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Peters said, as if reading Laski’s mind.
    Laski covered his surprise. “But you like your garden better.”
    “In this weather, yes. Do you have a garden . . . Felix?”
    “My housekeeper tends the window boxes. I’m not a man of hobbies.” Laski reflected on Peters’s hesitant use of his Christian name. The man was slightly awestruck, he decided. Good.
    “No time, I suppose. You must work very hard.”
    “So people tell me. It’s just that I prefer to spend the hours between six p.m. and midnight making fifty thousand dollars than watching actors pretend to kill each other on television.”
    Peters laughed. “The most imaginative brain in the City turns out to have no imagination.”
    “I don’t follow that.”
    “You don’t read novels or go to the cinema, either, do you?”
    “No.”
    “You see? You’ve got a blind spot—you can’t empathize with fiction. It’s true of many of the most enterprising businessmen. The incapacity seems to go with heightened acumen, like a blind man’s hypersensitive hearing.”
    Laski frowned. Being analyzed put him at a disadvantage. “Maybe,” he said.
    Peters seemed to sense his discomfort. “I’m fascinated by the careers of great entrepreneurs,” he said.
    “So am I,” Laski said. “I’m all in favor of pinching other people’s brain waves.”
    “What was your first coup, Felix?”
    Laski relaxed. This was more familiar territory. “I suppose it was Woolwich Chemicals,” he said. “That was a small pharmaceuticals manufacturer. After the war they set up a small chain of High Street chemists’ shops, with the object of guaranteeing their markets. The trouble was, they knew all about chemistry and nothing about retailing, and the shops ate up most of the profits made by the factory.
    “I was working for a stockbroker at the time, and I’d made a little money playing the market. I went to my boss and offered him a half-share in the profits if he would finance the deal. We bought the company, and immediately sold the factory to ICI for almost as much as we paid for the shares. Then we closed the shops and sold them one by one—they were all in prime sites.”
    “I’ll never understand this sort of thing,” Peters said. “If the factory and the shops were worth so much, why were the shares cheap?”
    “Because the enterprise was losing money. They hadn’t paid a dividend for years. The management didn’t have the guts to cash in their chips, so to speak. We did. Everything in business is courage.” He started to eat his sandwich.
    “It’s fascinating,” Peters said. He looked at his watch. “I must go.”
    “Big day?” Laski said lightly.
    “Today’s one of the days—and that always means headaches.”
    “Did you solve that problem?”
    “Which?”
    “Routes.” Laski lowered his voice a fraction. “Your security people wanted you to send the convoy a different way each time.”
    “No.” Peters was embarrassed: it had been indiscreet of him to tell Laski about that dilemma. “There is really only one sensible way to get there. However . . .” He stood up.
    Laski smiled and kept his voice casual. “So today’s big shipment goes by the old direct route.”
    Peters put a finger to his lips. “Security,” he said.
    “Sure.”
    Peters picked up his raincoat. “Good-bye.”
    “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Laski said, smiling broadly.

3
    Arthur Cole climbed the steps from the station, his breath rattling unhealthily in his chest. A gust of warm air came up from the bowels of the Underground, wrapped itself snugly around him, and blew away. He shivered slightly as he emerged into the street.
    The sunshine took him by surprise—it had hardly been dawn when he boarded the train. The air was chilled and sweet. Later it would become poisonous enough to knock out a policeman on point duty. Cole remembered the first time that had happened: the story had been an Evening Post exclusive.
    He walked slowly until his breathing eased.