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‘If there were any witnesses,’ finished Lombard with a grin. ‘It’s just between you and me. Well, I hope you made a tidy bit out of it.’

‘Didn’t make what I should have done. Mean crowd, the Purcell gang. I got my promotion, though.’

‘And Landor got penal servitude and died in prison.’

‘I couldn’t know he was going to die, could I?’

demanded Blore.

‘No, that was your bad luck.’

‘Mine? His, you mean.’

‘Yours, too. Because, as a result of it, it looks as though your own life is going to be cut unpleasantly short.’

‘Me?’ Blore stared at him. ‘Do you think I’m going to go the way of Rogers and the rest of them? Not me! I’m watching out for myself pretty carefully, I can tell you.’

Lombard said:

‘Oh well—I’m not a betting man. And anyway if you were dead I wouldn’t get paid.’

‘Look here, Mr Lombard, what do you mean?’

Philip Lombard showed his teeth. He said:

‘I mean, my dear Blore, that in my opinion you haven’t got a chance!’

‘What?’

‘Your lack of imagination is going to make you absolutely a sitting target. A criminal of the imagination of U. N. Owen can make rings round you any time he—or she—wants to.’

Blore’s face went crimson. He demanded angrily:

‘And what about you?’

Philip Lombard’s face went hard and dangerous.

He said:

‘I’ve a pretty good imagination of my own. I’ve been in tight places before now and got out of them! I think—I won’t say more than that but I think I’ll get out of this one.’

V

The eggs were in the frying-pan. Vera, toasting bread, thought to herself:

‘Why did I make a hysterical fool of myself? That was a mistake. Keep calm, my girl, keep calm.’

After all, she’d always prided herself on her levelheadedness!

‘Miss Claythorne was wonderful—kept her head—started off swimming after Cyril at once.’

Why think of that now? All that was over—over… Cyril had disappeared long before she got near the rock. She had felt the current take her, sweeping her out to sea. She had let herself go with it—swimming quietly, floating—till the boat arrived at last…

They had praised her courage and her sang-froid…

But not Hugo. Hugo had just—looked at her…

God, how it hurt, even now, to think of Hugo…

Where was he? What was he doing? Was he engaged—married?

Emily Brent said sharply:

‘Vera, that toast is burning.’

‘Oh sorry, Miss Brent, so it is. How stupid of me.’ Emily Brent lifted out the last egg from the sizzling fat.

Vera, putting a fresh piece of bread on the toasting fork, said curiously:

‘You’re wonderfully calm, Miss Brent.’

Emily Brent said, pressing her lips together:

‘I was brought up to keep my head and never to make a fuss.’

Vera thought mechanically:

‘Repressed as a child… That accounts for a lot…’

She said:

‘Aren’t you afraid?’

She paused and then added:

‘Or don’t you mind dying?’

Dying! It was as though a sharp little gimlet had run into the solid congealed mess of Emily Brent’s brain. Dying? But she wasn’t going to die! The others would die—yes—but not she, Emily Brent. This girl didn’t understand! Emily wasn’t afraid, naturally—none of the Brents were afraid. All her people were Service people. They faced death unflinchingly. They led upright lives just as she, Emily Brent, had led an upright life… She had never done anything to be ashamed of… And so, naturally, she wasn’t going to die…