THREE’S A CROWD

The hour of glory was over, but nevertheless it had been of such an order as to make it unforgettable. The first expedition to an unexplored region of South America had returned intact, bringing with it one more member than had gone on the outward journey—the exquisite Verona, daughter of the ruler of the lost tribe that the explorers had discovered. What made matters all the more astonishing was that her peoples were far from being primitive savages, but had—for reasons that were still being investigated—elected to cut themselves off from civilization for centuries. To her there was now wedded Bruce Langden, leader of the expedition which had discovered her domain, under the expert navigation of Captain Jack Anderson.

Yes, the day of the anthropological world’s acclaim, the curiosity of the media, the interviews and nights of banqueting, were finished. Langden, Captain Anderson, and indeed every member of the expedition, were wealthy for life, mainly from the books they had yet to write upon their discoveries. The real story about the mysterious lost tribe was eagerly awaited by the world—were they really descendants of the long-vanished Incas?

But Bruce Langden was in no hurry to answer the questions. Months of strain and travel had given way now to sweet relaxation, relaxation with Verona at the villa Langden had bought for their honeymoon in the south of France. Here, in the hot sunlight of summer’s height, he and Verona were gradually working out for themselves the pattern of the future.

Yes, Verona was a very beautiful woman, golden-brown skinned like the rest of her race, differing in no way from the normal physical standards attributed to a woman of equatorial South America. Her hair was intensely black, her features regular, and her mouth small. She was tallish in stature and moved with the majestic grace that was her heritage, descended from the ruling clique of her people. Highly intelligent, her ability to learn and master the English language so quickly had been astonishing.

“To me, Bruce dearest,” Verona murmured one evening as they sat in the twilight of your terrace, “everything about your western world seems so orderly, so very—er—self-possessed. It reminds me of a big house, perfectly kept, whereas my own world had everything higgledy-piggledy.”

Bruce laughed. For one thing Verona’s newly acquired English was spoken in delightful halts and lisps; and for another her smiles were more than quaint.

“Big house or not, my dear, it’s yours and mine.” Bruce put his arm about her slender shoulders and drew her to him.

“Yes....” Verona gazed absently at the darkening western sky. “Sometimes, though, I become afraid when I think of how much I have yet to learn—about your people, your customs. Your civilization is much ahead of ours.”

“Just the luck of things,” Bruce murmured. “We have been able to advance our scientific knowledge because our different cultures came together and pooled their discoveries. We’ve even mastered space travel, amongst other things! And medical science can treat almost all known diseases.... Your people seem to have remained isolated for centuries, and so missed out....”

“Which knowledge you are prepared to give to my people?”

“Well—er—it’s not mine to give, Verona. It belongs to our world governments, and it is for them to give the permission. I am quite sure they will. But those deeper commercial issues are not our concern. The future belongs to us.”

Verona was silent. A faint, warm breeze disturbed the soft fairness of her hair. Bruce could dimly see those great eyes of hers gazing westwards. There was a certain wistful sadness about her expression.

“Homesick?” he whispered presently.

“No, it isn’t that. It’s—” Verona hesitated, then rose abruptly. “Let’s go inside, Bruce, it’s getting chilly.”

“Okay. I’d forgotten you’re a hothouse plant!”

Bruce followed her majestic figure across the terrace and into the lounge of the villa. He closed the French windows, switched on the standard lamp, and looked at Verona intently. The little lines of sadness were still there, but it struck him they had taken on an edge of anxiety too.

“What is it, dearest?” he asked in concern, going over to her. “Whatever your problem may be, I’m here to help you. I know you must find it difficult to fit yourself into the pattern of a different world, so—”

“It isn’t that. Bruce. I can’t explain it. It’s something entirely personal.”

“Oh—I see.” Bruce stood awkwardly. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Verona smiled. “In some things we differ, Bruce dearest—that’s inevitable with our opposite heritages. If I ever seem moody, don’t worry about it—it’s just a part of me.”

“I’ll remember that.” Bruce tried to show unconcern by moving needlessly around the lounge. “Matter of fact, I think this place stuck here in southern France is too quiet for both of us. You need the surroundings of London, and I’m darned sure I do. More life, more gaiety altogether. The others who were with us on the expedition can easily pop in when they want and liven things up. Good old Jack Anderson and the rest of them. Eh?”

Verona nodded absently as she settled slowly on the divan.

“Yes, perhaps that would help.... After all, I cannot get to know your people really well unless I mix with them can I?”

“Of course not!” Bruce, big and clumsy, threw himself down on the divan beside her. With unmeaning roughness he drew her head down towards his shoulders. “The more you mix with them, the happier you’ll be. I’m wondering, though, if I’m not sticking my neck out by having Jack Anderson drop in whenever he wants. He and I ran it pretty close in our devotion for you.”

Verona smiled. “I married you, didn’t I? How much more convincing proof do you want?”

* * * *

Bruce did not waste any time. Within a week he had completed his negotiations for a city home—one of the most modern residences in London, and to here he and Verona moved at the earliest opportunity. Even so, there was still something wrong. Bruce could sense it, and it upset his blunt, forthright nature that he could not immediately pinpoint the trouble. Back of everything he was haunted by the dismal fear that perhaps Verona had grown tired of him. After all, they belonged to different cultures. Was this perhaps an irreconcilable problem?

It became more and more obvious as time passed that the change to city life was not the answer to Verona’s moodiness. The constant coming and going of friends—particularly big Jack Anderson, who never seemed to tire of Verona’s company—did not produce much change in the golden-skinned girl. Rather there was the opposite effect, and she began to make excuses to avoid meeting people. Upon which Bruce did the only thing he could. He shut the doors on everybody—at least until he had got to the root of the riddle in his wife’s outlook.

“At least give me some reasonable explanation,” he insisted on the first quiet evening he and Verona were able to have together. “I don’t know whether it’s good form in your society to sit around looking sullen, but it certainly isn’t the thing here!”

