‘Well, do, for God’s sake, be more careful what you say!’ recommended Mathilda crossly.

Paula laughed. ‘It’s getting you down, Mathilda, isn’t it? I knew it would. You’re beginning to feel suspicious; you listen – oh, without meaning to! – for the underlying motive beneath everything we say. Do you wonder which of us did it? Find your brain sneaking round to that thought, however much you try not to let it?’

‘Yes,’ Mathilda admitted.

Paula cast herself on to the sofa, setting her elbows on her knees, and sinking her chin into the cup of her hands. ‘I know! Ah, but it is interesting, isn’t it? Confess!’

‘No, it’s vile.’

‘Oh – vile!’ The thin shoulders jerked up in a characteristic shrug. ‘If you like! But, psychologically speaking, isn’t there a fascination? Watching our behaviour, listening for the scared note – voices lift: have you noticed it? People are such fools, they give things away, lose grip, say too much!’

‘The trouble with you, my girl, is that you have a morbid mind,’ said Mathilda. ‘What’s that?’

The sound of chains clanking round car-wheels had provoked this exclamation. Paula got up, and moved to the window. It had stopped snowing some hours earlier, but only a single pair of wheel-tracks disturbed the smooth whiteness of the drive and the deep lawn beyond it. A large limousine had drawn up before the front-door, and as Paula reached the window a figure in a Persian lamb coat and a skittish hat, perched over elaborately curled golden hair, alighted.

‘I think,’ said Paula, ‘I think it’s Mrs Dean.’

‘Good God, already?’ exclaimed Mathilda, getting up. ‘What’s she like?’

‘Just what you might have expected. Joe has tripped out to meet her.’

‘He would!’ said Mathilda.

Not only Joseph had gone out to meet this new guest, but Valerie also. Before Joseph could utter his little speech of welcome, she had cast herself upon her parent’s awe-inspiring bosom, crying: ‘Oh, Mummy, thank goodness you’ve come! It’s all too frightful for words!’

‘My pet, of course Mummy has come!’ said Mrs Dean, in accents quite as thrilling as Paula’s. ‘Mummy had to be with her little girl at such a time.’ She extended a tightly gloved hand to Joseph, saying with an arch smile: ‘I shan’t ask my girlie to introduce you. I know that you are Stephen’s Uncle Joe! Val told me about you over the ’phone, and how kind you have been to her. You must let a mother thank you, Mr Herriard!’

Joseph turned quite pink with pleasure and responded gallantly that to be kind to Valerie was a privilege requiring no thanks.

‘Ah, I can’t have you turning my girlie’s head!’ said Mrs Dean. ‘Such a foolish childie as she is!’

‘Oh, Mummy, it’s been simply foul!’ said Valerie. ‘I couldn’t sleep a wink all night, and that beastly policeman upset me frightfully!’

‘I’m afraid our nerves aren’t over-strong,’ Mrs Dean confided to Joseph. ‘We’ve always been one of the delicate ones, and quite absurdly sensitive.’