She could hear the front door-bell ringing loudly and persistently. She groped for the switch of the bedside lamp and turned on the light, looking at the travelling clock under the lamp as she did so. The time was twenty minutes to five. Her almond-shaped eyes widened in alarm and she shook the fat sleeping form of Sam Wade, digging her long fingernails into the flesh of his arm. Wade cursed sleepily, then raised his head and blinked at her. "What's the matter? What the hell . . .?" Then he too heard the continuous ringing of the bell and he sat up, his mind suddenly awake and alarmed. "What's that?" "Someone is ringing the front door-bell," Ann Fai Wah said. "That's nothing to do with me," Wade said, but the persistent and continuous sound of the bell was alarming him. Had this girl a lover or a husband? Was this the first move of the Badger game?
