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  When he returned Wallington said, ‘What an old battle- axe. Did you happen to know the Page-Manleys. Didn’t know they were still around, people like that.’

  Sylvia was looking at Bertie. ‘Alf, you’re shocking our host.’

  ‘Sorry, man, but honest, I thought they kept her sort in museums. Stuffed.’

  ‘You mustn’t say stuffed. That’ll shock Bertie too.’

  Bertie said stiffly, ‘I am not in the least shocked, but I certainly regard it as the height of bad manners to criticise a guest in such a manner. Lucy is a very dear friend of mine.’

  Sylvia at least had some understanding of his feelings. She said sorry and smiled, so that he was at once inclined to forgive her. Then she said it was time she took her rough diamonds home.

  Thanks for the grub,’ Wallington said. Then he leaned across the dining table and shouted, ‘Wake up, man, it’s tomorrow morning already.’ Jimmy had fallen asleep in his chair. He was hauled to his feet and supported across the garden.

  Bertie called up Lucy the next morning and apologised again. She said that he should think no more about it. ‘I didn’t take to that South African feller, though. Shouldn’t be surprised if he turns out to be a bad hat. And I didn’t care too much for your neighbours, if you don’t mind my being frank.’

  Bertie said of course not, although he reflected that there seemed to be a sudden spasm of frankness among his acquaintances. Mrs Purchase, Lucy said, had a roving eye. She left it at that, and they went on to discuss the agenda for the next meeting of the historical society.

  Later in the morning there was a knock on the door. Jimmy was there, hollow-eyed and slightly green. ‘ ‘Fraid we rather blotted our copybook last night. Truth is, Alf and I were fairly well loaded before we came round. Can’t remember too much about it, but Syl said apologies were in order.’

  Bertie asked when Sylvia’s cousin was leaving. Jimmy Purchase shrugged and said he didn’t know. Bertie nearly said that he ought not to leave the man alone with Sylvia, but refrained. He might be inquisitive, but he was also discreet.

  A couple of nights later he was doing some weeding in the garden when he heard voices raised in Linton House. One was Jimmy’s, the other belonged to Sylvia. They were in the sitting-room shouting at each other, not quite loudly enough for the words to be distinguishable. It was maddening not to know what was being said. Bertie moved along the fence separating the gardens, until he was as near as he could get without being seen. He was now able to hear a few phrases.

  ‘Absolutely sick of it … drink because it takes my mind off … told you we have to wait …’ That was Jimmy. Then Sylvia’s voice, shrill as he had never heard it, shrill and sneering.

  Tell me the old old story … how long do we bloody well wait then … you said it would be finished by now.’ An indistinguishable murmur from Jimmy. ‘None of your business,’ she said. More murmuring. ‘None of your business what I do.’ Murmur murmur. ‘You said yourself we’re broke.’ To this there was some reply. Then she said clearly, ‘I shall do what I like.’ ‘All right,’ Jimmy said, so loudly that Bertie fairly jumped. There followed a sharp crack, which sounded like hand on flesh.

  Sylvia said, ‘You bastard, that’s it, then.’

  Nothing more. No sound, no speech. Bertie waited five minutes and then tiptoed away, fearful of being seen. Once indoors again he felt quite shaky, and had to restore himself by a nip of brandy. What had the conversation meant? Much of it was plain enough, Sylvia was saying that it was none of her husband’s business if she carried on an affair. But what was it they had to wait for, what was it that should have been finished? A deal connected with the odious Alf? And where was Alf who as Bertie had noticed went out into the village very little?

  He slept badly, and was wakened in the middle of the night by a piercing, awful scream. He sat up in bed quivering, but the sound was not repeated. He decided that he must have been dreaming.

  On the following day the car was not in the garage. Had Jimmy gone off again? He met Sylvia out shopping in the village, and she said that he had been called to an assignment at short notice.

  ‘What sort of assignment?’ He had asked before for the name of the paper Jimmy worked on, to be told that he was a freelance.

  ‘A Canadian magazine. He’s up in the Midlands, may be away a few days.’

  Should he say something about the row? But that would have been indiscreet, and in any case Sylvia had such a wild look in her eye that he did not care to ask further questions. It was on that morning that he read about the Small Bank Robbers.

  The Small Bank Robbers had been news for some months. They specialised in fast well-organised raids on banks, and had carried out nearly twenty of these in the past year. Several men were involved in each raid. They were armed, and did not hesitate to use coshes or revolvers when necessary. In one bank a screaming woman customer had suffered a fractured skull when hit over the head, and in another a guard who resisted the robbers had been shot and killed. The diminutive applied to them referred to the banks they robbed, not to their own physical dimensions. A bank clerk who had admitted giving information to the gang had asked why they were interested in his small branch bank, and had been told that they always raided small banks because they were much more vulnerable than large ones. After the arrest of this clerk the robbers seemed to have gone to ground. There had been no news of them for the last three or four weeks.

  Bertie had heard about the Small Bank Robbers, but took no particular interest in them. He was a nervous man, and did not care for reading about crime. On this morning, however, his eye was caught by the heading: ‘Small Bank Robbers. The South African Connection.’ The story was a feature by the paper’s crime reporter, Derek Holmes. He said that Scotland Yard knew the identities of some of the robbers, and described his own investigations, which led to the conclusion that three or four of them were in Spain. The article continued:

  But there is another connection, and a sinister one. The men in Spain are small fry. My researches suggest that the heavy men who organised the robberies, and were very ready to use violence, came from South Africa. They provided the funds and the muscle. Several witnesses who heard the men talking to each other or giving orders during the raids have said that they used odd accents. This has been attributed to the sound distortion caused by the stocking masks they wore, but two men I spoke to, both of whom have spent time in South Africa, said that they had no doubt the accent was South African.

  The writer suggested that these men were now probably back in South Africa. But supposing that one of them was still in England, that he knew Jimmy and Sylvia and had a hold over them? Supposing, even, that they were minor members of the gang themselves? The thought made Bertie shiver with fright and excitement. What should or could he do about it? And where had Jimmy Purchase gone?

  Again he slept badly, and when he did fall into a doze it was a short one. He woke to find Wallington knocking on the door. Once inside the house he drew out a huge wad of notes, said that there was enough for everybody, and counted out bundles which he put on the table between them with a small decisive thwack. A second bundle, thwack, and a third, thwack. How many more? He tried to cry out, to protest, but the bundles went on, thwack, thwack, thwack …

  He sat up in bed, crying out something inaudible. The thin grey light of early morning came through the curtains. There was a sound in the garden outside, a sound regularly repeated, the thwack of his dream. It took him in his slightly dazed state a little while to realise that if he went to the window he might see what was causing the sound. He tiptoed across the room and raised the curtain. He was trembling.

  It was still almost dark, and whatever was happening was taking place at the back of Linton House, so that he could not see it. But as he listened to the regularly repeated sound, he had no doubt of its nature. Somebody was digging out there. The sound of the spade digging earth had entered his dream, and there was an occasional clink when it struck a stone. Why would somebody be dig