It had been ten years last July since his life had been forever changed by that spiteful curse. Ten years of polite evasions, careful scheduling, and white lies to protect his secret. Ten years of constant vigilance and scrupulous self-discipline to hide the physical peculiarities that might give him away. And now he'd gone and lost his head in a street fight. He could have wept. He'd exposed himself utterly with a single mistake.

This was a calamity of the worst kind, come at the worst possible time. There might not be an England left to preserve, should his present mission fail. The great wheels were already in motion, any significant delay in his investigation now could easily prove disastrous. It was imperative that he stop this counterfeiting plot before it came to fruition, and yet at this singularly inopportune moment, he'd done something that had all but ensured his own imminent detention.

That men like himself existed was not entirely unknown in certain circles. Reports of sightings dating back centuries could be found in the official records if one studied them closely enough. It made for rather grim reading though, history had not been kind to his sort. More recent accounts remained very much an open secret among those whose work put them in contact with such information. Incidents were quietly investigated, dutifully archived, and never spoken of again, as a rule.

There'd been whispers out of Warsaw since the war had begun that the Nazis had been testing a secret regiment of supernaturally enhanced soldiers there. Men with sharp teeth, whose eyes glowed like embers in the night and could run for a full day without rest. Naturally, most who heard this dismissed these reports as superstition and hysteria, but there were enough who took the stories seriously to make Campion wary. Should his condition ever come to the attention of those quarters of His Majesty's government, it would mean a permanent end to what little freedom he currently enjoyed.

In his mind's eye, Mr. Campion saw iron bars closing in around him and shuddered. He could well imagine the weeks of interrogations and scientific probings that would follow his swift imprisonment in the name of national defence, the painful tests of the limits of his endurance and abilities they'd dare not inflict on a normal man. At best, if he was cooperative, his countrymen might eventually decide he'd be of more use to the war effort as a soldier than a specimen, and send him to the front. Not a role he'd relish returning to, but it would be preferable to a prison laboratory.

He'd served briefly at the end of the last war, and the experience had rather soured him on the ugly business of soldiering. Barely more than eighteen, he'd come home with life and limbs intact, unlike so many of his peers, but nothing had been the same afterwards. When war in Europe had once again become an inevitability, he'd been secretly relieved for the opportunity to aid his country in a more intellectual capacity this time, never thinking it might come to this.

Campion considered his prospects grimly. The fatal thing was done. Nothing he could do to change that now. He had a few friends in high places, and distant family connections that he could call upon at last resort, but none whose influence was great enough to protect him in such unusual circumstances. Not with a war on.

There was time enough to disappear, if he wanted. Assume another name and walk away. But as tempting as that idea was, it would mean abandoning Britain to the Enemy in her time of need. This was his home and he'd sworn to defend it. He couldn't run and live with that stain on his conscience. Which meant that his fate depended entirely on whether the one man capable of identifying him to the authorities as a public menace chose to do so.

Stanislaus was a friend, of course, but how much weight would that carry against what he'd seen with his own two eyes? To the modern, rationally trained mind, that a man might spontaneously transform his shape was a fantastic notion, the stuff of lurid tales one found in pulp magazines. To suddenly discover that such things occurred in reality must have been the shock of the century for the old boy, as it certainly had been for Campion himself when he'd found out.

To his credit, Oates hadn't immediately run away, which argued there might still have been some hope of reasoning with him at that point, though Campion knew fear when he smelt it. Regrettably, they'd been interrupted before he could prove himself safe to the other man, and then he'd accidentally frightened him into the injury which had disabled him.

Campion groaned and dropped his head onto his knees. He'd disgraced himself again there, attacking the hapless policeman when it had been his own intervention responsible. It had all happened so quickly, the incident largely a blur in his memory. He hoped he hadn't done the man any irreparable harm.

This sobering suggestion diverted his thoughts from his own difficulties. What had become of the men he'd injured on the quay? Of Oates? The old policeman had been alive when he'd last seen him, but his condition at the time had hardly been reassuring. While he wallowed in self pity and worried for his future, his friend could be fighting for his life.

