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said.
    “Hello, Judy. L.S.O. here?”
    “Yes.”
    “Ireland here?”
    “Not yet.”
    “What stage are we on?”
    “Two.”
    “Ah.” The man nodded and vanished; after a very brief interval he reappeared, said “Good morning” briskly to Humbleby and Fen, and vanished a second time before they had a chance to reply.
    Judy called Johnny in. “Johnny, will you take these two gentlemen to Stage Five and find them a girl called Valerie Bryant? She’s in the chorus.”
    “Oke,” said Johnny inelegantly. “I know her. Leggy girl, dumb.”
    “And on the way,” said Humbleby, “we’d better look in at your Legal Department.”
    “Can do,” said Johnny.
    Miss Flecker shook hands with Humbleby and Fen.
    And Fen, whose attentiveness had latterly alternated with an absence of mind which made him appear slightly halfwitted, said: “Just one other thing. What was the attitude of the Crane family to Gloria Scott?”
    “The Crane family?” Judy was a good deal surprised.
    “Well, as to David, I don’t think she knew him, or he her. Maurice I’ve told you about. I’ve no notion what Nicholas thought of her. And Madge—well, that’s easy: she disliked Gloria very much.”
    “Why?”
    “Because of Stuart North.”
    “Oh? Oh?” Fen raised his eyebrows. “A rivalry?”
    “Madge is promiscuous, but she has her preferences, and Stuart North is the current one. Unfortunately his preference seemed to be for Gloria.”
    “And did Miss Crane relish the prospect of working with Gloria in The Unfortunate Lady, do you think?”
    “That’s a point,” said Judy, interested. “I should imagine she was furious. In fact…”
    “In fact what?”
    “Oh, nothing… But it might be worth your while to enquire just what Madge’s reactions were.”
    “Yes,” said Fen. “We’ll do that, I expect.” He moved towards the door. “Thanks very much, Miss Flecker. We’ll leave you in peace now.”
    “Come and see me any time you feel inclined.”
    Fen smiled. “That would be too often to be convenient. But I’ll let you know what, if anything, we find out.”
    “And, by the way,” said Humbleby, “keep all this to yourself for the time being, will you?”
    “Of course.”
    “Many thanks, then. And good-bye for the present.”
    It is only in idleness, Fen reflected as he was led away from the relatively humane atmosphere of the Music Department, that men are capable of impressing their personality on their dwelling-places; purposeful activity depersonalises even the best of buildings absolutely, making it seem as negative and meaningless as an empty egg-shell. And the studios were not, certainly, among the best of buildings. They represented, with all the detailed appositeness of a text-book illustration, that point at which the pursuit of the purely functional over-reaches itself and becomes absurd. Even in its primary intention of promoting efficiency, architecture like this was bound to fail, since the psychological effect of these blank, indistinguishable corridors, these vistas of fire-buckets, these monotonously unadorned stone staircases and metal balusters, must to the community moving among them be enervating and discouraging in the extreme. The persons to be encountered did not, it is true, seem visibly afflicted by their ghastly surroundings; but acquiescence in ugliness is even more devastating, spiritually, than the impotent enduring of it, and in an industry which was concerned with making pretty visual patterns, and in which the finer flowers of the imagination blossomed so sparsely, it was a pity that to the uncertain cultural level of its moving spirits should be superadded the additional disadvantage of a grotesquely depressing mise-en-scene…
    It became clear, as time went on, that the Legal Department was quite a considerable distance away. Led by Johnny—who, perhaps by way of encouragement, unintermittently whistled a personal redaction of La Donna e Mobile —Fen and Humbleby negotiated a