Verona gave a brief glance of reproach from her extraordinary eyes, and immediately Bruce felt willing to kick himself.

“Sorry, Verry. I didn’t mean that— I’m just wondering what to do next to try and make you happier. If you’re ill; if you find our climate a burden to you—though I can’t think why you should since there’s not all that much difference—then say so. I’ll see what can be done to have our specialists put you right.”

“I’d be better—a whole lot better—if I were left entirely to myself for about two weeks.”

“Eh?” Bruce said unbelievingly, “But—but I thought you said that you couldn’t get to know my people really well unless you mixed with them. Now you want to be left alone!”

“I do. I’m weighed down with a psychological condition, an aspect of the mind, far too complicated to explain. I’m quite sure it has been caused by my being uprooted from my home. Give me two weeks to commune with myself and I’ll be all right—for all time to come. You see—” Verona’s slim hand moved as she caught at the right phrase. “It’s a matter of adjustment.”

“And I’m in the way!”

“You’re never that, dearest. Please try to understand.”

“God knows, I’m trying to, but— Oh well, all right.” Bruce gave a shrug. “I don’t pretend to be able to understand the mind of a woman, Just as long as you put yourself right, I don’t mind what happens. Come to think of it, I’ve quite a bit of unfinished business to attend to up in Scotland concerning the expedition. Suppose I go and attend to it and leave you alone. That suit?”

For once an eager brightness came into Verona’s eyes. Bruce did not know whether he approved of it or not.

“That would solve everything, Bruce! You do that, and when you come back I’ll have all the snarls in my mind straightened out.”

“Okay, but—I don’t altogether like leaving you alone except for the servants, that is. Shall I have some of the gang look in on you from time to time? Jack Anderson and some of the girls, maybe—?”

“No, Bruce! No! You can’t straighten out a mental upheaval when others are around. I’ll be all right with just the servants.”

Which had to suffice. Bruce made the necessary arrangements and. the following day, departed for Scotland. Deliberately, he made no contact with home, in any form whatever. He felt vaguely peeved when Verona did not contact him either, but mollified himself with the thought that she was sticking to her intention to preserve splendid isolation.

By and large, he was thankful when the fortnight was up, and wasted no time getting home. To his inner joy he found a radiant Verona awaiting him, a girl looking so happy a carefree it was somehow impossible to associate her memory with the moody almost estranged creature he had left behind.

“Better, darling?” Bruce asked, sweeping her up in his big arms.

“Completely, dearest!” Her feet kicked gently against his shins. “Everything that was worrying me has evaporated. I’m acclimatised now. I’m the laughing Verona you married.”

Bruce set her down and looked at her seriously. “That’s wonderful! I’ve been fretting myself to pieces in this past fortnight, wondering how you were getting on.”

“Well—” She gave her pert smile. “Now you have to worry no more.”

She wandered across to the settee and settled herself. Bruce followed her up after a moment and sat down beside her.

“Anybody come whilst I was away?” he asked. “Any of the original expedition, to keep you company?”

“No.... As I told you, I wanted to be alone.”

“Uh-huh.” Bruce accepted the answer calmly enough, but he had the curious, niggling suspicion at the back of his mind that Verona was not entirely speaking the truth. He could imagine why he should think such a thing. Perhaps he was abnormally jealous of her. Yes, that might be it. The very thought of any other man claiming her attention in the merest degree was too much for him.

“And you?” Verona asked. “How did things go up in Scotland?”

“Oh, so-so. It wasn’t anything important anyway.”

“I’m interested just the same.”

So the conversation drifted into irrelevancies, and all the time Bruce kept thinking how incredibly changed Verona was. She was the very essence of life and vitality, her entire personality sparkling like champagne. The process of her acclimatisation to Western ways seemed indeed to be complete.

Then came the evening meal, over which the conversation still continued, until it was interrupted by a phone call. Hudson, the manservant, entered the dining room with grave calm.

“Captain Anderson is calling on the line, sir....” He glanced at Bruce. “Are you at home?”

“You bet I am,” Bruce grinned, getting up. “Thanks, Hudson.”

He hurried out into the hall and picked up the instruments. “Hello there, Jack! How’s tricks?”

“Might ask you the same question,” came Jack Anderson s matter-of-fact voice. “I’ve been trying to talk to you, or your wife, for the past fortnight. I was beginning to wonder where you’d both gone to.”

“Past fortnight?” Bruce repeated, surprised. “I don’t quite understand that. Verry’s been here even though I’ve been up in Scotland. Anyway, skip that. Why the ring? Anything on your mind?”

“Nothing particular. I simply wondered how long it was going to be before we have another of our get-togethers? Last time we met, you shut the doors on everybody because Verry wasn’t feeling too good. Doesn’t have to stay that way, does it?”

“Not anymore,” Bruce laughed. “She’s completely got over all that and sorted herself out, particularly during the last fortnight.”

“Good! When do we all meet again, then? I need hardly tell you that I’m more than anxious to see Verry again.”

“Yes, I’ve little doubt of that,” Bruce responded dryly, “But don’t forget that you lost the race for her and I won it— A get-together? By all means, but I’d better see what Verry says first. Hold it over for the moment, and I’ll ring you back later this evening.”

“Fair enough! Give Verry my love.”

Anderson rang off, and Bruce put the phone back slowly on to its cradle, frowning to himself. Abruptly he caught sigh of Hudson drifting across the lower end of the hall.

“Hudson—a moment.”

The manservant silently approached. “Sir?”

“That was Captain Anderson on the phone, as you’re aware. He tells me he has been trying to communicate either with me or Mrs. Langden for the past fortnight, without result. Is that correct?”

Hudson hesitated imperceptibly. “That is correct, sir.”

“But surely you told my wife that he was on the phone?”

“I—er—was given instructions that she was not to be disturbed, sir.”

Bruce looked at the manservant searchingly, and he seemed to very slightly flinch.

“You mean,” Bruce said deliberately, “that you allowed Captain Anderson to keep ringing up and did not once inform the mistress?”

