“I don’t _see_ her yet somehow,” said Hooper, but with sympathy. “She—she never scrupled to feed a lame duck or set ’er foot on a scorpion at any time of ’er life,” Pritchard added valiantly. “That don’t help me either. My mother’s like that for one.” The giant heaved inside his uniform and rolled his eyes at the car-roof. Said Pyecroft suddenly:— “How many women have you been intimate with all over the world, Pritch?” Pritchard blushed plum colour to the short hairs of his seventeen-inch neck. “’Undreds,” said Pyecroft. “So’ve I. How many of ’em can you remember in your own mind, settin’ aside the first—an’ per’aps the last—_and one more_?” “Few, wonderful few, now I tax myself,” said Sergeant Pritchard, relievedly. “An’ how many times might you ’ave been at Aukland?” “One—two,” he began. “Why, I can’t make it more than three times in ten years. But I can remember every time that I ever saw Mrs. B.” “So can I—an’ I’ve only been to Auckland twice—how she stood an’ what she was sayin’ an’ what she looked like. That’s the secret. ’Tisn’t beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It’s just It. Some women’ll stay in a man’s memory if they once walked down a street, but most of ’em you can live with a month on end, an’ next commission you’d be put to it to certify whether they talked in their sleep or not, as one might say.” “Ah,” said Hooper. “That’s more the idea. I’ve known just two women of that nature.” “An’ it was no fault o’ theirs?” asked Pritchard. “None whatever. I know that!” “An’ if a man gets struck with that kind o’ woman, Mr. Hooper?” Pritchard went on. “He goes crazy—or just saves himself,” was the slow answer. “You’ve hit it,” said the Sergeant. “You’ve seen an’ known somethin’ in the course o’ your life, Mr. Hooper. I’m lookin’ at you!” He set down his bottle. “And how often had Vickery seen her?” I asked. “That’s the dark an’ bloody mystery,” Pyecroft answered. “I’d never come across him till I come out in the _Hierophant_ just now, an’ there wasn’t any one in the ship who knew much about him. You see, he was what you call a superior man. ’E spoke to me once or twice about Auckland and Mrs. B. on the voyage out. I called that to mind subsequently. There must ’ave been a good deal between ’em, to my way o’ thinkin’. Mind you I’m only giving you my _sum_ of it all, because all I know is second-hand so to speak, or rather I should say more than second-’and.” “How?” said Hooper peremptorily. “You must have seen it or heard it.” “Yes,” said Pyecroft. “I used to think seein’ and hearin’ was the only regulation aids to ascertainin’ facts, but as we get older we get more accommodatin’. The cylinders work easier, I suppose…. Were you in Cape Town last December when Phyllis’s Circus came?” “No—up country,” said Hooper, a little nettled at the change of venue. “I ask because they had a new turn of a scientific nature called ‘Home and Friends for a Tickey.’”