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pale and upset.’
    ‘But that may well have been due to shock.’
    ‘Shock! What shock?’
    I shrugged deliberately and said nothing.
    ‘Oh, you dumb Canadian!’ Verna wailed. ‘Finding yourself pregnant is a hell of a shock.’
    ‘Pregnant!’ Earle echoed. He stared bemusedly at Verna. ‘But that’s crazy. We never fooled around like that.’
    ‘It doesn’t take much fooling around.’
    ‘But it’s crazy all the same! Anne wants to have children – we both want them. She wouldn’t have been shocked, she’d have been delighted.’
    ‘Finding out could still have been a shock,’ I said. ‘Perhaps she’d only gone in for a check-up.’
    Earle dropped back on the chair. ‘No. It’s screwy. It couldn’t have happened, you can take my word for it.’
    Verna rose with a gleam in her eye. ‘This is one thing we can settle. Dr Gurney is a personal friend of mine. He’ll soon tell us what she’s been up to.’
    ‘It wasn’t a Dr Gurney.’
    ‘Who was it?’
    ‘The names on the plate were Steele and Carruthers.’
    ‘So she went to a strange doctor! That explains a lot. But I’m going to check up just the same.’
    ‘They may not tell you,’ I cautioned.
    ‘Rubbish,’ Verna said. ‘I’m her mother. If my daughter is going to have a baby, I suppose I’ve a right to know that?’
    She swept out to the telephone and soon we could hear her voice raised commandingly. Alex poured himself a drink and sank wearily on the arm of a chair beside me.
    ‘It’s insane,’ he said. ‘Simply demented.’
    ‘You don’t know anything that might throw some light on it?’
    He shook his head helplessly. ‘I don’t know about Earle, but I feel as though I’d been hit over the head with a hammer. This is so unlike Anne. She’s wilful, of course, she’s always had a mind of her own. But she has always confided in me before. I feel suddenly that I don’t know my own sister.’
    ‘This idea of another man.’
    ‘Forget it. I was angry when I said that. Anne has been a one-man girl ever since she met Earle.’
    ‘Wasn’t there a quarrel?’
    ‘It wasn’t serious. It lasted a month then they made it up. They were both as sick as dogs.’ He gave me a wry look. ‘You were right of course. They love each other.’
    ‘No question of another man.’
    ‘None. Earle had an arrangement with the CBC. He was going back to a post in Toronto. Anne felt she had to stay over here with Verna.’
    ‘When did this happen?’
    ‘A couple of months back. When Anne was still working as an assistant producer. When they made it up she resigned and came home. They were only waiting for Earle’s vacation to get hitched.’
    ‘Do you know why she resigned?’
    He shrugged. ‘Just clearing the decks, I imagine. Anne has never been keen about living in London – she was bred a country girl, you know.’
    We were interrupted: Verna stormed in.
    ‘My God, I never would have believed it! That wretched girl actually left instructions that nobody was to be told why she consulted them. I argued. It was Dr Steele. I told him it was absurd that I couldn’t be told. I said she’d run away and that we were worried stiff and that if he didn’t tell me I would hold him responsible. Do you know what he said?’ Verna trembled with indignation so that her silver pendant earrings jingled. ‘He said that he could understand why she wanted to keep her own counsel and that if she was missing we’d better try the police. And then he hung up. Oh, I could have murdered him! My God, let me have a drink.’
    She poured herself a stiff Scotch and swallowed a hefty mouthful. Her eyes sparkled; she gave a groan of disgust and plumped down on the settee.
    ‘Well, it can’t be anything serious,’ Alex said soothingly. ‘He would surely have given you a hint if it was.’
    ‘He wouldn’t have cared if she were dying tomorrow. That man is a disgrace to medical practice.’
    ‘If she isn’t ill then it must be the other thing.’
    ‘I knew