“I had my instructions, sir, and endeavoured to carry them out.”

“I appreciate that, but it seems to me you put too literal an interpretation on the matter. My wife could never have meant that she was not to be disturbed all the time.”

Hudson was silent, plainly ill at ease. There was relief in his hatchet-face as Bruce, with a jerk of the head, dismissed him. Then he returned into the dining room.

“Well?” Verona glanced towards him, smiling brightly. “What did Jack want?”

“Chiefly to know where you and I have been in the last fortnight. He rang up several times.”

Verona shrugged. “I gave Hudson orders that I wasn’t to be disturbed. Didn’t matter who it was.”

“I see. Suppose it had been me?” Bruce sat down again at the table.

“You would have been the exception, only I felt pretty sure you wouldn’t ring.”

“Jack Anderson,” Bruce said deliberately, “is too dear a friend of ours to be brushed off like that. Quite frankly, Verry, I find it hard to credit that you were brooding alone all the time.”

“What else do you suppose I was doing?”

“No idea. Things just don’t ring true somehow.”

Verona gave a very direct look. “There are times, Bruce, when I think you have a very suspicious nature.”

He smiled rather tautly. “It’s not that. It’s simply that I feel it’s part of my duty to keep a constant eye on you. You are not well versed in our laws even yet, and I never know what you might do next.”

Verona got to her feet abruptly, her eyes flashing. “Well, thanks very much! Because I choose to have a fortnight entirely to myself, you conjure up all sorts of dark notions, is that it?”

She did not wait to hear the answer to her question. Instead she stalked angrily from the room and slammed the door behind her. Bruce compressed his lips and looked moodily at his half-finished meal. Hudson, who had evidently observed Verona’s swift departure, came in quietly to clear what remained of her meal. Bruce eyed him for a moment or two, then put his thoughts into words.

“Hudson, I have every respect for your integrity, and you have been an excellent servant since you came here.”

“Thank you, sir. I do my utmost.”

“Then tell me something. What did my wife do in the fortnight whilst I was away? Did she stay in her room all the time? Day and night?”

Hudson was silent, apparently trying to make up his mind over something.

“Out with it, man!” Bruce snapped, getting up. “I am the master of this house, remember, not my wife. You know as well as I do that she isn’t used to our ways, and that demanded I keep a constant watch on her. Was she in her room throughout the fortnight?”

“No, sir.” Hudson seemed relieved. “She was not even in the house.”

“What!” Bruce stared blankly.

“I am rather glad you have pressed the point to an issue, sir. I dislike having to keep up a deception, because I have respect for you as a world explorer as well as being my employer, and I—”

“Come to the point, man! About my wife!”

“Well, sir, she left here two hours after you had departed for Scotland and she only returned yesterday, knowing, of course, that you would be back today. Before she left she gave me a—er—certain monetary consideration and the instruction that I was to say she was not to be disturbed.”

“I—see. You have no idea where she went during that time, Hudson?”

“No idea at all, sir.” Hudson waited for a moment, then the telephone again rang in the hall, and he went out. After a moment his voice broke in on Bruce’s troubled thoughts.

“The Evening Echo would like a word with you, sir.”

Evening Echo? What the devil could they want? Bruce wandered out to the phone and picked it up.

“Yes? Bruce Langden speaking.”

“Oh, good evening, Mr. Langden. We’d just like an exclusive from you if we can. This is the city editor speaking.”

“Exclusive? Concerning what?”

“Your private jet—the one in which you made the expedition to South America. Is there any truth in the rumour that you secretly made another flight, or isn’t that for publication?”

With an effort Bruce tried to make himself think clearly.

“Secret flight? What on earth are you talking about, man? There’s been no attempt to make any trips since we returned from South America, nor will there be until everything is planned out neat and tidy. Where did this rumour spring from?”

“Er—” The city editor hesitated; then: “Your plane is in the hangar where you left it after the return from South America. That right?”

“Quite right. In the city centre.”

“Yes—but about a fortnight ago your plane took off from that hangar, and it returned yesterday evening. Couldn’t be any mistake about either occurrence, because it was witnessed by ground crews and many members of the public. I tried in the last fortnight to get in touch with you, without success, so of course no news was printed. But since your plane came back yesterday I think it’s time you satisfied public curiosity. You’re a very famous man, Mr. Langden.”

Bruce stood thinking, looking straight before him.

“I said you’re a—”

“Yes, yes, I heard you,” Bruce interrupted. “Just give me a little while—an hour maybe—and I’ll ring you back. There’s something I must straighten out concerning this business, but I can tell you right now that I personally had nothing to do with such a flight. I’ll look into it.”

“Very well, sir, I’ll wait on you—but we must have some kind of answer quickly.”

Bruce put the phone down and, grim-faced, hurried up the staircase and into the bedroom. Verona was seated at the broad window, gazing out into the gathered twilight. She turned briefly as Bruce entered.

“I want a word with you,” he said bluntly, and dragging up a chair he sat down beside her.

“Well?” Her queer eyes with their now enormously distended pupils gazed at him dispassionately. She was now in one of those moods when he felt he did not know her, when the alien barrier between their different cultures had dropped.

“In the past fortnight the plane has been used,” Bruce said deliberately. “Only the members of the expedition know the code of the hangar lock and how to control the vessel. Jack Anderson certainly didn’t use the machine because he’s been ringing up here. In the fortnight I was away you were not in this house. I have that information from Hudson.”

Verona’s lips tightened slightly, and Bruce was not slow to notice the fact.

“You left here the day I went to Scotland and returned yesterday. I’ll make one guess: you went somewhere in the plane.”

Long silence. Verona stirred restlessly. That immense vitality she had seemed to possess earlier in the evening had vanished now.

“All right, I did,” she admitted at last. “I hired a pilot to fly me there and back. Nothing wrong in it, is there? I’m as much a member of the expedition as the rest of you are, and I have my own money after the sale of some of my people’s artefacts I brought with me.”

