At half-past seven that evening, Paula Bentley lay back motionless and soaking in a very hot bath. A bathing cap kept her heavy hair from draggling in the water, and her eyes were closed.

The bathroom of their quarters at the Minszeh Hotel was not large. Bill Bentley, in grey flannels and a short-sleeved shirt tucked in at the collar, stood at the wash basin with his back to her, the stand of the wash basin being close at right angles to the foot of the tub.

Bill, his head on one side, was shaving with an electric razor. The razor hummed softly as he twisted his neck. The mirror over the porcelain bowl often clouded with steam from the bath, and Bill patiently wiped it clean. It might have been the cosiest of domestic scenes, a young couple preparing to dress for dinner, except for one thing. . . . Round Bill's left shoulder and side was strapped the yellowish-brown leather of a shoulder holster. In the holster he carried a Webley .45 revolver. That calibre, as the War Office discovered, was the only one which could stop a maddened Jerry grenadier at the charge, and blow him back in his tracks.

Yet neither she nor Bill referred to her danger in the slightest way. They spoke lightly and casually, on all other subjects. The electric razor continued to hum softly in the windowless, steamy bathroom. Then Bill, with a new idea, shut it off.

"Baggage," he said.

"M'm?" Paula spoke drowsily, without opening her eyes.

"Going from great conceptions to small things," said Bill, contemplating the razor, "did I ever tell you my old man first set me up in life . . ."

"Yes, darling." Paula, being a wise wife, did not add, "About a thousand times." She went on, "As an electrical engineer. But you hated that, and tried to study painting. You could do still life, but your figures were dreadful." Paula kept the same drowsy tone. "I'm rather glad of that. If you'd ever had a model, I should have scratched her eyes out."

"Painters don't think like that!" objected Bill, and cleaned the mirror with his arm so that he could see her face to face. He craned his neck up and sideways. "All the same, you give me ideas."

"Do you think I don't have them?" inquired Paula, half opening her eyes. "But, darling! This isn't the time or place. Especially considering that. ."

Since the door of the bathroom was closed and locked, they could not see or hear Colonel Duroc pacing up and down the soft carpet of the bedroom outside. He was waiting for the telephone to ring. So, although they would not admit it, were they.

Paula, settling back, considered her husband's face in the mirror: the broad, easygoing countenance with brown eyes and the absurd army haircut. Sometimes she wondered that his slow-moving careful-studying personality could hide such a quick brain. His wide shoulders, heavy biceps, and narrow waist made him resemble . . . No! That brought her thoughts back to Collier and horror.

Bill was violently aggressive at love-making, which entirely suited Paula. But — without disloyalty, since she loved him to a point of doing —she sometimes wished he were more aggressive in life. She pictured him banging his fist on the table amid a group of bankers, for instance. He had not even been very cross when she had tried to get that flat. Yet . . . No, it brought him into danger, which brought her into a worse state of mind.

Unknown to her, Bill was in a worse state than that. He did not in the least mind danger to himself. Though his face or his voice never betrayed the fact, it may be stated without further comment that, if he ever lost Paula, he would kill himself.

“. . . And, in time," she murmured, "you want to retire. But, darling! Not London, please. It has —associations."

Bill shut off the razor and put it away. Hot and cold water rushed into the bowl as he bent to wash.

"All right. As I said last night, anywhere you like."

They slipped gently into one of those familiar husband-and-wife debates, which can be on any subject, but which usually go on for years.

"And you will write a Book of Great Wits," said Paula. "But it will not include Mr. George Bernard Shaw."

"No, baggage. Definitely not."

"He was a very great playwright, you know."

"Granted. Without a struggle. But his alleged wit consisted of blurting out, like a child, things that everybody knows and everybody decently agrees to conceal."

There was a stir of water as Paula raised her head. She opened her eyes.

Bill, wallowing like a water buffalo, lifted his head from the basin, partly dried his eyes, turned round, and looked at her.

"By the way," he said, "love me?" "Mmm!"

"That's all right, then." He plunged once more into the basin.

"Bill," said Paula with remote but real interest. "You understand, darling, I don't mind. But why can you never even wash your face without hurling about gallons of water, and flooding the bathroom?"

"B-because I'm having a wash." This point should be made clear to all wives. Bill raised his face and groped blindly for a towel. "I'm not using a tooth glass. I'm not squirting some so-and-so perfume on my dial. I'm washing. This process . . ."

