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.”She looked up and brushed away her tears.“Will I see you tomorrow night?” And she was anxious, poor thing.“Of course you will,” I told her, “tomorrow and every night! But I’ve a busy day in the morning, and so it’s best if I go home now.As for you: you’re to take a sleeping draft and get a good night’s sleep.And meanwhile—” I got down on my knees and fished about under the bed for the eye, “—did Jeremy have the box that this came in?”“In that drawer over there,” she pointed.“What on earth do you want with that?”“I’m simply putting it away,” I told her, “so that it won’t bother us again.” But as I placed the eye in its velvet lined box I glanced at the name of the suppliers—Brackett and Sanders, Jewellers, Brighton—and committed their telephone number to memory…The next day in the City, I gave Brackett and Sanders a ring and asked a question or two, and finished by saying: “Are you absolutely sure? No mistake? Just the one? I see.Well…thank you very much.And I’m sorry to have troubled you…” But that night I didn’t tell Angela about it.I mean, so what? So he’d used two different jewellers.Well, nothing strange about that; he got about a fair bit in his time, old Jeremy Cleave.I took her flowers and chocolates, as usual, and she was looking quite her old self again.We dined by candlelight, with a background of soft music and the moon coming up over the garden, and eventually it was time for bed.Taking the open, somewhat depleted box of chocolates with us, we climbed the stairs and commenced a ritual which was ever fresh and exciting despite its growing familiarity.The romantic preliminaries, sweet prelude to boy and girl togetherness.These were broken only once when she said:“Arthur, darling, just before I took my draft last night I tried to open the windows a little.It had got very hot and sticky in here.But that one—” and she pointed to one of a pair of large, pivot windows, “—wouldn’t open.It’s jammed or something.Do be a dear and do something with it, will you?”I tried but couldn’t; the thing was immovable.And fearing that it might very well become hot and sticky again, I then tried the other window which grudgingly pivoted.“We shall have them seen to,” I promised.Then I went to her where she lay; and in the next moment, as I held her in my arms and bent my head to kiss the very tip of a brown, delicious…Bump!It was perfectly audible—a dull thud from within the wardrobe—and both of us had heard it.Angela looked at me, her darling eyes startled, and mine no less; we both jerked bolt upright in the bed.And:“What…?” she said, her mouth staying open a very little, breathing lightly and quickly.“A garment, falling from its hanger,” I told her.“Nevertheless, go and see,” she said, very breathlessly.“I’ll not be at ease if I think there’s something trapped in there.”Trapped in there? In a wardrobe in her bedroom? What could possibly be trapped in there? She kept no cats.But I got out of bed and went to see anyway.The thing fell out into view as soon as I opened the door.Part of a mannequin? A limb from some window-dresser’s storeroom? An anatomical specimen from some poor unfortunate’s murdered, dismembered torso? At first glance it might have been any of these things.And indeed, with the latter in mind, I jumped a foot—before I saw that it was none of those things.By which time Angela was out of bed, into her dressing-gown and haring for the door—which wouldn’t open.For she had seen it, too, and unlike me she’d known exactly what it was.“His leg!” she cried, battering furiously at the door and fighting with its ornate, gold-plated handle.“His bloody awful leg!”And of course it was: Jeremy Cleave’s pot left leg, leather straps and hinged kneejoint and all.It had been standing in there on its foot, and a shoe carton had gradually tilted against it, and finally the force of gravity had won.But at such an inopportune moment.“Darling,” I said, turning to her with the thing under my arm, “but it’s only Jeremy’s pot leg!”“Oh, of course it is!” she sobbed, finally wrenching the door open and rushing out onto the landing.“But what’s it doing there? It should be buried with him in the cemetery in Denholme!” And then she rushed downstairs.Well, I scratched my head a little, then sat down on the bed with the limb in my hands.I worked its joint to and fro for a while, and peered down into its hollow interior.Pot, of one sort or another, but tough, quite heavy, and utterly inanimate.A bit smelly, though, but not unnaturally.I mean, it probably smelled of Jeremy’s thigh.And there was a smear of mud in the arch of the foot and on the heel, too…By the time I’d given it a thorough bath in the vanity basin Angela was back, swaying in the doorway, a glass of bubbly in her trembling little hands.And she looked like she’d consumed a fair old bit of the rest of the bottle, too.But at least she’d recovered something of her former control.“His leg,” she said, not entering the room while I dried the thing with a fluffy towel.“Certainly,” I said, “Jeremy’s spare pot leg.” And seeing her mouth about to form words: “Now don’t say it, Angela.Of course he had a spare, and this is it.I mean, can you imagine if he’d somehow broken one? What then? Do you have spare reading glasses? Do I have spare car keys? Naturally Jeremy had spare…things.It’s just that he was sensitive enough not to let you see them, that’s all.”“Jeremy, sensitive!” she laughed, albeit hysterically.“But very well—you must be right
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