“Certainly you are, but why couldn’t you tell me? I could even have flown you myself.”

“I couldn’t see that it was really necessary that I should, and I didn’t want to bother you.”

Bruce drummed his fingers on his knees. “I suppose I’ll have to put that down to ignorance of our ways. The fact remains you—or at least the plane—was seen both going and returning. No news of it has leaked out yet, which is one reason why I didn’t know about it. But the press wants the facts. What am I supposed to tell them?”

Verona shrugged. “The truth, I suppose. In that time I flew to South America and back. I had to—I was so desperately homesick I couldn’t stand it any longer. I couldn’t see that it mattered. Had I told you beforehand what I intended doing, you’d have flown the plane, or had Jack Anderson do it. I didn’t want that. I wanted to get my tangled thoughts straightened out a bit. I didn’t have long to stay with my own people, of course, but it was enough to satisfy me. Then I came back.”

Bruce relaxed slowly and then smiled. His arm stole about Verona’s shoulders and drew her to him.

“I’m sorry, Verry,” he muttered. “I’m too damned impulsive, that’s what it is—and too suspicious. But it’s only because I love you so much. Nothing wrong in what you did: entirely understandable. I’ll tell the press it was just an experiment. Anything as long as you are contented and happy.”

“I’d be happier,” Verona whispered, “if we could go back to our villa in France. I know it’s quiet, but—well, somehow I’d prefer it. You didn’t sell it, did you?”

“No. I thought we’d need it—sometime. You’re sure about this?”

Verona nodded, and Bruce remained silent. Though he was willing to do anything she wanted, he did find the thought of a return to that lonely villa inordinately depressing....

Verona did not return downstairs again that evening. Bruce finally left her, still at the window, and re-contacted the Evening Echo. His brief explanation that his wife had made a flying visit to assuage home-sickness was taken with some disbelief by the city editor, but since that was the story, it was up to him to print it, without trimmings.

By the time he had dealt with this, Bruce discovered it was not far from midnight, so he returned upstairs—to find Verona already in bed, and apparently asleep. Before long he, too, was dozing, to awaken again abruptly in the dead of night.

Everything was deathly still with only the pale ghost of moonlight to diffuse the shadows. He lay still for a moment or two, wondering what had awakened him—then as he turned his head it dawned on him that Verona was missing. Her twin bed next to his was empty. Instantly he was awake and struggling into his dressing gown. Scuffing into his slippers he hurried from the room and down the broad corridors of the great house, switching on the lights as he went. He did not call Verona by name for fear of awakening the domestics. This, he felt, was a matter that he alone must deal with.

Upstairs, Verona was nowhere to be found. Bruce hurried down the staircase, and the front door swinging open told its own story. He hurried out into the warmth of the summer night and looked about him anxiously, almost immediately catching sight of two dim figures a little way down the drive and apparently seated on the grass at one side of it.

“Verry!” Bruce called urgently, as he hurried forward. “Is it you, Verry?”

It was. She got to her feet slowly and, as he came nearer, Bruce could see she was still in her night attire with a robe sashed about it and her masses of dark hair flowing free. Her eyes looked enormous in the moonlight, and lent her an ethereal aspect. But there was nothing ethereal about the figure that arose beside her. With inward amazement Bruce instantly recognised the big, burly frame of Jack Anderson.

“Bet this looks pretty bad, eh?” Anderson grinned, holding out his hand.

“That’s an understatement,” Bruce retorted, keeping his own hand at his side. “What’s the idea of this, Verry? Or don’t you know it’s not far from three o’clock?”

She gave that little shrug of hers. “I couldn’t sleep. Too many things disturbing my mind. I heard somebody banging on the front door, so I went down to investigate, since you and the servants were asleep.”

“And found Jack? At this hour?” Bruce could not keep the scorn out of his voice.

“Queer though it may seem, yes,” Jack Anderson snapped. “I know it’s an unconventional hour, but then I’m an unconventional fellow.”

“So it seems!”

“Hear me out, can’t you? You promised to ring me back about our having a get-together, but nothing happened. So I decided to stroll along and see for myself. I didn’t leave the Aero-Club until around half-past two, and I know your sleeping hours are pretty erratic anyway. So I took the chance. That Verry happened to open the door wasn’t my fault. We strolled down the drive and talked.”

Bruce was silent, all the old sense of suspicion and jealousy devouring him. He had never been able to forget that Jack Anderson had been his greatest rival for Verona’s hand.

“That’s the truth,” Verona said simply. “Anything wrong with it? Or don’t you trust your best friend?”

“Obviously,” Bruce said, “you have still a lot to learn in regard to our conventions, Verry. Get in the house.”

“But, Bruce, I was—”

“Get in!” Bruce commanded, and at that she turned reluctantly and drifted away up the drive, a dim ghost of a girl with her hair and raiment flowing. Bruce swung, looking at Anderson’s dogged face in the moonlight.

“You’re a damned suspicious devil, aren’t you?” Anderson demanded. “I’d never have thought it of you!”

“That cuts both ways! Verona is my wife, Jack, and if you must see her make it at a decent hour next time! And I’d much prefer that there never is a next time! Good night!”

Bruce did not stay to see the effect of his words. He went back into the house, closed the door quietly, and then caught up with Verona in the bedroom. She was seated in the chair by the window, crying softly to herself.

“Now what?” Bruce demanded brutally.

“Nothing...except that I wish you didn’t distrust me so! There was nothing wrong in seeing Jack!”

“That’s a matter of opinion. It just so happens, Verry, that there are some things that just aren’t done—and meeting an ex-lover at three in the morning on the driveway is one of them.”

“I didn’t ask him to come, did I?”

“I wouldn’t know. He says not—but I wouldn’t put anything past Jack.”

Inwardly Bruce wondered why he said such a thing. He could only put it down to the insane jealousy that was consuming him. Before knowing Verona he would have trusted Jack Anderson with his life....