There'd been an ambulance, he thought. He had a faint recollection of following one at least. Which meant they'd taken him to hospital most likely. That was good, best place for him really. The doctors and nurses there would look after him until he recovered. Assuming he would recover.

Campion shook himself. His most pressing concern at the moment ought to be figuring out where he was. He could face the rest later. Rising unsteadily into an awkward crouch, he peered out of the unpleasant shrubbery cautiously.

A grey, four storey edifice overlooking a sparsely-occupied car park loomed in the foreground. Compliance with the blackout restrictions meant the building's many long, rectangular windows were dark, but his superior night vision allowed him to read the sign posted above its rear entrance. St Jude's Hospital. In the distance, he could just make out the indistinct shapes of sloped roofs and spires of civilisation silhouetted against the sky. To his immense relief, it appeared he was still in Coachingford.

The night was unnaturally quiet and seemingly growing colder by the minute. Other than the handful of parked vehicles waiting for their drivers in the dark lot, there was little evidence of life about. Eyeing the distance to the entrance, he wondered if he might risk slipping inside the building to find a telephone.

He'd asked Amanda to meet him at the station in town at four, but that must have been hours ago now. The business at the quay had taken longer to arrange than he'd anticipated. It must've been nearly six by the time things finally started heating up. She must have worried when he missed their rendezvous, perhaps even gone looking for him. He'd have to try ringing the paper shop and hope Lugg could come fetch him discreetly. As understanding as his fiancée was generally, he didn't particularly want to have to explain himself to her in his present state.

Extricating himself from his prickly hiding place took some manoeuvring and left rapidly healing scrapes stinging across nearly every inch of his exposed flesh. Limping slightly, he dashed across the silent car park to crouch beside an ambulance, where he paused to pluck several needle-sharp thorns from his hands and feet before proceeding on.

A stroke of luck – the driver's door to the ambulance had been left unsecured – garnered him a clean rescue blanket to use as a cloak. He wrapped himself in it gratefully, glad to have something to shield himself from the night air. His nakedness thus concealed beneath this modest costume, he approached the building with trepidation. Trying the door, he was gratified to discover that it was also unlocked and unguarded.

Inside, the hospital was quiet and comfortingly linoleumed. Heavily shaded lamps cast isolated pools of light along an empty corridor lined with white doors. If he listened carefully, he could hear the indistinct murmur of hushed conversation drifting from somewhere in the building, but saw no one.

Mr. Campion had never been very fond of hospitals, though he had nothing but respect for their purpose. To his overly sensitive nose, they always stank of disinfectant, stale blood, illness, and the grim odour of human misery, which made them rather unsettling to visit. There was little of that here though, the place seemed practically abandoned, its faded green walls and polished floors smelt scrubbed clean.

Treading lightly to avoid detection and unwelcome questioning, he wandered, opening promising doors until he located a closet with useful contents.

Slipping into the rough hospital pyjamas he'd found stored there, he felt a little better. The feeling had begun to return to his frozen limbs. He scrubbed at his face and hands with the blanket to make himself more presentable, then went looking for a telephone.

The desire for stealth slowed his search, but his excessive caution was rewarded when he paused to listen at a door and heard a voice on the other side speak so near to his ear that he stepped back from it in surprise.

"He'll be quiet enough, you'll see," the voice, male and friendly, was saying. "Probably won't even remember what's happened - or he'll say he doesn't until he's seen a lawyer."

A second voice murmured in reply to the first, too low for Campion to catch his words. He moved closer to press his ear against the wall.

"I shouldn't be surprised," he heard the first man remark. "And don't you forget, there's still all that money to be accounted for. That'll take a fair bit of explaining on its own. I'd like to be here when he wakes up jus' to hear what he has to say on the subject m'self."

The second man spoke again, what little carried of his question through the wall sounding almost apprehensive. "... have they found it yet?"

