Death Among the Sunbathers by E.R. Punshon

wall, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched up till it seemed they nearly met his ears, his half-closed eyes fixed upon the ground. Keene came back to him. In a low, strained voice, his long arms swinging, his great bony hands opening and shutting convulsively, he said,
    â€˜I know what you are saying all this for... to find out if I’m weakening... if I’m scared... well, I’m not. You hear? I’m not. I’m going through with it.’
    â€˜Even if it comes to a ten-year stretch, same as I told you I had done?’ asked Bobs-the-Boy coolly. ‘Well, suit yourself. You must go your own way same as I went mine.’
    Keene was breathing heavily. He put his face close to the other’s and said in the same strained, unnatural voice.
    â€˜I’ve made up my mind. There’s no going back even if I wanted to. It’s that or ruin, and I’m going through with it. That’s what you can say I said, if you like.’
    â€˜And that’s that,’ observed Bobs-the-Boy, ‘only don’t say you never had a chance, and, if you ask me, this place down here is just about right for starting a jolly little fire in.’
    â€˜Hold your tongue,’ Keene almost roared at him. ‘What do you know about it? Nothing to do with you.’
    â€˜Now, Mr Keene, sir,’ Bobs-the-Boy protested mildly, ‘you did ought to give a bloke credit for having eyes in his head and some idea how to use them. I’ve done what I’ve been told to do, and had my pay, and never said a word, and never asked no questions, neither. But I’ve got my eyes, haven’t I? Brains, too, and if you kid yourself I don’t know as well as the next man that you and the other blokes mean to have some nice little fires – one in Deal Street and another here – and if you think I don’t know why you and him have been meeting regular at that place where the loonies sit in the sun in their natural – well, what did you think I had got in my brain-box? Putty?’
    â€˜If you... you... you...’ stammered Keene.
    He was more excited than ever; his long arms flew round like a windmill. Whatever it was he wanted to say, he could not get the words out. Bobs-the-Boy surveyed him with a kind of good-humoured contempt.
    â€˜Lumme, Mr Keene, sir,’ he said, ‘if you can’t keep your end up better nor that... well, where do you think you’re going to find yourself when the real thing comes along? You had better take my tip and trot along to the Yard and tell ’em all about it while there’s time. That’s what I would do if I was in your shoes, feeling the way you do.’
    â€˜Do you mean that’s what you are thinking of doing yourself, giving us away?’ Keene asked darkly.
    â€˜Have some sense,’ Bobs-the-Boy implored. ‘You know as well as I do, fixed the way I am, me on licence and not having reported, with what else they have against me into the bargain – why, I daren’t. I’m not like you, I’m not free. But I’m not denying I wouldn’t be sorry if you did, so as to be safe out of it. I tell you straight, I’m scared of how all this’ll finish.’
    â€˜You can drop that sort of talk,’ Keene said sharply. ‘I know what it means, you’ve been set on to talk that way. You can tell those who sent you I’m going through with it. I double-cross no man. Understand?’
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ answered Bobs-the-Boy calmly, ‘and though what I said was all well meant, and for your own good, and there’s time yet to think it over, and though I’m making no admissions, still if there was anyone who had sent me and told me what to say, why, then, I’ll tell ’em just what you say. So we’ll drop it, and if you’ll let me say this, I do think it was a downy trick to choose that sun bathing monkey house to meet... nothing suspicious about going