“She could see and hear and speak,” said Harry, in careful farewell. “We both know that. You probably killed her. Or she killed herself. Or it was an accident not because she was blind, but because she was all worked up. I don’t know. You know. But if I ever do find out–” Mrs Bannister continued to stand there, rock-like, unshakable. She shrugged slightly, to mark the wildness of his words. She gave the impression of bearing no malice … He turned on his heel, unsteadily, and walked out of the apartment again, leaving to her the mortal battlefield and the single corpse.

To his exhausted, wrung-out brain, there was an odd silence in the city room when he returned to it. It was nearly twelve o’clock – not a busy time, never a dead one; but it seemed to Harry Grant that he was entering a morgue – a morgue where the inmates, chattering to one another, fell silent when he came in, and raised their chalky heads to look at him as he passed … He made his face firm, concealing his grief, and then realized that he was concealing nothing at all. Grief must be for tomorrow – it had not yet arrived. Here there was just dullness, and the need to tie up the strings.

Ryan was waiting for him, facing him across the broad desk – strong, experienced, prepared to deal with anything that came. Thank God, thought Harry, he need decide nothing for himself. It was all in the hands of this dependable man.

“Well, Harry?” said Ryan.

“I didn’t get anywhere,” Harry answered.

Ryan nodded, as if he had guessed that already. Then he said: “I read your story. Best you ever wrote.”

“Mrs Bannister killed her,” said Harry. “I just know she did.”

“Any proof? Did she talk?”

“No. Not the way we wanted, that is. She had all the answers ready.”

Ryan nodded again, once more unsurprised. “Then the thing’s dead,” he said, slowly. “It’s hell, but there it is. There’s nothing left.”

“Why?”

“Everything died with Esther. We’ve nothing to go on, at all.”

“We could still print it,” said Harry. He knew that Ryan would not print it: indeed, he had known this while he was still in Mrs Bannister’s apartment, and he endorsed the decision; but perversely he wanted to put in a last word for his story – and for Esther Costello. “We could print it, just the same, and let the fireworks start.”

Ryan shook his head. “No. It’s no good. We’ve nothing to go on.”

“There’s still the money angle.”

“How do you mean?”

“Even if we can’t prove anything about Esther being able to see, or about how she died, there’s still the money to be accounted for. All those collections and gifts – the whole racket. We could get Mrs Bannister on that.”

Ryan nodded. “Maybe. But what does that do to Esther?”

“She’s beyond the scandal, beyond the reach of it.”

“But her memory isn’t.”