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shall be well looked after,’ he assured her. ‘This hotel seems delightful.’
    ‘You’ve hardly seen it,’ said Signora Cossi dismissively. ‘Do you always make your mind up so quickly?’
    Von Igelfeld gave a polite, if somewhat forced smile. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘When a place is so clearly delightful as this is, I see no point in prevarication.’
    Signora Cossi looked at him suspiciously, but said nothing more. Silently she handed him his key and pointed to the stairway that led to the bedrooms. Von Igelfeld took the proffered key, bowed slightly, and went off up the stairs with his suitcase. He was unsure whether he had inadvertently said something offensive and whether Signora Cossi had the right to be so short with him. Had he used an unusually familiar term? He thought of Professor
    J. G. K. L. Singh and his ‘ur-rachis’. Had he unwittingly ‘ur-rachied’ this disagreeable woman?
    Although he did not yet realise it, von Igelfeld had been allocated the worst room in the hotel. There was no furniture in it at all apart from a single bed, covered with a threadbare cotton cover. This bed had been bought second-hand from the house of a deceased dwarf in Sant’Amato, and was therefore very short. Von Igelfeld gazed at it in disbelief and then, putting down his suitcase, tried to lie down on the bed. He put his head on the pillow and then hoisted his legs up, but the bed was a good thirty inches too short and his calves, ankles and feet hung down over the edge. It would be impossible to sleep in such a position.
    After a few minutes of uncomfortable meditation, von Igelfeld made his way downstairs again. Signora Cossi was still at her desk, and she watched him with narrowed eyes as he came down into the hall.
    ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked. Her tone was not solicitous.
    ‘The room itself is charming,’ said von Igelfeld courteously. ‘But I’m afraid that I find the bed somewhat short for my needs.’
    Signora Cossi’s eyes flashed.
    ‘And what might these needs be?’ she challenged. ‘What are you proposing to do in that bed?’
    Von Igelfeld gasped.
    ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all. It is just that my legs do not fit. The bed is too short for me to lie down upon. That’s all.’
    Signora Cossi was not to be so easily placated.
    ‘It’s a perfectly good Italian bed,’ she snapped. ‘Are you suggesting that Italians are shorter than . . . than others?’
    Von Igelfeld held up his hands in a gesture of horrified denial.
    ‘Of course not,’ he said quickly. ‘I suggest no such thing. I’m sure I shall sleep very well after all.’
    Signora Cossi appeared to subside somewhat.
    ‘Dinner,’ she said grudgingly, ‘will be served at seven o’clock. Sharp.’
    Von Igelfeld thanked her, handed over his key, and set off for his afternoon walk. There were many paths to be explored; paths that went up and down the hillside, through olive groves, vineyards, and forests of cypress. There was much to be seen before Prinzel and Unterholzer arrived, and he was determined to be as familiar as possible with the surroundings before Sunday. In that way he would have a psychological advantage over them which could last for the rest of the Italian trip, and even beyond.
    Outside, the air was pleasantly cool. Von Igelfeld thought of how hot it would be in Siena, and how uncomfortable Prinzel and Unterholzer would be feeling. The thought set him in good humour for his walk, although the problem of his bed remained niggling in the back of his mind. It was not true what Signora Cossi had said: Italian beds were by no means all that size. His bed in the Hotel del Palio in Siena had been of generous proportions, and he had encountered no difficulty in sleeping very well in it. Of course, it might be that people in hill towns were naturally shorter – there were such places, particularly in Sicily, where sheer, grinding poverty over the generations had stunted people, but surely not in