“You could tell the steward,” said Straik.

IV

The committee sat for about two hours and the Deputy Director was in the chair. His method of conducting business was slow and involved, and to Mark, with his Bracton experience to guide him, it soon became obvious that the real work of the N.I.C.E. must go on somewhere else. This, indeed, was what he had expected, and he was too reasonable to suppose that he should find himself, at this early stage, in the Inner Ring or whatever at Belbury corresponded to the Progressive Element at Bracton. But he hoped he would not be kept marking time on phantom committees for too long. This morning the business mainly concerned the details of the work which had already been begun at Edgestow. The N.I.C.E. had apparently won some sort of victory which gave it the right to pull down the little Norman Church at the corner.

“The usual objections were, of course, tabled,” said Wither. Mark who was not interested in architecture and who did not know the other side of the Wynd nearly so well as his wife, allowed his attention to wander. It was only at the end of the meeting that Wither opened a much more sensational subject. He believed that most of those present had already heard (“Why do chairmen always begin that way?” thought Mark) the very distressing piece of news which it was, nevertheless, his duty now to communicate to them in a semi-official manner. He was referring, of course, to the murder of Mr. William Hingest. As far as Mark could discover from the chairman’s tortuous and allusive narrative, Bill the Blizzard had been discovered with his head beaten in by some blunt instrument, lying near his car in Potter’s Lane at about four o’clock that morning. He had been dead for several hours. Mr. Wither ventured to suppose that it would be a melancholy pleasure to the committee to know that N.I.C.E. police had been on the scene of the crime before five, and that neither the local authorities nor Scotland Yard were making any objections to the fullest collaboration. He felt that if the occasion were more appropriate he would have welcomed a motion for some expression of the gratitude they must all feel to Miss Hardcastle and possibly of congratulations to her on the smooth interaction between her own forces and those of the state. This was a most gratifying feature in the sad story and, he suggested, a good omen for the future. Some decently subdued applause went round the table at this. Mr. Wither then proceeded to speak at some length about the dead man. They had all much regretted Mr. Hingest’s resolution to withdraw from the N.I.C.E . . . while fully appreciating his motives; they had all felt that this official severance would not in the least alter the cordial relations which existed between the deceased and almost all-he thought he could even say all without exception-of his former colleagues in the Institute. The obituary (in Raleigh’s fine phrase) was an instrument which the Deputy Director’s talents well fitted him to play, and he spoke at great length. He concluded by suggesting that they should all stand in silence for one minute as a token of respect for the memory of William Hingest.

And they did-a world-without-end minute in which odd creakings and breathings became audible, and behind the mask of each glazed and tight-lipped face, shy, irrelevant thoughts of this and that came creeping out as birds and mice creep out again in the clearing of a wood when the picnickers have gone, and everyone silently assured himself that he, at least, was not being morbid and not thinking about death.

Then there was a stir and a bustle and the committee broke up.

V

The whole process of getting up and doing the “morning jobs” was more cheerful, Jane found, because she had Mrs. Dimble with her. Mark often helped: but as he always took the view-and Jane could feel it even if he did not express it in words-that “anything would do” and that Jane made a lot of unnecessary work and that men could keep house with a tithe of the fuss and trouble which women made about it, Mark’s help was one of the commonest causes of quarrels between them. Mrs. Dimble, on the other hand, fell in with her ways. It was a bright sunny morning, and as they sat down to breakfast in the kitchen Jane was feeling bright herself. During the night her mind had evolved a comfortable theory that the mere fact of having seen Miss Ironwood and “had it all out” would probably stop the dreams altogether. The episode would be closed. And now-there was all the exciting possibility of Mark’s new job to look forward to. She began to see pictures in her mind.

Mrs. Dimble was anxious to know what had happened to Jane at St. Anne’s and when she was going there again. Jane answered evasively on the first question and Mrs. Dimble was too polite to press it. As to the second, Jane thought she wouldn’t “bother” Miss Ironwood again, or wouldn’t “bother” any further about the dreams.

She said she had been “silly” but felt sure she’d be all right now. And she glanced at the clock and wondered why Mrs. Maggs hadn’t yet turned up.

“My dear, I’m afraid you’ve lost Ivy Maggs,” said Mrs. Dimble. “Didn’t I tell you they’d taken her house too? I thought you’d understand she wouldn’t be coming to you in future. You see there’s nowhere for her to live in Edgestow.”

“Bother!” said Jane: and added, without much interest in the reply, “What is she doing, do you know?”

“She’s gone out to St. Anne’s.”

“Has she got friends there?”

“She’s gone to the Manor, along with Cecil and me.”

“Do you mean she’s got a job there?”

“Well, yes. I suppose it is a job.”

Mrs. Dimble left at about eleven. She also, it appeared, was going to St. Anne’s, but was first to meet her husband and lunch with him at Northumberland. Jane walked down to the town with her to do a little shopping and they parted at the bottom of Market Street. It was just after this that Jane met Mr. Curry.

“Have you heard the news, Mrs. Studdock?” said Curry. His manner was always important and his tone always vaguely confidential, but this morning they seemed more so than usual.

“No. What’s wrong?” said Jane. She thought Mr. Curry a pompous fool and Mark a fool for being impressed by him. But as soon as Curry began speaking her face showed all the wonder and consternation he could have wished. Nor were they, this time, feigned. He told her that Mr. Hingest had been murdered, some time during the night or in the small hours of that morning. The body had been found lying beside his car, in Potter’s Lane, badly beaten about the head. He had been driving from Belbury to Edgestow. Curry was at the moment hastening back to College to talk to the warden about it: he had just been at the police station. One saw that the murder had already become Curry’s property. The “matter” was, in some indefinable sense, “in his hands,” and he was heavy with responsibility. At another time Jane would have found this amusing. She escaped from him as soon as possible and went into Blackie’s for a cup of coffee. She felt she must sit down.

The death of Hingest in itself meant nothing to her. She had met him only once and she had accepted from Mark the view that he was a disagreeable old man and rather a snob. But the certainty that she herself in her dream had witnessed a real murder shattered at one blow the consoling pretences with which she had begun the morning. It came over her with sickening clarity that the affair of her dreams, far from being ended, was only beginning. The bright, narrow little life which she had supposed to live was being irremediably broken into. Windows into huge, dark landscapes were opening on every side and she was powerless to shut them. It would drive her mad, she thought, to face it alone. The other alternative was to go back to Miss Ironwood. But that seemed to be only a way of going deeper into all this darkness. This Manor at St. Anne’s-this “kind of company “-was “mixed up in it.” She didn’t want to get drawn in. It was unfair. It wasn’t as if she had asked much of life. All she wanted was to be left alone. And the thing was so preposterous! The sort of thing which, according to all the authorities she had hitherto accepted, could not really happen.