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subject.
    'What number you people want?' he said.
    'Just drop us here on the right,' Valentin instructed him. 'And wait for us, understand?'
    'Sure.'
    Valentin turned  to  Harry. 'Give  the man   fifty dollars.'
    'Fifty?
    'Do you want him to wait or not?'
                       35Harry  counted four tens and  ten singles into the driver's hand.
    'You'd better keep the engine running,' he said.
    'Anything to oblige,' the driver grinned.
    Harry  joined Valentin on the sidewalk and  they walked the twenty-five yards to the house. The street was still noisy, despite the hour: the party that Harry had  seen in preparation half a night ago  was at its height. There was no sign of life at the Swann residence however.
    Perhaps they don't expect us, Harry thought. Certainly this head-on assault was about the most foolhardy tactic imaginable, and as such might catch the enemy off-
    guard. But were such forces ever off-guard? Was there ever a minute in their maggoty lives when their eyelids drooped and sleep tamed them for a space? No. In Harry's experience it was only the good who needed sleep; iniquity and its practitioners were awake every eager moment, planning fresh felonies.
    'How  do we get in?' he asked as they stood outside the house.
    'I have the key,' Valentin replied, and went to the door.
    There was no retreat now. The key was turned, the door was  open, and they were stepping out of the comparative safety of the street. The house was as dark within as it had appeared from without. There was no sound of human presence on any of the floors.
    Was  it possible that the defences Swann  had laid around  his corpse had  indeed rebuffed Butterfield,
    and  that he and his cohorts had retreated? Valentin quashed such misplaced optimism almost immediately,
    taking  hold of  Harry's arm  and  leaning  close to whisper:
    'They're here.'
                       36This was not the time to ask Valentin how he knew,
    but Harry made a mental note to enquire when, or rather if, they got out of the house with their tongues still in their heads.
    Valentin was already on the stairs. Harry, his eyes still accustoming themselves to the vestigial light that crept in from the street, crossed the hallway after him. The other man moved confidently in the gloom, and Harry was glad of it. Without Valentin plucking at his sleeve,
    and guiding him around the half-landing he might well have crippled himself.
    Despite what Valentin had said, there was no more sound or sight of occupancy up here than there had been below, but as they advanced towards the master bedroom where Swann lay, a rotten tooth in Harry's lower jaw that had lately been quiescent began to throb afresh, and his bowels ached to break wind. The anticipation was crucifying. He felt a barely suppressible urge to yell out,
    and to oblige the enemy to show its hand, if indeed it had hands to show.
    Valentin had reached the door. He turned his head in Harry's direction, and even in the murk it was apparent that fear was taking its toll on him too. His skin glistened;
    he stank of fresh sweat.
    He pointed towards the door. Harry nodded. He was as ready as he was ever going to be. Valentin reached for the door handle. The sound of the lock-mechanism seemed deafeningly loud, but it brought no response from anywhere in the house. The door swung open,
    and the heady scent of flowers met them. They had begun to decay in the forced heat of the house; there was a rankness beneath the perfume. More welcome than the scent was the light. The curtains in the room had not been entirely drawn, and the street-lamps described the interior: the flowers massed like clouds around the casket; the chair where Harry had sat, the Calvados bottle beside it; the mirror above the fireplace showing the room its secret self.
    Valentin was  already moving  across to the casket,
    and  Harry  heard him  sigh as  he set eyes on  his old master. He  wasted  little