‘That will do. There has been gross negligence. Good morning.’ The voice was so changed, so brutally icy that Peregrine stared and the clerk drew back as if he’d been stung. They moved off.

The car’s heating system built up. By the time they had crossed the river Peregrine was a little less cold and beginning to feel drowsy. His host offered no further remarks. Once when Peregrine happened to look at the rear-vision glass on the passenger’s side he found he was being observed, apparently with extreme distaste. Or no. Almost with fear. He looked away quickly but out of the tail of his eye saw a gloved hand change the angle of the glass.

‘Oh well,’ he thought bemusedly, ‘I’m bigger and younger than he is. I suppose I can look after myself but how tricky it all is. Take away a man’s clothes, after all, and you make a monkey of him. What sort of public image will I present, fleeing down Park Lane in a gent’s mack and a fur rug, both the property of my pursuer?’

They were in Park Lane now and soon turned off into a side street and thence into the cul-de-sac called Drury Place. The car pulled up. The chauffeur got out and rang the bell of No.7. As he returned to the car, the house door was opened by a manservant.

Peregrine’s host said in a comparatively cheerful voice: ‘Not far to go. Up the steps and straight in.’

The chauffeur opened the door. ‘Now, sir,’ he said, ‘shan’t be long, shall we?’

There really was nothing else for it. Three impeccable men, an errand boy and a tightly encased lady carrying a little dog, walked down the footpath.

Peregrine got out and instead of bolting into the house, made an entrance of it. He ascended the steps with deliberation leaving a trail of filthy footprints behind him and dragging his fur rug like a ceremonial train. The manservant stood aside.

‘Thank you,’ Peregrine said grandly. ‘I have fallen, as you see, into dirty water.’

‘Quite so, sir.’

‘Up to my neck.’

‘Very unfortunate, sir.’

‘For all concerned,’ said Peregrine.

His host had arrived.

‘First of all, of course, a bath,’ he was saying, ‘and something to defeat that shivering, Mawson?’

‘Certainly, sir.’

‘And then come and see me.’

‘Very good, sir.’

The man went upstairs. Peregrine’s host was now behaving in so normal a manner that he began to wonder if he himself had perhaps been bemused by his hideous experience. There was some talk of the efficacy of Epsom salts in a hot bath and of coffee laced with rum. Peregrine listened in a trance.

‘Do forgive me for bossing you about like this. You must be feeling ghastly and really, I do blame myself.’

‘By why?’

‘Yes, Mawson?’

‘If the gentleman will walk up, sir.’

‘Quite so. Quite so. Good.’

Peregrine walked up and was shown into a steaming and aromatic bathroom.