The conversation languished. Brett, looking out of the window, wondered how many people whose good will and friendliness he accepted without question really regarded him with discomfort and distaste.

After a minute or so he became aware that Majendie was mumbling indistinctly in his corner.

“—sincerely—forgot myself, I’m afraid—allowances—head—ill—unsettled—”

“Don’t bother,” said Brett, “it’s true.”

There was a pause.

“And you must realise,” went on Majendie, with much more assurance, “that not every item of stock is known to me. Describe this cameo.”

Because it seemed so pointless, there was no point in not complying. Brett told him.

“Sixteen, seventeen, pounds or guineas,” said Majendie. “Possibly a little more or less. Not more than twenty. Of course, immediately after the war it would have been another matter.”

Brett was silent. Emmanuel had let Majendie know how much he had cut, that was all. It was true that Majendie sounded uncommonly convincing. But his plausibility had never been in doubt.

“Why not take an independent valuation?” he suggested now.

That was easily said. They had first to get out of their present plight.

“But what put such an idea into your head?” Majendie persisted.

What indeed! Or rather, who. Brett said nothing. Nothing was safe. What layer on layer of deceit and probing and sifting wouldn’t they unfold—they, including Majendie. Majendie, he noticed, had showed no curiosity as to what had brought him on the scene in the first place.

He only just managed to keep back a groan. He didn’t know what to think, and his head ached. He was beginning to feel the strain of being tied; since Wacey had left the car he had been struggling to free himself, but his efforts succeeded only in pulling the bonds tighter or in making his wrists swell. Above all he longed to be with someone he could trust. The forbidden name nearly broke surface, the unmanning image which would set him fretting and sweating, and reduce his brain to worse, if possible, than its present uselessness.

Quickly, to divert the thought, he looked at the third passenger. He sat as before, mute and still. A phrase echoed in Brett’s mind—shove up, zany, can’t you? Zany. A person not to be reckoned with, not to be heeded, before whom anyone might talk freely; a sitting target for a bully. The Simpleton in Boris Godunov. That, Brett thought, was the likeness he had almost reached earlier, when Majendie had interrupted. The Simpleton, without hope, had no choice but to endure suffering and mockery. Yet the Simpleton was not a fool. His sly dreamy sallies made Tsar Boris blench. He had no illusions of a new life under a new leader; he went on singing of the grief and toil that was the life of Russia.

Russia. Exactly, thought Brett, feeling quite calm in spite of his sudden enlightenment. He stared into the corner. Dimly he could see the third passenger’s straggling moustache.

“Ivan Ilarionovich!” he said softly.

* * *