'No?

'No. No use. She lets everything down, there. Down into the mud.

'She' was evidently the river.

'Why?

'She go slow there. Tired, like. Drops everything. Then when she be round the turn, half-way to Wickham there, she go tearing off agin all light and happy. Ah. That is what she do. Drops everything she be carrying into the mud, and then she go quiet for a little, lookin' round t'see if people notice what she done, then woops! she be off to Wickham at the tear. He cocked a surprisingly clear blue eye at Grant. 'Sly, he said. 'That's what she be. Sly!

Rodgers had said, when first he had talked to him, that it was no use dragging below Salcott St Mary, and he had accepted the local man's verdict without asking for an explanation. Now here was Race Memory offering him the explanation.

'Not much use you draggin' anyway, said Race Memory, wiping the drop from its nose with a gesture that was subtly contemptuous.

'Why? Don't you believe there is a body there?

'Oh, ah! Body there all right. But that mud there, it don't give up nothin' 'cept in its own time.

'And when is that likely to be, would you say?

'Oh! Any time 'tween a thousand years and tomorrow. Powerful sticky that mud be. Quicksand mud. When my great-grandfer were a little boy he had a barra run down the bank, like, into the water. Quite shallow it were there. He could see the barra but he were frightened, see, to wade in for it. So he run to the cottage. No more'n a few yards. And brung his father out to reach the barra for him. But the mud had it. Ah. The mud had it in the time you'd turn yer back. Not a blink of the barra left. Not even when they got a rake and dragged for it. The mud had it, see. Cannibal mud, that is, I tell ee, cannibal mud.

'But you say it does give up its victims sometimes.

'Oh. Ah. Happen.

'When? In flood?

'Nah! In flood she just spread herself. Go broody and drop more mud'n ever. Nah. But sometime she be taken aback. Then she let go in surprise.

'Taken aback?

'Ah. Same as she were a week since. Cloud come and hit the high country above Otley and burst there, and pour water into the river like someone pouring bathwater away. She have no time to spread out decent and quiet. The water come down channel like a scouring brush and churn her up. Then happen sometimes she loose something from the mud.

It was a poor outlook, Grant felt, if he had to wait until the next cloudburst to recover Searle's body. The gathering greyness of the day depressed him; in a couple of hours they would have to call it off. By that time, moreover, they would have reached Salcott, and if they had found nothing, what hope was there? He had had a horrible feeling all day that they were merely scratching the surface of that 'immemorial mud'. If this second dragging proved useless, what then? No inquest. No case. No nothing.

By the time a watery sunset was bathing the scene in pallid light they were within fifty yards of the end of their beat. And at that moment Rodgers reappeared and produced an envelope from the pocket of his coat.

'This came for you when I was at the station. It's the report from the States.

There was no urgency about it now, but he opened it and read it through.

The San Francisco police had no record against Leslie Searle, and knew of none. He was in the habit of coming to the Coast for the winter months. For the rest of the year he travelled and photographed abroad. He lived well but very quietly, and there was no record of expensive parties or other extravagances of conduct. He had no wife with him and no history of emotional entanglements. The San Francisco police had no record of his origins but they had applied to the Publicity department at Grand Continental, for which studio Searle had photographed Lotta Marlow and Danny Minsky, the reigning stars of the moment. According to Grand Continental, Searle had been born in Jobling, Conn. Only child of Durfey Searle and Christina Mattson. Police at Jobling, Conn., asked about the Searles, said they left town more than twenty years ago and went South somewhere. Searle was a chemist, with a passion for photography, but that is all anyone remembered about them.

Well, it was a dull enough report. An uninspiring collection of unhelpful facts. No clue to the thing he had wanted most; Searle's intimates in the States. No illumination on Searle himself. But something in the report rang a bell in his head.

He read it over again, waiting for that warning click in his mind that was like the sound a clock makes when it is preparing to strike. But this time there was no reaction.

Puzzled, he read it through again, slowly. What was it that had made that warning sound in his mind? He could find nothing. Still puzzled, he folded up the paper and put it away in his pocket.

'We're finished, I suppose you know? Rodgers said. 'We'll find nothing now. Nothing has ever been taken back from the river at Salcott. In this part of the country they have a proverb. When they want to say: Give a thing up, or: Put it out of your mind for good, they say: "Throw it over the bridge at Salcott".

'Why don't they dredge the channel instead of letting all this stuff silt up on them, Grant said, out of temper. 'If they did they wouldn't have the river flooding their houses every second winter.

Rodgers's long face shortened into amusement and kindliness. 'If you'd ever smelt a bucket of Rushmere mud, you'd think a long time before you'd willingly arrange for it to be dragged up in wagon loads and carted through the street. Shall I stop them now?

'No, said Grant, mulishly. 'Let them go on dragging as long as the light lasts. Who knows, we may make history and be the first to take something back from the river at Salcott. I never did believe in those country superstitions, anyhow.

They did go on dragging till the light went, but the river gave nothing back.

'Shall I give you a lift back to Wickham, Rodgers asked Grant, but Grant said no, that he had his own car up at the Mill House and would walk up and fetch it.

Marta came out into the windy twilight to meet him, and put her arm through his.

'No? she said.

'No.

'Come in and get warm.

She walked beside him in silence into the house and poured him an out-size whisky. The thick walls shut out the sound of the wind, and the room was quiet and warm as it had been last night. A faint smell of curry came up from the kitchen.

'Do you smell what I am cooking for you?

'Curry. But you can't be expected to feed the Department.

'Curry is what you need after a whole day of our English spring glories. You can, of course, go back to the White Hart and have the usual Sunday evening supper of cold tinned beef, two slices of tomato, three cubes of beetroot, and a wilting lettuce leaf.

Grant shivered unaffectedly. The thought of the White Hart on a Sunday evening was death.

'Besides, tomorrow I shan't be here to give you dinner. I am going back to town. I can't stand the Mill House any more at the moment. I'll stay in town till Faint Heart goes into rehearsal.

'Having you here has practically saved my life, Grant said. He pulled the American report from his pocket and said: 'Read that, would you, and tell me if anything rings a bell for you.

'No, she said, having read. 'No bells. Should it?

'I don't know. It seemed to me when I read it first that it rang a bell in my mind. He puzzled over it again for a moment and then put it away.

'When we are both back in town, Marta said, 'I want to be introduced to your Sergeant Williams. Perhaps you would bring him to dinner one night?

'But of course, Grant said, pleased and amused. 'Why this sudden passion for the unknown Williams?