“Cold?” said the tramp. “We’d best be going back then, don’t want you coming down with any summer colds now, do we?”

The Captain followed the tramp back towards the Mission with doglike obedience. As the tramp strode on ahead of him the Captain watched the broad shoulders swing to and fro in a perfect rhythm. Surely the tramp had grown, surely his bearing was prouder, finer than before.

No wonder, all the food he eats, thought the Captain. But who was he? His age was indeterminate; he could be anything between twenty and fifty. There was a vagueness about his features which eluded definition. The Captain had gone to great lengths to draw some information from him regarding his name, family and background, but the tramp was infuriatingly evasive. He had made only one statement upon these matters and this was, “There are five here that know my name and when they speak it, all shall know.” As to who these five were, the Captain was unable to guess. Possibly the tramp alluded to five of the fictional names he had quoted from the Mission’s yearly reports.

The tramp turned into the Mission, which he opened with his own key. The Captain followed meekly; the tramp was wearing down his resistance to a point that he no longer questioned any of his actions.

“I wish to speak to you upon a delicate matter,” said the tramp suddenly. “It is a matter which affects both our futures and one which I know lies heavily upon your soul.” The Captain raised a bristling eyebrow. “Possibly you will wish to open the reserve bottle of rum you keep in the locked cupboard beneath the stairs in order to fortify yourself for what I am about to say.”

The Captain humbly obeyed. The two seated themselves upon either side of the Captain’s table and two large tots of rum were poured.

“It has come to my notice,” said the tramp, “that there is one not far from here who would do us harm.”

The Captain’s face showed no expression but his mind paid silent homage to anyone who would wish ill upon his guest.

“One Brian Crowley,” said the tramp. The Captain started up in astonishment. “It has come to my notice,” the tramp continued, “that this man harbours the desire to close down this Mission and to dismiss you, my honourable host, without thanks or pension. You who have done so much for the poor and needy, you who have dedicated your life to the unfortunate.” The Captain shifted uneasily in his seat. “There is, I understand, a conspiracy between this Crowley,” again he spoke the hated name, “and a certain Councillor Wormwood, to demolish this Mission in order to extend the Butts Car Park.”

The Captain bit upon his lip. So that was their intention was it? How the tramp could have come by this intelligence was, of course, beyond any conjecture, but the Captain hung upon his every word. “I have given the matter much thought,” he told the tramp. “Night after night I have lain cursing the very name of Crowley and racking my brain for a solution, but none have I found.”

“I think that one might be relatively close at hand,” said the tramp, “in fact, I feel its warm breath upon my neck even now.” The Captain poured two more large tots of rum. “We shall invite these two individuals to dinner,” said the tramp.

The Captain bent double in a fit of frenzied coughing. “Calm yourself,” said the tramp.

“I fear,” said the Captain, “that the breath you feel upon your neck is one of severe halitosis.”

The tramp’s face was without expression, he drank down his tot of rum and watched the Captain, his eyes unblinking, two drops of blood upon colourless orbs. “Thursday night would be ideal,” said the tramp.

“But what if they won’t come. After all, Crowley hates me and Wormwood will never want to expose himself in anyway.”

“They will come,” said the tramp, “and I think I can promise you a most entertaining evening.” His ghastly eyes glittered with a fierce luminosity and the Captain tossed back his rum with a quivering hand.

Brian Crowley held up the gilt-edged invitation card to the sunlight. It presented a most extraordinary appearance, almost transparent and clearly wrought of the finest vellum. Never for one moment would he have attributed such style, taste or elegance to the old sea captain. The edging of the card had more the look of being worked in gold leaf than sprayed in the gilded paint of the printer’s shop. The typeface was of a design that Brian did not recognize, its finely drawn serifs and cunning arabesques seeming of almost Islamic origin. And the smell of it, something stirred within him, some recollection from his past. It was the smell of incense, church incense. He had smelt it many times before, as a choirboy at St Mary’s, that was it, church incense.

While Brian’s romantic imagination ran in luminous spirals about the card the callous side to his nature gloated, for the card which had flopped through his burnished letterbox to land with the many plain brown wrappers upon the purple shagpile bore an inscription which made his heart leap for joy.

YOU ARE FORMALLY INVITED TO A RECEPTION amp; BANQUET ON THURSDAY 15TH JUNE AT THE SEAMAN’S MISSION, BRENTFORD IN CELEBRATION OF THAT HONORABLE ESTABLISHMENT’S CENTENARY YEAR AND ALSO TO HONOUR CAPTAIN HORATIO B. CARSON UPON THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS RETIREMENT

Black Tie

R.S.V.P.

7.30 p.m. for 8.00 p.m.

Admission by this card only

Brian sighed deeply and pressed the scented card to his lips. Things could not have been better, the Captain to announce his retirement! He had not realized that it was the Mission’s Centenary Year, but it was clear that for the sake of appearances he must attend. The rest of the Committee would be there and his absence would not go unnoticed.

He would R.S.V.P. this very morning. At last the wheels of fortune were beginning to turn to his advantage. He could almost smell the delicious odours of Mario’s cooking.

10

As Monday turned into Tuesday and Tuesday did what was expected of it the patrons of the Flying Swan grew increasingly uneasy. Strange changes were taking place amid the timeless decor of the saloon bar. A grotesquely moth-eaten bison’s head had materialized above the counter and traces of sawdust had begun to appear about the floor. A large painting of a rotund and pinkly powdered female, clad only in the scantiest of ostrich-feather boas and an enticing if tobacco-stained smile, had been hung lopsidedly over the dartboard. “A temporary inconvenience,” Neville assured the irate dart-players. “Hold on thar pardners.” But the casters of the feathered flight sought their amusements elsewhere at Jack Lane’s or the New Inn.

“Son of a gun,” said Jim Pooley.

It was John Omally, a man who looked upon himself, no matter how ironically, as a guardian of the neighbourhood’s morals, who was the first to notice the new selection which had found its way into the disabled jukebox. “The Wheel of the Wagon is Broken?” he said suddenly, his coarse accent cutting through the part-time barman’s thoughts like a surgeon’s scalpel. “A Four-Legged Friend?”

Neville hung his head in shame. “It is regrettable,” said he, “but the brewery feel it necessary to alter the selection on that thing to keep in pace with what they think to be the vogue.”

“Come on now,” said Omally, “surely it is the brewery who are dictating this particular vogue with their horrendous plans for a Western Barbeque and all its attendant horrors.”

“Don’t forget the extension and the cheap drink,” Neville reminded his Irish customer.

Omally cocked his head thoughtfully to one side. “It is a poor consolation for the ghastly transfiguration currently taking place in this establishment, I am thinking.”

Jim agreed. “To think I’d see the day when three of the Swan’s finest arrowmen defect to Jack Lane’s.”