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this!’
    Dany said: ‘Then — then it wasn’t you. All that mess. I thought it was meant to be a joke, but it was someone looking for my passport. I — I don’t understand. Why should anyone want to steal my passport?’
    â€˜Probably to use,’ said Lash. ‘Very useful things, passports. You can’t go any place without ’em these days. Some dame may have needed one badly, and thought yours would fill the bill. Or else someone wants to stop you catching this plane.’
    He paused for a drink, and then said meditatively. ‘You know, that’s quite an idea — taking that gun into account. Know what I think? I think someone saw you leave this Honeyball’s house, and decided that you’d make a very useful red-herring. Probably saw you coming away as he went in, and ____ Say, how did you get back to town yesterday?’
    â€˜By train. The 12.5.’
    â€˜Well, there you are. Simple! He bumps off this guy, takes what he wants from the safe, and beats it for the station. And who does he see on the platform but a dame who he knows was visiting this solicitor only a few minutes before he was there himself. If he can only play his trump card, it may keep the police dogs baying on the wrong trail for long enough to let him get clear. So he follows you up to town, works out a way of planting that gun among your undies to make the thing foolproof, and ____ Has that room of yours got a balcony?’
    â€˜Yes. But I don’t think ____ ’
    â€˜Too easy. The dam’ things connect. And there’s a fire-escape somewhere. He plants his little time bomb, and then suddenly notices that your bags are lying all over the place covered with air labels — seems you’re lighting out for foreign parts. That washes you out as a red-herring, so where does he go from here? Easy: fixes it so you can’t leave! No passport, no foreign parts; and there must be a passport around somewhere. He turns the joint upside down until he finds it, pockets the thing and lights out. You are now not only tied by the leg but, what with the newspaper accounts and the fact that you were in this Honeydew’s house within the time limit — and that gun and no passport! — it’s a cinch you’ll panic and start behaving in a manner likely to arouse suspicion in a babe of three: which will be just dandy. How’s that for a piece of masterly deduction? Brilliant, if you ask me. The F.B.I. don’t know what they missed when father’s boy followed him into the business!’
    He put down his glass and sat down rather suddenly on the end of his bed, and Dany gazed back at him dazedly. She had taken in very little of what he had said, because her mind was filled with only one distracting thought: she could not catch the plane! She would have to stay here and face the police and questions and inquests and newspaper men, and the scandalized disapproval of Aunt Harriet who would, understandably, feel that all her dire predictions as to the fatal consequences of independence had been fully justified. She was caught!
    â€˜No!’ said Dany on a sob. ‘Oh no! I can’t stay here. I won’t. I will go to Zanzibar. They shan’t stop me. But — but they can if I haven’t got a passport! What am I going to do? Oh why did I ever telephone Mr Honeywood? Why did I ever change the times? If I’d only gone in the afternoon instead!’
    â€˜And found the body? You wouldn’t have liked that.’
    â€˜It would have been better than this! Far, far better. Can’t you do something?’
    â€˜Such as what?’ demanded Lash reasonably. ‘Call up the cops? That would be one helluva help! Now just shut up and let me think for a minute. I don’t know how you expect anyone to think while you’re carrying on in this uninhibited manner. Hush, now!’
    He helped himself to another drink and relapsed into frowning silence