On top of the chest of drawers was a silver frame enclosing the picture of a fair girl in her presentation gown and feathers. She was very nearly a great beauty, but her mouth was thin and at the same time pouting. Spoilt, thought Sabrina, regarding her with a mixture of surprise and hostility. With Love, ALICE was written across one corner of the picture. Alice too was in the absurd conspiracy to withhold his name. Who was Alice?

Beside the picture was a round leather box, with its catch hanging loose. Between two fingers Sabrina lifted the lid. It was full of winged collars for evening wear. Did he dress for dinner every night in the country? In the center space lay something small and black and cold, like a snake. Sabrina looked again, incredulously—yes, it was—nestled in the stiff, encircling collars lay a peculiarly deadly-looking revolver.

Sabrina lifted down the collar box and held it to the light, staring at the gun. It was the first one she had ever seen, close like this, and her heart was beating thickly.

It was somehow wholly terrifying to come upon a gun so casually, as though he thought nothing of it at all, to toss it in among his dress collars. Or did he like to keep it handy? Was it loaded? She sensed that it was ready for business at a touch on the trigger. Why did he have a gun, here in his room? Such a compact, efficient, up-to-date-looking gun, too, surely the very latest thing in sudden death. And yet so small.

The box was heavy in her hands with the gun’s weight. She picked the thing up between her thumb and forefinger, holding it by the extreme end of its handle. How heavy it was, and how cold to the touch. But so small that in a man’s hand, held closely in his palm, it would be scarcely noticeable. Very gently she laid it back in its nest among the collars, and replaced the box beside Alice. They were odd companions.

She felt shaken and sobered by the encounter with the gun. She had been in the same room with it day after day, and she might never have known it was there. Didn’t he need it, wherever he was now? Had he got another? He had been out East, yes—and men carried guns as a matter of course in India and China these days. So if he had gone back there, why hadn’t he taken it with him? Where was he now, and why a gun, loaded and ready to fire, living in his room?

She backed away from the chest of drawers slowly until she backed into the bed.