The whisky must have been of the same high quality as the rest of the food, for in spite of the amount that I had put away, I woke up next morning feeling remarkably fit and cheerful. One of the first things I did was to pull aside the blind and have a look at the weather. The result was not encouraging, for my window faced on to a blank wall of dirty white brick, and in the intervening space a thin grey drizzle was coming down with monotonous persistence. Once more Manning's predictions about a sudden change in the weather came back to my memory. If it were like this in London, the odds were that Greensea Island would be wrapped in a regular sea fog, which I knew from experience might last for several days. However, I consoled myself with the comforting reflection that it would save me a deal of hard work with the watering can, and that, after all, I was no longer compelled to tramp up and down a dripping bridge with a miniature trout stream trickling down the back of my neck. I had made up my mind to go back by the mid-day train, which gets into Torrington somewhere about two o'clock. There were several things I still wanted to buy, and, now that I was actually in town, it seemed a pity to waste such a favourable opportunity. I had no wish to get soaked through, however, so on my way down to the dining-room I gave the hall porter a sovereign and told him to go out and buy me an umbrella. He returned with a sporting-looking affair, the handle of which terminated in a bull-dog's head. Though a trifle spectacular, it was a sound article for the money, and, armed with this and my cheque book, I set off after breakfast, pleasantly determined to make a good opening in Uncle Richard's life savings. As intentions go, it must be admitted that I was fairly successful. In addition to half a dozen things I bought for myself, I discovered in a Bond Street jeweller's a perfectly charming little emerald pendant, which struck me at once as having been obviously designed for Christine. Under the circumstances twenty-five pounds seemed to be a ridiculously cheap price, but I felt that it was unnecessary to point this out to the shopman, who appeared quite satisfied with the transaction. Returning to the hotel with my purchases, I made an early but excellent lunch off cold duck and salad, and at a quarter to one I was steaming out through the damp squalor of East London, comfortably established in the corner seat of a first-class smoker. It was a cheerless journey, for all the way down a driving rain beat incessantly upon the windows, and most of the landscape was blotted out by drifting clouds of mist. At Torrington things were not much better. It was not actually raining, but the little cobble-paved market-place reeked with wet, and a depressing air of forlorn moisture brooded over the entire place.