"No such thing," the first replied, with weary tolerance. "Don't you believe whatever superstitious tosh the lads at the station are speadin' about. Some damned fool has the idea to bring 'is Alsatian to a fight an' afterwards everyone starts natterin' on about bein' chased by monsters in the dark. Absolute rubbish."

"Tell that to Collins," he heard the other man mutter darkly.

"Watch yourself, Constable," his companion warned. His tone was noticeably more subdued though.

They were talking about himself, of course, Campion realised. Evidently his canine performance on the quay had not gone unreported. He listened at the door for a few minutes longer, hoping to hear more about the man they'd been discussing at first, but their conversation had moved on. Was Oates the unconscious man they were guarding? Or was it another of the men he'd encountered on the quay? He wasn't near enough to catch a scent.

Moving quietly away, he chose another door off the corridor and found himself in an empty ward. There he finally spotted his objective - sitting at the nurses' station situated at the end of a row of beds was unmistakably a telephone. He hurried over to make use of it before anything else could go awry.

One terse and unnecessarily cryptic conversation later, he'd managed to convey his whereabouts to the proprietor of the paper shop. Old Happy expressed ignorance as to Lugg's location, but promised to deliver the message when he returned. He kept his voice low to avoid being overheard by the policemen, inadvertently reinforcing the man's romantic notion of taking part in a genuine cloak and dagger operation.

He breathed a sigh of relief as the line disconnected. Having succeeded in transmitting his oblique SOS, he needed only find some place safe to wait until Lugg arrived.

This optimism was short-lived.

As he replaced the telephone handset to its cradle, a young nurse appeared from around the corner behind him and let out a sharp exclamation of surprise. Distracted by his call, he hadn't heard her approach and was startled as well.

Eminently aware of how suspect he must appear to her, he hastened to put her at ease. "Terribly sorry, I didn't hear you come up," he said, smiling idiotically. "This place is so frightfully empty at the moment, it makes one a bit jumpy."

"Did you need assistance?" she asked him, recovering her wits quickly. As he'd hoped she might, she'd taken him for a wayward patient.

"Thank you, no. I should be getting back to my bed before I'm missed," he said, moving away from the desk. "I only wanted to ring my wife, you see, to let her know that I'm all right. She was terribly worried." He delivered the lie without hesitation, falling back upon the mask of earnest foolishness which had served him so well in his youth.

His explanation only made her frown deepen however. "Sir, this area is reserved for medical staff only. The public telephone is located downstairs in the lobby. If you need to place a call, please speak with the nurse assigned to your ward."

He coloured disarmingly and made the appropriate mea culpa gesture. "Of course. Silly of me. I shall bear that in mind for next time, thank you." Another careful step backward put him that much closer to the door.

She moved to block his escape route however. With Campion's customary powers of obfuscation hampered by his dishevelled appearance, the nurse's credulity was beginning to wane.

"Were you brought in tonight, did you say?" she asked, eyes narrowing as she noticed the twigs in his hair.

"Yes, earlier this evening. Car smash," he supplied. "I, ah, I'm a little hazy on the details, afraid I've had a knock on the head." He tapped his temple gingerly.

This last portion of his reply had the dubious benefit of being completely true and for a moment she looked as though she might believe him. Sensing an opportunity, he took a calculated risk.

"I seem to recall there was another fellow. Older chap, grey hair, longish face, about my height perhaps? He'd had it even worse than me. Positively down for the count, poor old boy. I say, I don't suppose you could tell me how he's doing?"

Asking after Oates proved a mistake. Her expression hardened immediately. "I'm afraid I don't have that information. Perhaps you should enquire with the police. I believe they're just in the next ward." She gestured over her shoulder meaningfully, watching for his reaction.

Campion smiled again. Not his finest work, but she'd told him enough by her answer. Oates was here. Now it was time for him to leave. He had neither his identity card nor a plausible explanation for his whereabouts this evening. An encounter with the local police now would only mean more delay.

