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decided it was only pigheadedness.
    “Had a good look?” he muttered to himself, then turned on his heels in embarrassment and headed in the direction he had come from.
    Halfway up the arcade, Gregory couldn’t resist an irrational impulse to turn and look back. The “stranger” stopped also. He was far away now among some brightly lit, empty shops, heading down the arcade, busy with his own affairs in his mirror world. Gregory angrily adjusted his belt in its buckle, pushed his hat farther back on his head, and went out into the street.
    The next arcade led him straight to the Europa. The doorman opened the glass door for him, and Gregory strode past the tables toward the purple glare of the bar. He was so tall that he had no trouble seating himself on one of the high stools.
    “White Horse?” asked the bartender. Gregory nodded.
    The bottle tinkled as if there were a glass bell hidden inside it. Gregory drank quickly. The White Horse was acrid; it tasted something like fuel oil and burned his throat … he hated it. It so happened, however, that several times in a row he had stopped at the Europa with Kinsey, a young colleague at the Yard, and each time he’d had a drink of White Horse with him; from then on the bartender had considered Gregory a regular customer and made a point of remembering his preferences. Actually, Gregory had only been meeting with Kinsey in order to put the finishing touches on an apartment exchange. He really preferred warm beer to whiskey, but was ashamed to order it in such a fashionable place.
    Gregory had ended up at the Europa now simply because he didn’t feel like going home. Meditating over the shot glass, he decided to see if he could organize all the facts of the “series” in some kind of systematic pattern, but found that he couldn’t remember a single name or date.
    He downed his drink, tilting his head back with an exaggerated gesture.
    He flinched. The bartender was saying something to him.
    “What? What did you say?”
    “Do you want supper? We have venison today, it’s in season.”
    “Venison?”
    He couldn’t understand a word the bartender was saying.
    “Oh, supper,” it finally dawned on him. “No. Please pour me another.”
    The bartender nodded. He rinsed out the glass at a silver-colored tap, rattling the faucets as if he wanted to smash them into little pieces, then raised his reddened, hard, muscular face to Gregory, and, watching through beady eyes, whispered.
    “Are you looking for a—?”
    There was no one else near the bar.
    “No. What the hell are you talking about?” Gregory added indignantly, as if that had been his real purpose and he’d been caught in the act.
    “No, nothing. I thought that you … for service,” the bartender mumbled, withdrawing to the other end of the bar. Someone touched Gregory’s arm lightly. He whirled around in a flash and was unable to hide his disappointment: it was a waiter.
    “Pardon me… Lieutenant Gregory? Telephone for you, sir.”
    Walking as quickly as possible to avoid being jostled, Gregory made his way through the crowd on the dance floor. The light in the telephone booth was burned out, so he stood in darkness, except when an occasional flash from the revolving light over the bar streamed through the booth’s little round window.
    “Hello, Gregory speaking.”
    “This is Sheppard.”
    At the sound of the Chief’s far-off voice, Gregory’s heart began to beat faster.
    “Lieutenant, I want to see you.”
    “Of course, Chief Inspector. When should I…”
    “I’d rather not put it off. Do you have time?”
    “Naturally, yes sir. Tomorrow?”
    “No. Today, if you can. Can you make it?”
    “Yes sir, of course.”
    “That’s fine. Do you know where I live?”
    “No, but I can—”
    “Eighty-five Walham Street, in Paddington. Can you come over now?”
    “Yes.”
    “Perhaps you’d rather come in an hour or two.”
    “No, I can come now.”
    “All right, I’m expecting you.”
    The