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door a little further. Standing about fifteen feet away, his collar turned against the wind, was Philip Sibling. He was watching Steve’s antics with a tired expression on his face. I managed to catch his eye, and he shook his head in a resigned manner. I put my finger to my lips. He nodded. I closed the door. Treading very lightly, I went to the point on the inside wall that corresponded with Steve’s position.
    I allowed him a few more seconds of drumming, then suddenly banged hard on the wall with a hammer.
    There was a startled cry.
    6
    Pulling my boots on, I went outside to greet my guests formally. Steve was now standing about six feet from the house with a surprised look on his face.
    ‘Made you jump, did I?’ I asked.
    ‘Yes,’ he replied.
    ‘Well, why can’t you just knock on the door like normal people?’
    ‘I was trying to wake you gradually, by degrees.’
    ‘It’s a tried and tested technique,’ added Philip.
    Each of them was wearing an identical heavy coat, but all the same I could see they were both quite chilly.
    ‘I’ve got a good mind not to invite you in,’ I remarked. ‘Now don’t forget to wipe your feet.’
    ‘Is that the latest rule then?’ asked Steve.
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘There’s a whole new regime here.’
    I hadn’t seen either Steve or Philip for quite a while, and it was good to renew the acquaintanceship. What seemed surprising, though, was the fact of their turning up together. I vaguely recalled Simon Painter mentioning that they’d become friends, but to tell the truth I’d thought this was just wishful thinking, as it fitted perfectly into his scheme for everybody to be friendly with everyone else. The thing I least expected was a joint visit from two individuals I regarded very much as ‘loners’.
    Besides, it had always struck me that Steve was the sort of person who’d tax anyone’s patience after a while. He had his own way of doing everything, even down to announcing his arrival at my house. Frankly, I was quite astonished that Philip could tolerate being with him. Yet here they were going about together like a couple of lifelong pals. Even their coats were identical.
    The reason the drumming sound had seemed familiar, of course, was because I’d previously heard it at Steve’s house. He found it almost impossible to sit still, so he would pass the minutes by drumming with his fingers on the table, or whatever other surface happened to be nearby. The last time I’d been to see him was to collect some sugar he’d borrowed some months earlier and hadn’t returned. He insisted that I stayed for a while, then subsequently drove me half-mad with this incessant drumming.
    When he wasn’t doing that he was rushing round making so-called improvements to his house. It was similar to mine in many respects, built entirely from tin, yet for some reason he was never quite satisfied with it. As a consequence, there was always some half-finished job under way: shutters on and off their hinges; the chimney lengthened or shortened; the stairs rebuilt. On the occasion of that last visit he’d been engaged in fixing a weathercock on the roof, a task with which I somehow became involved. I lost count of how many times I had to hold his ladder while he went up to make adjustments, but at the end of the day he still wasn’t happy with the result.
    Another thing I remembered about Steve was that he tended to leave his door open for long periods, which allowed masses of sand to be blown inside his house. He didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by this and traipsed it all around the place. I knew very well that Mary Petrie would frown on such carelessness, so as soon as he arrived I made a mental note to keep an eye on him.
    Philip, on the other hand, was much more of a stalwart figure who could be trusted to leave doors firmly closed. On the few occasions I’d been to his house, everything had been battened down securely against inclement weather. He had never struck