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Filk,’ I assured her, ‘and I know the geology of the Mendips and what one can or can’t expect to find there without being told
by Mr Fosworthy. Really you can leave him out of it.’
    As I see now, I could not have said anything worse. It looked as if I had learned all that Fosworthy could betray, and was making a futile attempt to protect him by admitting it.
    There was an awkward pause, so I leaned forward to scratch the ears of the supercilious dog. I have a faint recollection of raising my head in alarm. Probably the blow was already on its way
downwards.
    The next thing I knew was that I lay on the floor of a van with a pillow under my head. To my newly opened eyes it seemed to be quite dark. This worried me until, through the back window, I saw
lights flashing past. I stayed quiet, except for slightly shaking my head to see that it belonged to me.
    It was a fair guess that I had been coshed by Miss Filk. Never having been coshed before, I could not tell how efficiently she had done it. I felt more drowsy than ill so that I knew she could
not have hit me hard enough to lay me out for more than a few minutes. Without actually knowing what happened, I assume that Miss Filk had come provided with a syringe to keep me quiet. As a
breeder of sleek, expensive Dobermans she was probably quite accustomed to using it.
    How they carried me out of my flat after Miss Filk had telephoned that she had got me I do not know, but again it is not difficult to guess. I lived only one floor up. and most of the other
tenants were out all day at their places of business. No one was likely to see my removal from flat to front door. For the short passage from front door to van—well, it wouldn’t be
beyond Aviston-Tresco’s powers to provide an official-looking stretcher and a couple of St. John’s Ambulance caps.
    My wrists and ankles were firmly tied. I was not gagged, but it was pointless to start yelling and be forcibly suppressed when I could not be clearly heard from any passing car. On the other
side of the van was a bundle, snoring. I could just make out the untidy mass of fair hair at one end. I regarded the drugged Fosworthy with mixed feelings. I was sorry for him. I was glad of his
companionship. But I was certain that if he could make matters worse, he would.
    I must have dozed off again, for the next thing I remember is Fosworthy sitting up and looking at me. He had something soft stuffed into his mouth and held in place by a scarf tied behind his
neck. He made a complicated, indignant gesture with his head, which I took as meaning that this was an outrage and that he would declare my absolute innocence. Soon afterwards the van bumped along
a field track or unmetalled lane. Fosworthy evidently recognised the uneven motion, for he nodded to me as much as to say that he knew where we were. I can’t see what comfort he got from
it.
    We stopped, all lights off, on a concrete yard outside a farm building. Aviston-Tresco and Jedder got down from the front seats and opened up the van. I could dimly make out some water troughs
and a clamp of silage. I had the impression of a lonely barn in some outlying part of the estate.
    ‘I do not want to cause you unnecessary pain,’ Aviston-Tresco said to me, ‘but if you shout I shall gag you at once.’
    I said nothing. Anyway I doubted if there were a living soul within earshot. The south-west wind carried the softness of the Bristol Channel, and I could sense that it was sweeping over bare
downland without trees or buildings, for it was steady as at sea and silent except for the whispering through grass. Everything suggested that we were on the Mendips, almost certainly on some
desolate hill pasture of Jedder’s farm.
    The pair of them carried me in, dropped me gently on a hard floor and went back for Fosworthy. As soon as he, too, was safely inside the building, Jedder locked the door and switched on a
light.
    The place appeared to have been fairly recently