“Mirages that vanish in the twilight,” answered Bony. “Your girl friend doesn’t look very intelligent. She sulked when Stillman questioned her. You know Stillman, of course?”

“The world’s greatest living wonder?”

“How so?”

“That he’s lived so long.”

“H’m! Let’s get back to your lady friend. She will never be driven. She may possibly be led. A man and two women sat where I am that afternoon Parsons read his magazine and sipped tea. The man is out. The two women are of value. The first one left before Parsons drained his poisoned cup. She could have dropped the cyanide into it. The second one was seated where I am when Parsons did drain his cup and collapsed. She could have added cyanide to Parsons’s cup. Pump your lady friend about those women. Lead her mind back to recall them, their age, clothes, mannerisms.”

Jimmy groaned.

“I took her to the fight last night. All she did was to suck boiled sweets like water going down a sink and squeeze my hand like a dishrag. And giggle! She’d giggle with a pint of cyanide in her. What do I get in return for all this agony?”

“No restitution of that Sydney bookmaker’s ill-gotten gains,” Bony said.

“Hell! You stillrememberin ’ that?”

Bony nodded and poured tea.

“There are,” he said, “many honest bookmakers. Perhaps you don’t know that that particular bookmaker dabbles in blackmail.”

“I do know, but that didn’t worry me.”

Bony smiled, and Jimmy’s uneasiness increased.

“Regarding those jobs you put through here, three in number and totalling in cash and value six hundred and sixty-two pounds, I shall expect to receive restitution. Let me have the money in a neat parcel here tomorrow at the same time.”