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the last you heard?’
    ‘Money.’ Lady Dromio smiled faintly. ‘He had some heavy call for money over there about six weeks ago, and for some reason he couldn’t get it from our New York office.’
    ‘I’m sure he couldn’t.’ Sebastian’s tone was grim.
    ‘And of course there is fuss about getting sterling to America and old Mr Pomeroy had to ring me up to fish out some papers. That was how I heard of it.’ Lady Dromio paused, picked up her embroidery and executed a couple of stitches. ‘But what,’ she asked abruptly, ‘about the other man?’
    ‘In the restaurant? I just didn’t notice him. Too dashed dumbfounded by Oliver’s behaving that way.’
    ‘You are sure it was Oliver?’
    ‘Good God! Of course I am. There he was. And I heard him talk as well. I tell you, Kate, I don’t like it.’
    ‘Clearly not. By the way, Sebastian, how are your money affairs?’
    ‘How are any Dromio affairs these days? I can tell you, I don’t want any sort of rumpus at the moment. Let the world hear that one of us has bolted or lost his nerve–’
    ‘I see. And that is why you arrive at Sherris as if you were bringing the bad news from Aix to Ghent.’ And Lady Dromio, unconscious of having achieved any witticism, took another stab at her embroidery. ‘Here is Robert with your cases.’ She rose. ‘We shall dine, as usual, at eight.’
    ‘Very well. I could do with something to eat after that beastly luncheon. Nobody coming in, I suppose?’
    ‘Well yes. We didn’t expect you, you know, until long after dinner. And so I asked Mary Gollifer to come across. And now, as you seem interested in her–’
    ‘I’d like to know a little about her past,’ Sebastian Dromio said.
    And Lady Dromio shivered.
     
    Grubb locked the tool-shed and, as was his invariable custom, thrust the key beneath a piece of sacking on the windowsill. It was twenty to eight. Having spent a particularly long day in substantial vacancy of mind and idleness of limb, Grubb felt tired and glum. He climbed to the terrace and walked heavily round the house, dimly hoping that his leaden and exhausted gait would attract the compassion – or if not the compassion then the resentment – of his employers. But the house turned upon him only a succession of blank windows. They would be upstairs, he reflected, getting into their tomfool clothes. Between that and eating and ordering folk about they passed their days. Grubb’s thought turned to the cold bacon waiting for him in his solitary cottage. Actually, and at an instinctive level, the image of this rose before him accompanied by sensations of simple pleasure. But quickly, and because he had long schooled himself in the prime duty of being disgruntled, Grubb achieved the darkest view of his supper. He commiserated with himself as one iniquitously defrauded of his just inheritance of caviare and champagne. It was not that Grubb held levelling views. He would altogether have disallowed William’s claim to caviare, and even Swindle’s to port. But it seemed to Grubb that he was, or ought to be, a man exceptionally privileged. Such was the monstrous unfairness with which the world had treated his beautiful nature that the Deity, as a special recompense, had excused him – and him alone – from the observance of certain of the more irksome moral laws. Grubb was no doubt unaware that he thus possessed what was technically a criminal psychology. Nevertheless his action was dictated by this feeling. He paused outside the study and his eye swept the terrace. A particularly morose expression came over his face. He looked round again – this time plainly to make sure that he was unobserved – and moved with a rapid shuffle towards the French window.
    Ten minutes later Grubb was trudging across the park – not directly towards his cottage and waiting bacon but by a slightly circuitous route. This route represented his settled choice at the end of his day’s labours, and often enough it had caused