women are so thrilling, though mean to be thrilled as would hate to be veiled self. This place is super. This morning saw some dogs doing something quite extraordinary. Can't possibly tell you on postcard. Didn't know dogs had vices. Much love. Ducane turned the card again and looked gloomily at the veiled women. He too recalled being excited by veiled women in Tangier, and the memory mingled rather horribly with the strong aura of Judy which still hung about him. It was odd that his confrontation with the unveiled Judy should now seem to remind him of the hidden women of Africa. There was something mechanical in himself which responded to the two visions in much the same way. I am becoming cut off, he thought, I am becoming like Radeechy, it is all indirect, it is all in my mind. Then he wondered, what are my things anyway? The question was not without interest. He turned the card over again and tried to concentrate his attention upon Kate: sweet Kate, with her halo of wiry golden hair and her affectionate and loving nature. But Kate seemed to elude his regard, and the place in the centre where she should have been seemed either empty or concealed. There was the same sense of the mechanical. I need her presence, he thought. I am not good at absence, at least I am not good at her absence. Ducane had been disturbed not only by Judy but by what she had told him. At first sight the discovery that Radeechy's 'goings-on' had taken place in the old air-raid shelters underneath the office strongly suggested that those who feared a 'security risk' were not being idly suspicious. The magic might be simply a front, a characteristically extravagant and farfetched facade, to conceal quite other nocturnal activities. However, on second thoughts Ducane decided this was unlikely. If Radeechy wished to remain all night in the office there was really nothing to stop him, and the additional indulgence of fantasies involving girls seemed too wantonly risky if his purposes were quite other. No, Ducane concluded, once again the thing was what it seemed. But what did it seem? That dreary sense of the mechanical came to him again. Was there perhaps no centre to the mystery at all, nothing there but the melancholy sexual experiments of an unbalanced man? Ducane had decided that his next move was to see McGrath again and to get McGrath to show him the place in the vaults where Radeechy did what he did. Ducane did not want any further view of Mrs McGrath, so he had written to Mr McGrath summoning him to the office on Monday. After this, obeying an almost panic instinct of flight, Ducane had told Fivey to drive him to Dorset. He was upset by the whole business and wished heartily that Octavian and Kate were not away. A message had come from the Prime Minister's office to confirm, what Octavian had earlier told him, that the Radeechy affair had 'gone off the boil', and to ask him for an early report, however inconclusive. When he received this message Ducane realized how very far, by now, his interest in the inquiry was from being a purely official one. He was deeply involved and for his own sake would have to try to understand. felt too as if he were being drawn onward almost deliberately by a never entirely broken thread. Whenever the trail had seemed to end something had unexpectedly happened to show him the next piece of the way. That Judy McGrath was 'Helen of Troy' and that McGrath had, not perhaps for the first time, used his wife as a decoy for a blackmail victim had occurred to Ducane a little earlier as possible. He had not expected the link between Judy and Biranne; but once the link had been so sensationally given it seemed something so suggestive as to be obvious. Ducane had been at first rather sorry that he had now given so definite a warning to Biranne and lost the possible effect of a surprise; though indeed Biranne had probably been kept informed of the direction of the inquiry by the kind offices of Judy and her husband. In all likelihood McGrath was also, in the friendliest possible way, blackmailing Biranne as well. In any case Biranne must know himself to be under suspicion and on further reflection Ducane decided that this was no bad thing. He had been greatly struck by the sudden expression of terror on Biranne's face when he had encountered Ducane in Smith Street. Ducane thought, Biranne will come to me. It was not an unpleasant thought. 'Where's Barbara?' Ducane asked Mary. 'Is she out riding?' 'No, the pony's strained a fetlock. I think she's up in her room.' 'Is she still upset about Montrose?' 'Yes, deadfully. She was crying again yesterday. I can't imagine what's happened to the wretched creature. Cats don't just vanish or get killed.' 'I heard Pierce telling her Montrose was drowned,' said Ducane. 'He shouldn't say things like that to Barbara.' 'I know he shouldn't,' said Mary shortly, stirring the rhubarb. 'Well, I think I'll go up and see her. She shouldn't be moping in her room on a day like this. We might go for a walk to Wi1ly's. Like to come, Paula?' 'No thanks.' Paula gave him an anxious preoccupied stare. Her face seemed enclosed and grey, the face of a fencer looking through the thick mesh of a mask. Ducane thought, with a familiar pain of conscience, I ought to see Paula properly, make her talk to me and tell me what's the matter. He thought quickly, shall I see Barbara now or Paula? But by now the pain of con. science had brought the accusing image of Jessica sliding before his mind. I ought to see Jessica soon, he thought, and the idea so depressed and confused him that the energy of his sympathy for Paula was at once decreased. Inclination triumphed. Barbara could console him. He would go to Barbara. He rose to his feet. 'Try to bring Willy down to tea, John,' said Mary. 'I'll try, but I'll not succeed.' Ducane left the kitchen. The sun shone through the glass panels of the front door, revealing the polished slightly rosy depressions in the worn stones of the paved hall. Ducane picked up Edward's copy of The Natural History of Selborne from the floor and replaced it on the table. On the lawn in front of the house he could see Casie and the twins sitting on a red tartan rug shelling peas. He felt, as his hand touched the table and he paused in the sunny familiar hallway, another and a different pang, touching, pleasant, painful, the apprehension of an innocent world, a world which he loved and needed, and surely could never altogether mislay? He thought: innocence matters. It is not a thing one just loses. It remains somehow magnetically in one's life, remains as something quick and alive and utterly safe from the n'iechanical and the dreary. He thought, poor Biranne. And he thought again the disturbing strange thought, Biranne will come to me. He began to mount the stairs. As Ducane reached the landing he saw at the far end of it Pierce, who had just come up the back stairs from the scullery quarters. Pierce, who had not seen Ducane, was walking rather cautiously carrying a white dish in his hand. Balancing the dish, he opened the door of his bedroom and went in. Ducane half consciously took in what he had seen and half consciously reflected on it. Then, with a sudden flash which brought him back to the present moment, he understood its meaning. He paused, considered, and then walked quickly on past Barbara's door. He gained the door of Pierce's room and flung it open. Montrose was curled up on Pierce's bed. 'Pierce, you rotten little bastard,' said Ducane. pierce, who had just put the saucer of milk down on the floor, slowly straightened up and took off his glasses. He thrust out his plump lower lip and drew his hand slowly down over his straight forehead and long nose as if to secure the expression of his face. He waited. Ducane picked up Montrose and strode out. He knocked on the door of Barbara's room and entered at once. The room was empty. Pierce, who had followed Ducane directly, came after him into the room. They faced each other. 'God, what a rotten thing to do!' said Ducane. He was sud: denly trembling with anger. All the trouble, the anxiety, the guilt in him seemed focused into this simple anger. 'I didn't hurt Montrose,' said Pierce slowly. 'No, but you hurt Barbara. How could you be so bloody?' Ducane set Montrose down on the table. As he did so he saw close to his hand Barbara's small silver- handled riding whip. The image of the whip came to him incapsulated, separate, framed, and was blotted out. 'You see,' said Pierce in the same slow explanatory tone, 'if she had only come to see me, come to my room like she used to do, if she hadn't treated me like a leper, she would have found where Montrose was. It was a sort of test.' He put one hand on the table, leaning earnestly forward. 'You deliberately made her unhappy and wretched, and you kept it up too,' said Ducane. 'I think – 'His hand closed on the handle of the whip and with a quick yet very deliberate movement he raised the whip and brought it down sharply across the back of Pierce's hand. The boy flinched but went on staring at Ducane and did not remove his hand.
