porcelain basins, the taps and plugs and wastes. He took the revolver out of his pocket and loaded it two chambers. In the mirror above the wash basin he could see his hand move round the metal death, adjusting the safety catch. Down below, the news was over and the music had begun again it wailed upwards like a dog over a grave, and the huge darkness pressed a wet mouth against the panes. He put the revolver back and went out into the passage.
That was the next move. Another statuette pointed an obscure moral with cemetery hands and a chaplet of marble flowers, and again he felt the prowling presence of pity.
'They've been gone a long while,' Dallow said.
'What are they up to?'
'Who cares?' Jucly said. 'They want to be' she fixed her plump prehensile lips against Dallow's cheek 'alone' her red hair caught in his mouth a sour taste. 'You know what love is,' she said.
'He doesn't.' He was uneasy conversations came back to him. He said: 'He hates her guts.' He put his arm half-heartedly round Judy it was no good spoiling a party, but he wished he knew what Pinkie had in mind. He took a long drink out of Judy's glass, and somewhere Worthing way a siren wailed. Through the window he could see a couple mooning at the pier end, and an old man got his fortune card from the witch behind glass.
'Why don't he get clear of her then?' Judy said.
Her mouth looked for his mouth down the line of his jaw. She drew herself indignantly up and said: 'Who's that polony over there? What does she want lamping us all the time? This is a free country.'
Dallow turned and looked. His brain worked very slowly, first the statement, 'I never seen her,' and then the memory. 'Why,' he said, 'it's that damned buer who's been getting Pinkie rattled.' He got cumbrously to his feet and stumbled a little between the tables. 'Who are you?' he said. 'Who are you?'
'Ida Arnold,' she said, 'for what it's worth. My friends call me Ida.'
'I'm not your friend.'
'You better be,' she said gently. 'Have a drink.
Where's Pinkie gone and Rose? You ought to 'ave brought them along. This is Phil. Introduce the lady friend.' She ran softly on: 'It's time we all got together. What's your name?'
'Don't you know what people get who poke their noses?'
'Oh, I know,' she said. 'I know all right. I was with Fred the day you finished him.'
'Talk sense,' Dallow said. 'Who the hell are you?'
'You ought to know. You followed us all the way up the front in that old Morris of yours.' She smiled quite amiably at him. He wasn't her game. 'It seems an age ago now, doesn't it?'
It was true all right it seemed an age.
'Have a drink,' Ida said, 'you may as well. An' where's Pinkie? He didn't seem to like the look of me tonight. What were you celebrating? Not what's happened to Mr. Drewitt? You won't have heard that.'
'What do you mean?' Dallow said. The wind got up against the glass and the waitresses yawned.
'You'll see it in the morning papers. I don't want to spoil your fun. And of course you'll know it sooner than that if he talks.'
'He's gone abroad.'
'He's at the police station now,' she said with complete confidence. 'They brought him right back,' she went elaborately on. 'You ought to choose your solicitors better, men who can afford to take a holiday.
They've got him for fraud. Arrested him on the quay.'
He watched her uneasily. He didn't believe her but all the same... 'You know an awful lot,' he said. 'Do you sleep at night?'
'Do you?'
The big broken face had a kind of innocence about it. 'Me?' he said. 'I don't know a thing.'
'It was a waste giving him all that money. He'd have run anyway and it didn't look good. When I got hold of Johnnie at the pier '
He stared at her with hopeless amazement. 'You got hold of Johnnie? How the hell...?'
She said simply: 'People like me.' She took a drink and said: 'His mother treated him shameful when he was a kid.'
'Whose mother?'
'Johnnie's.'
Dallow was impatient, puzzled, scared. 'What the hell,' he said, 'do you know about Johnnie's mother?'
'What he told me,' she said. She sat there completely at her ease, her big breasts ready for any secrets. She carried her air of compassion and comprehension about her like a rank cheap perfume. She said gently: 'I got nothing against you. I like to be friendly. Bring over your lady friend.'
He glanced quickly over his shoulder and back again. 'I better not,' he said. His voice fell. He too began automatically to confide: 'Truth is, she's a jealous bitch.'
'You don't say? And her old man...?'
'Oh, her old man,' he said, 'he's all right. What Billy doesn't see, he doesn't mind.' He dropped his voice still lower. 'And he can't see much he's blind.'
'I didn't know that,' she said.
'You wouldn't,' he said. 'Not from his pressing and ironing. He's got a wonderful hand with an iron,' then broke suddenly off. 'What the hell,' he said, 'did you mean you didn't know that? What did you know?'
'There isn't much,' she said, 'I've not picked up here and there. The neighbours always talk.' She was barnacled with pieces of popular wisdom.
'Who's talking?' It was Judy now. She'd come across to them. 'An' what 'ave they got to talk about?
Why, if I chose to put my tongue round some of their doings... But I wouldn't like to,' Judy said. 'I wouldn't like to.' She looked vaguely round. 'What has happened to those two?'
'Perhaps I scared them,' Ida Arnold said.
'You scared them?' Dallow said. 'That's rich.
Pinkie's not scared that easy.'
'What I want to know is,' Judy said, 'what neighbours said what?'
Somebody was shooting at the range--when the door opened and a couple came in they could hear the shots one, two, three. 'That'll be Pinkie,' Dallow said. 'He was always good with a gun.'
'You better go an' see,' Ida gently remarked, 'that he doesn't do something desperate with his gun when he gets to know.'
Dallow said: 'You jump to things. We got no cause to be afraid of Mr. Drewitt.'
'You gave him money, I suppose, for Something.'
'Aw,' he said, 'Johnnie's been joking.'
'Your friend Cubitt seemed to think...'
'Cubitt doesn't know a thing.'
'Of course,' she admitted, 'he wasn't there, was he? That time, I mean. But you...' she said.
'Wouldn't twenty pounds be of use to you? After all you don't want to get into trouble.... Let Pinkie carry his own crimes.'
'You make me sick,' he said. 'You think you know a lot and you don't know a thing.' He said to Judy: 'I'm goin' to have a drain. You want to keep your mouth shut or this polony...' He stretched a gesture, hopelessly he couldn't express what she mightn't put over on you. He went uneasily out, and the wind caught him, so that he had to grab at his old greasy hat and hold it on. Going down the steps to the Gents' was like going down into a ship's engine room in a storm. The whole place shook a little under his feet as the swell came up against the piles and drove on to break against the beach. He thought: I oughta warn Pinkie about Drewitt if it's true.... He had things on his mind, other things besides old Spicer.
He came up the ladder and looked down the deck Pinkie wasn't to be seen. He went on past the peep machines not in sight. It was someone else shooting at the booth.
He asked the man: 'Seen Pinkie?'
'What's the game?' the man said. 'You know I seen him. An* he's gone for a ride in the country with his girl for a freshener Hastings way. An* I suppose you want to know the time too. Well,' the man said, 'I'm swearing nothing. You can pitch on someone else for your phony alibis.'
'You're crackers,' Dallow said. He moved away; across the noisy sea the hour began to strike in Brighton
