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for the three of you,” said Katinka.
    The woman gave her a look of quick suspicion and went away. She returned with a cup of tea and Katinka, her ankle inexpertly bandaged, was left to her own devices. As soon as they’re all well and truly downstairs, she thought, I’ll nip out of bed and have a damn good look round. If anyone comes I can pretend I’m looking for the bathroom. Everything was queer and mysterious and vaguely horrible. Carlyon’s explanations were not explanations at all—he had not been ill, he had not come to Penderyn to convalesce; the protection which these two servants showed him was not the protection of “a mother and father tiger with a fragile cub,” it was the mutual protection of members of a secret society for a third whose danger was their own. Amista had been in this house. She had written those letters from this house, she had described the house, she had mentioned things that Katinka herself had seen in the house—the Siamese cat, the Sisley snow scene, these two servants, even the little woman who brought the milk. … From the window, she could see the tip of the mountain opposite, heavy and grey in the evening light, under the interminable rain. She heard Carlyon’s voice below. He was calling out to know if anyone had seen the cat, which, apparently, was missing. Both servants answered him. So they were all safely downstairs.
    She struggled out of bed. The house from the outside had seemed to be built on a simple plan: a single narrow corridor was broken at one place into an angle—it surely would not be difficult to see how many of the main rooms were occupied, to judge whether there was indeed anyone in the house besides the three she had seen. She gave herself no time to think, but climbed out of bed and, barefoot, skipped across the room.
    The door was locked.
    Back in bed, she abandoned herself to dread, sick with terror at the thought of her own temerity. This was no trivial mystery, this was not some tantalizing puzzle to be solved for the satisfaction of her own idle curiosity. She was afraid; and the trouble was, she thought, that Carlyon and Mrs. Love and Dai Trouble were also afraid of her and of what she might find out; afraid because they knew that she had forced her way back to the house on a false excuse, and suspected her, therefore, of being there for no reason but to spy upon them, of knowing much more than she did. She pulled the bound up ankle out from the bedclothes and waggled her foot about. If only the damn thing would swell up! If they could be brought to believe that she really had injured her ankle, that, surely, would allay their fears? And they would let her get peacefully through the night and tomorrow would speed her thankfully on her way. She jabbed her foot savagely at the wooden end of the bed, but it was terribly difficult to deliberately injure oneself; at the moment of impact, the flesh rebelled. She held her left foot in her hand and forced herself to jump clumsily off the high bed; the weaker right ankle doubled up under her and she fell heavily to the floor—now there was no mistake about it, and she climbed back under the bedclothes in rueful triumph.
    By the time Mrs. Love arrived at the door with some supper on a tray the ankle had swollen up under the too-tight bandages and was throbbing violently. “Mrs. Love, I’m sorry but my ankle’s absolutely awful. Do you think the bandage could be loosened a bit?”
    “There’s nothing wrong with the bandage,” said Mrs. Love, flatly. “It was properly put on.”
    Tinka pulled back the bedclothes and began untying the bandage. “Well, all right. I’ll do it myself.”
    The woman bent over and took a closer look. “It does seem a bit swollen now, doesn’t it?”
    “You don’t say so!” said Katinka.
    “I do say so, dear,” said Mrs. Love, taking no umbrage. “Let’s have a look at it.” She put her hand to the hot flesh, puffing up unnaturally over the bandage top. “You