“It’s dangerous to stay here,” said Sarah Cowie as she saw Joan Hellier in their second-floor chamber. “Greystoke will kill us all, one by one.”
“We’re not that stupid,” muttered Joan, kneeling on Jane Carr’s bed and looking through her possessions. She took a comb and the dead woman’s money for herself.
“But is the plan working?”
Joan went across to Ann Thwaite’s bag, left by the door of the room, and started to rummage through it. “The beauty of this plan is that it cannot fail. Every attempt is just another stage in the plan. Eventually it will be successful.”
“What do you mean?”
Joan let an old smock fall from her hands and kicked it away across the floor. She sighed and looked at Sarah. “You’ve seen a bull baiting. First one dog goes in and it gets thrown, then the next, and it gets thrown too. Some dogs get killed. The older and wiser ones hold back. They know that sooner or later, one of the young ones will catch the bull by surprise, or two dogs will distract the bull, and they will grab it by the neck and worry it to death. Although the bull fights, and catches it with its horn and kills it, the master of the ring sends in another couple of dogs. If they are brave and determined, the bull is as good as dead. It is only a matter of time.”
“We are the dogs, you mean.”
“It is better to be the dogs than to be the bull.”