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solidly, uninvited, in the only chair my wretched little room boasted, and set her handbag down on the table beside her. She hadn't taken her eyes off me. "I'm Miss Dermott," she said, "I'm not married. Con Winslow's my half-brother."
    "Yes, I believe he mentioned you. I remember now."
    "He told me all about you" she said. "I didn't believe him, but he was right. It's amazing. Even given the eight years, it's amazing. I'd have known you anywhere."
    I said, carefully: "He told me I was exactly like a young cousin of his who'd left home some eight years ago. She had an odd name, Annabel. Is that right?"
    "Quite right."
    "And you see the same resemblance?"
    "Certainly. I didn't actually know Annabel herself. I came to Whitescar after she'd gone. But the old man used to keep her photographs in his room, a regular gallery of them, and I dusted them every day, till I suppose I knew every expression she had. I'm sure that anyone who knew her would make the same mistake as Con. It's uncanny, believe me."
    "It seems I must believe you." I drew deeply on my cigarette. "The 'old man' you spoke of ... would that be Mr. Winslow's ' father?"
    | "His great-uncle. He was Annabel's grandfather."
    f I had been standing by the table. I sat down on the edge of it.
    I didn't look at her; I was watching the end of my cigarette.
    Then I said, so abruptly that it sounded rude: "So what, Miss
    Dermott?" "I beg your pardon?"
    "It's an expression we have on our side of the Atlantic. It means, roughly, all right, you've made your point, now where is it supposed to get us? You say I'm the image of this Annabel of yours. Granted: I'll accept that. You and Mr. Winslow have gone to a lot of trouble to tell me so. I repeat: so what?"
    "You must admit—" she seemed to be choosing her words— ^ "that we were bound to be interested, terribly interested?"
    I said bluntly: "You've gone a little beyond 'interest', haven't you? Unless, of course, you give the word its other meaning."
    "I don't follow you."
    "No? I think you do. Tell me something frankly, please. Does your brother still persist in dunking that I might actually be Annabel Winslow?"
    "No. Oh, no."
    "Very well. Then you have to admit that this 'interest' of yours does go far beyond mere curiosity, Miss Dermott. He .might have sent you to take a look at me, Annabel's double,
    once, but not more than"—I caught myself in time—"not more than that. I mean, you'd have hardly followed me home. No, you're 'interested' in quite another sense, aren't you?" I paused, tapped ash into the waste-basket, and added: " 'Interested parties', shall we say? In other words, you've something at stake." She sounded as calm as ever. "I suppose it's natural for you to be so hostile." There was the faintest glimmer of a smile on her face: perhaps not so much a smile, as a lightening of the stolidity of her expression. "I don't imagine that Con was exactly, well, tactful, to start with . . . He upset you, didn't he?"
    "He frightened me out of my wits," I said frankly. I got up from the table, and moved restlessly to the window. The curtains were undrawn. Outside, the lights and clamour of the street made a pattern two storeys below, as remote as that of a coastal town seen from a passing ship. I turned my back on it.
    "Look, Miss Dermott, let me be plain, please. Certain things are obvious to me, and I don't see any advantage in playing stupid about them. For one thing, I don't want to prolong this interview. As you see, I'm busy. Now, your brother was interested in me because I look like this Annabel Winslow. He told you about me. All right. That's natural enough. But it isn't just pure coincidence that brought you to the Kasbah, and I know darned well I never told him where I worked. It sticks out a mile that he followed me home on Sunday, and either he came here and asked someone where I worked, or he saw me go on for the late Sunday shift at the cafe, and then went back and told you. And you came next day to have a look