This seems to be a sinking ship."
"Oh, Mr Gale, I shouldn't think of deserting you."
"Good girl.
You're not a rat, anyway.
But seriously, I mean it.
If something doesn't happen to clear up this mess, I'm done for."
"Something ought to be done about it!" said Miss Ross with energy. "I think the police are disgraceful.
They're not trying."
Norman laughed.
"I expect they're trying all right."
"Somebody ought to do something."
"Quite right.
I've rather thought of trying to do something myself; though I don't quite know what."
"Oh, Mr Gale, I should. You're so clever."
"I'm a hero to that girl all right," thought Norman Gale. "She'd like to help me in my sleuth stuff, but I've got another partner in view."
It was that same evening that he dined with Jane.
Half unconsciously he pretended to be in very high spirits, but Jane was too astute to be deceived.
She noted his sudden moments of absent-mindedness, the little frown that showed between his brows, the sudden strained line of his mouth.
She said at last: "Norman, are things going badly?"
He shot a quick glance at her, then looked away.
"Well, not too frightfully well.
It's a bad time of year."
"Don't be idiotic," said Jane sharply.
"Jane!"
"I mean it. Don't you think I can see that you're worried to death?"
"I'm not worried to death.
I'm just annoyed."
"You mean people fighting shy -"
"Of having their teeth attended to by a possible murderer.
Yes."
"How cruelly unfair""
"It is, rather.
Because, frankly, Jane, I'm a jolly good dentist.
And I'm not a murderer."
"It's wicked.
Somebody ought to do something."
"That's what my secretary, Miss Ross, said this morning."
"What's she like?"
"Miss Ross?"
"Yes."
"Oh, I don't know.
Big, lots of bones, nose rather like a rocking horse, frightfully competent."
"She sounds quite nice," said Jane graciously.
Norman rightly took this as a tribute to his diplomacy.
Miss Ross' bones were not really quite as formidable as stated and she had an extremely attractive head of red hair, but he felt, and rightly, that it was just as well not to dwell on the latter point to Jane.
"I'd like to do southing," he said.
"If I was a young man in a book, I'd find a clue or I'd shadow somebody."
Jane tugged suddenly at his sleeve.
"Look, there's Mr Clancy - you know, the author.
Siting over there by the wall by himself.