Mad Hatter's Holiday Read Free Page B

with his fingertips, more reconciled now. It had been a salutary experience.
    The smell of powder lingered round the cannon as he passed it, his thoughts firmly on optical techniques.
    She was almost certainly married. Single women of thirty didn’t gad about public beaches unaccompanied.
    Next time he would use the Zeiss. For all its clarity, the Prussian instrument had a smaller objective lens. There were undoubted advantages in a wider field of view.
    For a small woman, she had made quick progress up the pebbles. The banking was steep for a short pair of understandings to negotiate, yet she had managed it quite easily, and with such grace! Could he conceivably have underestimated her height?
    An interesting technical problem. If the alignment were even fractionally wrong in the Prussian Officer’s field glasses, there was likely to have been distortion. At that range, and allowing for the moment of the image. . . . What wouldn’t he give for a sighting with the Zeiss! Yet even if he devoted the rest of the afternoon to scanning the beach there was small chance of pinpointing her again. One didn’t even have the pink-striped towel to focus on.
    Moscrop stopped. The towel! Why the devil hadn’t he thought of it? He did have the towel to focus on. It was down there somewhere among the bathing-machines. She had given it to the attendant. Find the towel and he had a positive link with the woman!
    In seconds he was back at the side of the pier, skimming the glasses over the facade of the Grand to locate the right machines. One attendant usually had a dozen to patrol, no more. If he could identify the man. . . . Ah! Splendid! There was the fellow, bless his blue uniform, standing by his chalked list of prices. If sixpence bought half an hour’s hire there was a good chance that the bather in need of the pink-striped towel was not far away. In fact, to Moscrop’s profound satisfaction, a flash of pink and white appeared in his field of view as he moved the glasses on to the fourth machine. The towel was hanging over the open door like an ensign. The bather, apparently, had still to return from his swim.
    Moscrop surveyed the strip of beach between the machines and the water’s edge. The lens defined a number of seated groups, but the only standing figures were small children and a group of itinerant musicians. The expected form in bathing-drawers stumbling over the stones was nowhere in evidence. However, several heads were bobbing in the water. No doubt the owner of the towel was so enjoying his dip that he was prepared to pay another sixpence.
    He put down his glasses and made a calculation. At a rough and ready estimate the distance from where he was standing to the point on the esplanade nearest to the bathing-machine was not more than a quarter of a mile. If he stepped out briskly he could be there, in a matchless viewing position, before the bather got back to his machine. Even if his judgement were wrong, the fellow could hardly have towelled himself, changed and left before he reached there.
    He set off along the pier at a purposeful step, zigzagging for faster progress, his bag swinging outwards towards hapless promenaders as he went by. At the toll-gate he was approached by a photographer and almost bowled the man over. Photographs! A Permanent Memento of Your Visit to Brighton. Heavens! He had no intention of being exposed to a photographer’s lens at any time, least of all now. At the King’s Road he steered through the crowd gathered round a French string band and almost ran along the Esplanade to the front of the Grand.
    He had, of course, glanced frequently to his right as he came, to check whether a bather emerged from the water. He had seen none, but there were points on the route where his view was obstructed. In a situation such as this, he told himself, an element of risk was inevitable. It was a relief to reach the section of Esplanade overlooking the machine in question, and it was in the nature of a