I went back inside and as I closed the door I saw Lonnie crossing the main living area, heading, I assumed, for his cubicle. He walked uncertainly, like a man not seeing too well, and as he went by close to me I could see that his eyes were masked in tears: I would have given a lot to know just what it had been that had been responsible for those tears. It was a mark of Lonnie's -emotional upset that he did not so much as glance at the still three-quarter full bottle of Scotch on the small table by which Otto was sitting. He didn't even so much as look at Otto: more extraordinarily still Otto didn't even look up at Lonnie's passing. In the mood he'd been in when he'd accosted me outside his daughter's door I'd have expected him to question Lonnie pretty closely, probably with both hands around the old man's neck: but Otto's mood, clearly, had undergone a considerable sea change.

I was walking towards Luke, bent on rousing the faithful watch dog from his slumbers, when Otto suddenly heaved his bulk upright and made his way down the passage towards his daughter's cubicle. I didn't even hesitate, in for a penny, in for a pound. I followed him and took up my by now accustomed station outside Judith Haynes's door although this time I didn't have to have recourse to the keyhole again as Otto, in what was presumably his agitation, had left the door considerately ajar. Otto was addressing his daughter in a low harsh voice that was noticeably lacking in filial affection.

"What have you been saying, you young she-devil? What have you been saying? Car crash? Car crash? What lies have you been telling Gilbert, you blackmailing little bitch?"

"Get out of here!" Judith Haynes had abandoned the use of her dull and expressionless voice, although probably involuntarily. "Leave me, you horrible, evil, old man. Get out, get out, get out!"

I leaned more closely to the crack between door and jamb. It wasn't every day one had the opportunity to listen to those family tete-e-tetes.

"By God, and I'll not have my own daughter cross me." Otto had forgotten the need to talk in a low voice. "I've put up with more than enough from you and that other idle worthless bastard of a blackmailer. What did you-"

"You dare to talk of Michael like that?" Her voice had gone very quiet and I shivered involuntarily at the sound of it. "You talk of him like that and he's lying dead. Murdered. My husband. Well, Father dear, can I tell you about something you don't know that I know he was blackmailing you with. Shall I, Father dear? And shall I tell it to Johann Heissman, too?"

There was a silence, then Otto said: "You venomous little bitch!" He sounded as if he was trying to choke himself.

Venomous! Venomous!" She laughed, a cracked and chilling sound.

"Coming from you, that's rich. Come now, Daddy dear, surely you remember I938-why, even I can remember it. Poor old Johann, he ran, and ran, and ran, and all the time he ran the wrong way. Poor Uncle Johann.

That's what you taught me to call him then, wasn't it, Daddy dear? Uncle Johann."

I left, not because I had heard all that I wanted to hear but because I thought that this was a conversation that was not going to last very long and I could foresee a degree of awkwardness arising if Otto caught me outside his daughter's door a second time. Besides-I checked the time Jungbeck, Otto's watchmate, was due to make his appearance just at that moment and I didn't want him to find me where I was and, very likely, lose no time in telling his boss about it. So I returned to Luke, decided that there was no point in awakening him only to tell him to go to sleep again, poured myself a sort of morning nightcap and was about to savour it when I heard a feminine voice scream "Get out, get out, get out" and saw Otto emerging hurriedly from his daughter's cubicle and as hurriedly close the door behind him. He waddled swiftly into the middle of the cabin, seized the whisky bottle without as much as by-your-leave-true, it was his own, but he didn't know that-poured himself a brimming measure and downed half of it at a gulp, his shaking hand spilling a fair proportion of it on the way up to his mouth.

"That was very thoughtless of you, Mr. Gerran," I said reproachfully.

Upsetting your daughter like that. She's really a very sick girl and what she needs is tender affection, a measure of taking care."

"Tender affection!" He was on the second half of his glass now and he splattered much of it over his shirt front. "Loving care! Jesus!" He splashed some more Scotch into his glass and gradually subsided a little.

By and by he became calm, almost thoughtful: when he spoke no one would have thought that only a few minutes previously his greatest yearning in life would have been to disembowel me. "Maybe I wasn't as thoughtful as I ought to have been. But an hysterical girl, very hysterical. This actress temperament, you know. I'm afraid your sedatives aren't very effective, Dr. Marlowe."

"People's reactions to sedatives vary greatly, Mr. Gerran. And unpredictably."

I'm not blaming you, not blaming you," he said irritatedly. "Care and attention. Yes, yes. But sonic rest, a damned good sleep is more important, if you ask me. Hem, about another sedative-a more effective one this time?

No danger in that, is there?"

"No. No harm in it. She did sound a bit-what shall we say-worked up. But she's rather a self-willed person. If she refuses-"

"Ha! Self-willed! Try, anyway." He seemed to lose interest in the subject and gazed moodily at the floor. He looked up without any enthusiasm as Jungbeck made a sleepy entrance, turned and shook Luke roughly by the shoulder. "Wake up, man." Luke stirred and opened bleary eyes.

"Bloody fine guard you are. Your watch is over. Go to bed." Luke mumbled some sort of apology, rose stiffly and moved off.

"You might have let him be," I said. "He'll have to get up for the day inside a few hours anyway."

"Too late now. Besides," Otto added inconsequentially, "I'm going to have the lot of them up inside two hours. Weather's cleared, there's a moon to travel by, we can all be where we want to be and ready to shoot as soon as there's enough light in the sky." He glanced along the corridor where his daughter's cubicle was. "Well, aren't you going to try?"

I nodded and left. Ten minutes" time-in the right circumstances which in this case were the wrong ones-can bring about a change in a person's features which lies just within the bounds of credibility. The face that had looked merely drawn so very recently, now looked haggard: she looked her real age and then ten hard and bitter years after that. She wept in a sore and aching silence and the tears flowed steadily down her temples and past the carlobes, the damp marks spreading on the grey rough linen of her pillow. I would not have thought it possible that I could ever feel such deep pity for this person and wish to comfort her: but that was how it was. I said: I think you should sleep now."

"Why?" Her hands were clenched so tightly that the ivory of the knuckles showed. "What does it matter? I'll have to wake up, won't l?"

"Yes, I know." It was the sort of situation where, no matter what I said, the words would sound banal. "But the sleep would do you good, Miss Haynes."

"Well, yes," she said. It was hard for her to speak through the quiet tears. "All right. Make it a long sleep."

So, like a fool, I made it a long sleep. Like an even greater fool I went to my cubicle and lay down. And, like the greatest fool of all, I went to sleep myself.

I slept for over four hours and awoke to an almost deserted cabin. Otto had indeed been as good as his word and had had everyone up and around at what they must have regarded as the most unreasonable crack of dawn.

Understandably enough, neither he nor anyone else had seen fit to wake me: I was one of the few who had no functions to perform that day. Otto and Conrad were the only two people in the main quarter of the cabin. Both were drinking coffee but as both were heavily muffled they were clearly on the point of departure. Conrad said a civil good morning.