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took her first steps into another world. Might they too have become the unvisited? 'Look, Mrs Stover—'
    'Mr Stover here. The wife's gone into the kitchen to make us some tea. All this is very upsetting to her, Miss Shore. Her nerves have been all to pieces, I don't mind telling you.' He sounded reproachful and on the verge of rehearsing the events of the night before all over again. Jemima was once more engaged in cutting him short when she heard him say:
    'One thing directly following upon another if you understand my meaning. First Dollie's call out of the blue, quite unexpected, equally unexpected, and then she doesn't make an appearance—'
    Jemima with a sinking feeling heard the story all over again - all this still before her first cup of coffee (a time when Jemima always felt that the whole world should know that she was to be treated with circumspection).
    'I'll call the hospitals in London,' she proffered. That could no longer be avoided. She did not mention having checked with the police the night before. 'You call them in Folkestone and Dover. I'll call Chloe's editor at Taffeta if I can find her home number. There's probably a perfectly simple explanation for all this. If not, it's up to you to decide whether you call the police. What with Mrs Stover's nerves,' she added in a slightly less crisp tone.
    All this took some time although Jemima, uncombed hair flowing over her navy blue silk kimono, did at least manage to drink a mug of coffee while dealing with the little white telephone. She also took time to feed Tiger. But Tiger's presence, golden and expectant, was not as comforting as it should have been to a confirmed cat-lover. He crouched in the middle of the carpet, haunches raised, paws forward in the attitude of a slightly aggressive sphinx. His eyes were half closed, as if he did not want her to know he was watching her and regarding events of which he did not approve. When he did abandon this stance, it was only in order to stalk through the wide balcony windows, inspect Adelaide Square or perhaps the tops of the giant trees where inviolable pigeons might be expected to lurk, and then return to the same sphinx - like position. Once only he mewed at the front door of the flat.
    Tiger did not coil himself or curl up with his paws under his cheek or slumber like a thrown-away toy as Colette would have done at this hour in the morning, dreaming of the night's adventures. Jemima, efficiently telephoning the hospitals - no, no one of that name admitted since yesterday evening - was vaguely disquieted by Tiger and tried to remind herself that the animal was not only new to her but comparatively new to the Bloomsbury flat. All the same, Tiger's restlessness perturbed her. She began to have a feeling of something not altogether explained quite near them both, the woman and the cat.
    She went through to the large light bathroom with its shadowy flowers on walls and shutters, as though projected imperfectly by an unfocused lens. When she returned to the sitting room she reckoned that it was finally late enough to telephone Isabelle Mancini, the editor of Taffeta, without sounding a note of panic.
    Isabelle Mancini was a notorious gossip. The trouble was that she liked to spend her night hours in company - when taxed on the subject, she was wont to point out that chic loneliness was hardly becoming or even useful to the editor of Taffeta. Gossip was Isabelle's personal contribution to these night marathons. She would certainly regard Jemima's present venture into loneliness as 'utter madness, dulling.'
    This gossip was never intended to be malicious. On the contrary, the creation of legends (living) - that was Isabelle's business, and the business of Taffeta. If trouble was the outcome, no one was more distressed and even injured than Isabelle Mancini. But her very loyalty to Chloe might lead her to broadcast in Tasha's or Dizzy's or one of the other ludicrous smart discos for the young that she affected, that