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shaped corks, pencil stubs, toy cars, a military badge, some blue marbles and, for reasons only Boy Joshua could possibly understand, little stacks of used typewriter ribbons.
    Suppressing a mild shudder, Kramer got up and walked over to the red filing cabinet beside another, smaller desk where the telephone stood. He pulled open the top drawer, taking care not to smudge any potential fingerprints, and was surprised to find everything neatly filed away in blue folders, each of which was clearly labelled. He wasn’t sure why he’d looked in there, although a start had to be made somewhere on the tedious business of filling himself in on the dead woman’s background, and letters, even business ones, could be useful in this respect. But the sight of so much paper to wade through, and so many lines to read between, weakened his resolution, and he began to push the drawer shut again. If only, of course, he could simply ask the dead woman a few simple questions about herself, how much easier life would be.
    Then he gave a slight smile and took out a folder he’d just noticed, earmarked interviews. Inside it were a score of cuttings, at least three of which promised to reveal the
real
Naomi Stride, prizewinning authoress, housewife and mother.
    “That, too,” he murmured, pleased with his discovery, and returned with it to the swivel chair.
    But, before settling down to the first of the articles, heleaned forward to take a look at the sheet of paper left in the typewriter. What he saw was:
    p/237
    a fine membrane, paler than the moon
,
    ‘II, ii!’
    Puzzled, he glanced round for the preceding page, and found it in a wire basket under a glass paperweight. A quick scan revealed that it was a sexy scene between two youngsters in the dunes near Durban, both of whom seemed unusually alive to the odours of each other’s body.
    “Yes. And you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Abelard.”
    He nodded
.
    “I don’t know the words for this,” she said. “Not your words.”
    “There are no words,” he said, reaching out for her
.
    She smiled gently, hearing nothing trite in that, knowing he knew no clichés. “Like wood smoke,” she said, as his chest brushed her lightly, raising her nipples. “A deep, dark gorgeous smell.…”
    “Like wild mint,” he said. “Sharp in the nostrils. No, slowly. We must be slow, maybe this is the only time.”
    And then followed the descriptive passage that carried over on to the last page ending abruptly with ‘II, ii!,’ a totally enigmatic statement, even when taking into account the bewilderingly cryptic dialogue that had come before it.
    Kramer shrugged and opened the folder of recent interviews. They were also in English, but far better written, beingquite clear in their meaning; and one from the
Washington Post
, which really did try to get to the facts about Naomi Stride, became his favourite. He read it again and again.
    At two o’clock Ramjut Pillay was suspended from duty, pending a full Post Office enquiry into how he had come to abandon a postbag, not to mention a pair of Post Office boots, in a reckless and unthinking manner, thereby putting at risk the safety of the Republic’s mail.
    This came as a bitter blow to him, all the more so because he now believed every word of the story he’d told the remarkably understanding black detective sergeant who had interviewed him after his ordeal—a story which he was still trying to repeat to Mr. Jarman, his supervisor, whose powers of concentration were obviously so poor that they’d certainly never gain
him
a diploma in anything worthwhile.
    “But I am telling you, Mistering Jarman,” Ramjut Pillay patiently persisted, “and I am telling you truly, the spirit was present with the remainders of this poor lady, and the spirit said unto me, ‘I have great need of—!’ ”
    “Pillay,” said Mr. Jarman, pointing to his door. “Out.”
    “A moment more, Mistering Jarman, suh! There is much you are not fully comprehending of a religious