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she said.
    ‘Mary to me,’ he said.
    ‘Now, Curran,’ said Arnold, ‘you, as my son’s friend, might know if Robert has, or, on the other hand, if he has not, telephoned, written, telegraphed, or by other method communicated to his mother, that is, my wife Anthea, that my trip to the Continent with Mary is on a basis of close familiarity rather than platonic companionship.’
    ‘Oh, God!’ said Curran.
    ‘Oh God what?’ said Arnold.
    Mary said, ‘I think our friend doesn’t want to answer these questions.’
    Curran said, ‘Not when they’re put in that way. Anyhow, I don’t know anything about Robert’s personal affairs, but I think it very unlikely he should bother his mother with distressing information.’
    ‘He’s capable of anything,’ Arnold said.
    ‘Do you know,’ Curran said, ‘I think you’re imagining a lot of things.’
    Mary said, ‘Well, we know, or at least guess to the point of certainty, that you’re Anthea’s private detective.’ She smiled intimately at Curran. He smiled back responsively. ‘Not at all,’ he said, without emphasis.
    Arnold apparently had taken a few drinks before Curran’s arrival, for he was now getting on for drunk. He got up, slightly staggered, made his way towards the table where the bottles and glasses were set out, and started to refill his glass, his eyes glaring at it as if it had outraged him in some way. Mary came to his rescue, so that the glass brimmed over a little less than it would otherwise have done.
    Curran looked at his watch and got up while he said he was afraid he must go.
    Arnold looked at him with the same outraged stare, and was about to make another speech when Curran rapidly said goodnight.
    Mary came out with him. The lift was near their room.
    Curran looked at her merrily. ‘He never got round to telling me about his wife Anthea.’
    ‘He’s brooding over it,’ she said. ‘Sometimes he can be very happy when he’s had a drop too much. But not when he’s brooding on Anthea.’
    ‘Well, goodnight.’
    She said, ‘Call me at nine tomorrow morning. He goes down to breakfast but I always have mine in bed at that hour.’
    Curran turned back to the room and, looking in, saw Arnold still standing uncertainly at the foot of the atrocious bed.
    ‘Would it help you if I took Mary off your hands for a while?’ Curran said.
    ‘What!’
    ‘She’s a very attractive woman,’ Curran said.
    Mary said, from behind Curran, ‘Arnold, he’s joking.’
    ‘Get out!’ Arnold said.
    Curran went back to the lift. ‘That might take his mind off his wife Anthea,’ he said to Mary.

Chapter Three
    O UTSIDE IT WAS BEAUTIFULLY sunny weather in a rare, golden October. It is one of the secrets of Nature in its mood of mockery that fine weather lays a heavier weight on the mind and hearts of the depressed and the inwardly tormented than does a really bad day with dark rain snivelling continuously and sympathetically from a dirty sky:
    Come autumn sae pensive, in yellow and grey,
    And soothe me wi’ tidings o’ nature’s decay;
    The dark, dreary winter, and wild-driving snaw,
    Alane can delight me—now Nannie’s awa.
    Into the glorious street of a Birmingham suburb stepped Anthea Leaver click-clacking her heels so sharply on the pavement that nobody who walked in front of her failed to hear her coming, and make way for her, since she was walking faster than anybody else.
    Her destination, however, was merely the bus-stop where she had to wait like everybody else. The people in front of her in the queue now pulled themselves straight and slouched no more as if anxious not to further provoke the terrorist who had clicked into position in her tweed coat, stick-like, wearing tinted glasses. Others dribbled into line behind Anthea in various attitudes of slouch, clearly unaware of her from the start; a young couple with two children, then the bus.
    Anthea got on the bus as if she meant business and got off two stops later, from where she clicked