‘When I examine in depth the motives by which I am activated,’ wrote Miss Rickerby-Carrick in her book. ‘I am appalled. For instance. I have a reputation, within my circle (admittedly a limited one) for niceness, for kindness, for charity. I adore my reputation. People come to me in their trouble. They cast themselves upon my bosom and weep. I love it. I’m awfully good at being good. I think to myself that they must all tell each other how good I am. “Hay Rickerby-Carrick,” I know they say, “She’s so good.” And so I am. I am. I put myself out in order to keep up my reputation. I make sacrifices. I am unselfish in buses, upstanding in tubes and I relinquish my places in queues. I visit the aged, I comfort the bereaved and if they don’t like it they can lump it. I am filled with amazement when I think about my niceness. O misery, misery, misery me,’ she wrote with enormous relish.

Two drops fell upon her open notebook. She gave a loud, succulent and complacent sniff.

Troy thought: ‘Will she go on like this for five days? Is she dotty? O God, has she got a cold!’

‘Sorry,’ said Miss Rickerby-Carrick. ‘I’ve god a bid of cold. Dur,’ she added making a catarrhal clicking sound and allowing her mouth to fall slightly open. Troy began to wonder if there was a good train to London before evening.

‘You wonder,’ said Miss Rickerby-Carrick in a thick voice, ‘why I sit on my suitcase and write. I have lately taken to a diary. My self-propelling confessional, I call it.’

‘Do you?’ Troy said helplessly.

Down the cobbled lane walked a pleasant-looking man in an ancient knickerbocker suit of Donegal tweed and a cloth cap. He carried, beside a rucksack, a square box on a shoulder-strap and a canvas-covered object that might, Troy thought, almost be a grossly misshapen tennis racquet. He took off his cap when he saw the ladies and kept it off. He was of a sandy complexion with a not unattractive cast in one of his blue eyes, a freckled countenance and a tentative smile.

‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘We must be fellow-travellers.’

Troy agreed. Miss Rickerby-Carrick, blurred about the eyes and nose, nodded, smiled and sniffed. She was an industrious nodder.

‘No signs of the Zodiac as yet,’ said the newcomer. ‘Dear me,’ he added, ‘that’s a pit-fall of a joke isn’t it? We shall all be making it as punctually as the tides, I daresay.’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick after a moment’s thought, was consumed with laughter. He looked briefly at her and attentively at Troy. ‘My name’s Caley Bard,’ he said.

‘I’m Troy Alleyn and this is Miss Rickerby-Carrick.’

‘You said you were Agatha,’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick pointed out. ‘You said Agatharallen,’ and Troy felt herself blushing.