Outside, in the bedroom, they could hear the telephone ring.

For an instant, both of them remained motionless.

Faintly but clearly came Colonel Duroc's voice at the phone: "Allo?"

Bill, with his big hands shaking despite himself, dried his face and flung away the towel. Keeping his back carefully towards Paula, he slipped the Webley .45 out of the holster, opened it as quietly as he could, saw that it was fully loaded in every chamber, softly clicked the barrel back again, and returned it to the holster. He had done this about twenty times already.

There was a whirl and splash of water as Paula sat up straight, tearing off the bathing cap so that her golden hair fell down round her neck. She slipped out of the tub and, not troubling to dry herself, seized from the opposite wall a long-sleeved robe of heavy towel material, which she wrapped around her. She tied the belt, and fumbled along the floor for her slippers.

Bill had unlocked the door when she reached it. Both of them slid sideways, together, into the bedroom.

Though outside it was not yet dark, the shutters and curtains had been drawn on the windows. Lights shone in the soft-carpeted room with its blue hangings. The telephone was on its small table at the head of the double bed; Colonel Duroc, in uniform, sat on the far edge of the bed while he spoke to the phone in Spanish.

"Good, good!" said the Colonel. "Continue."

There was a rasping sound from the receiver. The back of Colonel Duroc's neck turned pink with joy. His short white hair seemed to wave with it.

"Better, better!" he said. "But why do you say you have 'probably' trapped him?"

Bill, who had been holding the towel-wrapped Paula in his arms, looked down at her.

"Well, well, well?" Duroc continued impatiently. There was further exchange over the phone.

For an instant the Colonel twitched round his red face and saw Bill and Paula standing there. His left hand held the phone, his right a handkerchief with which he had been mopping his head.

But he turned back to speak.

"Have your men stop every bolt hole. If he tries to make a run for it, then shoot. But do not shoot to kill unless you must. I want him as a witness."

Again the voice rasped. Paula and Bill, who could not hear a word from the other side, were growing frantic with
curiosity. They could not see the sweat on Colonel Duroc's forehead, but they saw him wipe his forehead with a handkerchief.

"You are careless with lives, Acting Commandant." Colonel Duroc moistened his lips. Then, after a pause, he said, "Very well. But you cannot have more men, because I lead a party to surround the—you understand? — forty-bis Marshan when the real Iron Chest strikes for the diamonds. This party cannot leave the hotel until it is well and deeply dark. This party will be commanded by Sir—to you—the Lord Merrivale."

Hesitantly the Colonel put back the phone on its cradle.

Again he mopped his forehead.

Through his brain, in a shorter time than it took to mop the forehead, went every aspect of this case. When H.M. had explained the 'miracles' of Iron Chest, Colonel had then swiftly and logically deduced Iron Chest's identity. He was very proud of this. But then there had come H.M.'s telephone tip from the Kasbah, where the latter sinner was on the loose in the same sedan chair as that of his morning's carousal; and Duroc must set moving the organization.

Finally, there had been H.M.'s final message about the adventures in the tailor's shop. The Colonel, in person, had raced down in his jeep — never using the Packard when on real business—to convey Alvarez to Dr. MacPhail’s nursing home. He had hovered while the calm doctor quieted Maureen's hysterics, finally with sedatives. He had interviewed the Countess Scherbatsky at her house in the Place du Kasbah. He had spoken with Mark Hammond, who was having dinner at the Parade. And the Colonel knew, if H.M. did not, that at one o'clock Collier had shouldered his chunky frame into an all-day-open ironmonger's in the Grand Socco. There he had bought a knife with a blade sharpened to razor-edge on either side.

"Monsieur wishes," had stammered the Arab proprietress, in an amiable attempt at French, "to kill animals?"

"No," had said Collier, in bad but understandable French. "I wish to cut the throat of a blonde."

For fully five minutes, after he had slammed the door, the proprietress had giggled over this as a good joke. Then, suddenly, she had fled screaming into the street to find a policeman.

Now Colonel Duroc, sitting on the edge of the bed, made up his mind. He could feel two pairs of eyes, those of Paula and Bill, boring into his back. To keep fear away for a time, Colonel Duroc performed one of his better feats of acting.

"Ha ha," he carolled with mirth.

Putting away the handkerchief, standing up from the edge of the bed, the stocky little Colonel strutted over to a deep padded blue chair. He sat down, his shoulders heaving with chuckles, and faced the Bentleys. His blue eyes twinkled under the tufted brows. He was again Papa Duroc.

