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had become steadily worse and it was known that she would never leave hospital again. "How on earth did you guess that?" Lord Kirkside asked. "No guess. Must give my lieutenants their due," Uncle Arthur said in his best magnanimous taught-'em-all-I-know voice. "Hunslett radioed me at midnight on Tuesday. He gave me a list of names of people about whom Calvert wanted immediate and exhaustive inquiries made. That call was tapped by theShangri-la but they didn't know what Hunslett was talking about because in our radio transmissions all proper names are invariably coded. Calvert told me later that when he'd seen Sir Anthony on Tuesday night he thought Sir Anthony was putting on a bit of an act. He said it wasn't all act. He said Sir Anthony was completely broken and deso-lated by the thought of his dead wife. He said he believed the original Mrs, Skouras was still alive, that it was totally inconceivable that a man who so patently cherished the memory of his wife should have marrkd again two or three months later, that he could only have pretended to marry again for the sake of the one person whom he ever and so obviously loved. "I radioed France. Riviera police dug up the grave in Beaulieu where she had been buried near the nursing home where she'd died. They found a coffin full of logs. You knew this, Tony." Old Skouras nodded. He was a man in a dream. "It took them half an hour to find out who had signed the death certificate and most of the rest of the day to find the doctor himself. They charged him with murder. This can be done in Prance on the basis of a missing body. The doctor wasted no time at all in taking them to his own private nursing home, where Mrs, Skouras was in a locked room. The doctor, matron and a few others are in custody now. Why in God's name didn't you come to us before?" "They had Charlotte andthey said they would kill my wife out of hand. What - what would you have done?" "God knows," Uncle Arthur said frankly. "She's in fair health, Tony. Calvert got radio confirmation at five a.m." Uncle Arthur jerked a thumb upwards. "On Lavorski's big transceiver in the castle," Both Skouras and Lord Kirkside had their mouths open, Lavorski, blood still Sowing from his mouth, and Dollmann looked as if they had been sandbagged. Charlotte's eyes were the widest wide I'd ever seen. She was looking at me in a very peculiar way. "It's true," Susan Kirkside said. "I was with him. He told me to tell nobody," She crossed to take my arm and smiled up at me. "I'm sorry again for what I said last night. I think you're the most wonderful man I've ever known. Except Rolly, of course." She turned round at the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs and promptly forgot all About the second most wonderful man she'd ever known. "Rolly !" she cried. "Rolly!" I could see Rolly bracing him-self. They were all there, I counted them, Kirkside's son, the Hon. Rollinson, the policeman's sons, the missing members of the small boats and, behind them all, a small brown-faced old woman in a long dark dress with a black shawl over her head. I went forward and took her arm. "Mrs, MacEachern," I said. "Til take you home soon. Your husband is waiting." "Thank you, young man," she said calmly. "That will be very nice." She lifted her arm and held mine in a propriet-orial fashion.