George said: “Charles, don’t be a silly old man. She is probably as bad as any of them. You can’t tell. Girls don’t live a life like that unless they want to.” I knew he was wrong. I just knew it. So I didn’t argue, but stuck to my point. The girl must be got out of the way before the place was raided. If the police found her there, she would be jailed--perhaps for years. I simply wouldn’t have it. The girl was at the beginning of her life. To jail her now would be to ruin her for all her life. Tarlyon, of course, didn’t need to be convinced. He was only leading me on. Tarlyon wouldn’t have put the police on a girl for trying to boil him in oil. But I was right about Manana Cohen. Good God, don’t I know I was right! This had been her life, was her life, these dreary streets, these foul alleys. Julian Raphael had found her, dazzled her, seduced her, bullied her, broken her. What chance had the girl, ever? She was timorous, you could see. A timid girl. No matter how kindly you talked to her, she stared at you like a rabbit at a stoat. Life was the stoat to Manana Cohen. Who knows what the girl hadn’t already suffered in her small life, what hell? Maybe she had loved Julian Raphael, maybe she loved him now. That wasn’t against her. Saints love cads. It’s the only way you can know a saint, mostly. Some of the nicest women you and I know, Hilary, have been divorced for the love of blackguards. Well, if Manana loved Raphael she would be punished enough by seeing him go to prison for a long stretch. One might find her a job on the stage, with her looks and figure. Good Lord, the way that girl looked at you when you so much as opened your mouth, her black eyes shivering as though her heart was hurt. We found a taxi in the Whitechapel Road. To civilisation. Tarlyon was quiet. I wondered if he thought I was in love with the girl. Me, at my age. As we rattled through Cheapside--deserted on a Saturday afternoon--Tarlyon said: “We will have to think of a way of getting the girl out of the place beforehand. But how? If we warn her she will naturally pass the glad news on to her man. Naturally.” Naturally, I agreed. She wouldn’t be herself if she went back on her man. I said I would think of a way as I bathed and dressed for dinner. As George dropped me at my flat he said: “Let’s say dinner in an hour’s time at White’s. Meanwhile I’ll ring up H----. Maybe he will dine with us. I suppose it will be about midnight before we get down there with his men. I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not going to have knives chucked at me on an empty stomach--for I’ll not be left out of this, not for all the knives in Christendom and Jewry. This is a real treasure-hunt as compared to chasing poppycock with children round Regent’s Park and chickenfood with flappers up Piccadilly. I said midnight, Charles, to give you a chance of getting Miss Manana Colquhoun clear away. Wish you luck!”