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 "What'll we eat?" Oliver asked her, not having deferred to her in the matter of the choice of cocktails which already were being served.

Joan Daisy sipped hers, tasting gin, and it was good gin which warmed her and did not confuse her head, which clearly calculated for her that, though no one else in the place could recognize her, Baretta himself might. For if he were the man who had done the murder for which Ket had been tried, Baretta would know that Joan Daisy Royle had told the truth when she said she had seen some one, not Ket, in the flat with Adele; Baretta would know that she had seen himself and that she, seeing him again, might identify him. There could be no doubt whatever that, if Baretta had killed Adele, he had given especially careful regard to Joan Daisy Royle.

"Sandwich, I'd like," she replied to her partner, who, by a frown, prompted her to appetite more profitable to the house.

"Lobster, in chafing dish, for two," Oliver ordered, splendidly, not waiting for her reconsideration. He profferred his cigarette case, gave her a light and, dropping the match, he leaned over the narrow table to ignite his own cigarette from the tip of hers, imparting meanwhile in whisper: "The black-haired bird, with one eyebrow straight across his face, is Frankie Zenn; I don't see Baretta."

"Neither do I," said Joan Daisy, contemplating the peculiarly persistent smirk of the subordinate who was deemed the slayer of Considine.

"Dance, while we're waiting?" Invited Oliver, who was become the more restless of the two.

She arranged her coat over the back of her chair, aware that she trembled and delayed, hoping that Baretta might not, after all, be present. She stepped to the dance floor, gave a cold hand to Oliver and clasped a hand almost as