"That won't be necessary. Thank you kindly for your help."

He turned and walked briskly away, breaking into a run as soon as he was out of her sight. She shouted after him to stop.

Hurtling down the back stairs at a tremendous pace, he fled out into the darkness once more, desperate to find cover before she could rouse the cavalry to give chase. This meant another detour into unforgiving foliage, where he waited, crouched uncomfortably in a nest of brambles for several minutes until he was certain that he hadn't been seen.

While he listened for pursuers, he weighed his options. He could either remain where he was until Lugg came, and hope that he would be able to intercept him without being seen, or attempt to navigate the town on his own. Mindful of the acute discomfort offered by his present position, he chose the latter.

Returning to the path cautiously, he set off toward civilisation in the freezing dark, cutting a meandering path through hedgerows and alleyways until he came upon a street he recognised. It was a slightly harrowing trek. At this late hour, dressed as he was, he was hardly inconspicuous as he hurried through the slumbering city. The lighting restrictions provided some cover, but every passing car sent him ducking round corners or behind post boxes.

The thin hospital pyjamas he wore quickly proved wholly inadequate for the weather. So long as he kept moving, it was just bearable, but his face had gone numb and his ears and lungs ached from the bitter cold.

The journey might have been easier, and certainly faster, he reflected ruefully, had he the foresight to borrow a car. Though then he would've had the additional problem of disposing of it quietly without leading the police directly to himself. On the whole, perhaps it was best to have avoided that complication. Years of monthly moonlit explorations meant that he was not unaccustomed to running barefoot when necessary at least.

Eventually, he turned down the narrow alleyway which led to the empty stone courtyard behind his destination. He began to breathe a little easier.

Then, just as he entered the yard, a battered door opposite him swung open and a large, bald man in a bowler hat and indistinct dark clothes appeared in the doorway.

If the man was surprised to find Mr. Campion standing there in pyjamas, he didn't show it. Instead, he scowled and stepped aside to let him come in out of the cold.

"Well now, look what th' cat dragged in," he rumbled. "You're a sight. I was jus' about to come collec' you from horspital, but I see you've showed yerself 'ome." The man regarded him disapprovingly.

"Evening, Lugg," Campion replied lightly, slipping past him into the dimly lit lounge. "Hospital rations simply weren't to my taste, so I excused myself early. Thought I might save you the trouble of fetching me."

"You're a real gent, ain't ya," Lugg scoffed, coming back inside and closing the door behind them. "Makin' jokes when I been out half the night on me own, lookin' for ya."

He doffed his hat and gestured with it at Campion accusingly. "Whatever you been up to, it's made one 'ell of an impression on the local coppers. Every busy in this town's on 'igh alert, talkin' 'bout wild dogs run amok down by the water. I got stopped by 'em three times whilst I was out there, peerin' in bushes and whistlin' for ya like a proper mug."

Campion grimaced. "I'm sorry about that. Things got a little more heated than planned."

Lugg raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. "You don't say. Wot of it?"

His employer glared at him from his position by the furnace grate. "Stanislaus Oates is presently lying unconscious in hospital, under police guard, and I've no idea of his prognosis," he said brutally.

Lugg, who seldom had cause to feel kindly toward any policeman, nevertheless harboured a grudging sort of fondness for Mr. Oates. "Was it you that put 'im there?" he asked, somewhat pointedly.

"Not directly, no," Campion replied, ignoring Lugg's dubious look. The suggestion that he might've hurt one of his friends agitated him, most especially because his conscience felt the criticism was well-deserved. "The old boy caught a policeman's baton above the ear," he explained.

"We've another problem just now however," he continued hurriedly, before Lugg could interrupt to ask another question, "Oates saw me Change."

That news struck home. "Lumme, he… 'ow'd 'e take it then?"

"I'm not sure." Campion passed a hand over his dishevelled hair wearily. "It scared him badly, I think. We won't know until he wakes how he'll react, but I can't get in to see him at the moment."