Then Verona got up slowly and, still weeping gently to herself, tumbled back into bed and remained there, her shoulders quivering at intervals. Bruce looked at her in the moonlight, muttered something under his breath, then returned to his own bed.

“You had the best idea of any when you said we should go back to France,” he growled. “At least it will put a stop to this kind of monkey-business.”

But just the same, the return to the French villa could not be accomplished immediately. There were things to be done in London first—as far as Bruce was concerned—particularly in regard to selling this city residence that he had been at pains to acquire.

“It may take a day or so to finish up my affairs in the city,” Bruce said, at breakfast next morning. “Once that’s done, we’ll be on our way.”

Verona did not reply. Pale and ghostly she sat at the other side of the table, lost in her thoughts. That brief mood of gaiety she had possessed the previous evening had utterly gone. She was again the despondent, cheerless, washed-out creature that impetuous Bruce found so difficult to understand.

“Did you hear what I said?” he asked deliberately, after a while.

“I heard. When you’re ready to go, I am.”

“All right. In the meantime, whilst I have to be absent, don’t get up to any tricks. You don’t know enough yet about our ways to be left to your own devices.”

Verona gave one look, and it had such scorn in it that he felt himself writhe. He knew he must sound unnecessarily harsh, but most of it was engendered by his fear of losing her. Deep down there was nobody he loved more than Verona, and the very thought of Jack Anderson muscling in made him bristle.

It was towards ten o’clock when Bruce left the house in his sports car to make the necessary arrangements in the city for the disposal of his house. This, together with a few business calls, kept him occupied until towards noon, at which time his thoughts turned towards lunch. No use going home and driving back to the city centre, for he had still a few things to finish off.

Rather than use his car in the congested city streets he walked the distance to the Owl Café, one of his favourite haunts, but it was just as he was passing the end of one of the multitudinous side streets that he noticed something. He saw it, went a few paces, and then realised what he had seen. He went back to make sure and from a distance found himself looking at Captain Jack Anderson’s enormous red sports car. It was on the point of halting at the kerb, its exhausts purring. Then it came to a stop.

Bruce watched, that old tide of suspicion sweeping back over him. He found himself becoming rigid as from the car there stepped Anderson himself, then a slim, golden girl with ebon hair. That it was Verona there was no doubt. There was no other woman quite like her.

Bruce, his eyes narrowed, waited until the pair had vanished in the doorway opposite the car, then he idled forward to investigate. The place was an exclusive restaurant, such as abound in the city centre. And Jack Anderson and Verona were together—again!

What happened to him then Bruce was not quite sure. He did not stop to reason the thing out. Instead he plunged straight across the road, through the sumptuous open doorway and into the midst of the soft-carpeted, low-lighted expanse, nearly bowling over an immaculate waiter in his cyclonic entry. There were few diners, but those who were present stared in amazement at this sudden intrusion in the opulence,

Bruce ignored them and brought up short at the table where Verona and Jack Anderson had only just seated themselves.

“Well, if it isn’t Bruce!” Anderson exclaimed cordially, getting to his feet. “Quite a—”

He was going to say ‘coincidence’ but the next thing he knew he was crashing backwards into the next table—fortunately empty—his mouth salty with blood and his head spinning.

“Bruce!” Verona cried, horrified.

“Out you get!” he said curtly, gripping her arm fiercely. “There’s going to be no more of this!”

“But Bruce, I was only—”

Bruce did not give the girl a chance to explain. He gripped even more savagely, gave a brief glance back towards Anderson as he struggled to his feet, and then bundled the girl out ahead of him through the open doorway. From the restaurant there were amazed stares.

“For heaven’s sake, you madman, let me go!” Verona insisted, trying to drag free. “What in the world’s come over you?”

“Common sense, if anything. Jack Anderson’s playing the game a bit too freely for my liking! In you get!”

Verona struggled and protested, but against Bruce she was powerless. He bundled her into his racer, slid in beside her, and then slammed the door. In a matter of seconds his ideas of lunch forgotten, he was weaving into the midst of the city traffic and. rather to his surprise, there was no sign of Anderson’s red sports car following in the rear.

“Very clever,” Bruce said at length, with a bitter glance towards the silent, pale-faced girl. “The moment my back’s turned off you go with Anderson again! Can’t you get it through your head that you’re married to me—not him!”

“Even a married woman can have men friends—and does!” Verona retorted hotly. “I’ve learned that much about your laws, anyhow!”

“Oh, so it’s just a friendship!” Bruce sneered. “Sneaking down back streets into classy restaurants, into one where there wasn’t the remotest chance of my finding you, except by coincidence—which in this case came off.”

“There was no sneaking about it. Jack called not ten minutes after you’d gone this morning, and finding me all alone, he did what any decent friend would do and asked me out to dinner. If you think that was arranged, think again! He couldn’t possibly have known that you’d be in town on business.”

True enough, he couldn’t have known—but Bruce saw no reason to admit the fact, even to himself. He was firmly obsessed with the idea that something was going on between Verona and Jack Anderson, and it had got to be stopped.

“Anyway, it won’t happen again,” he snapped. “We’re leaving for France by the five o’clock plane and with luck we’ll be at the villa by late this evening. And if Jack turns up again, I’ll break his blasted neck.”

Verona glanced. “You’ve finished all your city business, then?”

“Everything needful. Other odds and ends can wait. It’s you I’ve got to keep my eye on!”

Verona relaxed and said no more, but there seemed to be something pretty close to tears in her eyes. Bruce noticed them when he stole an occasional look at her during driving, but he did not soften his attitude one fraction. Ruled by insane jealousy as he was, he just could not consider the situation impartially. His love for Verona was of the fiercely possessive type, which set everything else at naught.

Once they arrived home again he wasted no time in booking seats on the five o’clock plane for Southern France. That done, he had his belated lunch, then got the servants to work with the packing. All the time, through the remainder of the afternoon, he expected Jack Anderson to turn up and say his piece, but there was no sign of him. This more than ever satisfied Bruce that Anderson was in the wrong and evidently was not going to commit himself—unless of course he intended later to bring an action for assault.

