They had agreed that Dr Ackrington should be consulted. It was not until now that Dikon remembered how scattered the various departures from the concert had been. Mr Questing’s enormities, Gaunt’s fury, and the Colonel’s disappearance seemed now to be profoundly insignificant. But he knew a moment’s unreasoning panic as they crossed the verandah to the dining-room. He didn’t know what he had expected to find but it was extraordinarily disconcerting to hear Gaunt’s voice, angrily scolding.

‘I maintain, and anybody who knows me will bear this out, that I am an amazingly even-tempered man. But mark this: when I get angry I get angry and by heaven I’ll give him hell. “Do you realize,” I shall say, “that I—I whom you have publicly insulted—have refused to make a concert-platform appearance before royalty? Do you realize…” ’

Dikon and Mr Falls walked into the dining-room. Gaunt was sitting on one of the tables. His hand was raised and his eyes flashed. Dikon had time to remark that his employer was now coasting on the down-grade of a bout of temperament. When he began to talk the worst was usually over. Beside him on the table stood a bottle of his own whisky to which he had evidently been treating Dr Ackrington and Colonel Claire. The Colonel sat with a tumbler in his hand. His hair was ruffled and his mouth was not quite closed. Dr Ackrington appeared to be listening with angry approval to Gaunt’s tirade.

‘Come and have a drink, Falls,’ said Gaunt. ‘I’ve just been telling them—’ He broke off and stared at his secretary. ‘And may I ask what’s the matter with you?’

They were all staring at Dikon. He thought: ‘I suppose I look sick or something.’ He sat at one of the tables and, resting his head on his hand, listened to Mr Falls giving an exact repetition of the story he had already told to Dikon. He was heard in utter silence and it was some time after he had finished that Dr Ackrington said in a voice that seemed foreign to him: ‘He may, after all, have returned. How do you know that he hasn’t returned? Have you looked?’

‘By all means let us look,’ said Falls. ‘Bell, perhaps you wouldn’t mind?’