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porter in the hall of the club about a member’s demise even though he had not liked Hoden
and had seen little of him since he had left Eton, under some sort of a cloud he seemed to recall.
    He pushed open the door of the morning-room and surveyed the dozen or so members asleep or reading newspapers in green leather chairs. A coal fire burnt in the hearth and he went over to it and
warmed his hands. It had turned very cold and he rather hoped Spain – if he did actually decide to go – would be considerably warmer. Several members nodded to him. The Earl of
Carlisle, who all but lived in the club, said, ‘Ah, Corinth – not seen much of you lately – been away?’ and a very ancient member called Truefitt opened one eye and said,
‘Rough weather, eh, Cornford?’ Truefitt had an encyclopedic memory for first-class cricket scores but seldom remembered accurately the names of his club acquaintances. It amounted to a
rapturous welcome and Edward compared it favourably with the democratic informality of his American friends which had rather shocked him at first. Even a casual acquaintance in New York would think
nothing of addressing him by his first name before any formal introduction had taken place. Edward would have been outraged if anyone had called him a snob but he liked the reserve with which the
English gentleman protected his privacy. His closest friends would call him ‘Corinth’ and only a few intimates would address him as Edward. His brother and sister-in-law called him
‘Ned’ but the rituals of family life among the English aristocracy were worth a book in themselves.
    A face, up to now hidden behind the Sporting Times , revealed itself. ‘Ah, there you are, my boy.’
    ‘Oh, Thoroughgood,’ said Edward without enthusiasm. He remembered now that he did not like the man and certainly objected to being ‘my-boy-ed’ by a fellow who had been
his contemporary at school. Thoroughgood uncurled himself from his armchair. He was tall, skeletally thin with a beaky nose, receding hair and a dusting of dandruff over his shoulders. He wore a
perfectly pressed dark blue pinstripe suit, an Old Etonian tie and – this Edward found unexpected – a rather showy gold tie-pin.
    It was not done to talk too long or too loudly in the morning-room so they walked through to the bar. ‘Gin-and-it?’ Thoroughgood inquired.
    ‘Champagne, please,’ said Edward, glancing round to see who else was lunching in the club. Two or three acquaintances waved at him and one of these was on the point of coming over
when Thoroughgood came back from the bar with the drinks. He was obviously not popular because the acquaintance made a face at Edward indicating that he would wait and talk to him later.
    ‘I see Hoden’s dead,’ Edward said, sipping his champagne.
    ‘Yes, bad business that. You know how he loved hunting big game. He’d been all over the world: Tanganyika, Kenya, India, the Malay States. You name it, he’d been
there.’
    ‘So what happened? Eric said he had been eaten by a lion.’
    Thoroughgood snuffled. ‘Oh really, did he say that? I’m afraid it was altogether more prosaic. He shot himself.’
    ‘Suicide?’
    ‘Who knows? Probably just an accident but Eric is right in one way: the body was so badly mauled by the time the bearers or whatnot got to him, he was pretty well
unrecognisable.’
    ‘But it’s rather odd for an experienced hunter, like Hoden, to allow himself to be separated from the others? Maybe he did want to shoot himself but didn’t want to sully the
family name by being called a suicide?’
    ‘Maybe,’ said Thoroughgood, already bored with the subject. ‘We’ll never know. I don’t like huntin’ of any sort – not animals anyway.’ He gave his
snuffling laugh which Edward found rather disgusting. ‘I mean, these big game hunters, they like to pretend how brave they are but, as I understand it, they are never put in any danger. Some
poor native fella is sent to