The Man in the Shadow [antikvár]

CHAPTER I Although she had been flying over an hour it was only when Jess saw the snowy peaks of the Pyrenees soaring out of the earth ahead of the aircraft that she realized she had more or less burned her boats behind her. It seemed much longer than a week ago that Oliver Preston, her boss and editor, had called her into his room and told her to sit on the comfortable chair. That in itself should have told her that this was no ordinary briefing. He wasted no time. ' What does the name Richard Kendall mean to you?' 'Richard Kendall? Why, nothi . . She stopped abruptly. That was not the answer he wanted, so she searched into her memory, mentally trying to sift through the newspaper files. She came up triumphant—^her father's daughter after all. ' The man who didn't defend himself. That was what they called him, wasn't it? He was a well-known surgeon accused of negligence. And wasn't there something about the death of his wife?' ' And child. You're on the right lines, Jess. You can look up the details later. After the enquiry he disappeared. A lot of people tried to find him and failed. The important thing is that I know where he is now. I believed then there was a big story there somewhere that never came to light, I still believe it. You, Jess, are going to dig out that story.' Jess stared at him in dismay. 'But I'm not a reporter; you know I'm not a reporter.' His big body moved impatiently in its chair, but his smile was still genial as he said, ' I know you've spent 5