"Wot eggsactly 'appened out there?"

Mr. Campion provided him with an abbreviated explanation of the evening's events as he recalled them, ending with his clumsy escape from St. Jude's.

"Anybody follow you 'ere?" Lugg asked when he was finished.

"I shouldn't think so. The streets were fairly empty. I'd have noticed a tail. No, I think we're safe enough on that front."

Lugg's expression turned thoughtful. "What about th' others that saw yer little party trick? Think any of them can identify you?

Campion shook his head. "Not likely. It was dark and I'd disguised myself well enough. The police will be looking for me though, I expect. The nurse I spoke with will certainly have given them a description by now. She saw my face, plain as day."

"'Course she did. Well, wot's the ruddy plan then?"

"I don't know. Give me moment." Campion began to pace the room, thinking.

There'd been several faces he'd recognised in the quayside crowd, but none of those men had been the sort intelligent enough to have engineered this scheme on their own, nor did he recall any of them having political leanings. Which meant there was likely another party at the helm somewhere, keeping their profile low.

He really ought to go to the authorities with what he'd discovered immediately, personal consequences be damned, but was understandably reluctant to do so. There were still too many pieces of this terrifying puzzle that eluded him. Exposing part of the criminal ring now, before he'd identified the real mastermind, might give his quarry the opportunity to escape.

"Must you pace like that?" Lugg complained, interrupting his thoughts. "It's like watchin' an animal at th' zoo waitin' to be out of its cage."

"I can't just hand m'self over to the police tonight," Campion said aloud, ignoring him. "After that hullabaloo by the river, they're liable to have me arrested on the spot before I can explain myself. It might take half a day to sort out the misunderstanding, and by then I don't know where we'll be." He frowned.

"I simply haven't got enough information to be certain of stopping this infernal business in time. Half a dozen names and bad feeling do not a thorough investigation make. I've caught a glimpse of the machine, nothing more." He spoke with deliberate vagueness. There were still some details regarding his mission that he wasn't at liberty to disclose, even now.

"I'll have a quiet word in the ear of the county CID man in the morning, see if I can't put him on the scent discreetly. I'd like to avoid setting the hare running if I can."

Lugg rubbed his neck wearily. "An' the rest of it? What're you gorna do about Oates? If 'e wakes up..."

"Where are my clothes?" Campion asked suddenly, looking around the room.

"Amanda 'as 'em, took the case while I was out," Lugg rumbled, not fooled by the abrupt change of subject.

"Where is she now? I need her to bring them back if I'm to make myself presentable again."

"Do I look like a ruddy psychic? Back at Bridge, I expec'. It's gone eleven already. An 'ow are you plannin' on explainin' this to 'er?"

Campion looked uncomfortable. "I haven't got that far yet. I'll think of something."

"Should tell 'er the truth. You're marryin' 'er nex' month. Tell the lass and she'll 'elp. She's got to know sooner or later."

"I'll tell her when the time's right," he said defensively.

Lugg shook his enormous head. "An' what sorta time is this then? You numpty. Tell 'er before Oates does it for ya. D'you really want 'er to find out from someone else?"

Mr. Campion didn't have an answer for him.

"She's not gorna panic. If I know 'er, she'll only wonder why you didn't come out with it sooner."

"You can't know that," he replied weakly. "Besides, how can I tell her? I can't simply say 'I'm terribly sorry for missing our appointment this afternoon, my dear. I was unavoidably detained by my chronic lycanthropy.' She'll think I'm demented!"

Lugg huffed. "Now yer jus' bein' difficult. You're a clever chap, you'll think of somethin', like you said. Don't, an' you risk losin' 'er when she finds out some other way. Wimmen folk don't much like bein' lied to. 'Specially when it's summat important."

"That's enough," Campion snapped, suddenly realising that the conversation had become far more personal than he liked. "What I say to Amanda is my own concern, not yours. When I want your opinion on my private life, I'll ask for it," he said, the rebuke sounding a trifle harsher than he'd intended, but he was feeling irritable and made no effort to soften it.

