It would have come as something of an anti-climax if it had not made a little clearer the still nebulous picture of that strange companionship. They had been working together over one of Flossie’s articles, he at the table near the windows and Terence moving between him and the bookcases. She had returned to him with a volume of Hansard and had laid it on the table before him, standing behind him and pressing it open with her hand at the passage he had asked for. He leant forward and the rough tweed of his coat sleeve brushed her forearm. They were motionless. She looked down at him but his face was hidden from her. He stooped. Her free hand moved and rested on his shoulder. She described the scene carefully, with precision as if these details were important, as if, having undertaken her story, she was resolved to leave nothing unsaid. She was, Alleyn thought, a remarkable young woman. She said it was the first passage of its kind between them and she supposed they were both too much moved by it to hear the door open. Her right hand was still upon him when she turned and saw her employer. He was even slower to move and her left hand remained, weighed down by his, upon the open pages of the book. It was only when she pulled it away that he too turned, and saw his wife.

Florence remained in the doorway. She had a sheaf of papers in her hand and they crackled as her grip tightened on them. ‘Hers was an expressionless face,’ Terence said, and Alleyn glanced up at the portrait. ‘Her teeth showed a little, as usual. Her eyes always looked rather startled, they looked no more so then. She just stared at us.’

Neither Rubrick nor Terence spoke. Florence said loudly, ‘I’m in a hurry for those reports,’ and turned on her heel. The door slammed behind her. Rubrick said to Terence, ‘My dear, I hope you can forgive me,’ and Terence, sure now that he loved her, and feeling nothing but pleasure in her heart, kissed him lightly and moved away. They returned tranquilly to Flossie’s interminable reports. It was strange, Terence said, how little troubled they both were at that time by Flossie’s entrance. It seemed then to be quite irrelevant, something to be dismissed impatiently, before the certainty of their attachment. They continued with their employment, Terence said, and Alleyn had a picture of the two of them at work there, sometimes exchanging a brief smile, more often turning the pages of Hansard, or making notes of suitable platitudes for Flossie. An odd affair, he thought.