‘Quite all right,’ said the clear little voice. ‘So glad, darling.’ Alleyn left his mother’s telephone number in case anybody should want him, and went by taxi to the flat she had taken in Catherine Street for the London season. He found Lady Alleyn surrounded by newspapers and wearing horn-rimmed glasses.

‘Hullo, darling,’ she said. ‘I shan’t pretend I’m not reading about poor Bunchy, but we won’t discuss it if you don’t want to.’

‘To tell you the truth,’ said Alleyn, ‘I rather feel I want to sit in an armchair, stare at nothing, and scarcely speak. Charming company for you, mama.’

‘Why not have a bath?’ suggested Lady Alleyn without looking up from her paper.

‘Do I smell?’ asked her son.

‘No. But I always think a bath is rather a good idea when you’ve got to the staring stage. What time did you get up this morning?’

‘Yesterday morning. But I have bathed and shaved since then.’

‘No bed at all last night? I should have a bath. I’ll run it for you. Use my room. I’ve sent for a change of clothes.’

‘Good Lord!’ said Alleyn, and then: ‘You’re something rather special in the maternal line, aren’t you?’

He bathed. The solace of steaming water wrapped him in a sort of luxurious trance. His thoughts, that for sixteen hours had been so sharply concentrated, became blurred and nebulous. Was it only ‘this morning’ that he had crossed the courtyard to a taxi, half-hidden by wreaths of mist? This morning! Their footsteps had sounded hollow on the stone pavement. ‘I got to look after meself, see?’ A door opened with a huge slow movement that was full of horror. ‘Dead, ain’t ’e? Dead, ain’t ’e? DEAD, AIN’T ’E?’ ‘Suffocated!’ gasped Alleyn and woke with his nose full of bath-water.

His man had sent clean linen and a dinner-suit. He dressed slowly, feeling rarefied, and rejoined his mother in the sitting-room.

‘Help yourself to a drink,’ she said from behind her newspaper.

He got his drink and sat down. He wondered vaguely why he should feel so dog-tired. He was used to missing a night’s sleep and working straight through the twenty-four hours. It must be because it was Bunchy. And the thought came into his mind that there must be a great many people at this hour who with him remembered that comic figure and regretted it.

‘He had a great deal of charm,’ said Alleyn aloud and his mother’s voice answered him tranquilly.

‘Yes, a great deal of charm. The most unfair of all the attributes.’

‘You don’t add: “I sometimes think,”’ said Alleyn.

‘Why should I?’

‘People so often use that phrase to water down their ideas. You are too positive to use it.’

‘In Bunchy’s case the charm was one of character and then it is not unfair,’ said Lady Alleyn. ‘Shall we dine? It’s been announced.’

‘Good Lord,’ said Alleyn, ‘I never noticed.’

Over their coffee he asked: ‘Where’s Sarah?’