‘Well, Smith or Montmorency,’ Alleyn said, ‘we’d better let them talk to Mr C.D.E. Struthers. He may wish them on to one of his legal brethren in the North or he may come up here himself. It’s a matter of prestige.’

‘How d’you mean? Prestige?’ asked Tillottson.

‘The other name for it is Foljambe. Get your Sergeant here to trace the licence will you, Bert? And a description to Records. And Dabs.’

‘Yes, OK. I’ll see to it.’

But before he could do so the Sergeant himself appeared looking perturbed.

‘Call for you, sir,’ he said to Alleyn. ‘PC Cape on duty at Ramsdyke Lock. Very urgent.’

‘What the hell’s this,’ Alleyn said. But when he heard the voice, he guessed.

‘I’m reporting at once, sir,’ gabbled PC Cape. ‘I’m very sorry, sir, but there’s been a slip-up, sir. In the fog, sir.’

‘Who?’

‘The lady, sir. The American lady.’

‘What do you mean—slip-up?’

‘She’s gone, sir.’

II

Six minutes with their siren wailing brought them back to Ramsdyke. Tillottson kept up an uninterrupted flow of anathemas against his PC Cape. Alleyn and Fox said little, knowing that nothing they could offer would solace him. There was still no fog to speak of on the main road but when they turned off into the lane above Ramsdyke Lock they looked down on a vague uniform pallor of the sort that fills the valleys in a Japanese landscape. Their fog lamps isolated them in a moving confinement that closed as they descended.

‘A likely night for it,’ Tillottson kept repeating. ‘My Gawd, a likely night.’

He was driving his own car with Alleyn and Fox as passengers. The London CID car followed with a driver, a local constable and Sergeants Thompson and Bailey who had been pressed in as an emergency measure.

Sirens could be heard without definition as to place or distance. Road blocks and search parties from Longminster, Norminster and Crossdyke were being established about the landscape.

With that dramatic suddenness created by fog, a constable flashing an amber torchlight stood in their path. ‘Well?’ Tillottson said, leaning out of the window.

‘This is as far as you can drive, sir.’

‘Where’s Cape?’

‘T’other side, sir.’

They got out. Close on their left hand the fog-masked weir kept up its anonymous thunder. They followed the constable along the tow-path to the flight of steps that led up to the main bridge.

‘All right,’ Tillottson said. ‘Get back to your point.’

As they groped their way over the bridge a car crept past them filled with revellers engaged in doleful song.

The constable stepped into its path and waved his torch.

‘Hullo-’ullo-‘ullo,’ shouted the driver. ‘Anything wrong, Officer?’

‘Just a minute, if you please, sir.’

‘Our Breath is as the Breath of Spring,’ someone in the back seat sang dismally.

‘May I see your licence, sir?’