"Why not?" asked Vallon. "Thinking never hurts any one."
She smiled at him; went out of the bar.
The bar-tender said: "I didn't know it was your birthday, sir."
"Of course you didn't," said Vallon. He paid for the drinks. "How should you? Even I didn't know it. Not until recently."
He got off the stool. He said: "My mother was a very secretive woman. She never let any of us know when we were born."
He walked out of the bar; down Regent Street; into St. James's Square. He started up the car; drove into Piccadilly; turned westwards.
He thought he'd been everywhere else; that he might as well go to Chertsey.
IT WAS JUST after nine o'clock when Vallon parked his car in a lane near the Mandrake Club. He switched off the lights; lighted a cigarette. He walked down the lane; turned into a
