I was now pretty sure of Grace. By dint of a rigmarole so involved that I myself nearly got bogged in it, I induced him to tell the others that I’d be working in the shed all night, and, at the same time, to believe himself that I was going to do no such thing. He had been interrupted by the stretcher party in his first attempt to return and tidy up any prints he’d left. And he must have left some when he fetched and replaced the branding iron. Persuaded that the shed would be deserted, and alarmed by my elephantine hints of clues to be discovered at daybreak, he made his fatal slip. He waited until he thought I was asleep, and then up he came to go over the ground himself. He took off his slippers; he’d dried them at the drawing-room fire after the assault on Losse; and polished the wool-shed floor. He had another go at the branding iron which he’d already wiped on my overcoat. Then, harking back to his earlier intention, he gouged out the existing candle stump, leaving no prints on it, and dropped it into the pens. He then climbed into the pens and scuffled a branch between the slats until he’d covered the new candle end. It was odds on we’d find it before the one that Albert Black had chucked into the pens nearly two years ago.

I’d counted on a show-down and got more than I bargained for.

It all happened quickly and, until the last moment, very quietly. It was a rum scene. I flashed the torch on him and he blinked and peered at me over the partition, while Markins scudded across the shed looking for a fight. There wasn’t one. Boxed up in there, he hadn’t a hope. The whole affair suddenly became very formal. Grace drew himself up to attention and waited for me to make the first move. He didn’t speak. I was never to hear him speak again. I gave him the official warning, told him the police would arrive in two hours, and said that if he liked to give his parole under temporary arrest we’d all move to warmer quarters.

He bowed. He bent stiffly from the waist. This made an extraordinary impression on me because in that moment, when he was queerly lit by two torches, Markins and I having turned both ours upon him, I saw him as a Nazi. He would now, I thought, play the role to which he was naturally suited. He would be formal and courageous, a figure from a recognizable pattern. He would exhibit correct manners because these are the coach-work of the Nazi machine. He would betray nothing.

Then I saw his hand move to his side pocket.

His eyes widened and his lips were compressed. I yelled out: ‘Stop that!’