The morning after their swim, Willie reflects on the three stories he has completed and the one he intends to fashion from Lesley's affair with Sun's Chinaman ally — a tale that will earn him money but ruin Lesley's marriage if recognised. He joins Lesley on the beach, where a Malay woman is digging up horseshoe crabs, and tells her the previous night's swim will stay with him until he dies.

Looking out at the mainland mountains, Lesley confides that she had been relieved when Robert went off to war, freeing her from the pretence of happiness. She admits she lied for Ethel at her trial because she had been in the same situation herself. Pressed about Ethel's strange last words — that William had made her kill Steward — she says she still does not understand them. William left KL within a year, and Ethel has been deliberately erased from local memory.

Willie asks to see Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary base and the House of Doors. Lesley guides him through Penang's Asiatic quarter to Armenian Street, pointing out the Tong Meng Hui shophouse, before bringing him to the House of Doors itself. Lesley says she will only enter again when Arthur returns. Willie, examining the plain doors, suddenly perceives a hamsa — his own father's emblem — embossed faintly across them.

Sitting on the bench, Lesley asks whether the hamsa has truly protected him. Willie recounts surviving TB, secret government work, and a near miss with a shell during the war. Lesley then asks about Sarawak, prompting his account of a journey upriver in Kuching as a guest of Rajah Brooke. After a week among the Dyaks, a tidal bore overturned their sampan; Willie nearly drowned but was saved by Gerald, who suffered a heart attack on the bank. A surviving Dyak fetched help, and both men eventually recovered, though the rest of the crew drowned.

Lesley insists the hamsa kept Willie safe. Willie privately wonders at the price of such protection — outliving everyone he loves, watching his fame fade, perhaps eventually welcoming death. As they leave, both turn for a last look: the hamsa has vanished, and the doors of the House of Doors are blank again.