The Mind Readers Read Online Free Page B

impulse in a young man who never appeared in the story again.
    For him it was a moment which he remembered with horror all his life, the instant when he decided to take a risk without knowing the form.
    While Peggie was in his corner, listening to the gossips, four floors above him young Peter Clew, who until the day before had been a very successful accountant and who was now the new Business Editor of
The Daily Paper
in the place of the late Mr Sanderton, stood regarding his new array of telephones. There were four of them and, scarcely aware of extending his neck, he made there and then a mental note to drop that celebrated ‘fixer’, ‘Pa’ Paling, forthwith.
    The man had been most useful in putting him forward for this wonderful post which had been thrust into his hands like a gift from the gods, but Mr Clew felt in his sophisticated young bones that the fellow was not very
safe
.
    He decided, therefore, that he would telephone him at home late on Saturday night and make an excuse to pass up the round of golf on the links at Hollowhill which had been so carefully arranged between them for Sunday morning. On the whole, he thought it would be better to meet Lord Ludor in some other way, at some other time. ‘Pa’ Paling might be a little sore but even so Peter Clew thought he could risk that. What was one enemy when one was as powerful as this oneself? A faint doubt assailed him but the sight of the telephones stiffened him; he sighed, and his mind closed with a snap.
    Although he learned afterwards that at that moment he had flung his business career over a cliff, what he never knew was that he had also implemented one of those extraordinary little chances which have such disproportionate consequences in the history of mankind.
    These five small indications appeared on the Thursday, and the pressure from below, at the centre, became evident on the Friday morning. Properly enough, it was most noticeable at Messrs. Godley’s island research station.

2
Boffin Island
    THE BEDROOM HALF of the converted Army hut had been done over at intervals, all the time they had been there, which was almost eighteen months, but it still looked very like the bedroom end of a converted Army hut. Helena Ferris, who was sitting at her dressing table touching her newly-tinted lips with a tissue, caught a fresh aspect of the irons in the roof through the looking glass.
    â€˜Martin. Suppose we hung a lot of cheap stage-jewellery, pearls and gold chains and coloured glass diamonds, from those things, do you think it would suggest a goldrush-town bar on the movies?’ she enquired.
    â€˜No,’ said her husband and added, not unreasonably, ‘why the hell should it?’
    â€˜I don’t know. I just thought it might.’
    He sighed. ‘Who wants to sleep in a goldrush-town bar on the movies, anyway? I just want to sleep with you, preferably anywhere else. I am several sorts of heel to make you stay on this godforsaken island. But not all research stations are like this. This is only Godley’s and Lord Ludor’s version. You haven’t married a natural whelk.’
    She laughed and turned back to the glass. ‘Poor old Martin! You’re not making me stay. I’m off for the whole half term week-end with my beloved Sam and the rest of my family. Why don’t you play truant and come with me? Paggen Mayo can’t kill you or even sack you, can he?’
    He had been lying on the bed and now sat up and looked at her appraisingly, ignoring her question.
    â€˜Whacky!’ he said. ‘I’d almost forgotten you could look like that. Hell! That’s a dangerous remark to make! Love you in slacks, too.’
    She was beautiful, two years younger than himself, and she looked now as he had always liked to see her, in a skirt and all dolled up for the city. She was very slender and naturally graceful, with deep gold hair brushed very carefully into a long bob. Her eyes were a