There's not been an accident, has there?"
"Not an accident, properly."
"Do you have reason to believe something has happened?"
I said grimly: "I shouldn't be surprised."
I slept badly that night.
I think that even then, there were pieces of the puzzle floating about in my mind.
I believe that if I had given my mind to it, I would have solved the whole thing then and there.
Otherwise why did those fragments tag along so persistently?
How much do we know at any time?
Much more, or so I believe, than we know we know!
But we cannot break through to that subterranean knowledge. It's there, but we cannot reach it.
I lay on my bed, tossing uneasily, and only vague bits of the puzzle came to torture me.
There was a pattern, if only I could get hold of it.
I ought to know who wrote those damned letters.
There was a trail somewhere if only I could follow it...
As I dropped off to sleep, words danced irritatingly through my drowsy mind:
"No smoke without fire.
No fire without smoke.
Smoke... Smoke?
Smoke screen... No, that was the war - a war phrase.
War.
Scrap of paper... Only a scrap of paper.
Belgium - Germany... "
I fell asleep.
I dreamed that I was taking Mrs. Dane Calthrop, who had turned into a greyhound, for a walk with a collar and lead.
It was the ringing of the telephone that roused me.
A persistent ringing.
I sat up in bed, glanced at my watch.
It was half past seven. I had not yet been called.
The telephone was ringing in the hall downstairs.
I jumped out of bed, pulled on a dressing gown, and raced down. I beat Partridge coming through the back door from the kitchen by a short head.
I picked up the receiver.
"Hullo?"
"Oh -" It was a sob of relief.
"It's you!"
Megan's voice.
Megan's voice indescribably forlorn and frightened.
"Oh, please do come - do come.
Oh, please do!
Will you?"
"I'm coming at once," I said.
"Do you hear?
At once."
I took the stairs two at a time and burst in on Joanna.
"Look here, Jo, I'm going off to the Symmingtons'."
Joanna lifted a curly blond head from the pillow and rubbed her eyes like a small child.
"Why - what's happened?"
"I don't know.
It was the child - Megan.
She sounded all in."