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a
    crossed line, a man and his mistress arranging a clandestine rendezvous and
    anticipating their forthcoming fornication with lascivious delight . . .
    He felt suddenly frightened as Bartlett caught his eye and walked over, with Sheik
    Ahmed just behind him.
    'Well? You enjoyed yourself, my boy?'
    'Yes, indeed. I—I was just waiting to thank you both—'
    'That is a great pleasure for us, too, Meester Queen.' Ahmed smiled his white and
    golden smile and held out his hand. 'We shall be meeting you again, we hope so
    soon.'
    Quinn walked out into St. Giles'. He had not noticed how keenly one of the remaining
    guests had been watching him for the past few minutes; and it was with considerable
    surprise that he felt a hand on his shou1lder and turned to face the man who had

    followed him to his car.
    'I'd like a word with you, Quinn,' said Philip Ogleby.
    At 12.30 the following day, Quinn looked up from the work upon which, with almost no
    success, he had been trying to concentrate all morning. He had heard no knock, but
    someone was opening the door. It was Monica.
    'Would you like to take me out for a drink, Nicholas?'

CHAPTER FOUR
    ON FRIDAY, 21ST NOVEMBER, a man in his early thirties caught the train from Faddington
    back to Oxford. He found an empty first-class compartment with little difficulty, leaned
    back in his seat, and lit a cigarette. From his briefcase he took-out a fairly bulky
    envelope addressed to himself ('If undelivered please return to the Foreign
    Examinations Syndicate'), and extracted several lengthy reports. He unclipped his
    ballpoint pen from an inside pocket, and began to make sporadic notes. But he was
    left-handed, and with an ungenerous margin, and that only on the right of the closely-
    typed documents, the task was awkward; and progressively so, as the Inter-City train
    gathered full speed through the northern suburbs. The rain splashed in slanting
    parallel streaks across the dirty carriage window, and the telegraph poles snatched up
    the wires ever faster as he found himself staring out abstractedly at the thinning
    autumn landscape; and even when he managed to drag his attention back to the
    tedious documents he found it difficult to concentrate. Just before Reading he walked
    along to the buffet car and bought a Scotch; then another. He felt better.
    At four o'clock he put the papers back into their envelope, crossed out his own name,
    C. A. Roope, and wrote 'T. G. Bartlett on the cover. Bartlett, as a man, he disliked (he
    could not disguise that), but he was honest enough to respect the man's experience,
    and his flair for administration; and he had promised to leave the papers at the
    Syndicate that afternoon. Bartlett would never allow a single phrase in the minutes of
    a Syndicate Council meeting to go forward before the relevant draft had been
    circulated to every member who had attended. And (Roope had to admit) this
    meticulous minuting had frequently proved extremely wise. Anyway, the wretched
    papers were done now, and Roope snapped his briefcase to, and looked out at the
    rain again. The journey had passed more quickly than he could have hoped, and
    within a few minutes the drenched grey spires of Oxford came into view on his right,
    and the train drew into the station.
    Roope walked through the subway, waited patiently behind the queue at the ticket
    barrier, and debated for a second or two whether he should bother. But he knew he
    would. He took the second-class day-return from his wallet and passed it to the ticket
    collector. 'I'm afraid I owe you some excess fare. I travelled back first.'
    'Didn't the ticket inspector come round?'
    'No.'
    'We-ll. Doesn't really matter then, does it?'
    'You sure?'
    'Wish everybody was as honest as you, sir.'
    'OK then, if you say so.'
    Roope took a taxi and after alighting at1 the Syndicate tipped the driver liberally.
    Rectangles of pale-yellow light shone in the upper storeys of nearby office blocks, and
    the giant shapes of the trees