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Cholmondeley had been in the box with him, he would have shot him: he wouldn’t have cared a damn.
    ‘Stolen from where?’
    ‘You ought to know that.’
    ‘Don’t give me any lip. Where from?’
    He didn’t even know who Cholmondeley’s employers were. It was obvious what had happened: they hadn’t trusted him. They had arranged this so that he might be put away. A newsboy went by outside calling, ‘Ultimatum. Ultimatum.’ His mind registered the fact, but no more: it seemed to have nothing to do with him. He repeated. ‘Where from?’
    ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember.’
    With the automatic stuck against her back he even tried to plead with her. ‘Remember, can’t you? It’s important. I didn’t do it.’
    ‘I bet you didn’t,’ she said bitterly into the unconnected ’phone.
    ‘Give me a break. All I want you to do is remember.’
    She said, ‘On your life I won’t.’
    ‘I gave you that dress, didn’t I?’
    ‘You didn’t. You tried to plant your money, that’s all. You didn’t know they’d circulated the numbers to every shop in town. We’ve even got them in the café.’
    ‘If I’d done it, why should I want to know where they came from?’
    ‘It’ll be a bigger laugh than ever if you get jugged for something you didn’t do.’
    ‘Alice,’ the old man called from the café, ‘is she coming?’
    ‘I’ll give you ten pounds.’
    ‘Phoney notes. No thank you, Mr Generosity.’
    ‘Alice,’ the old man called again; they could hear him coming along the passage.
    ‘Justice,’ he said bitterly, jabbing her between the ribs with the automatic.
    ‘You don’t need to talk about justice,’ she said. ‘Driving me like I was in prison. Hitting me when you feel like it. Spilling ash all over the floor. I’ve got enough to do with your slops. Milk in the soap-dish. Don’t talk about justice.’
    Pressed against him in the tiny dark box she suddenly came alive to him. He was so astonished that he forgot the old man till he had the door of the box open. He whispered passionately out of the dark, ‘Don’t say a word or I’ll plug you.’ He had them both out of the box in front of him. He said, ‘Understand this. They aren’t going to get me. I’m not going to prison. I don’t care a damn if I plug one of you. I don’t care if I hang. My father hanged … what’s good enough for him … Get along in front of me up to my room. There’s hell coming to somebody for this.’
    When he had them there he locked the door. A customer was ringing the café bell over and over again. He turned on them. ‘I’ve got a good mind to plug you. Telling them about my hare-lip. Why can’t you play fair?’ He went to the window; he knew there was an easy way down – that was why he had chosen the room. The kitten caught his eye, prowling like a toy tiger in a cage up and down the edge of the chest of drawers, afraid to jump. He lifted her up and threw her on his bed; she tried to bite his finger as she went; then he got through on to the leads. The clouds were massing up across the moon, and the earth seemed to move with them, an icy barren globe, through the vast darkness.
    4
    Anne Crowder walked up and down the small room in her heavy tweed coat; she didn’t want to waste a shilling on the gas meter, because she wouldn’t get her shilling’s worth before morning. She told herself, I’m lucky to have got that job. I’m glad to be going off to work again, but she wasn’t convinced. It was eight now; they would have four hours together till midnight. She would have to deceive him and tell him she was catching the nine o’clock, not the five o’clock train, or he would be sending her back to bed early. He was like that. No romance. She smiled with tenderness and blew on her fingers.
    The telephone at the bottom of the house was ringing. She thought it was the doorbell and ran to the mirror in the wardrobe. There wasn’t enough light from the dull globe to tell her if her make-up