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white packages and he had to stick out his stomach to hold them up.
    In the middle of the cross-roads the inspector, standing beside the uniformed policeman, watched his comings and goings in the way a schoolmaster, in the playground, might keep an eye on his charges while chatting with the headmaster.
    Not more than a couple of hundred yards away, a group of people had collected in front of a hoarding from which glared a red and yellow poster advertising polish. This was in the street across the way, a street that began with houses, like any other, but trailed off, after a short distance, into building-lots and patches of waste ground.
    If you went down there after dark, some woman would invariably touch you on the arm and point to the empty building-lots, those where, two Sundays ago, the mutilated body of one such woman had been found.
    Even now, people were still taking advantage of Sunday to come and stare at the exact spot and the brown stains that remained on a block of stone.
    Loaded with his parcels, Mr. Hire went past the dairy just as the assistant was coming out with bottles of milk. She stopped in the doorway and smiled, while he rushed into the porch, where he bumped against the concierge, who was standing with her back to him and who turned round with a terrified start.
    He went on faster and faster, stumbled over the bottom step of the stairs and one of the little parcels fell, he did not know which. He did not stop to pick it up, but merely clutched the other packets more closely, and by the time he arrived, breathless, on the fourth floor, he was almost running.
    He did not stop even then, did not look at his reflection in the mirror. Kneeling down, he began by lighting the stove, which at once gave out a lively purring sound. Then he took off his overcoat, tied a towel round his waist by way of an apron, and set about cleaning the room.
    The house was full of noises, many more men's voices than on weekdays, and the murmur of running water, the yells of children who were being thrashed. The wireless babbled ceaselessly, perhaps in the fifth- floor room where a workman lived, or perhaps on the third floor; the sound was so evenly diffused that one couldn't tell.
    At half-past ten Mr. Hire looked round the room, now clean, the bed made, the stove burning and black-leaded, the gas-ring with the kettle singing.
    He shaved and dressed, except for his collar and tie, which he would not put on till the last moment.
    And that was all. Now he could just sit down and think. From time to time he glanced at the window opposite, through which he could vaguely make out a basinful of soapy water. When he opened his newspaper he knew at once how the girl would be spending the afternoon, for there was a big football match. At half-past one she would be waiting at the second stopping-place of the special Sunday bus, and a little later her boy-friend would turn up.
    If there had been no interesting match, they would have gone to Paris, to the Splendid Cinema. It was always the one or the other.
    An ambulance went by, its bell ringing all the time. That happened every Sunday. At the same moment the little boy's violin joined in with the wireless.
    Mr. Hire wound his alarm-clock, re-polished his shoes, which he had already cleaned, arranged his provisions on the table and sat down to lunch. That whiled away a good hour. He would fill his mouth with food and chew for a long time, gazing at the window opposite him, his thoughts so far away that five minutes went by before he remembered to take another mouthful. He made himself some coffee, and the baby overhead had an interminable fit of despair, howling away until silenced, probably, by its mother's breast.
    It was only twelve o'clock. And by a quarter-past twelve the table had been cleared, the oilcloth sponged with fresh water, the remains of the food put away in the cupboard.
    The girl from the dairy came up to her room at one o'clock, but by daylight she could only be dimly