature. After a short and intimate conversation they proceeded on foot to a quiet and secluded restaurant known to its customers as Rules and choosing a couch rather than a table they ordered two pork chops.’
    ‘Are the pork chops important?’
    ‘They might be marks of identification, sir, if frequently indulged in.’
    ‘You didn’t identify the man, then?’
    ‘You will see, sir, if you read on.’
    ‘I drank a cocktail at the bar when I observed this order of the pork chops, but I was unable to elicit from any of the waiters or from the lady behind the bar the identity of the gentleman. Although I couched my questions in a vague and nonchalant manner they obviously aroused curiosity, and I thought it better to leave. However by striking up an acquaintance with the stage doorkeeper of the Vaudeville Theatre I was able to keep the restaurant under observation.’
    ‘How,’ I asked, ‘did you strike up the acquaintance?’
    ‘At the bar of the ‘Bedford Head’, sir, seeing as the parties were safely occupied with the order for chops, and afterwards accompanied him back to the theatre, where the stage door ‘I know the place,’
    ‘I have tried to compress my report, sir, to essentials.’
    ‘Quite right.’
    The report continued: ‘After lunch the parties proceeded together up Maiden Lane and parted outside a general grocery. I had the impression