In spite of the cheerfully crackling log fire and its output of warmth, it was a drab, dingy dining-room, badly in need of redecoration. Old threadbare, dark brown curtains hid all five windows in the big bay window pushed out of one corner of the room. Missing hooks let them sag in places like a slattern’s skirt. Two other windows, also curtained, pierced the walls adjoining the bay window. The fourth wall contained a panelled double door, flanked by a massive Victorian mahogany sideboard to the left and a glass-fronted display cabinet to the right. The wallpaper was embossed, carrying a turgidly uninspired pattern in browns and greens. Its faded quality was emphasized by the rectangular, brighter gaps on the walls where pictures had once been hung. In two of the dark ceiling corners the paper curled tiredly away from the walls.

The bespectacled man seemed worried; the dark sardonic man seemed content to be an amused spectator. The other members of the company listened interestedly. The bespectacled man pushed his glasses on to the bridge of his nose.

‘Well, obviously you can’t go on tonight.’ He frowned. ‘It’s rather awkward, though.’

‘Perhaps you’d better put them in the picture, Meredith,’ the sardonic man suggested. Meredith flicked an angry glance at him before turning back to Paul.

‘You must understand,’ he said slowly, ‘that we ourselves arrived here only three hours ago. When the blizzard struck we still hadn’t unpacked half our stuff.’ He hesitated. ‘We’ve been trying to make ourselves comfortable. You see the house hasn’t been lived in for fifteen years.’

Looks more like fifty, Paul thought. Who were these people? The new owners? As if in answer to his unspoken questions, Meredith said: ‘Look, let me introduce ourselves. I’m Brian Mere­dith.’ He indicated the sardonic man, the bearded man and the red-haired man in turn: ‘Arnold Bourne and Jeremy Hunt. This is Captain Pollard. Over there Ann Parish, Harry Fletcher and Joyce Mair.’ The last three comprised a brown-haired attractive woman in her mid-twenties, a plump, fair-haired, balding young man in a brown leather jerkin, a white, roll-necked sweater and denims, and a woman, about thirty, with jet-black hair. In various ways, by nod, or smile, or the raising of a hand they acknowledged the introduction. Paul smiled at them.

‘I’m Paul Wilson. This is my wife Carol.’ His eyes met hers and he knew with a small warm feeling of pleasure that she was mentally echoing his thought that this was the first occasion he had introduced her as his wife.

Meredith stepped forward.

‘Well, we shall have to get a room ready for you.’

He crossed to a small occasional table by the bay window, clicked open a briefcase lying there beside the oil-lamp and drew out some papers. He consulted them.