Brat had expected that Simon’s success would have shored up his disintegrating spiritual structure and that the cracks would have disappeared. But it seemed that the very opposite had happened. The strain of the afternoon followed by the triumph of having beaten a performer like Riding Light had eaten away a little more of the foundation and shaken his equilibrium still further.

“I’ve never seen Simon so cock-a-hoop,” Eleanor said, watching Simon over Brat’s shoulder as they danced together that night. She said it as one making an apology. “He is usually so off-hand about his triumphs.”

Brat said that it was probably the champagne, and turned her away from her view of Simon.

He had looked forward all day to dancing with Eleanor, but it was with Bee that he had danced first. Just as he had given up his first chance of a ride with Eleanor to walk on Tanbitches with the ghost of Pat Ashby, so when faced with the moment of his first dance with Eleanor he had found something else that he wanted more. He had crossed the room to Bee and said: “Will you dance with me?” They had danced together in a happy quiet, her only remark being: “Who taught you to cheat someone out of a race like that?”

“I didn’t have to be taught. It’s original sin.”

She laughed a little and patted him with the hand that was lying on his shoulder. She was a lovely woman, Bee Ashby, and he loved her. The only other person he had ever loved was a horse called Smoky.

“I haven’t seen much of you this afternoon since that awful exhibition of Tony’s,” Eleanor said.

Brat said that he had wanted to talk to her before the race but that she was in deep conversation with Roger Clint.

“Oh, yes. I remember. His uncle wants him to give up the farm and go and live in Ulster. His uncle is Tim Connell, you know, who has the Kilbarty stud. Tim wants to retire, and would lease the place to Roger, but Roger doesn’t want to leave England.”

Understandably, Brat thought. England and Eleanor together was heaven enough. “I don’t see him here to-night?”

“No, he didn’t stay for the dance. He just came to get a silver cup to take home to his wife.”

“His wife!”

“Yes, she had their first baby last week, and she sent him to the show to get a christening mug for it. What is the matter?” she asked.

“Remind me sometime to break Ruth’s neck,” he said, beginning to dance again.

She looked amused and said: “Has Ruth been romancing?”

“She said he wanted to marry you.”

“Oh, well, he did have an idea like that but it’s a long time ago. And of course he wasn’t married last year, so Ruth probably didn’t know about it. Are you going to be all patriarchal and supervise my marriage plans?”

“Have you any?”

“None at all.”

As the night wore on and he danced more and more with Eleanor, she said: “You really must dance with someone else, Brat.”

“I have.”

“Only with Peggy Gates.”

“So you’ve been keeping track of me. Am I keeping you from dancing with someone you want to dance with?”

“No. I love dancing with you.”

“All right, then.”

This was perhaps the first and the last night he would ever dance with Eleanor. A little before midnight they went up together to the buffet, filled their plates, and took them to one of the little tables in the balcony. The buffet was part of the actual hotel building, and the balcony, a piece of Regency ironwork, looked down on the little garden at the side of the hotel. Chinese lanterns hung in the garden and above the tables in the balcony.

“I’m too happy to eat,” Eleanor said, and drank her champagne in a dreamy silence. “You look very nice in your evening things, Brat.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you like my frock?”

“It’s the most beautiful frock I ever saw.”

“I did hope you would like it.”

“Have you had supper already to-night?”

“No. Only some drinks and a sandwich.”

“Better eat, then.”

She ate in an uninterested fashion that was new in Eleanor.

“It has been an Ashby occasion, hasn’t it, the Seventy-fourth Annual Show of the Bures Agricultural.... Stay still for a moment, you have a gnat crawling down your collar.”

She leant over and struck the back of his neck lightly. “Oh, it’s going down!” In a rough sisterly fashion she bent his head aside with one hand while she retrieved the insect with the other.

“Got it?” he said.

But she was silent, and he looked up at her.

“You’re not my brother!” she said. “I couldn’t feel the way I——” She stopped, horrified.

In the silence the beat of the distant drums came up from the assembly room.

“Oh, Brat, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that! I think I must have drunk too much.” She began to sob. “Oh, Brat, I’m sorry!” She gathered up her bag from the table and stumbled from the dim balcony into the buffet room. “I’ll go and lie down and get sober.”

Brat let her go and sought counsel in the bar. There was some sort of stunt in the assembly room at midnight, and the bar was deserted except for Simon, all by himself with a bottle of champagne at a table in the far corner.

“Ah! My big brother,” said Simon. “Are you not interested in the lottery drawing? Have a drink.”

“Thanks. I’ll buy my own.”

He bought a drink at the bar and carried it down the long room to Simon’s table.

“I suppose lottery odds are too long for you,” Simon said. “You want the table rigged before you bet.”

Brat ignored that. “I haven’t had a chance of congratulating you on your win with Timber.”

“I don’t need praise from you.”

Simon was certainly drunk.

“That was very rude of me, wasn’t it?” he said like a pleased child. “But I enjoy being rude. I’m behaving very badly to-night, aren’t I? I seem to be slipping. Have a drink.”

“I’ve got one.”

“You don’t like me, do you?” He looked pleased by Brat’s dislike.

“Not much.”

“Why not?”

“I suppose because you are the only one who doesn’t believe that I am Patrick.”

“You mean, don’t you, that I’m the only one who knows you’re not?”

There was a long silence while Brat searched the shining eyes with their odd dark rim.

“You killed him,” he said, suddenly sure of it.

“Of course I did.” He leaned forward and looked delightedly at Brat. “But you’ll never be able to say so, will you? Because of course Patrick isn’t dead at all. He’s alive, and I’m talking to him.”

“How did you do it?”

“You’d like to know, wouldn’t you? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s very simple.” He leaned still closer and said in a mock-confidential undertone: “You see, I’m a witch. I can be in two places at once.”

He sat back and enjoyed Brat’s discomfiture.

“You must think that I’m a lot drunker than I am, my friend,” he said. “I’ve told you about Patrick, because you are my posthumous accomplice. A wonderful epithet, that, and I managed it very well. But if you think that I am going to make you free of the details, you are mistaken.”

“Then, why did you do it?”

“He was a very stupid little boy,” he said in his airy “Simon” tone, “and not worthy of Latchetts.” Then he added, without fa?ade: “I hated him, if you want to know.”

He poured himself another glass of the Ayala, and drank it. He laughed under his breath, and said: “It’s a wonderful spiritual twinship, isn’t it? I can’t tell about you and you can’t tell about me!”

“You have the advantage of me, though.”

“I have? How?”

“You have no scruples.”

“Yes; I suppose it is an advantage.”

“I have to put up with you, but you have no intention of putting up with me, have you? You did your best to kill me this afternoon.”

“Not my best.”

&l............