Smiley put down the receiver and walked quickly past the reception desk towards the front door. He must see Rigby at once. Just as he was leaving the hotel he heard his name called. Turning, he saw his old enemy, the night porter, braving the light of day, beckoning to him like Charon with his grey hand.

'They've been on to you from the police station,' he observed with undisguised pleasure; 'Mr Rigby wants you, the Inspector. You're to go there at once. At once, see?'

'I'm on my way there now,' Smiley replied irritably, and as he pushed his way through the swing doors he heard the old man repeat; 'At once, mind; they're waiting for you.'

Making his way through the Carne streets, he reflected for the hundredth time on the obscurity of motive in human action: there is no true thing on earth. There is no constant, no dependable point, not even in the purest logic or the most obscure mysticism; least of all in the motives of men when they are moved to act violently.

Had the murderer, now so near discovery, found contentment in the meticulous administration of his plans? For now it was clear beyond a doubt; this was a murder devised to the last detail, even to the weapon inexplicably far from the place of its use; a murder with clues cast to mislead, a murder planned to look unplanned, a murder for a string of beads. Now the mystery of the footprints was solved: having put the overshoes into the parcel, the murderer had walked down the path to the gate, and his own prints had been obscured by the subsequent traffic of feet.

Rigby looked tired.

'You've heard the news, sir, I suppose?'

'What news?'

'About the boy, the boy in Fielding's house, missing all night?'

'No.' Smiley felt suddenly sick. 'No, I've heard nothing.'

'Good Lord, I thought you knew! Half past eight last night Fielding rang us here. Perkins, his head boy, hadn't come back from a music lesson with Mrs Harlowe, who lives over to Longemede. We put out an alert and started looking for him. They sent a patrol car along the road he should have come back on—he was cycling, you see. The first time they didn't see anything, but on the way back the driver stopped the car at the bottom of Longemede Hill, just where the water-splash is. It occurred to him the lad might have taken a long run at the water-splash from the top of the hill, and come to grief in the dip. They found him half in the ditch, his bike beside him. Dead.'

'Oh, my dear God.'

'We didn't let on to the press at first. The boy's parents are in Singapore. The father's an Army officer. Fielding sent them a telegram. We've got on to the War Office, too.'

They were silent for a moment, then Smiley asked 'How did it happen?'

'We've closed the road and we've been trying to reconstruct the accident. I've got a detective over there now, just having a look. Trouble is, we couldn't do much till the morning. Besides, the men trampled everywhere; you can't blame them. It looks as though he must have fallen near the bottom of the hill and hit his head on a stone: his right temple.'

'How did Fielding take it?'

'He was very shaken. Very shaken indeed. I wouldn't have believed it, to be quite honest. He just seemed to… give up. There was a lot that had to be done—telegraph the parents, get in touch with the boy's uncle at Windsor, and so on. But he just left all that to Miss Truebody, his housekeeper. If it hadn't been for her, I don't know how he'd have managed. I was with him for about half an hour, then he just broke down, completely, and asked to be left alone.'

'How do you mean, broke down?' Smiley asked quickly.

'He cried. Wept like a child,' said Rigby evenly. 'I'd never have thought it.'

Smiley offered Rigby a cigarette and took one himself.

'I suppose,' he ventured, 'it was an accident?'

'I suppose so,' Rigby replied woodenly.

'Perhaps,' said Smiley, 'before we go any farther, I'd better give you my news. I was on my way to see you when you rang. I've just heard from Miss Brimley.' And in his precise, rather formal way he related all that Ailsa Brimley had told him, and how he had become curious about the contents of the parcel.

Smiley waited while Rigby telephoned to London. Almost mechanically, Rigby described what he wanted done: the parcel and its contents were to be collected and arrangements made to subject them immediately to forensic examination; the surfaces should be tested for finger-prints. He would be coming up to London himself with some samples of a boy's handwriting and an examination paper; he would want the opinion of a handwriting expert. No, he would be coming by train on the 4.25 from Carne, arriving at Waterloo at 8.05. Could a car be sent to the station to collect him? There was silence, then Rigby said testily, 'All right, I'll take a ruddy taxi,' and rang off rather abruptly. He looked at Smiley angrily for a moment, then grinned, plucked at his ear and said:

'Sorry, sir; getting a bit edgy.' He indicated the far wall with his head and added, 'Fighting on too many fronts, I suppose. I shall have to tell the Chief about that parcel, but he's out shooting at the moment—only pigeon, with a couple of friends, he won't be long—but I haven't mentioned your presence here in Carne, as a matter of fact, and if you don't mind I'll…'

'Of course,' Smiley cut in quickly. 'It's much simpler if you keep me out of it.'

'I shall tell him it was just a routine inquiry. We shall have to mention Miss Brimley later… but there's no point in making things worse, is there?'

'No.'

'I shall have to let Janie go, I suppose… She was right, wasn't she? Silver wings in the moonlight.'

'I wouldn't—no, I wouldn't let her go, Rigby,' said Smiley with unaccustomed vehemence. 'Keep her with you as long as you can possibly manage. No more accidents, for heaven's sake. We've had enough.'

'Then you don't believe Perkins's death was an accident?'

'Good Lord, no,' cried Smiley suddenly, 'and nor do you, do you?'

'I've put a detective on to it,' Rigby replied coolly. 'I can't take the case myself. I shall be needed on the Rode murder. The Chief will have to call the Yard in now; there'll be hell to pay I can tell you. He thought it was all over bar the shouting.'

'And in the meantime?'

'In the meantime, sir, I'm going to do my damnedest to find out who killed Stella Rode.'

'If,' said Smiley slowly, 'if you find fingerprints on that mackintosh, which I doubt, will you have anything… local… to compare them with?'

'We've got Rode's, of course, and Janie's.'

'But not Fielding's?'

Rigby hesitated.

'As a matter of fact, we have,' he said at last. 'From long ago. But nothing to do with this kind of thing.'

'It was during the war,' said Smiley. 'His brother told me. Up in the North. It was hushed up, wasn't it?'

Rigby nodded. 'So far as I heard, only the D'Arcys knew; and the Master, of course. It happened in the holidays—some Air Force boy. The Chief was very helpful…'

Smiley shook hands with Rigby and made his way down the familiar pine staircase. He noticed again the vaguely institutional smell of floor polish and carbolic soap, like the smell at Fielding's house.

He walked slowly back towards the Sawley Arms. At the point where he should have turned left to his hotel, however, he hesitated, then seemed to change his mind. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he crossed the road to the Abbey Close, and walked along the southern edge towards Fielding's house. He looked worried, almost frightened.