He crossed the room, heading toward a second, interior door. "I'm going to ring the Institute now. Not a word of this to Amanda when she gets here."

Aubrey's butler answered the telephone and, given the hour, was understandably reluctant to fetch Lady Amanda for him until he'd impressed upon the man that it was a matter of some urgency.

After some delay, Amanda's clear, young voice came over the line. "Albert! Where are you? Are you all right?" She sounded awfully worried and he mentally kicked himself for putting off calling her for as long as he had.

"Yes, I'm all right," he assured her. "I'm sorry I missed you earlier, I was delayed unexpectedly in town. Do you think you could come into Coachingford now? I'm with our mutual friend."

Amanda hesitated. "It's a bit awkward. We've made rather a poor showing as house guests thus far. Lee's sure to start asking delicate questions if I go haring off at this hour."

He bristled slightly at the mention of their host. There were more important matters at stake just now. "Can't you put him off? You have my case. I'm not dressed for a taxi."

"Oh! I'm sorry, I forgot about that. I had Mr. Anscombe with me and we were already so unforgivably late for dinner…" There was a pause. "I'll see what I can do. Be there as soon as I can." She rang off.

Campion returned the telephone to its shelf beneath the shop counter with a thankful nod to Old Happy, sitting in the corner with his pipe, and went back to the room at the rear of the shop.

In his absence, Lugg had relocated himself to a wooden stool and was busy laying out sheets of newsprint on the table in the centre of the room. Beside him on a broken chair lay two revolvers atop a handful of clean rags and an oil canister.

"I got through to Amanda. She'll be along directly," Campion announced.

Lugg grunted in acknowledgement without looking up from his task, carefully unloading and placing the revolvers on the table to be cleaned.

"There's stew on the hob if you're 'ungry," he said. "Don' eat it all. I 'aven't 'ad my supper yet either."

Campion accepted the offering wordlessly, going to fix himself a bowl and gulping down the food with self-conscious dignity. The cold had distracted him from the fierce hunger that always followed his shape shifting, but once he was safely indoors, it gnawed at him painfully. The meal blunted the sharp pinching of his stomach and he felt distinctly more human again.

When he was finished, he stepped out to go to the washroom to clean up. Lacking a comb or toothbrush, he did his best with a flannel and powdered soap. He returned damp, but considerably cleaner, skin scrubbed slightly raw, and sat down across from Lugg to contemplate his next moves.

Not that he'd ever admit as much, but there'd been a lot of sense in what his old friend had said. Amanda really ought to hear the truth from him, not someone else. Of course, the business of actually revealing his secret wasn't as simple as Lugg made it sound. If it were, he'd have told her about himself ages ago. He'd lost the luxury of time, however. With Oates unconscious in police custody, it might only be a matter of hours until his friend woke and the careful house of cards he'd built fell apart around him. It had to be tonight.

Some minutes later, there was a soft knock at the interior door and Amanda came in carrying a suitcase, her cheeks flushed bright pink from the night air. She wore a sleek white evening gown beneath her practical overcoat and her startlingly red hair hung loose and wild about her shoulders.

"Hello, Orph. Hello, Lugg," she greeted them breathlessly. "I came as quickly as I could. Lee kept insisting that he ought to accompany me. I had to assure him that I was perfectly capable of driving into town on my own at night, even if there is a war on."

She paused in removing her coat and looked at Campion more closely. "I say, I know you said you weren't fit for a taxi, but what have you got on?"

"Pyjamas," he answered, "hospital issue, not my own, thankfully. Bit of a mix up in town, like I said."

"Oh Albert, you didn't say you'd been hurt," she said, looking concerned. "If I'd known…"

"I'm all right," he said quickly. "I only got knocked out. No permanent harm done." He smiled foolishly at her.

"Well, if you're sure," she said, frowning slightly. "You'd better dress quickly then, I promised I wouldn't be gone long."

