He couldn’t help laughing. “Can you imagine Majendie coming within a mile of a bomb? But you’ve no idea of what might be inside?”

“No, of course not—oh look! Here’s the lane.”

Brett swung the torch beam to the right. It was dazzled back by the swirling snow, but he could see the hedge and the ditch turning at a sharp angle.

“Right then,” he said.

They turned off the road and ran plodding on in silence for a time. The ground rose, not very steeply, but continuously, covered by snow which lay in most places about six inches deep, and greatly clogged them, whether they kicked through it or pulled their feet out at each step and plunked them down again. The fall drove almost straight on their backs; yet such were its eddies and flurries that flakes were constantly blown in their faces. To try to puff them aside was exhausting, but an instinctive reaction; so it was to brush them off, even though this left the face wet and stinging.

Brett was warm, but he wondered about Stephanie. Her coat was thinner than his, and she had been out longer. He looked at her. The yellow raincoat was soaked to darkness, and the flat semi-slippers which he’d noticed at Folkestone were no longer beige but black.

“What are you wearing under your coat?” he asked.

“My shop clothes. The grey dress.”

He groaned. “What ineffable vanity made you wear that coat and those shoes in such weather?”

“I didn’t know I was going to have to do all this.”

“But even if all this had never happened—oh, never mind. Shall we stop plunging along in this tiring fashion? I’m not sure that it’s so much faster than walking.”

Their amended pace, although slower, was as brisk as conditions allowed.

“How long before you met me had the car passed you?” he asked.

“No idea. It was all a dream. You know, time didn’t count.”

“And when you jumped out of Majendie’s car and hid behind the hedge? You’d hardly consult a watch in such a crisis, but did you happen to see—”

“No.”

There was a considerable pause.

“Do you do murders?” she asked suddenly.

“Not as a rule,” he said, taking her meaning after a bewildered moment. “I have encountered one or two.”

“What then? Robberies and burglaries and that? I suppose that’s bad enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s such a ghastly job, isn’t it? Daddy says in the end all detectives get the same as the greasy people they mix with.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

Brett marched on in silence.

He was aware that such an opinion was widely held; it had never before been uttered point blank to his face. Of course. Stephanie’s tone had been not waspish but indifferent, almost blithe. He was fairly sure she hadn’t intended him to infer a personal slight from her generality. She had simply demonstrated once more the thoughtlessness of the self-centred, and somewhat spoilt child. And he wondered, that a remark so little to be heeded should have stung him; as, momentarily, it had.