With a sudden scrabble a rat shot out and ran across his boots. He swore, stumbled, and lurched sideways. The light from his flashlamp darted eccentrically up the side alley, momentarily exhibiting a high-heeled shoe with a foot in it. The light fluttered, steadied, and returned. It crept from the foot along a leg, showing a red graze through the gap in its nylon stocking. It moved on and came to rest at last on a litter of artificial pink pearls and fresh flowers scattered over the breast of a dead girl.
CHAPTER 2
Embarkation
At seven o’clock on that same evening an omnibus had left Euston Station for the Royal Albert Docks.
It had carried ten passengers, seven of whom were to embark in the Cape Farewell, sailing at midnight for South Africa. Of the remainder, two were seeing-off friends, while the last was the ship’s doctor, a young man who sat alone and did not lift his gaze from the pages of a formidable book.
After the manner of travellers, the ship’s passengers had taken furtive stock of each other. Those who were escorted by friends speculated in undertones about those who were not.
“My dear!” Mrs. Dillington-Blick ejaculated. “Honestly! Not one!”
Her friend made a slight grimace in the direction of the doctor and raised her eyebrows. “Not bad?” she mouthed. “Noticed?”
Mrs. Dillington-Blick shifted her shoulders under their mantling of silver fox and turned her head until she was able to include the doctor in an absent-minded glance.
“I hadn’t noticed,” she confessed and added, “Rather nice? But the others! My dear! Best forgotten! Still—”
“There are the officers,” the friend hinted slyly.
“My dear!”
They caught each other’s eyes and laughed again, cosily.