Free Tanner's Virgin by Lawrence Block

wasn’t hungry, so I went straight on to another theater and saw an English film based on the Great Train Robbery. The police were magnificently efficient in the film and everyone got caught at the end, so this one did even less for my morale than the other two. I was beginning to worry that Portsmouth might run out of movies before I ran out of spare time, but the third movie was the charm; when I left the theater the evening papers were on the street. I bought both of the London dailies, and they both had what I waslooking for. One called it MULTILATION AND MURDER IN SOHO SIN FLAT . The other said AMERICAN SOUGHT IN SOHO TORTURE SLAYING . Aside from that, they both told about the same story. They both spelled my name right, and they both used the same photograph over it.
    I read them in the lavatory of a side-street pub. They did not make me very happy. It was all my own fault, of course. I had left fingerprints all over the murder flat, mainly because it never occurred to me not to. I didn’t suspect that the English authorities would have my prints on file. Evidently they had obtained them a while back from Washington, because the body of Arthur Hook had not been discovered until shortly after midnight, and they could hardly have run a check through Washington that quickly.
    It was fingerprints that put them onto me, but it was the two useless guns that told them where to look for me. The police identified them as theatrical props, routed people out of bed to check out various prop departments, and had them connected to Nigel in no time at all. I was beginning to appreciate why Scotland Yard enjoyed its extraordinary reputation. But not even the best police force on earth can cope with dumb luck, which was why I was in Portsmouth instead of jail.
    Someone knocked on the lavatory door. I grunted in-articulately and went on reading. According to both articles, I was a Jacobite fanatic and known terrorist, and a variety of odd theories were advanced as probable explanations of my connection with Arthur Hook (alias Smythe-Carson, alias Wyndham-Jones). He had an interesting criminal record and I’m sure no one much regretted his death, but this didn’t mean they weren’tinterested in getting their hands on his killer. All air and sea ports were being watched, all ticket offices had been circularized. Special attention was being paid to the Scottish border in view of my Jacobite connections.
    This last bothered me. If I was going to get out of England, I was going to need help, and other members of the Jacobite League seemed like my best chance. They share my hope of chasing Betty Battenberg off the throne and restoring the venerable House of Stuart. There were any number of loyal men in the Scottish Highlands who would have sheltered me, but it looked as though that was precisely where the Yard would look first.
    Another knock at the door. I folded the papers, grunted again, gave the loo an unnecessary flush, and sidled out of the door to keep the room’s new occupant from seeing my face. It was wasted effort; he was far more interested in the room than in its previous tenant, and I walked on through the pub and out into the street.
    The Jacobites were out, I decided. And now that Nigel had been picked up, the Flat-Earth people might well be under surveillance. Even if this weren’t the case, I couldn’t quite see running to them now. A man has to be something of a nonconformist to uphold the theory that the earth is flat, but this does not imply his readiness to grant sanctuary to a murderer.
    I had to find some political extremists, and I had to go somewhere close, and I had to deal with people who were in the habit of traveling from one country to another without going through customs. Of course I could use my passport once I was well out of England, but—
    The hell I could. It was in my jacket pocket, and my jacket, when last seen, was in Nigel’s living room.
    I found another pub.