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about Johnson.”
    “Let’s,” he said immediately. I have never met anyone with such a nondescript face: except for the hair and the eyebrows it seemed positively manufactured of glass. I tidied my hair, fleetingly, in his bifocals. “I like Bach, whisky, striped underpants, Montego Bay, shooting and Peruvian brandy,” said Johnson. “Also beautiful ladies of character. Hasn’t it occurred to you that they will try to kill you as well, now? Assuming your friend Holmes isn’t the murderer?”
    My Rigoletto of last year had brought me a ruby along with the silk from Bangkok, and I had had it made up in the Burlington Arcade: it made an unusual ring. I twisted it. “No, I hadn’t thought of that,” I said slowly; and it was the truth.
    “You’re the only one who could identify him,” said Johnson. “If he was the murderer.”
    I let go the ring. “He must have been.” It was too ridiculous. “Look, some tatty little sneak-thief caught raiding a flat and letting fire with a gun isn’t going to have the nerve or the money to hunt down and kill someone who may or may not have seen him. He’s going to be far too damned busy getting out of the country.”
    “Granted. But are we dealing with some tatty little sneak-thief?” said Johnson. “You saw the bugged table. Your friend Holmes had gone, and he wasn’t the juvenile lead in ‘Mrs Dale’s Diary’. So you say. How do you know he hasn’t been kidnapped?”
    “Because I’ve checked, and he hasn’t,” I snapped back, with a smile. If there was a lip reader among the admirals, we were sunk.
    The beetle brows rose over the enormous bifocals. “So it did occur to you,” said Johnson. “Then what did your friend say about the late Mr Chigwell?”
    I got up. “I’ll tell you when he comes to the phone.”
    He stood too. “So you haven’t spoken to him?”
    I could feel my teeth clench. Then, my back to the room, I spoke quickly and softly. “Listen. You’re partly right. Kenneth is a scientist, and his work is important. That’s why the table was bugged. But it’s nothing to do with the murder. It’s because of me. They don’t like international attachments. He’s not supposed to be seeing me, even.”
    “They must be frightfully pleased then, that you’re on board Dolly with me . . . Shall we go out?” enquired Johnson.
    I led the way, rather thoughtfully. For the fact was, after all that publicity, it must be all too clear to Kenneth’s bosses as well as to Kenneth that I was making for Rum . . . if they knew that I was the person he was expecting in Rose Street that night. And if they knew that, and the late Mr Chigwell came to light any time in the next three or four days, they had the perfect excuse for detaining me. On the other hand . . .
    “On the other hand,” said Johnson, exactly as if I had spoken aloud. “Our first theory may be right. Chigwell might have been killed by someone who thought he was Dr Holmes. And having found out his mistake, our little friend with the warts may be at the other end of the country just now, trailing the good Kenneth Holmes.” The bifocals flashed at me. “But you say you can warn him. So that must be all right.”
    All right, hell. If somebody was trailing Kenneth Holmes with intent to murder, that somebody was here, on the west coast of Scotland, going the way I was going, to Rum.
     
    I said goodnight to Johnson soon after, at the door of my room where he found considerable interest, it seemed, in gazing over my shoulder at my night attire, laid out on the bed, with my big, gold-fitted toilet case beside it. The trunk and the four travelling cases were standing still locked.
    “Uh, tell me,” said Johnson. “Have you ever gone sailing before? On anything less than three thousand tons, for example?”
    “ Is there anything less than three thousand tons?” I replied. I was irritated. I added, remembering the portrait: “I’m sorry; but are you trying to say that the Dolly is too small