"It's —it's not really very funny," said Paula, in the long trailing robe which actually belonged to Bill. "You told us that would be Acting Commandant Somebody. What did he say?" ^-

"Well? What did he say?" demanded Bill. Colonel Duroc puffed out his lips as though it were of no importance.

"A trifle," he replied airily, in his excellent English. "Come! It can wait for a moment or two."

Whereupon he frowned with mock sternness, and shook his finger at Paula.

"By burn!" he said. "I ask myself, again and again, why this young lady can never appear in public without wearing the least possible clothes."

For once startled, Paula opened her dark-blue eyes wide.

"But II never think of it!" she protested. "That is . . ."

"It is I who tell you. I, Papa Duroc. And it is not what you think. It is what all young men think; yes, and old ones too!" The Colonel drew a deep reminiscent breath. "Have you not heard the remark of great Clemenceau, the old Tiger of France, as he sat sighing by the boulevard in spring? 'Ah, to be seventy again. . . .'"

"Put that in your notebook, Bill," Paula advised wryly.

Yet Bill's eyes had narrowed. The Colonel knew what Bill guessed: that Duroc would not speak until Paula was out of the room.

"Half a tick!" said Bill. "You haven't even told us everything about that row at the tailor's. For some reason, Juan and H.M."—only the Bentleys had dropped the "Sir Henry," for which the reprobate was grateful — "tore the place up. Can't understand that. Juan's the most steady-going bloke I know. Then Ilone and Hammond appeared. But what was Collier doing there?"

"Aha!" beamed the Colonel, and rubbed his hands together. This slight diversion pleased him, as well as pride in his own deduction of other matters. "Now, my friend, you shall tell me why! You shall use your wits. What was Collier doing there?"

Paula felt Bill's arm tighten round her. She sensed his mind was sorting thoughts quickly.

"Right," said Bill, beginning in his slow way. "Collier must have been sitting openly in that gambling room at the back of the tailor's. Right! We know Ilone and Hammond were talking about Collier. Bone screams everything; Collier must have heard it. We know Hammond phoned Bob Beacon at the American Cultural Center to get Collier's record as a boxer. Right?"

The Colonel, instead of being pleased, was annoyed at this accuracy.

"Yes?"

"In that case," said Bill, speaking more rapidly, "Collier could easily have slipped into the tailor's after Ilone and Hammond. We know the shop was gloomy. We know the occupants were all very much preoccupied, at one side of the shop alone. We know Collier was found on the other side. It would have been simple for him to have slipped across and hidden behind what seemed to be a very long suit rack on that side, where he could listen to what concerned him." Bill's eyes were shining. "Inference: Collier was a member of that gambling club, or at least well known to it. Otherwise he wouldn't have been admitted. Secondary inference: Collier has a good protecting friend, here in Tangier, who introduced him there. Right? Shall I go on?"

Colonel Duroc fumed.

"No, no, enough!" he said, not wishing to have anybody steal his own thunder.

Then the Colonel pointed his finger at Paula, like a mighty sorcerer commanding a miracle.

"Be dressed!" he said.

The miracle was not instantaneous, of course. Paula, guessing very well why they wanted her out of the way but not wishing to comment on it, compressed her lips and scurried about the room with the long robe flapping about her feet. She opened cupboard doors and shut them, gathering clothes; she opened dressing-table drawers and banged them shut.

Bill, absent-mindedly pulling up the collar of his shirt, took a tie from a rack without looking at it. He put it on, tying the knot halfway towards his ear under the collar then pulling it in place, and finally donned the light-grey flannel jacket of his suit to hide the shoulder holster.

Colonel Duroc had again begun to sweat. Outside closed shutters it must be growing dark. The clock ticked steadily.

Paula, having gathered up the clothes she required, hurried into the bathroom. But at the door she turned for a final word.

"Blast you," Paula observed mildly. The door slammed and was locked —or apparently so. Taking a light chair, Bill brought it up facing close to the Colonel's easy chair, glanced over his shoulder towards the bathroom door, and sat down.

"Now let's have it," he said in a low voice. "Everything you heard on that phone."

Duroc told him, still with a sense of the minutes ticking on. He omitted no word which Acting Commandant Perez had said. Bill, left elbow in palm and his other hand on his cleft chin, listened without a muscle moving in his face and without a single comment.

