As Bundle stands near the fire with Lady Coote and Countess Radzky, she is surprised that the Countess talks about her home country of Bulgaria so ceaselessly. She is relieved when Jimmy comes and pulls her away.

Jimmy takes Bundle to meet with Bill, who expresses his dissatisfaction over the fact that Bundle is involved and has risked her life to overhear the Seven Dials meeting. He explains that the formula for Eberhard’s invention will be handed off to the Air Minister tonight, to arrange for purchase by the government. However, Bill believes that the invention will be stolen by the Seven Dials members. They decide that Jimmy will keep watch over the house for the first part of the night, after which he will wake Bill up to stand watch. Although Bundle is annoyed that she won’t be allowed to keep watch, she is impressed by Bill’s decision to take charge.

The omniscient narration notes that the three distinct stories of Jimmy, Bundle, and Loraine will now be recounted, as the characters each saw things from “his or her own individual angle” (117).

Bill is initially hesitant to leave Jimmy, recounting what happened to Ronny and Gerry. However, Jimmy shows him his newly acquired gun. Satisfied, Bill heads to bed, and Jimmy promises to wake him at three o’clock.

Jimmy positions himself in a certain chair so that he can see Digby and O’Rourke’s rooms, laying the gun across his lap as he keeps watch. At just before two o’clock, he hears a sound downstairs, as if someone is walking. He moves quietly downstairs, then realizes that the sound is coming from the library. Gun drawn, he opens the door and turns on the light, but no one is there. He then crosses to the windows and finds that the middle one is unlatched. He opens it and steps onto the terrace but sees no one. After a minute, he returns inside, closes the library door, locks it, and switches off the light. He stands in the darkness and listens. He becomes convinced that he hears someone walking on the terrace. As he strains to listen, the clock signals two o’clock.

After Jimmy and Bill decide not to include Bundle in their plans for watch, she decides to make her own plans. At just after midnight, she sneaks out her window and makes her way through the garden to where the terrace begins, intending to climb up it to get near Digby’s room. However, as she rounds the house, she runs into Superintendent Battle, who insists that he is there to deter anyone from causing trouble. He sends her back to her room, and she obliges, realizing that he may suspect her.

Back in her room, Bundle decides that she cannot just stay there. Instead, she makes her way through the house to the west wing. When she gets outside Digby’s room, she is shocked to find that Jimmy’s chair is empty. At that moment, the clock strikes two o’clock. She sees the door handle on O’Rourke’s room turn and then stop, but it doesn’t open. Panicked, she runs to Bill’s room and opens the door, only to realize that she has entered the wrong room; she is in the Countess’s room, but the Countess is not there.

Bundle hears a commotion coming from the library. She tries to open the door, but it is locked. Inside, she hears fighting, then the sound of two gunshots.

The narrative shifts to Loraine’s perspective. At home just before one o’clock, she gets out of bed, gets dressed, and retrieves a gun that she bought the day before. She then drives to Wyvern Abbey, adamant that she is going to help Jimmy and Bundle. She climbs through a hole in the fence, which she had previously scouted out, then makes her way to the terrace. However, when a brown package falls at her feet, she looks up to see a man climbing from a window. She picks up the package and runs, just as two men above her start to fight. She goes around the house, and when she encounters Battle, she alerts him that Jimmy and another man are fighting outside the library. They then hear two gunshots.

When Battle and Loraine return to the library window, they find Jimmy lying on the threshold in a pool of blood. Loraine goes into the library and turns on the light. To her relief, Battle explains that Jimmy was shot in the arm and has only passed out; he is not dead. As several people knock on the door and George yells to be let in, Battle picks up Jimmy’s gun and sets it on the table. He then unlocks the door.

George, Bundle, Lady Coote, and several servants enter the room just as Jimmy regains consciousness. He explains that he found a man trying to escape down the ivy, so he confronted him. They fought, and when the man tried to escape, Jimmy shot at him. However, the man shot back, hitting Jimmy. Digby then panics, running from the room. He returns a moment later to reveal that O’Rourke is asleep and likely drugged, and the papers detailing the invention are missing.

George immediately reprimands Battle for losing the papers, but Battle redirects him to the package in Loraine’s hands, overwhelming him with relief. Bateman points out O’Rourke’s unconscious state, so George has Bateman call for Dr. Cartwright. Most of the group leaves.

Battle asks about Lord Coote. At that moment, Loraine hears him walking on the terrace. He then arrives at the window, holding the gun of the thief. Lord Coote challenges Battle, demanding to know why he didn’t chase the thief and whether he did everything he could to stop him. However, Battle acts evasive, insisting that he has men on the property and that they never saw the thief to chase him. He notes that the ivy is everywhere on the terrace, then pulls a piece from Lord Coote’s shoulder. After Lord Coote leaves, Bundle asks if the man should be a suspect, especially since he appeared on the terrace after all the events occurred. In response, Battle insists that Lord Coote is “a great man” (137).

Battle speculates on what happened with the theft. He asks Loraine how she got there, then asks Jimmy about his fight with the thief, noting that Jimmy locked the door before looking out the window. All Jimmy remembers about the thief is that the things he whispered during the scuffle made him sound like “[a]n uneducated man” (139). He guesses that the thief was likely throwing the package out the window to an accomplice and didn’t realize that Loraine was there.

Then, after looking around the room, Battle goes to the corner, where he finds Countess Radzky unconscious on the floor.

Countess Radzky recounts what happened the night before. She was unable to sleep, so she came to the library to look for a book, using a flashlight instead of turning on the light. When Jimmy came in and turned on the light, she hid, then heard the men scuffle. When the gun went off, she fainted. After she finishes her story, Bill offers to lead her from the room to rest. Looking at her back, Bundle sees a mole and recognizes her from the Seven Dials meeting.

Excited, Bundle pulls Battle aside to tell him about going to the meeting and recognizing the Countess. Battle initially assures her that the Countess is a good diplomat and is well-known in Hungary, but Bundle suggests that the woman might not truly be Countess Radzky. In the end, Battle agrees that the Countess’s story is suspicious, but he suggests that rather than confronting the Countess, it might be smarter to monitor her and uncover more about the Seven Dials.