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had been wholly police-proof. It had been a couple of kids, that blond Mavis Something’s little brothers, who’d sent Walewski down—them and the prosecution lawyer who’d talked to one of the doctors and become sufficiently angry. Pibble had given evidence, and Walewski had smiled from the dock all the time, a smile that said clear as shouting, “You haven’t a hope, you poor little runt.” Eighteen months Walewski had got, trapped in the net of the law, too stupid to see that this was something different from the jungle in which he lived his strong, cruel tiger life.
    Caine’s study was on the other side of the passage, a tiny room, intensely and intentionally masculine. The only decoration was an enormously blown-up photograph of Caine, taped to a wall; it showed him spread-eagled on a face of rock, apparently leading a climb, as a slack of rope dangled downward from his waist and no rope led up. His face was turned sideways so that the craggy profile showed to full advantage. He was laughing like a businessman at a floor show. ’Twas very theatric.
    A pair of climbing boots hung from a nail on another wall and a coil of nylon rope lay in a corner. Caine picked up a shiny piton from the desk and plonked it in the middle of a loose pile of papers.
    â€œFunny how cleaning women can’t put things back,” he said, “however much they love you.”
    Without apology, he laid himself full length in the only chair, a vanquished object with a torn cover. The seat’s edge supported the small of his back, his crossed legs stuck out four feet across the room, his head was on a level with the arms of the chair, and his neck was bent almost to a right angle by the back of it. He looked as though he and a few friends owned the world. Pibble decided that he would feel less abject perching on the edge of the desk than standing subservient before this arrogant layabout.
    â€œSorry, copper, I didn’t catch your name.”
    â€œI am Detective Superintendent Pibble, C.I.D.” The only refuge was police-college formality. “As a preliminary, may I ask where you yourself spent last night?”
    â€œYou may, cock. I was in Southampton, at Turner’s Hotel in Crerdon Road, the meanest bleeding doss house this side of Timbuktu.”
    â€œDid you go down by car?”
    â€œCan’t afford to run one, old boy—not anything I’d be prepared to be seen dead in. I’ve got a cobber in the trade who lends me a decent piece of iron from time to time, but I don’t care to ask too often. I took out a beaut of a two-point-three Alfa last weekend, got her up to twenty over the ton on the M4—not bad for 1930, eh?”
    â€œHow long have you known the Kus?”
    â€œTwenty-five years ago this June, I staggered into their village, copper, pretty sick, and with a duff ankle, too. Been in that bleeding jungle four days, scuttling under cover when a leaf rattled. They were good to me, those Kus, though I sometimes think they’d rather have eaten me than nursed me—probably would have if the Rev. hadn’t been there in his crazy old hat. Eve’s dad, that was, and as near a saint as I’m ever likely to meet on this bleeding piece of earth. Then they all had to go and get themselves wiped out by the stinking Nips. If there was a God in heaven …”
    His voice ran into the sand. For the last few sentences, he had been talking like a maudlin drunk, whose pity for the world is only his pity for himself. He looked as if he’d had a thickish night—perhaps there was enough alcohol still in his system for shock to bring it to the surface.
    â€œHave you been with them ever since?” asked Pibble.
    â€œPretty near. I went back to Australia for a year or two after the show was over, but I kept worrying about little Eve being all alone in the world, so I did a bit of sleuthing, found she’d come back here, and set up camp