We booked two adjoining state-rooms with a bath between, and then did our shopping. I provided Muller and myself with bags and necessaries for the voyage. I bought a collapsible rubber boat with a bicycle pump to inflate it, a pair of strong paddles in two pieces and a hundred feet of light rope, all packed in a large suit-case. Muller, naturally, thought the boat was for my own escape; I didn’t disillusion him. Then I put the car into storage for a year, and we went on board.

Down St George’s Channel and across the Bay I had no need to trouble myself about Muller’s whereabouts. He had never made an ocean voyage. The ship was a mere 8,000 tons. The sea was very rough. I occupied the vile heaving rail at the stern, just to establish a squatter’s rights over it, and after a painful morning acquired my sea-legs. It was a blessing to have none of my usual biliousness. I was free to spend my time eating, drinking, and washing; I needed as much of the three pleasures as the ship provided.

On the third night out from Liverpool we passed Finistierra, and awoke to a pale blue world with a rapidly falling swell; the grey-green hills of Portugal lay along the eastern horizon. I routed my secretary-valet out of bed, and fed him breakfast. Then we occupied the two deck-chairs at the stern. I spread out my rugs and legs as awkwardly as possible, and through my monocle stared offensively at anyone who dared to pick his way over them. None of the passengers showed the slightest desire to join us.

In the late afternoon I gave Muller a couple of lemonades to brace his courage, and asked him what he wanted to do. Would he rather return to London and report himself, or vanish off the face of the earth? He was very nervous at the thought of not going back to tell what he knew of Quive-Smith’s death.

‘You’ll have to explain why you told so many lies at the farm,’ I reminded him. ‘The family can bear witness to the fact that you were alone. Nothing prevented you from telephoning to London.’

He promptly begged me to take him with me wherever I was going. The man was quite incapable of standing by himself. As soon as he was detached from one support, he began waving frantic tentacles in the hope of gripping another.

I replied that I couldn’t take him; he would have to disappear by his own individual route.

‘They would follow me,’ he cried. ‘I would never have any peace, sir.’

‘They won’t follow you if they think you are dead,’ I said.

I explained to him the plan: that he and the rubber boat were to be thrown overboard when we were a couple of miles from shore, and that I would give him £500 with which to start a new life. He brightened up a bit at the thought of money, but then was appalled by the difficulties facing him when he reached the shore.

Well, there was one thing Muller could be trusted to do: to follow orders. So I gave them.

‘Your clothes will be in the boat,’ I said. ‘When you land, put them on. Rip the boat to bits, and hide them under a rock. Walk to Cascaes and take the electric train to Lisbon. Don’t go to a hotel. Spend the night where you do not have to register. If you drink a coffee at any of the bars in the centre of the town, I expect some way of passing a discreet and pleasant night will occur to you. In the morning go to the docks to meet an imaginary friend who is arriving by ship. Pass back again through the customs as if you came off the boat and get your passport stamped. Then buy yourself a visa and a ticket for any country you want to visit, and leave at once by another ship.’

‘But suppose they look for me in Lisbon,’ he said. ‘They will see that I entered and left.’

I explained to him that I should make it clear he was dead; once they were sure he had never landed in Tangier, they wouldn’t look for him in Lisbon or anywhere else.

He seemed to think that he was a person of importance, and that they would ransack the world to find him. I repeated that so long as they thought Quive-Smith alive, they would not spend an hour or a fiver hunting for a useless agent whom they believed to be dead.

‘I know too much,’ he protested.

‘You don’t know a damn thing,’ I answered. ‘I doubt if you even know what country you were working for.’

‘I do, sir,’ he said, and mentioned it.

By God, it was the wrong one! I suppose it’s a commonplace that the underlings of a secret service should not even know the nationality of their employers, but it seemed to me remarkably clever.

I told him he was wrong, and proved it by the major’s papers. After that I had no more trouble except his natural funk of the sea.

We were a little ahead of schedule, and the Cintra hills were in sight at sunset. That suited me well enough; we could get the job over while the passengers were at dinner. So that no one should be sent in search of us, I told the chief steward that I wasn’t feeling well, and that my secretary would be looking after me.

Muller undressed in the cabin, and I tied the money round his neck in a fold of oilskin. As soon as the alleyways were clear we took the suit-case on deck, and unpacked and inflated the boat in the shelter of the deck-house. We could see lights on shore, so he knew in which direction to row. I made Muller repeat his orders. He had them pat, and he put them crudely. Then I lashed his clothes and the paddles to the bottom of the boat, and looped the other end of the long line around his waist.

The wash of a ship isn’t inviting. The poor devil sat on the rail shivering with cold and panic. I didn’t give him time to think, but hurled the boat over and snapped at him that he would drown if he let the line tauten. I saw the boat, a dark patch bobbing on the white wash, and I saw him come to the surface. A second later, the only sign that he had ever existed was a dressing-gown lying on the deck. Good luck to him! With the right job and a positive boss, his qualities of Second Murderer should ensure for him a secure and happy life.

I returned to my state-room with the suit-case and dressing-gown, and went to bed—his bed till midnight and my own till morning. When the cabin steward called us, he naturally assumed that my secretary was already up and about.

The day was abominably long. There was some doubt whether we should arrive at Tangier in time for passengers to land that night; if we didn’t, I had no hope of keeping Muller’s disappearance secret. I missed breakfast and passed the morning in concealment, acting on the general principle that nobody would think of us if neither were seen, but that, if one were seen, there might be enquiries about the other. At lunch-time I entered the saloon to tip my table steward, but refused to eat. I told him that both I and my secretary had been badly upset by our food, and that I had prescribed for us a short period of starvation. There was nothing like starvation, I boomed pompously, for putting the stomach right; that had always been our experience in India.

While the cabin steward was off duty between two and four, I packed the bags and took them on deck. Cape Spartel was in sight. The purser confirmed that we should certainly be able to leave the ship before the customs closed. I collected the two landing-cards. Then again I went into hiding until we dropped anchor.

As soon as the tender arrived and the baggage had been carried off the ship, I visited and tipped the cabin steward in a great hurry. He was not exactly suspicious, but he felt it his duty to ask a question.

‘Is Mr Muller all right, sir?’

‘Good heavens, yes!’ I answered. ‘He packed up for me and took everything on deck. He’s on the tender now with the baggage.’

‘I hadn’t seen him all day, sir,’ he explained, ‘so I thought I had better ask.’

‘I haven’t seen much of him myself,’ I replied testily. ‘I understand he found an old friend in the engineers’ department.’

He let it go at that. Muller was my servant. I was eminently respectable. If I saw nothing wrong, nothing could be wrong.