' That would explain the game of tennis. Those chaps didn't
need to act, they just turned a handle and passed into another
life, which came as naturally to them as the first. It sounds a
platitude, but Peter used to say that it was the big secret of all
the famous criminals.
It was now getting on for eight o'clock, and I went back and
saw Scaife to give him his instructions. I arranged with him how to
place his men, and then I went for a walk, for I didn't feel up to
any dinner. I went round the deserted golf-course, and then to a
point on the cliffs farther north beyond the line of the villas.
On the little trim newly-made roads I met people in flannels
coming back from tennis and the beach, and a coastguard from the
wireless station, and donkeys and pierrots padding homewards.
Out at sea in the blue dusk I saw lights appear on the ARIADNE and
on the destroyer away to the south, and beyond the Cock sands the
bigger lights of steamers making for the Thames. The whole scene
was so peaceful and ordinary that I got more dashed in spirits every
second. It took all my resolution to stroll towards Trafalgar Lodge
about half-past nine.
On the way I got a piece of solid comfort from the sight of a
greyhound that was swinging along at a nursemaid's heels. He
reminded me of a dog I used to have in Rhodesia, and of the time
when I took him hunting with me in the Pali hills.
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