The first thing he knew was Miss Silver’s hand on his arm and her voice saying, ‘We are quite ready now, Mr Fancourt.’

It was a relief to be in motion. Frank Abbott sat in the front of the car with young Hubbard. Jim and Miss Silver were at the back. She did not speak, but sat there with her hands crossed upon her bag and her face pale and still. Jim did not notice her at all. He sat upright, his hands clenched. However fast the car went, he was pushing it a little faster. When Hubbard slowed down to the traffic, he was pushing with all his strength to get him on again. And all the time his mind ran ahead and called on Anne.

Anne lay on her bed in the room where she had slept as a child. She had prayed, and she had come into peace. She didn’t even know what was going to happen, but she wouldn’t believe that evil would have the victory-she couldn’t believe that. She didn’t know how she would be saved. She only knew that something would save her. She lay on her bed and watched the changing light and the shadows of the trees outside. Presently she slept.

Down in the village the car stopped to ask the way.

‘Yew Tree Cottage?’ That was Frank Abbott.

The first person he asked did not seem to know. He began, ‘I’m a stranger here-’ but Frank did not wait for anything more.

He tried again, and this time got an answer.

‘Yew Tree Cottage? Oh, yes. But there won’t be no one there. Empty, that’s what it’s been these three years ever since Miss Forest was murdered.’

Jim’s hands tightened. The nails dug into the palms of his hands. She wasn’t here-she wasn’t anywhere. Where was she? Anne-Anne-Anne!

The man, who was chewing a straw, went on chewing it.

‘Oh, yes, I can tell you how to get there. But no one’s lived in the house since Miss Forest was murdered. It belongs to her niece, and she’s abroad… Oh, she’s back, is she? Well, she hasn’t been down here.’ He was interminably slow, but in the end they got the direction.

What was the use? She wasn’t here, she wasn’t anywhere.

He had missed his chance. Her name came and went in his mind like a voice calling.

Someone else was calling that name. Anne woke up. For a moment she did not know where she was. She had been in a dream. It had been pleasant in her dream. She walked in a cool wood. There was heat abroad and she was aware of the sounds of traffic, but she was in a quiet place. She heard the sound of wheels, but where she was there was peace and silence.

With the first of her returning sense the sound was clearer. The shadow of the trees wavered and was gone. She opened her eyes and saw a room, windows, the dark branch of a yew tree, and the clock on the mantelpiece. The clock said a quarter past one. The sound of wheels which had waked her had stopped. Her heart quickened. She was here, in Aunt Letty’s cottage, in great danger. That was the first thought. And then there was a second. Had she really heard a car, and if so, what car?

She jumped up and went to the window. The car had stopped. There was a murmur of voices. What voices? Whose?

Downstairs the two men sat frozen. They had heard a car draw up. The car in which they had come was in the garage, with the door shut. Was it shut? Maxton had been in, and had come out, and had shut the door. He was sure about that. What he wasn’t sure about was whether Ross had been in since. He fixed his eyes upon him, and Ross shook his head. He’d do that anyhow. Neither of them spoke. It wasn’t any good. The kitchen fire was on. The coal was damp. It was smoking. No one would believe the place was empty.

Maxton got up and went to the door. He opened it a little way and said, ‘What is it?’

Three men and an elderly woman. Three men, and one of them Fancourt. He said roughly, ‘What is it?’

Frank Abbott was out of the car. The other two men were getting out. Maxton kept hold of the door and nearly closed it. Anger burst in him, leaving no room for fear.

Jim Fancourt said, ‘Where’s Anne?’ and Maxton raised his eyebrows.

‘Why ask me?’ he said.

Jim Fancourt repeated what he had said before.

‘Where is Anne?’

Maxton heard the door of the room upstairs open-the door of Anne’s room. He banged the front door in Jim’s face and sprang backwards. Anne came out on the landing and stood at the top of the stairs looking down. He called ‘Ross!’ but there wasn’t any answer.

Frank Abbott left the car standing and ran round the house. He got in at the back door, to see Maxton charging up the stairs with a pistol in his hand, and Anne standing on the top step looking down. As his feet sounded in the hall, Maxton looked back, his face mad with anger, his pistol in his hand. He fired. The noise of the shot seemed to fill the hall.

Jim Fancourt left battering at the front door and broke the drawing-room window. Inside, Anne ran quickly down the three or four steps which separated her from Maxton and pushed at him with all her might. If he had been still facing her she might have pushed in vain, but he was turned from her, his feet on two levels as he had turned at the sound of Frank Abbott’s rush, and the unexpected thrust pushed him off his balance. He lost it, clutched at her, missed, and fell sprawling. The pistol flew from his hand, knocked on the balustrade, and fell into the hall. By the time Jim emerged from the drawing-room he lay in a heap at the foot of the stairs with Frank Abbott and Hubbard bending over him.

Miss Silver, descending from the car without haste, was aware of the noise. She heard the fall-the shot, and she had reached the broken window, when she became aware of Ross Cranston edging round the house. She did not know him, but he had a guilty look. She turned and spoke.

‘What are you doing here?’

He swore, and ran away. Into the wood, tearing his clothes on the brambles, thinking of nothing but how he might get away.

Miss Silver watched him out of sight and turned back to the house. From what she could near, the fight was over. Listening at the broken window, she discerned Jim’s voice speaking to Anne. It was a voice broken with emotion no doubt perfectly satisfactory to its recipient. Frank Abbott’s voice was also audible. It was addressing remarks of a hostile nature to Mr Maxton.

Miss Silver considered it highly unnecessary that she should either remain outside or take the risk of cutting herself upon the broken glass of the window. She advanced to the door and rapped upon it with the knocker.

It did not take long to find Ross Cranston. He had fallen and sprained an ankle in the wood and there was no fight in him. They put him handcuffed into the car with Frank Abbott between him and Maxton and drove to the nearest place with a secure lock-up, Swan Eaton having nothing to boast about in that respect. The three who remained behind were left to the realisation of their deliverance.

Anne got up from the stair on which she had sunk during the struggle. Miss Silver, coming into the hall, saw her halfway down, her hands in Jim’s hands, her eyes seeing no one but him. She withdrew into the kitchen, but having assembled the meal, she returned to say briskly and firmly that lunch was ready and they had better have it. It was a quarter to two, and it was not to be supposed that any of them had made a good breakfast.

It was a strange meal. Anne had the feeling that she had died and come back to life again-a new life, a very happy life. She had her memory back, and after all this lonely time she had Jim. Everything settled into its place. She knew now the motive behind the attack upon her. She told Jim and Miss Silver what she now remembered.

‘I got a letter just before Mavis was married. She was the friend I went round the world with, and she fell headlong in love and married an American. I would have stayed over there a little, but just before the wedding there was a letter from my solicitors, Thompson & Grant, to say that my old great-uncle William Forest had died, and had left all he had between me and my cousin Anne Forest Borrowdale. So you see, she was my cousin.’ She turned to Jim. ‘Poor Anne! Her father’s mother was Anne Serena Forest, and she was a sister of old Mr William Forest. My father was his nephew, and Ross Cranston’s father was another nephew. But Ross blotted his copybook rather badly and Great-Uncle William cut him out of everything. He left his fortune between Anne and me. I’d always known about it, but I don’t think she had. Her father quarrelled with his relations over here. I don’t know what it was all about now, and Anne didn’t know. Her father never wrote to anyone or had any letters from England, she said. And I don’t suppose Leonard Borrowdale ever thought about William Forest, or that there might be money coming to his daughter from him.’