Words failed Grant altogether. The lift appeared.

Thirty seconds later they were in the hall.

The pleased expectancy on Williams's pink face told them the worst. Williams had certainly not intercepted anyone.

People were arriving, people were departing, people were going to tea in the restaurant, people were going to eat ices in the sun lounge, to drink in the bar, to meet other people and go to tea at Lyons — the hall of the Marine was American in the catholicity of its inhabitants. To make oneself noticeable in that assembly it would be necessary to stand on one's hands and proceed so.

Williams said that a young brown-haired man, without a hat and wearing a tweed jacket and flannels had gone out about five minutes previously. In fact, two of them had gone out.

"Two of them! You mean together!"

No, Williams meant that two separate men answering to that description had gone out in the last five minutes. If it came to that, here was another.

Yes, there was another. And watching him, Grant was filled with a despair that ran up from his feet like a wave hitting him and flooding his whole being. Yes, indeed there would be others. In Kent alone at this moment were ten thousand men whose description corresponded to Tisdall's.

Grant pulled himself together and turned to the ungrateful task of forming a police cordon.

Chapter 10