“Of course not. All the same, the way she’s going on is rather queer. She’s just put something that she picked up into that tin box she has slung across her back. That doesn’t look to me as if she had gout.” “If only Jimmy Kinsella would turn this way,” said Priscilla, “I’d wave at him and make him come over here. It’s perfectly maddening being stuck like this when such a lot of exciting things are going on. What time is it?” “A little after two.” “It’s low water then,” said Priscilla. “From this on the tide will be coming in again.” The Tortoise lay on the top of a grey bank from which the water had entirely receded. Between her and the channel, now a tangle of floating weed, lay a broad stretch of mud, dotted over with large stones and patches of gravel. The wind, which had been veering round to the south since twelve o’clock, had almost entirely died away. The sun shone very warmly. The Tortoise, lying sadly on her side, afforded no shelter at all. Both the beer and the lemonade were finished. Priscilla drank some peach juice from the tin. CHAPTER VIII After wading about for a little more than half an hour, Jimmy Kineslla’s lady went ashore. She rolled down the sleeves of her blouse and let her skirt fall about her ankles, but she did not put on her shoes and stockings. Jimmy Kinsella was summoned from his stone and launched his boat. “I daresay,” said Priscilla, “that she thinks her rheumatism ought to be cured by now. That is to say, of course, if she really has rheumatism, and isn’t a nefarious spy. I rather like that word nefarious. Don’t you? I stuck it into an English comp. the other day and spelt it quite right, but it came back to me with a blue pencil mark under it. Sylvia Courtney said that I hadn’t used it in quite the ordinary sense. She thinks she knows, and very likely she does, though not quite as much as she imagines. Nobody can know everything; which is rather a comfort when it comes to algebra. I loath algebra and always did. Any right-minded person would, I think.” “It looks to me,” said Frank, “as if they were coming over here.” Jimmy Kinsella was heading his boat straight for the bank on which the Tortoise lay. In a few minutes she grounded on the edge of it. The lady stepped out and paddled across the mud towards the Tortoise. Seen at close quarters she was, without doubt, fat, and had a round good-humoured face. Her eyes sparkled pleasantly behind a pair of gold rimmed pince-nez. “She is coming over to us,” said Priscilla. “The thing is for you to keep her in play and unravel her mystery, while I slip off and put a few straight questions to Jimmy Kinsella. Be as polite as you possibly can so as to disarm suspicion.” Priscilla began the course of diplomatic politeness herself. “We’re delighted to see you,” she said. “My name is Priscilla Lentaigne, and my cousin is Frank Mannix. We’re out for a picnic.” “My name,” said the lady, “is Rutherford, Martha Rutherford. I’m out after sponges.”