“Ah, there you are,” said he, “I was just coming to see if you were ready to go. The thing is this. It appears there’s some property of Mr. Majendie’s buried behind a hedge on the road to Pettinge. We were quite willing to send someone to pick it up, but Miss Cole seems to find it difficult to describe the exact position—she hid it, you see—and as she’s got to go to Pettinge in any case it’s been decided to let her do the finding. Between ourselves I think she could have told us well enough, but she wanted just this to happen. Well, why not please her? She’s been through a lot. Don’t you agree?”

“Entirely. Where do I come into it?”

“Well, Mr. Majendie seemed to think you’d be interested in coming too. Don’t if you’d rather not, of course, but if you like to—”

“What transport do we have? Can I take Beddoes?”

“Yes, yes, by all means,” cried the Superintendent expansively. “There’s Mr. Cole’s car and mine, plenty of room for all. We’re all going. And if you like I can take you both on to Folkestone, rather than back here. The trains would be more convenient.”

“Thank you very much. I’m quite ready.”

“Good, I’ll fetch my car. Ah—Miss Cole.”

Stephanie was standing at the door of a room opening off the corridor.

“Yes, do go in,” said the Superintendent, to Brett. “The father’s in there, and your sergeant.” He went off without waiting to see Brett inside.

“Where have you been?” said Stephanie, pulling the door to, so that they were shut in the corridor. “I haven’t seen you since all that in the car. What have you been doing? You look awfully tired.”

“I am tired. Aren’t you?”

“No. I feel rather odd, though. A bit as if I’d had a tooth out. Oh, wasn’t it awful!”

“Forget it. That sort of thing ordinarily happens just once, if ever, to a law-abiding person. You’ve got it over early.”

“Well, but I didn’t mean just it, which was bad enough. I was so stupid. And when you think of these things happening—or things a bit like this, anyway, you imagine you’d be all cool and collected, in fact you’d probably be the one to get people out of the mess. But when it was real, all I could do was cry.”

“Everyone’s like that, Stephanie.”

“I didn’t see you crying.”

“Of course, a person like Beddoes will distinguish himself in the real thing. Did you know he boarded that helicopter and brought it down, without really knowing how?”