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course. You go, Mother. I’m not being very sensible. I suppose I’m jittery too. But you go and find this young man. And while you’re away, I have to go out and—”
    “You can’t go out, darling! Someone will have to be here in case any phone message comes through. It’s absolutely vital,” Clare insisted as she saw Marilyn’s face go blank with some sort of unexplained dismay. “What was it you wanted to do ? ”
    “Well—” Marilyn looked suddenly confused—“it doesn’t matter. It’ll wait, I guess. It’s not as important as—” she gulped—“getting news of Pat. I’ll go this afternoon. You’ll be staying in then because of Dad’s coming, won’t you ? ”
    “Ye—es.” There was the faintest hesitation in Clare ’s assent. Somehow, she had not thought of having to face Greg alone in the first five minutes. She had visualised a cheerful, talkative, affectionate Marilyn helping to gloss over that difficult occasion. But, almost as though she sensed the unworthy cowardice of that thought, Marilyn went on,
    “I’m sure you’d both rather have me out of the way in the first hour or so. I do understand! And now you go off, Mum, and hunt down your young man. I’ll look after everything here.”
    With another of those swift, youthful changes of mood, she seemed to take over the direction of events, polishing her mother’s shoes, brushing her coat, finding her car keys, and finally almost hustling her on her way with a great display of affectionate energy.
    Only when she had seen the lift door close and heard the whine of the descending lift did Marilyn re-enter the flat, shut the front door and lean against it in a moment of almost motionless reaction.
    Then, deliberately, she went over to the telephone and dialled. She hummed a little nervously as she waited and, although she knew she was alone in the flat, she spoke softly when a voice answered.
    “Could I speak to Miss Foster, please? Yes—Miss Foster. She checked in last night, I think.”
    There was another pause, during which she hummed even more nervously. Then she gave a little gasp of delighted relief at the sound of a familiar voice.
    “Pat?” she said. “It’s Marilyn. I can’t come until this afternoon. But it’s worked all right, though it was rather more harrowing than I expected. Still, it’s in the best of causes. Dad’s catching a plane from Munich in an hour or two.”

 
    CHAPTER II
    “I’M trying to trace someone who works on the top floor of this building—” For the third time that morning, Clare Collamore forced a pleasant smile to her now pale lips and tried to look as though her enquiry were a perfectly normal one. “He—”
    “What’s the name, please ? ” The bright, indifferent little girl at the enquiry desk of Morgan & Petersfield, Publicity Agents, turned from her switchboard and poised a pencil above her pad.
    “That’s just it—I don’t know his name,” Clare explained. Then she hurried on, trying to ignore the girl’s blank stare of astonishment, “He’s a tall young man and this would be his first day back after a holiday abroad.”
    “You’re sure he works here?” The girl spoke briskly.
    “I think he must. I’ve tried the other two firms on this floor and he doesn’t seem to be there.”
    “But you know it’s this floor?”
    “Yes. He told me he worked on the top floor of this building. Doesn’t it ring any bell with you at all?—a tall young man. Early or middle twenties, I should think. And just back from a continental holiday. He shouldn’t be all that difficult to trace !”
    “There are over a hundred people on this staff.”
    The girl bridled slightly, as though her efficiency had been called in question. “I don’t know the half of them by sight. I’ve only been here a month. Is he on the illustrating side? or copy? or photographic — or what ? ”
    “I don’t know anything about him.” Like someone in a bad dream, Clare found herself on the familiar