Ten
Anthony Browne looked at the card the little page was holding out to him.
He frowned, then shrugged¹ his shoulders. He said to the boy:
“All right, show him up.”
When Colonel Race came in, Anthony was standing² by the window with
the bright sun striking obliquely³ over his shoulder.
He saw a tall soldierly man with a lined bronze face and iron-grey hair
—a man whom he had seen before, but not for some years, and a man
whom he knew a great deal about.
Race saw a dark graceful⁴ figure and the outline of a well-shaped head. A
pleasant indolent voice said:
“Colonel Race? You were a friend of George Barton’s, I know. He talked
about you on that last evening. Have a cigarette.”
“Thank you, I will.”
Anthony said as he held a match:
“You were the unexpected guest that night who did not turn up—just as
well for you.”
“You are wrong there. That empty place was not for me.”
Anthony’s eyebrows⁵ went up.
“Really? Barton said—”
Race cut in.
“George Barton may have said so. His plans were quite different. That
chair, Mr. Browne, was intended to be occupied when the lights went
down by an actress called Chloe West.”
Anthony stared.
“Chloe West? Never heard of her. Who is she?”
“A young actress not very well known but who possesses a certain su-
perficial resemblance to Rosemary Barton.”
Anthony whistled.
“I begin to see.”
“She had been given a photograph of Rosemary so that she could copy
the style of hairdressing and she also had the dress which Rosemary wore
the night she died.”
“So that was George’s plan? Up go the lights—Hey Presto⁶, gasps⁷ of super-
natural

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