Although, with a slightly sinking feeling, she already guessed, she asked him where he was going, and he said: 'I'll be stooging around in my car till I come on a judy that's padding the hoof on her lonesome with no one in sight. Then, after we've had a short session in the bushes, I'll offer her a lift home. Time I got her in the car she'll have as good as had it. I'll put her in a deep sleep, bring her back here, lock her in the cellar and keep her there on ice till tomorrow night.'

There was nothing Mary could say or do which would have deflected him from his intention; so, maintaining the rôle to which she was all the time forcing herself, she begged him not to be later than he could help, and waved him away on his grim mission.

He got back at about two o'clock in the morning and, flicking all the lights on in the bedroom, strode into it in a furious temper. Mary, blinking and still half asleep, roused herself to listen to the account he gave of his venture and pretend sympathy with him over the ill-luck which had brought it to ruin.

Apparently, without being observed by anyone, he had picked up a girl who had been drinking and necking with some of his airmen. He had driven her a short distance to a wood and a little way into it, as before taking her back to the house he had wanted to make certain that she would suit his purpose. When picking her up he had realized that she had had a skinful of whiskey and when they got out of the car she had been unsteady on her feet, but not too tight to make sense.

The talk he had had with her had satisfied him that she could not have suited him better. She was a North-country girl who had run away to London and had worked the streets round the Elephant and Castle for a few months. Then, tempted by stories of the big money to be made in the neighbourhood of the American bases, she had come to Cambridge. But she had not been in the district long and the previous week her landlady had thrown her out for taking a man up to her room. Since then she had been sharing a caravan with an out-of-work that she had met in a pub, who was glad enough to give her sleeping space for a share of her earnings. From this it was clear that, like many more of her kind, if she was never seen again not a soul in the world was going to ask what had become of her.