He took the case from her and disappeared into the next room to change.

When the door closed behind him, she looked over at Lugg appealingly. "How is he really, Magers?"

Lugg shrugged. "'S not fer me to say. Ask 'im yerself when you get 'im alone," he said cryptically.

"That bad?" She sighed and sat down, resting her chin on her hands.

Mr. Campion returned to find the two of them chatting amiably over Lugg's martial preparations. He looked himself once again in a sombre brown suit and the overlarge round spectacles which had become his most recognisable feature over the years.

"Shall we go?" he asked, producing a fedora from his case.

Amanda stood and smoothed her dress with her hands. "Yes, we need to be getting back straight away. It's terribly late."

Helping her with her overcoat, Campion glanced back at Lugg. "Keep a weather eye open. I'll ring if anything develops," he said.

Lugg grunted. "Watch out fer yerself, cock." He nodded toward Amanda's turned back and mouthed the words 'tell her' silently as they moved to the door.

Instinctively, Campion made a swift gesture with his hand, a long-standing signal between them to drop a matter instantly. He half-regretted the motion as soon as he'd made it though, knowing his friend would take the instruction poorly.

Looking faintly hurt, Lugg glowered, but didn't attempt to argue with him further as they left.

Together, Campion and Amanda went out to the waiting car. Amanda drove, arguing that, protestations of perfect health aside, she wasn't about to let him behind the wheel until he'd had a proper night's rest.

Once they were safely on the road toward Bridge, she looked over at him and asked the question that had surely been burning in her mind all evening. "What happened?"

"Caught hold of a thread," he answered vaguely. "Got the wrong end of it when I pulled to see where it led. Didn't even see the chap that hit me until I'd given him my best impersonation of a falling tree. I'm told it was most convincing."

She shook her head at his feeble joke. "I waited at the station like we'd arranged for over an hour. When you didn't arrive, I tried calling in at the paper shop to see if you'd left a message. There was such a crush inside, I could scarcely get more than a word or two out of the man behind the counter. Eventually I worked out that there'd been some sort of trouble and he was trying to tell me to check at the hospital, but I never dreamed you might've gone as a patient.

"When I got there, the woman at the desk couldn't tell me anything, and I had Mr. Anscombe waiting in the car, so I couldn't hang about. We must've just missed one another."

"How did you wind up ferrying old Anscombe about?" Campion asked, aware that he was putting off his own, rather more important, explanations.

"He came round after breakfast this morning and must've heard that I was coming into Coachingford today. He had an appointment to see the dentist in town and wondered if I might take him. Lee made the request on his behalf, so I could hardly refuse without sounding jolly suspicious," she replied, biting her lip.

"He's a terrifying old boy. Flat mental deficiency ninety-nine percent of the time with these startling flashes of coherence now and then that keep you guessing. You're never quite sure if it's silver shining through the tarnish or the last flecks of plate on the old tin spoon.

"I put off fetching him for as long as I could, but I couldn't just leave him waiting all evening. We were expected for dinner. So I told him there'd been an accident on the platform and that you'd taken the poor man to hospital. That didn't seem to faze him in the slightest, he just kept nattering on about the latest news from the front and making queer little comments about the time.

"He had enough sense to ask questions when I came back without you though. I said there'd been a mistake and it hadn't been you on the platform after all, just someone very like you, but he wouldn't stop asking where you'd gone, like I'd spirited you away in some sort of parlour game and he was meant to guess. I had to take him back to Bridge then; it was getting late and I couldn't keep inventing stories to shut him up."

Robert Anscombe very probably knew something about this currency business, Campion reflected. Oates had been convinced of it, at least. Hearing Amanda's description of the man, he wondered. He'd have to get it out of the old man tomorrow, he decided, whatever it was Anscombe knew or didn't know.

Amanda was still speaking. "…and then, after all that palaver, he didn't come to dinner after all. And then Mr. Pyne rang with his apologies at the last minute as well. It made things rather awkward for Lee, having three empty place settings at the table. Especially after he'd put back the meal to eight-thirty for us."

