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down heavilyon the little gilt chair. Mrs Routledge saw that the handkerchief was of poor quality. She then wondered about the crocodile. A scarcely visible film of hardness passed over her features.
    â€œA very pleasant part of London,” Mrs Houghton remarked. “It does one good to change one’s ambience from time to time, don’t you agree?”
    Mrs Routledge still stood staring at her suspiciously, and the novelist hoisted her bag on to the table, knocking over the plastic fern as she did so.
    â€œI’m so sorry.” She readjusted the tiny, waterless container and drew from her bag this time a gold initialled cigarette case and matching lighter. The cigarette once in her mouth, she pressed what appeared to be a sapphire button on the lighter, and flame sprang reassuringly upwards. Mrs Routledge’s features softened.
    â€œThere seem to be problems in the room next to mine,” Mrs Houghton said, taking advantage of this. “Not that I don’t have the greatest sympathy for the poor things. An eastern-European country, I suppose.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Mrs Routledge was suspicious again, but with different cause. She had had people suffering from mental illness trying to hide out in the Westringham before. And there had been sounds of speech from Mrs Houghton’s room, never a good sign.
    â€œI mean, of course, some exiled monarch or other …” Mrs Houghton’s voice tailed off. “I didn’t feel, somehow, it was one of ours. If you know what I mean, Mrs Routledge.”
    At this juncture Mr Poynter manifested himself on the stairs and came into the dining room. At the same time, Cridge put a cup of tea down in front of Mrs Houghton. He had mixed in condensed milk and two lumps of greyish sugar stood on the saucer.
    â€œGood heavens,” Mrs Houghton said. She was gazing at Cridge. And the crocodile bag slipped from her lap to the floor, where it lay on its side, handles a ready trap for MrPoynter’s feet. Mr Poynter, however, avoided this.
    â€œDeposed kings,” he said ruminatively. “I thought I had them all by now, I must say.” He looked sternly down at Mrs Houghton. “Poynter. Lieutenant-colonel Arthur Poynter. And may I have the pleasure …?”
    â€œThis is too extraordinary.” Mrs Houghton smiled at Cridge, who was backing away now and making for the tin of condensed milk, dolloping in the spoonfuls in a near panic. “He was in Volume One of the trilogy, you know, Mrs Routledge! A dear little hotel in Norfolk, when Johnny and Melinda had just come back from Czechoslovakia and wanted to get away from it all. Cridge—you were the boatman. Oh, that bitterly cold weather. And your blue-veined hands! Melinda was so sorry for you, but then she saw you had made no attempt to join the struggle against capitalism and neo-imperialism. Yes, Johnny had to persuade her not to give you a good talking to at the end of that long day in the creek.”
    â€œWhat’s all this?” Mr Poynter strode over to his table and exchanged glances with Mrs Routledge on the way. Cridge, who might not have heard a word of his former creator’s speech, went over to him with an uneven gait and slopped down the tea.
    â€œMy table’s been moved, Mrs Routledge.” Poynter stood dumbfounded at the top of the basement steps, where indeed, in her effort to please Mrs Houghton, Mrs Routledge had placed him. The sweet, acrid stench reached his nostrils. He thumped the table and his fern—dusted that morning, he could see—quivered in response. “I demand an explanation,” he went on, in the face of Mrs Routledge’s silence, and Cridge, limping back to the sideboard. Mr Poynter had once told Cridge that he reminded him of his wounded batman and the limp was now a matter of course when he was being served.
    â€œHave I taken your table? I’m so terribly sorry, I had no idea.”
    â€œThe