It drew up before the house with the same regularity I had observed on previous days. The driver descended. The door was opened. Pembroke emerged. He stepped down, adjusted his coat, and paused. It was a small pause. Barely a moment. Yet within it, there was something that might, under other circumstances, have drawn greater attention. He looked along the street. Not sharply. Not with alarm. Simply looking. Then he turned toward the door. I raised the rifle. The movement was smooth, without interruption. The barrel aligned with the point I had selected long before. The distance was known. The angle accounted for. There is a stillness that comes in such a moment. It is not the absence of sound, but the absence of distraction. The mind contains only what is necessary. Everything else falls away. My finger tightened on the trigger.
The sound, though distinct, was softened by traffic, distance and circumstance. It did not carry as it might have in clearer air. The driver was the first to understand. He stood quite still for a moment in a way that men do when the mind is ahead of the body, then shouted something I couldn’t hear through the glass. A woman further along the pavement stopped walking. She hadn’t seen anything. She’d only heard the quality of that shout and knew from it that something was wrong. Pembroke hadn’t moved since he fell.
The rifle was disassembled immediately. Each movement was carried out with practiced efficiency. The components were placed in their case.
I left the typewritten letter where the Professor had instructed. Within thirty seconds after the shot, I was ready to depart. I left by the rear, as before. The street beyond had not yet fully grasped what had occurred. There was confusion, certainly, and the first raised voices, but the shape of the event had not yet solidified into understanding. I became part of the movement. My pace was measured. Neither hurried nor slow. I passed others who were beginning to speak of something they did not yet comprehend. A man turned his head as a shout rose behind him, then continued on his way. I did not look back. My route was indirect. I turned where it was natural to turn. Paused where it was natural to pause. At one point, I stopped before a shop window and allowed my gaze to rest upon its contents, though I had no interest in them. Such actions create continuity. They place one within the ordinary flow of the day. By the time I reached my rooms, the news had begun to spread. A shooting. A man down. Speculation, already forming. Inside, I closed the door. The rifle was attended to once more. Cleaned, examined, and hidden in the compartment below my chest of drawers with the remainder of the bullets.
In the evening, I returned to my club. Routine must be maintained. The atmosphere was charged. Groups had formed, conversations overlapping, each man eager to contribute his interpretation. “Have you heard?” Hargreaves said as I took my seat. “About what?” I replied. “Shot in broad daylight. Extraordinary.” “Indeed.” “Do you think it was personal?” I arranged my cards before answering. “Such acts often are.” He nodded, satisfied. We played. The others were distracted. Their minds occupied elsewhere. Errors were made that would not ordinarily occur. I played as I always did. Observing. Adjusting. Remaining within expectation. I won more than usual. Not by design. Merely as a consequence. As the evening progressed, the intensity of the discussion began to diminish. Other subjects emerged. The event, so immediate only hours before, began its transformation into something else. A story. A matter to be discussed rather than experienced.
Although subject to local gossip the following days the Newspapers reported nothing of the assassination. The letter had contained, in the language of a foreign nation that our government was not in friendly terms with, a warning that its traitors would meet the same fate as Pembroke. It was of course astute of the Professor as the whole incident was hushed and no suspicion fell on other than the Foreign Nation in question.
Over the following days London slowly returned to itself. The streets bore little sign of disruption. An extra constable at a distant corner, Otherwise, life continued. It always does. In my rooms, I prepared for bed as I always did. My thoughts did not return to Pembroke, nor to the shot, nor to any detail of that day. I had been well compensated.
In the morning, at half past six, I would rise again