"Ah." Campion was only half-listening to her, his mind preoccupied.

Silently, he rehearsed his confession, imagining her reaction to his seemingly impossible claims. Confusion, disbelief, laughter? It was such an absurd tale to ask her to accept. Amanda's unrelenting faith in him was one of her most remarkable and endearing qualities, but even she must have her limits.

In his anxiety, he found his thoughts returning again and again to the matter of proof. If he truly wanted to convince her, he'd have to show her. But a moving car was hardly the place for that sort of demonstration. Once begun, the Change was incredibly difficult to reverse, attempting to induce a partial transformation deliberately would be extraordinarily foolish. If he pushed himself too far, he'd lose control.

And even if he miraculously succeeded, he had no guarantee that it wouldn't be too much for her to reconcile. His unexpected transformation had obviously terrified Oates, a man who'd spent some forty years with the Metropolitan Police and encountered all manner of horrors in his time. Similarly, Lugg's first impulse after he'd seen his employer's curse at work had been to find a revolver and the decanter, in that order. Even forewarned, she was bound to find the experience profoundly unsettling, if not wholly overwhelming.

He felt wretched and indignant that circumstances had led him to this choice. Noble self-sacrifice for one's country was all well and good in stories, but reality was far less romantic. Why should he risk spoiling what might be his last day as a free man by telling her his secret?

But when else might he have the opportunity to speak with her alone before it was too late? If he didn't say something now, or he might never get the chance again.

"Amanda," he said, "about tonight..."

"Yes?" She glanced over at him, and as their eyes met, it suddenly occurred to him just how terribly he would miss her if they locked him away. The intensity of this feeling surprised him.

He opened his mouth to tell her what had really happened on the quay and then closed it again wordlessly. He couldn't do it. The words were there, on the tip of his tongue, yet he couldn't say them.

"We'll… want to have our stories straight," he said, after an overlong pause. "If anyone asks, let's say I got held up at my meeting in London and had to take the later train back."

"Good. That's more or less what I told Lee already," she replied, and smiled at him.

Campion sat quietly by her side, watching the retreating outlines of trees and houses through the passenger window, ashamed of his own cowardice.

"I say, Albert…"

He looked over at her. "Yes?"

"I…" she began, and hesitated, looking uncharacteristically unsure of herself. But before she could say anything more, the heavy iron gates of the Principal's estate came into view, and she slowed the car to make the turning. "Never mind, it'll keep until later."

Tyres crunching softly on the gravel, the car turned up the long, tree-lined drive towards the stately Georgian home. Amanda drove past several small outbuildings to park in the empty stableyard to the left of the main house.

"That's odd," she said as they pulled up. "I wonder who's visiting at this hour."

An unfamiliar black car sat in the yard next to their own, steam rising lazily from its bonnet in the weak moonlight. Whomever it belonged to hadn't been there long. A trickle of apprehension went down Campion's spine at the sight of it.

They went round to the front of the house, passing between the elegant white columns of a wide portico and let themselves in, being careful to mind the blackout device on the door.

"Ah. Campion, Amanda. You're back," Lee Aubrey's unmistakable baritone greeted them as they came in. He appeared in a pristine dinner jacket and beckoned them to join him in the study. They followed obediently from the hall.

A squarish police sergeant in an enormous wool great-coat and a sharply dressed plainclothes officer stood awkwardly by the hearth, obviously waiting for them.

Campion recognised the second man as Superintendent Hutch, the county CID man with whom he'd arranged to go over the town's secrets. He'd forgotten their appointment was for later tonight, he realised with alarm.

He didn't think that was why the man was here now, however.

"I'm afraid I have some rather unpleasant news," Aubrey murmured at his side, as if taking them both into his confidence.

"These two gentlemen have come about Robert Anscombe, it seems the poor old boy has just been found dead in his garden."