Whatever the machinations behind the scenes, Bruce kept to his original plan, and he and Verona were on the five p.m. plane—and, as he had hoped, the airport taxi brought them to their closed villa towards eight o’clock that same evening. As he unlocked the front door Bruce looked about him on the warm calm of the summer evening. For miles there was nothing but an expanse of misty emptiness terminated eventually by the line of the sea.

“Here perhaps,” Bruce said, “we’ll get a bit of peace! We ought never to have left it in the first place.”

He held the door open, and without a word Verona went ahead of him. Once they were in the lounge, the soft lights switched on to dispel the advancing twilight, Bruce felt that Verona reminded him very much of a frightened child. Her great eyes were staring at him, and her face seemed unusually pale.

“Even if you hadn’t suggested coming here I would have done,” he said. “You’ve a lot to learn, my dear, before I dare let you out into the world again. Should be plenty of time to do it here—no servants, no neighbours. Just ourselves. See what you can do to get a meal together whilst I take the bags upstairs.”

Bruce picked the bags up and turned towards the door; then a sudden thought seemed to strike him. He looked back at the girl.

“Come to think of it, just in case you decide to break away, or on the chance that Jack Anderson might guess we’re here and come after you, it might be a good idea to have the place guarded. I’ll ring up the local gendarmerie and see what I can do.”

“I’m your wife, Bruce, not a prisoner!” Verona declared passionately.

“That you’re my wife is something that you and Jack conveniently forget! I’m going to stop that right now.”

Bruce went on his way into the hall and picked up the phone. With his world-famous reputation, he had no difficulty in fixing it with the local prefect of police to have a couple of guards to watch the villa. Bruce’s reasons sounded cogent enough—fear of burglary from those wanting to steal some of his valuable artefacts. Possibility of scientists trying to kidnap his wife for anthropological study— Yes, definitely. Two gendarmes would be sent immediately for night duty and two others would relieve them by day. Bruce smiled grimly to himself and went on his way up the staircase....

* * * *

In half an hour the gendarmes were in position outside the villa, well concealed. When Bruce told her of their arrival, Verona made no comment. Nor indeed did she say a word throughout the remainder of the evening. It made Bruce fume inwardly to be thus treated, even though he reflected inwardly that he probably deserved it. He could not understand whether the girl was being deliberately sulky or whether she was once again reverting to that mysterious apathy which had possessed her before he had suggested she should move to city life.

In any event, the evening closed without her saying a word, and still without commenting she retired to bed. When Bruce went upstairs half an hour later he could not be sure whether she was asleep or not. Either way she did not say anything to him.

Verona was not asleep, anything but. She lay motionless until she was reasonably satisfied that Bruce had dozed off, then she very silently slid out of her own bed on the far side and quietly donned robe and slippers. Without making a sound she glided out of the room, closed the door gently, the hurried swiftly along the corridor and down the staircase.

The moment she opened the front door the shadow figures of the gendarmes loomed. They both saluted respectfully in the starlight.

“A lovely night, officers,” Verona said lightly. “To lovely to sleep. It is a night for walking.”

“Oui, madame,” one of the officers agreed, but he seemed to hesitate. So Verona moved gracefully towards him.

“Can I persuade you two gentlemen to say nothing to my husband if I take a stroll?” she asked gently. “Then perhaps, afterwards, I shall be able to sleep.”

Without waiting for the answer Verona began to move on her way, but to her surprise her arm was grasped and the gendarme looked down upon her seriously.

“With regret, madame,” he said, in awkward English. “Your husband insisted nobody enter villa—and nobody leave. Not even you, madame!”

“What!” Verona gazed in anger. “You mean to tell me even I cannot—”

“Orders, madame. Please do not make it difficult for us.”

There was more than anger in Verona’s eyes now: it was very near consternation, but just the same she had the sense to realise that the gendarmes would use force if necessary. So, controlling herself as best she could, she returned to the villa and closed the front door. On re-entering the room she paused for a moment, aware of Bruce standing in his dressing gown beside the window. Though the lights were not on his silhouette was plain enough.

“Wandering around again, eh?” he asked dryly. “I’ll bet you didn’t get far, either!”

“Just what sort of a woman do you think I am?” Verona demanded angrily, striding across to him. “How dare you keep me a prisoner in my own home?”

“Our home, Verry. I’m as much entitled to it as you are.... I’m not keeping you a prisoner. I’m simply protecting you from the attentions of the unwanted. There’s a moral code existing in our society and you’re going to learn it, even if it’s the hard way!”

“All I wanted to do was go for a walk in the night! What’s wrong with that?”

“Of itself, nothing, only the unfortunate fact is that I don’t trust you to let it end there. For all I know you may have some secret arrangement with Jack Anderson—or even some other man for all I know—and I’m not taking the risk. Until I am sure that you have the right idea about our conventions, you’ll remain in this villa, and nobody will see you unless I’m present.”

Verona clenched her fists. “You’ll regret it, Bruce—How you’ll regret it! If you won’t allow me freedom to go outside, I’ll—”

“Well, what?” Bruce asked coldly.

Verona did not answer. She turned away, and there was a curious droop to her shoulders. It struck Bruce transiently that her reaction to being held a virtual prisoner was more profound than he had expected, but that still did not make him yield. He was determined to jealously guard Verona, to the death if need be.

So resolute was his decision he did not attempt to go to bed again. He remained on a semi-dozing sentry duty, ready to act if the girl showed signs of trying to escape somehow—but she made no attempt to do so. She slept fitfully and awoke with the dawn, a look of utter and haggard desperation on her elfin face. It was so abject even Bruce was inwardly disturbed.

“If you must go out, if only for exercise, I’ll come with you,” he volunteered. “That’s fair enough, isn’t it?”

All he got was a faraway look, as though Verona did not even see him. It was not contempt, or hatred: it was something he could not fathom. He muttered something to himself and stalked from the room to prepare for shaving....

