Eighteen
1“O h, Wally, how you startled me!”
Gina, emerging from the shadows by the theatre, jumped back a little, as the figure of Wally Hudd materialised outof the gloom. It was not yet quite dark, but had that eerie¹ half light when objects lose their reality and take on thefantastic shapes of nightmare.
“What are you doing down here? You never come near the theatre as a rule.”
“Maybe I was looking for you, Gina. It’s usually the best place to find you, isn’t it?”
Wally’s soft, faintly drawling voice held no special insinuation and yet Gina flinched² a little.
“It’s a job and I’m keen on it. I like the atmosphere of paint and canvas, and backstage generally.”
“Yes. It means a lot to you. I’ve seen that. Tell me, Gina, how long do you think it will be before this business is allcleared up?”
“The inquest’s tomorrow. It will just be adjourned³ for a fortnight or something like that. At least, that’s whatInspector Curry⁵ gave us to understand.”
“A fortnight,” said Wally thoughtfully. “I see. Say three weeks, perhaps. And after that—we’re free. I’m goingback to the States then.”
“Oh! but I can’t run off like that,” cried Gina. “I couldn’t leave Grandam. And we’ve got these two newproductions we’re working on”—
“I didn’t say ‘we.’ I said I was going.”
Gina stopped and looked up at her husband. Something in the effect of the shadows made him seem very big. Abig, quiet figure—and in some way, or so it seemed to her, faintly menacing … standing⁶ over her. Threatening—what?
“Do you mean”—she hesitated—“you don’t want me to come?”
“Why, no—I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t care if I come or not? Is that it?”
She was suddenly angry.
“See here, Gina. This is where we’ve got to have a showdown. We didn’t know much about each other when wemarried—not much about each other’s backgrounds, not much about the other one’s folks. We thought it didn’tmatter. We thought nothing mattered except having a

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