She said, ‘Yes.’

‘How are you? Do you feel like getting up?’

She said, ‘Yes,’ again.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

He stayed for a minute, twisting the handle, not opening the door any more, and then shutting it carefully so as not to make any noise. He went downstairs then, moving very quietly and carefully.

Anne found herself laughing. That was Ross all over, to get himself into an indefensible position and not have the courage to brazen it out. She remembered that she had always despised him, and that cheered her. He had not locked the door when he had gone, so she was no longer a prisoner. She went to the bathroom, emptied the water she had washed in, made her bed. She began to wonder whether she was alone with Ross-whether the other man was gone. She did not count on it, but she wondered.

When she had finished the things she had to do she went to the dressing-table and looked at herself in the glass. There were dark marks under her eyes that did not please her. She thought she looked as if she had been ill. She rubbed her cheeks, and then wished that she hadn’t. It was all right for her to look pale. Besides, it didn’t matter how she looked.

She went downstairs. Someone was frying bacon and sausages. She came into the kitchen and saw the other man. As always, the sight of him did things to her courage. She felt the same horrid inward shaking that had come on her in the garden at Chantreys when she had looked up and seen him leaning against the gate. But this time she was at some pains to hide her fear. She was horribly afraid, but she mustn’t let him see it.

‘Ah, you’ve waked,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘Ross said you’d be down. We brought the bacon with us. No sense in making talk in the village.’

‘I suppose not.’

He burst out laughing.

‘Very cool and calm, aren’t you! Going to be a sensible girl?’

Anne made herself look at him. She kept her eyes level and calm on his.

‘It depends on what you mean by sensible.’

He gave her an insolent look.

‘Do what you’re told. Make yourself useful. Speak when you’re spoken to. Hold your tongue when you’re bid.’

‘Why should I?’

He set down his pan of sausages a little to one side of the fire and came towards her. Anne went back as far as she could go. The wall stopped her, and she stood. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down on her.

‘You’ll do as you’re told,’ he said. ‘Is that quite clear? Is it? Is it?’ His voice didn’t get any louder, it softened. That softening of a harsh voice was the most horrible thing that Anne had ever heard.

A dizziness came over her. She tried to keep her head up and her eyes steady. His eyes were like a hawk’s, dominant, ferocious. She couldn’t go any farther back. And then there was a footstep outside, and she called out. He said on a low growling note, ‘You watch your step,’ and turned round and went back to the fire.

When Ross came in she was so glad to see him that it was all she could do not to show it. It was all she could do, but she did it. To let them know how terribly afraid she was would be to give away her last scrap of protection. She moved to a chair and sat down.

It was at this moment that she remembered everything.

He said he’d let us know.’

‘Then he will do so,’ said Miss Silver firmly.

Jim stood looking out into the street, his back to the room.

‘And if he has nothing to tell?’

Miss Silver was knitting. She looked compassionately across the football sweater destined for her niece Ethel Burkett’s eldest boy and said, ‘He will have something. I am sure of it.’

‘And if he has not?’

Miss Silver did not reply. The most trying moments in human experience were those in which there was nothing to be done except to wait. They were especially trying for a man whose previous training had been one of action. Her mind sought for something which would relieve this tension and give him something to do.

She said, ‘You were going to show me Anne’s bag.’

He half turned with an impatient jerk of the shoulders.

‘There’s nothing there.’

‘Nevertheless I should like to see it. You did bring it away, did you not?’

‘Oh, yes, I brought it away. There’s nothing in it-except the money.’

‘I should like to see it.’

‘I tell you there’s nothing in it.’

Miss Silver knitted in silence. At a less hazardous moment she would have implied some reproof, but this was not the time for reproof, and what had begun by being a mere distraction to relieve a most trying time of waiting had now assumed an importance which she could neither justify nor abandon. When she was quite sure that she could speak in her usual controlled manner she said, ‘Mr Fancourt, I do not wish to be troublesome, but I would greatly appreciate it if you would show me that bag.’

He turned from the window to face her.

‘There’s nothing in it.’

‘Will you let me see that for myself? I do not wish to be tiresome, or to give you extra to do, but I would appreciate it-’

All at once he was as anxious to go as he had been obstinately fixed to stay. Anything was better than to count the moments whilst they prolonged themselves into endless time.

Miss Silver continued to knit. It would take him an hour to go to his rooms and get the bag-at least an hour. It would be much better for him than counting the moments and eating his heart out.

It was just over the hour when Emma Meadows let him in. He certainly looked better, and Miss Silver congratulated herself. Even if there were no other result, the expedition would have been well worth while. He was holding the bag loose and unwrapped. Emma Meadows had barely shut the door upon him before he said, “There’s nothing there-nothing at all. I knew there wasn’t.’

Miss Silver put down the almost finished sweater and held out her hand.

‘May I see?’

He repeated, ‘There’s nothing,’ handed the bag over, and flung himself down in the chair with its back to the window.

Miss Silver took the bag and opened it. She told herself that she expected nothing, but as her hands touched the clasp she knew that she was going to find something. She couldn’t say how she knew it, but she did know it. Yet when she opened the bag it seemed to be quite empty. Jim had taken out the notes and the little change that was left in the purse and put them away. The bag was empty-a black bag with a grey lining, and in the middle an inner compartment divided down the centre, one half grey, and one white kid for a powder-puff. The little purse at the side was quite empty. It had held coppers and silver. Miss Silver remembered that she had seen Anne looking amongst notes and change for something that would tell her who she was, where she came from, and where she was going. There had been a letter between the side purse and the one in the middle. Now there wasn’t anything there at all.

Miss Silver felt an acute disappointment as she let the bag fall into her lap. And then in that very moment she knew that her premonition had been real, for as the bag dropped she was aware of something faint but quite unmistakable.

Jim said impatiently, “There’s nothing there. I’ve looked.’

But Miss Silver picked up the bag again. ‘I am not so sure,’ she said.

She began to turn the bag inside out. There was a little dust and a shred or two of paper. And then, down at the bottom where the side seam ended, there was a little hole. It wasn’t a hole in the stuff. It was just a careless bit of work in a new bag, a fold pressed over and not stitched down. You could have looked in the bag a hundred times and not have seen it, but it was just the place where a little twist of paper might stick and hide itself.

There was a little twist of paper there. Jim got up from his chair and watched while Miss Silver fished for it with one of her knitting-needles and finally brought it out. It was quite a small piece. It had on it two addresses, one stamped and the other written. The stamped address said ‘The Hood Hotel’, Mayville Street, and a telephone number. The written name was in Anne’s handwriting- Miss Anne Forest, Yew Tree Cottage, Swan Eaton, Sussex.