“We’d better stop now,” said Peter, when he had instructed her in the removal of the thug who leaps from in front, the thug who dives in from behind, and the more sophisticated thug who starts operations with a sill; scarf. “You’ll feel tomorrow as if you’d been playing football.”

“I think I shall have a sore throat.”

“I’m sorry. Did I let my animal nature get the better of me? That’s the worst of these rough sports.”

“It would be a good bit rougher if it was done in earnest. I shouldn’t care to meet you in a narrow lane on a dark night, and I only hope the Poison-Pen hasn’t been making a study of the subject. Peter, you don’t seriously think-”

“I avoid serious thought like the plague. But I assure you I haven’t been knocking you about for the fun of it.”

“I believe you. No gentleman could throttle a lady more impersonally.”

“Thank you for the testimonial. Cigarette?”

Harriet took the cigarette, which she felt she had deserved, and sat with her hands about her knees, mentally turning the incidents of the last hour into a scene in a book (as is the novelist’s unpleasant habit) and thinking how, with a little vulgarity on both sides, it could be worked up into a nice piece of exhibitionism for the male and provocation for the female concerned. With a little manipulation it might come in for the chapter where the wart Everard was due to seduce the glamorous but neglected wife, Sheila. He could lock her to him, knee to knee and breast to breast in an unbreakable grip and smile challengingly into her flushed face; and Sheila could go all limp-at which point Everard could either rain fierce kisses on her mouth, or say, “My God! don’t tempt me!” which would come to exactly the same thing in the end. “It would suit them very well,” thought Harriet, “the cheap skates!” and passed an exploring finger under the angle of her jaw, where the pressure of a relentless thumb had left its memory.

“Cheer up,” said Peter. “It’ll wear off.”

“Do you propose to give Miss de Vine lessons in self-defence?”

“I’m rather bothered about her. She’s got a groggy heart, hasn’t she?”

“She’s supposed to have. She wouldn’t climb Magdalen Tower.”

“And presumably she wouldn’t rush round College and steal fuses or climb in and out of windows. In which case the hairpins would be a plant. Which brings us back to the Robinson theory. But it’s easy to pretend your heart is worse than it is. Ever seen her have a heart-attack?”

“Now you mention it, I have not.”

“You see,” said Peter, “she put me on to Robinson. I gave her the opportunity to tell a story, and she told it. Next day, I went to see her and asked for the name. She made a good show of reluctance, but she gave it. It’s easy to throw suspicion on people who owe you a grudge, and that without telling any lies. If I wanted you to believe that somebody was having a smack at me, I could give you a list of enemies as long as my arm.”

“I suppose so. Do they ever try to do you in?”

“Not very often. Occasionally they send silly things by post. Shaving cream full of nasty bugs and so on. And there was a gentleman with a pill calculated to cure lassitude and debility. I had a long correspondence with him, all in plain envelopes. The beauty of his system was that he made you pay for the pill, which still seems to me a very fine touch. In fact, he took me in completely; he only made the one trifling miscalculation of supposing that I wanted the pill-and I can’t really blame him for that, because the list of symptoms I produced for him would have led anybody to suppose I needed the whole pharmacopoeia. However, he sent me a week’s supply-seven pills-at shocking expense; so I virtuously toddled round with them to my friend at the Home Office who deals with charlatans and immoral advertisements and so on, and he was inquisitive enough to analyze them. ‘H’m,’ said he, ‘six of ’em would neither make nor mar you; but the other would cure lassitude all right.’ So I naturally asked what was in it. ‘Strychnine,’ said he. ‘Full lethal dose. If you want to go rolling round the room like a hoop with your head touching your heels, I’ll guarantee the result.’ So we went off to look for the gentleman.”

“Did you find him?”

“Oh, yes. Dear old friend of mine. Had him in the dock before on a cocaine charge. We put him in jug-and I’m dashed if, when he came out, he didn’t try to blackmail me on the strength of the pill correspondence. I never met a scoundrel I liked better… Would you care for a little more healthy exercise, or shall we take the road again?”

It was when they were passing through a small town that Peter caught sight of a leather-and-harness shop, and pulled up suddenly.

“I know what you want,” he said. “You want a dog-collar. I’m going to get you one. The kind with brass knobs.”

“A dog-collar? Whatever for? As a badge of ownership?”

“God forbid. To guard against the bites of sharks. Excellent also against thugs and throat-slitters.”

“My dear man!”

“Honestly. It’s too stiff to squeeze and it’ll turn the edge of a blade-and even if anybody hangs you by it, it won’t choke you as a rope would.”

“I can’t go about in a dog-collar.”

“Well, not in the day-time. But it would give confidence when patrolling at night. And you could sleep in it with a little practice. You needn’t bother to come in-I’ve had my hands round your neck often enough to guess the size.” He vanished into the shop and was seen through the window conferring with the proprietor. Presently he came out with a parcel and took the wheel again.

“The man was very much interested,” he observed, “in my bull-terrier bitch. Extremely plucky animal, but reckless and obstinate fighter. Personally, he said, he preferred greyhounds. He told me where I could get my name and address put on the collar, but I said that could wait. Now we’re out of the town, you can try it on.”

He drew in to the side of the road for this purpose, and assisted her (with, Harriet fancied, a touch of self-satisfaction), to buckle the heavy strap. It was a massive kind of necklace and quite surprisingly uncomfortable. Harriet fished in her bag for a hand-mirror and surveyed the effect.

“Rather becoming, don’t you think?” said Peter. “I don’t see why it shouldn’t set a new fashion.”

“I do,” said Harriet. “Do you mind taking it off again.”

“Will you wear it?”

“Suppose somebody grabs at it from behind.”

“Let go and fall back on them-heavily. You’ll fall soft, and with luck they’ll crack their skull open.”

“ Bloodthirsty monster. Very well. I’ll do anything you like if you’ll take it off now.”

“That’s a promise,” said he, and released her. “That collar,” he added, wrapping it up again and laying it on her knee, “deserves to be put in a glass case.”

“Why?”

“It’s the only thing you’ve ever let me give you.”

“Except my life-except my life-except my life.”

“Damn!” said Peter, and stared out angrily over the windscreen. “It must have been a pretty bitter gift, if you can’t let either of us forget it.”

“I’m sorry, Peter. That was ungenerous and beastly of me. You shall give me something if you want to.”

“May I? What shall I give you? Roc’s eggs are cheap today.”

For a moment her mind was a blank. Whatever she asked him for, it must be something adequate. The trivial, the commonplace or the merely expensive would all be equally insulting. And he would know in a moment if she was inventing a want to please him…

“Peter-give me the ivory chessmen.”

He looked so delighted that she felt sure he had expected to be snubbed with a request for something costing seven-and-sixpence.

“My dear-of course! Would you like them now?”

“This instant! Some miserable undergraduate may be snapping them up. Every day I go out I expect to find them gone. Be quick.”

“All right. I’ll engage not to drop below seventy, except in the thirty-mile limit.”