“Yes. I left about ten. I had lunch at Coventry—”

“Then how do you account for this?” she suddenly shot out at me, and in the same instant she ripped her bag open, took out a piece of paper and held it out as if it had been a forged cheque, or something.

I felt as if someone had hit me a sock in the wind. I might have known it! She’d caught me after all. And there was the evidence, the dossier of die case. I didn’t even know what it was, except that it was something that proved I’d been off with a woman. All the stuffing went out of me. A moment earlier I’d been kind of bullying her, making out to be angry because I’d been dragged back from Birmingham for nothing, and now she’d suddenly turned the tables on me. You don’t have to tell me what I looked like at that moment. I know. Guilt written all over me in big letters—I know. And I wasn’t even guilty! But it’s a matter of habit. I’m used to being in the wrong. For a hundred quid I couldn’t have kept the guilt out of my voice as I answered:

“What do you mean? What’s that thing you’ve got there?”

“You read it and you’ll see what it is.”

I took it. It was a letter from what seemed to be a firm of solicitors, and it was addressed from the same street as Rowbottom’s Hotel, I noticed.

“Dear Madam,” I read, “With reference to your letter of the 18th inst., we think there must be some mistake. Rowbottom’s Hotel was closed down two years ago and has been converted into a block of offices. No one answering the description of your husband has been here. Possibly—”

I didn’t read any further. Of course I saw it all in a flash. I’d been a little bit too clever and put my foot in it. There was just one faint ray of hope—young Saunders might have forgotten to post the letter I’d addressed from Rowbottom’s, in which case it was just possible I could brazen it out. But Hilda soon put the lid on that idea.

“Well, George, you see what the letter says? The day you left here I wrote to Rowbottom’s Hotel—oh, just a little note, asking them whether you’d arrived there. And you see the answer I got! There isn’t even any such place as Rowbottom’s Hotel. And the same day, the very same post, I got your letter saying you were at the hotel. You got someone to post it for you, I suppose. That was your business in Birmingham!”

“But look here, Hilda! You’ve got this all wrong. It isn’t what you think at all. You don’t understand.”

“Oh, yes, I do, George. I understand perfectly.”

“But look here, Hilda—”

Wasn’t any use, of course. It was a fair cop. I couldn’t even meet her eye. I turned and tried to make for the door.