Collier, it seemed, had been traced to the house of carpet and antique dealer named Ali. In the cellar of this great Arab house was his shop. The whole, apparently, was a honeycomb of galleries, little rooms, and bolt holes, making it an enviable hiding place. There was even a dummy window, of which the Acting Commandant had hinted that he knew the secret. Duroc had instructed that the house be surrounded and men stationed at every bolt hole, but, as they had no means, such as tear gas, of smoking out Collier— here, Duroc's voice sank apologetically — Perez had suggested that they use Paula as a decoy, since Collier had bragged openly that he would kill her at the first opportunity. "And so," the Colonel ended hastily, "if your good wife will assist?"

Still Bill Bentley remained motionless.

"I won't let you do it," he said quietly. "Don't you think you've got a hell of a cheek to ask?"

Despair pressed hard on Colonel Duroc.

"Yes, I acknowledge it," he said stiffly, and lifted his shoulders. "Still, if you refuse, it is finished."

"Look here," muttered Bill. "I admit—well, I enjoy any tom-fool stunt myself. But, when it comes to involving Paula . . ."

"Yes, yes, I comprehend!"

Bill sprang to his feet. So did Colonel Duroc, with Bill towering over him.

"What's the matter with your men?" asked Bill, his usually mild voice with a cutting edge of scorn. "Why can't they go in and smoke him out? No tear gas? Good God! Use old-fashioned burning sulphur, with an electric fan that works on a battery; I can rig up one for you. Yes, and I'll lead 'em myself! Don't I deserve first shot at Collier?"

"Your sulphur," said the Colonel, "was tried in a war when you were not even yet a child. Ourselves we may choke, and Collier escape. Stop! It might do, yes, if we knew the place in a building of honeycomb passages and hidden spy holes. But no! Will you hear reasons more cogent?" "Such as?"

"You know that this Collier has named your wife. You know his threats to her; he is filth; he will keep the promise if he can. Yet now we have him trapped in a single big house; we are certain. It may be our only chance. Do you care to go with her, perhaps for months, holding a pistol, forever — time looking round for a blow which may — or, by burn! — or may not come?"

Bill hesitated, looking away and licking dry lips.

Now Colonel Duroc, a kindly man, hated what he had to say. But discipline held him like a harness.

"You are big enough," he challenged. "With your arm round her, and a loaded gun in your other hand, dare you not face one man?"

Dead silence, except for the stir at the window of a breeze from the bay.

The Colonel had said a thing you must not say to any man, let alone Bill. The colour receded from Bill's face. His eyes narrowed, and his heavy left fist darted back. Again he hesitated, and moistened his lips. Slowly the fist moved forward, and wiped his mouth.

"All right," he said. "I'll do it."

And, once having made that promise, Bill would walk forward in dead straight line, not deviating one inch if he walked against enemy tanks. The War Office could have told you that. But Bill instantly made his conditions.

"Mind," he said without much voice, "I said I'd do it. It's Paula's choice, remember. I warn you, I'm going to advise her against it; I mean to use every argument against it; and if I have any influ . . ."

Suddenly the door of the bathroom, which all this time had stood open a splinter's width, was flung wide open,

Paula had not progressed far with her dressing. Round the corner of the door she thrust out her head; and, to the regret of Papa Duroc, her shoulders as well.

"Of course I'll do it!" she cried, with an odd shining in her eyes. "What on earth did you think I expected you to ask. D - don't be silly!"

The door slammed, and this time was genuinely locked.

Colonel Duroc, by this time much upset and wishing hehadn't mentioned the matter, sat down slowly. "I love that girl," he said simply.

Bill's own fierce love, and his fear for her too, twisted his heart and even momentarily shone in his eyes. Hastily he looked at the floor. There was a long silence.

"Not bad, is she?" muttered Bill. There was another long pause before Bill added bitterly: "Anyway, in what she'll do for-people. And never say a word." He sat down and put his head in his hands. "But he won't hurt her. By God, he won't."

Colonel Duroc, to avoid further discussion, got up and hurried over to a window. He fumbled among light coverings and blue curtains before he opened one shutter and peered out. Though he could see a huddle of dark roofs and the lights of Tangier, the sky was as yet only a dull grey; not black. If, in the meantime, Collier should escape . . .

"If Collier-" he began, and stopped.

Colonel Duroc swung round and Bill leaped to his feet as there was a knocking at the door to the hotel corridor.