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but it was a pathetic effort, and she looked ten years older than she had on the previous night: she was one of the few with a sleeping-bag, but even so she must have passed a miserable six hours, and there is nothing so exhausting to the human body as uncontrollable night-long shivering, a vicious circle in which the more one shivers the tireder one becomes, and the tireder the less resistance to cold and hence the more shivering. For the first time, I knew that Marie LeGarde was an old woman. "Good morning," I smiled. "How did you enjoy your first night in your new home?" "First night!" Even in the sleeping-bag her movements of clasping her arms together and huddling her head down between her shoulders were unmistakable. "I hope to heaven that it's the last night. You run a very chilly establishment here, Dr Mason." "I'm sorry. Next time we'll keep watches and have the stove on all night." I pointed to the water splashing down to the floor. "The place is heating up already. You'll feel better when you have some hot coffee inside you." "I'll never feel better again," she declared vigorously, but the twinkle was back in her eye. She turned to the young German girl in the next bunk. "And how do you feel this morning, my dear?" "Better, thank you, Miss LeGarde." She seemed absurdly grateful that anyone should even bother to ask. "I don't feel a thing now." "Means nothing," Miss LeGarde assured her cheerfully. "Neither do I. It's just that we're both frozen stiff. . . . And how did you survive the night, Mrs Dansby-Gregg?" "As you say, I survived." Mrs Dansby-Gregg smiled thinly. "As Dr Mason observed last night, this is not the Ritz.. . . That coffee smells delicious. Bring me a cup over, Fleming, will you?" I picked up one of the cups Jackstraw had poured out and took it across to the young German girl who was struggling to unzip her sleeping-bag with her one good arm. Her embarrassment and discomfort were obvious, but I knew I'd no option, the time to stop this nonsense was before ever it had a chance to start. "You stay where you are, young lady, and drink this." She took the cup reluctantly, and I turned away. "You've surely forgotten, Mrs Dansby-Gregg, that Helene has a broken collar-bone?" The expression on her face made it quite obvious that she hadn't forgotten, but she was no fool. The gossip columnists would murder her for this, if they got hold of it. In her circle, an outward if meaningless conformity to the accepted mores and virtues of the day was a sine qua non: the knife between the ribs was permitted, best buy camera digital uk but only to the accompaniment of the well-bred smile. "I'm so sorry," she said sweetly. "I'd quite forgotten, of course." Her eyes were cold and hard, and I knew I had an enemy. That didn't worry me, but I found the very triviality of the whole thing irritating beyond measure when there were so many other and vastly more important things to talk about. But less than thirty seconds later we had forgotten all about it, even, I am sure, Mrs Dansby-Gregg herself. I was just handing Marie LeGarde a cup when someone screamed. It wasn't really loud, I suppose, but in that confined space it had a peculiarly piercing and startling quality. Marie LeGarde's arm jerked violently and the scalding contents of the coffee-cup were emptied over my bare hand. I hardly noticed the pain. It was Margaret Ross, the young stewardess, who had screamed, and she was now kneeling, half in and half out of her sleeping-bag, one rigidly spread-fingered hand stretched out at arm's length before her, the other clasped over her mouth as she stared down at the figure lying near her on the floor. I pushed her to one side and sank on to my own knees. In that bitter cold it was impossible to be any way sure, but I felt reasonably certain that the young pilot had been dead for several hours. I knelt there for a long time, just looking down at him, and when I finally rose to my feet I did so like an old man, a defeated old man, and I felt as cold, almost, as the dead man lying there. Everyone was wide awake now, everyone staring at me, the eyes of nearly all of them reflecting the superstitious horror which the presence of sudden and unexpected death brings to those who are unaccustomed to it. It was Johnny Zagero who broke the silence. "He's dead, isn't he, Dr Mason?" His low voice sounded a little husky. "That head injury" His voice trailed off. "Cerebral haemorrhage," I said quietly, "as far as I can tell." I lied to him. There was no shadow of doubt in my mind as to the cause of death. Murder. The young boy had been ruthlessly, cold-bloodedly murdered: lying there unconscious, gravely injured and with his hands strapped helplessly to his sides, he had been smothered as easily, as surely, as one might smother a very little child. We buried him out on the ice-cap, not fifty yards from the place where he had died. Bringing his stiffened body out of the hatch was a grisly job, but we managed it and