Since there were no servants present, Verona herself got the breakfast together, but she ate hardly anything. Most of the time throughout the meal she sat with her chin on her hand, her peculiar eyes looking through Bruce with an unnerving stare.

“Oh, for heavens’ sake!” he exploded at last. “Let’s go and take a walk, then maybe you’ll stop sulking!”

“If anything happens to me, Bruce,” Verona said in a remote kind of voice. “you’ll be entirely responsible.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that if I am not allowed freedom to wander as I choose, I shall die. It’s as simple as that. There’s a biological reason why I must have freedom.”

“Very unconvincing,” Bruce growled. “Your people are no different to ours, except in a few physical points. That excuse won’t work, Verona.”

She shrugged. “Very well. Don’t say I haven’t warned you!”

After which she closed up into one of those utter silences of hers, and Bruce did not know what to think. He was pretty sure she was up to some kind of subterfuge, but on the other hand she did look ghostly and strange, as though she was somehow mysteriously wasting away. Just because she couldn’t wander about alone? Ridiculous!

The morning, crushing in its silence, passed slowly. Bruce wandered in and out of the villa in the bright sunlight, and the day-duty gendarmes eyed him respectfully. Verona remained in the lounge, sprawled on the divan, staring into space. Since she made no effort to remove the breakfast traces, Bruce finally did it himself, his temper by no means sweet.

When it came to lunch Verona refused it—and the same thing happened again in the evening after Bruce had spent an infuriating afternoon devising something for the evening meal.

“What’s the idea?” he asked bluntly. “Going on a hunger strike because I won’t let you go out? It would be more to the point if you’d look after the domestic details instead of mooning the hours away on that divan!”

“Be still more to the point if you’d get the servants back,” Verona responded, breaking silence at last. “The same ones we had before.... As for the hunger strike conception, it isn’t that. I just cannot eat until I’ve taken a walk—”

“Outside and alone!” Bruce finished for her, nodding grimly. “Well you’re not doing, so forget it!”

Silence. Verona relaxed again on the divan, her face deathly pale and one arm dangling limply so her fingers just touched the carpet. In spite of himself, Bruce was troubled. In one way she seemed to be ill: in another she might be capable of clever acting. No! He set his jaw. This issue had to be fought out to a finish. Verona had to realise, even by suffering if necessary, that he was the absolute master of their union.

So he ate his none-too-perfect evening meal by himself with Verona lounging nearby and completely disregarding him.... The evening was one of continued silence and, on Bruce’s part, suppressed emotions. He was thankful when the time approached for retiring— Then, to his surprise, there came a sudden and violent commotion from the terrace outside. There were wild shouts in French, the crack of a gun, then swiftly running feet.

In a matter of seconds Bruce had hurtled to the still open French windows. To his amazement he saw one of the gendarmes firing savagely at something across the grounds in the twilight. The other gendarme lay sprawled on the terrace, his throat mangled and bleeding from some ferocious attacker.

“What the devil...?” Bruce whispered, then saw that Verona had crept to his side and was gazing with him. He ignored her and strode to the gendarme with the gun.

“M’sieu!” The gendarme had only just caught sight of Bruce and Verona. “A monster attacked—killed Pierre. See—here are the signs.”

Bruce followed the excited man quickly and presently found himself looking at a churned-up mass of soil amidst a multitude of crushed flowers and bushes. Though the light was fast dying, the evidence of enormous feet was there. Three-toed feet, and in proportion the owner of them must have been close on eight or nine feet high.

“Was it—a man?” Bruce asked haltingly.

“No, no, m’sieu!” The gendarme gesticulated. “Somethink I nevaire see before! Huge! I cannot describe it— it was grey.”

Bruce frowned worriedly. The immediate thought leapt into his mind that this monstrous unknown thing must have been trying to get at Verona and attack her. That automatically swung him around towards her to demand an explanation—but she had gone completely from the terrace

“Damn!” he yelled in fury. “My wife’s gone whilst we’ve looking here— Where is she? Verona! Verona!”

He blundered back to the terrace and looked desperately about him. Then he turned back to the gendarme and snatched his gun. At the same moment there were sounds on the terrace, and Bruce immediately swung round, his weapon levelled. His feelings were definitely mixed. Coming up in the twilight was the burly form of Captain Anderson.

“Well?” Bruce spat at him. “What the hell do you want?”

“A word with you—a word that may settle your ridiculous suspicions about Verona—”

“I’ve no time for ’em, or for you. As for Verry, she’s just run off somewhere, and if I don’t find her quickly she’ll be killed! Out of my way—”

“Killed?” Anderson held Bruce’s arm tightly. “What are you talking about?”

Bruce explained briefly, then turned to go on again.

“Hold it a minute!” Anderson commanded, his voice dead level. “It’s about this very monster that I came to talk to you.”

Bruce hesitated, surprised. “The monster? But I thought you’d come to get your own back for my laying you out in that café—”

“Lord, no! You don’t think I’d bother to fly from England on a matter as trifling as that, do you? Look, Bruce, there’s something you’ve got to know about Verry—”

“I think I know it already. She’s in love with you—Now get out of my way.”

Anderson only tightened his grip. “Hear me out, you impetuous idiot! You take all mention of this monster far too lightly. It isn’t of this country! Understand?”

“I’d gathered that, therefore it must have come from South America. How, I don’t know—but it’s obviously after Verry and I’ve got to find her—”

With that Bruce broke free of Anderson’s grip and began running desperately in the dying light, searching the ground, finding traces of Verona’s high heel prints, and then going on again. Anderson caught up with him in a matter of moments and helped him, but this time he made no attempt to restrain him.

“It looks,” Bruce said finally, breathing hard and still holding the gendarme’s gun, “as though the monster caught up with her here because this is where her footprints vanish— But the monster’s go on.”

