Half a mile beyond the place where the flat-faced man had deserted me, I stopped the Stutz in front of a grilled steel gate that blocked the road. The gate was padlocked on the inside. From either side of it tall hedging ran off into the woods. The upper part of a brown-roofed small house was visible over the hedge-top to the left.
I worked the Stutz’s horn.
The racket brought a gawky boy of fifteen or sixteen to the other side of the gate. He had on bleached whipcord pants and a wildly striped sweater. He didn’t come out to the middle of the road, but stood at one side, with one arm out of sight as if holding something that was hidden from me by the hedge.
“This Kavalov’s?” I asked.
“Yes, sir,” he said uneasily.
I waited for him to unlock the gate. He didn’t unlock it. He stood there looking uneasily at the car and at me.
“Please, mister,” I said, “can I come in?”
“What—who are you?”
“I’m the guy that Kavalov sent for. If I’m not going to be let in, tell me, so I can catch the six-fifty back to San Francisco.”
The boy chewed his lip, said, “Wait till I see if I can find the key,” and went out of sight behind the hedge.
He was gone long enough to have had a talk with somebody.