And while Bee sat and stared at the Ashby tablets in the church at Clare, Brat Farrar was standing in the back room in Pimlico in a brand-new suit and a state of panic.

How had he got himself into this? What could he have been thinking of? He, Brat Farrar. How did he ever think that he could go through with it? How had he ever in the first place consented to lend himself to such a plan?

It was the suit that had shocked him into realisation. The suit was wrong-doing made concrete and manifest. It was a wonderful suit. The kind of suit that he had dreamed of possessing; so unremarkable, so unmistakable once you had remarked it: English tailoring at its unobtrusive best. But he stood looking at himself in the mirror in a kind of horror.

He couldn’t do it, that was all. He just couldn’t do it.

He would duck, before it was too late.

He would send back the goddamned suit to the tailor, and send a letter to that woman who had been so nice, and just duck out of sight.

“What!” said the voice. “And pass up the greatest adventure of your life? The greatest adventure that has happened to any man within living memory?”

“Adventure my foot. It’s plain false pretences.”

They wouldn’t bother to look for him. They would be too relieved to have him out of their hair. He could duck without leaving a ripple.

“And leave a fortune behind?” said the voice.

“Yes, and leave a fortune behind. Who wants a fortune, anyhow?”

They would have his letter to insure them against any further nuisance from his side, and they would just let him go. He would write to that woman who, because she was kind, had kissed him before she was sure, and confess, and say he was sorry, and that would be that.

“And pass up the chance of owning a stud?”

“Who wants a stud? The world’s lousy with horses.”

“And you are going to own some, perhaps?”

“I may, some day. I may.”

“Pigs may fly.”

“Shut up.”

He would write to Loding and tell him that he would be no party to his criminal schemes.

“And waste all that knowledge? All that training?”

“I should never have started it.”

“But you did start it. You finished it. You are primed to the gills with knowledge worth a fortune. You can’t waste it, surely!”

Loding would have to whistle for that fifty per cent. How could he ever have thought of letting himself be an instrument in the hands of a crook like Loding!

“A very amusing and intelligent crook. On the highest level of crookery. Nothing to be ashamed of, believe me.”

He would go to a travel agency to-morrow morning and get a berth out of the country. Anywhere out of the country.

“I thought you wanted to stay in England?”

He would put the sea between him and temptation.

“Did you say temptation? Don’t tell me t............