He followed the unmistakable prints, visible in the sandy soil of the open land beyond the grounds of the villa, and finally paused as he came to a rising stretch of ground that was not very far from the seashore. Here, in common with most of this coast, there were numberless craters and underground entrances, probably casting back to pirate days. The light had almost gone, but what there was of the western afterglow cast upon the giant prints leading straight into one of the many surface openings.

“Thinking what I’m thinking?” Bruce demanded, as Anderson stopped beside him.

“Uh-huh—that Verry’s been carried into that cave opening by the monster.”

Bruce thought swiftly, then: “It’s only ten minutes to the villa and back. Hop over and get my torch from the bureau. We can’t investigate properly without it.”

“Okay.” Anderson gave a bitter smile. “Even now you don’t trust me alone with Verry, do you? Even now you think I might find her and—”

“Oh, get moving, for God’s sake!”

Anderson shrugged and then broke into a swift, athletic run. Bruce waited in desperate impatience, calling Verona by name meanwhile, but he got no answer from the cave’s depths....

The night had completely dropped by the time Anderson came running into view again, the torch beam blazing. Instantly Bruce grabbed it from him and plunged into the cave opening, following thereafter a narrow tunnel in the dust of which were the plain imprints of a monstrous pair of feet and also, strangely enough, those of a man and woman. Bruce stared at the prints and then caught Anderson’s taut smile.

“You know something about this?” Bruce demanded.

“Certainly I do. I helped Verry to bring the monster in here.”

“You did what?” Bruce’s brain was going round in circles. “You mean that monster is threatening her because you planned it?”

“Of course not! I—”

Bruce didn’t wait for any more. He lashed out with his fist and the blow was powerful enough to knock Anderson to his knees. Bruce gave him one glance, then again shouting the girl’s name he raced on down the tunnel, following prints—and all of a sudden he came upon a sight which his blood freeze.

At this point the tunnel widened into a small-sized cave and in the depths of this cave was an object similar to an octopus as far as its bladder-like body was concerned. It had an incredible number of tentacles, yet stood upon two massive three-toed feet. This was bad enough, but in the midst of tentacles there lay sprawled the body of Verona. At first she appeared to be unconscious, but after a second or two the light of Bruce’s touch aroused her. Instantly she screamed, even though she could not see who was behind the glare.

“Don’t shoot—!” Her cry came a split second after Bruce had fired deliberately at the loathsome monstrosity. “Don’t! Don’t!”

Bruce took no notice. He fired again, straight to the main sac of the monster. Evidently .the bullet went home, for the ‘creature’ quivered, dropping Verona, and then began to sag and deflate like a balloon with the air escaping. Just in time she dragged herself clear of the collapsing body and staggered over to where Bruce was standing. He caught her tightly.

“Evidently just in time,” he muttered.

“You—you shouldn’t have killed him,” Verona whispered. “You shouldn’t—you shouldn’t!”

Bruce found her becoming a dead weight in his grasp and quite naturally assumed she had fainted from reaction. He laid her on the floor, deflecting the torch beam so the glare did not shine directly upon her.

“Shouldn’t have killed him?” he repeated, astonished. “But he was all set to devour you—!”

“He wasn’t—he wasn’t. That’s where you’re so wrong. He was just about to feed me. Now—now he can never do it....”

Verona’s words trailed off and she became silent. Bruce stared at her, her head pillowed on his arm, then he glanced up as he heard the slow footsteps of Captain Anderson entering the cave.

“You should have let me explain instead of knocking me down,” Anderson said quietly. “Verona, in common with all her people, is a parasite. I’ve always known it because of my biological skill, but you didn’t.”

“Parasite?” Bruce mouthed the word. “How—how do you mean?”

“I mean that Verona’s race have no true life of their own. They are compelled at intervals to absorb a life-fluid from a parent creature, of which there is one to each of them. No one parent can possibly feed another parasite. When you killed this one, you killed Verona too.”

Bruce was deadly silent. Anderson’s voice seemed to echo.

“I knew about it, but would have married Verona had she agreed. Just as we need oxygen sometimes to save us in crisis, so Verona’s people have to absorb life-fluid from their parent monster to keep them alive. One doesn’t notice that in the ordinary way since it’s a thing they keep themselves. That’s why they remained hidden from the rest of the world—until your expedition discovered them. Verona had enough fluid in her to stay reasonably well until England was reached, and she was hoping to try and use synthetic fluid to take the place of her ‘parent’. I’ve been in contact with scientists who are secretly working on that—but so far they’ve failed. She got rid of you in Scotland and enlisted my help to fly to South America and get her monster-parent. It was not difficult. I helped her get it back here. The other times Verry and I met were pure coincidence and not planned. She suggested coming back to the villa so she could be near the monster.”

“So that was why she wanted to walk out alone?”

“Yes. But your damned jealous disposition wouldn’t let her!”

“Why couldn’t she have told me?”

“Because she was afraid of losing you. She felt you would so nauseated at the facts that you’d throw her overboard, and she loved you very dearly.”

“Loved? Loved? Why do you say that? Why the past tense?” Bruce demanded; then without waiting for the answer, “You’re lying, Jack! You rang up while I was in Scotland. If you went to South America, you couldn’t have done that!”

“Hudson was well paid to play his part,” Anderson replied quietly, taking Verona’s wrist.

Bruce was silent. He stared at the ashy-faced girl, then at the monster that he had slain. He could not be blamed for having assumed the creature was deadly.

“A little less jealousy, Bruce, and a little more understanding would have made your union with Verona a wonderful thing,” Anderson said slowly. “As it is, she will walk no more. No other ‘parent’ can provide life-fluid. There is no interchange. The monster knew it was time for Verona to have the fluid, hence it came to her, since didn’t come to it.”

“You—you mean it knew where to look for her?”

“Certainly—with all the instinct of the homing pigeon. If she had had the fluid last night, she’d be alive and well now.”

“I stopped her,” Bruce whispered. “I stopped her! I was obsessed with the belief that she was having an affair.”

“Jealousy,” Anderson said slowly, “has brought empires in the dust. You need be jealous no more, Bruce. Verona is dead.”