This morning as I made my way up the stairs to my form room, I wondered—with some small apprehension—what the coming term might bring. So many things have changed since last year; so many colleagues reshuffled, or gone. Bishop; Pearman; Grachvogel; the Head—and, of course, our own Miss Dare. I could have been among them—in fact, I fully intended to retire, but for the state of the dear old place, and the gnawing conviction that the moment I left, Bob Strange would delete my subject from the curriculum.

Besides, what would I do without the perpetual soap opera of St. Oswald’s to sustain me? And my boys—my Brodie Boys—who else but I could look after them?

The scent reached me as I opened the door. “Eau de Room 59,” a blend so familiar that for ten months a year I barely notice its presence. And yet here it is again, as nostalgic as burning leaves; a comforting scent of wood, books, polish, geranium, mice, old socks, and perhaps a hint of illicit Gauloise. I lit one in celebration, knowing that when Dr. Sourgrape Devine—Head of German, Head of Amadeus House, and (more’s the pity) Health and Safety Officer to St. Oswald’s and the world—made his entrance, such luxuries as a quiet smoke, a pasty, or even a licorice allsort (of which I have a small supply hidden in my desk drawer) would be once more forbidden to me.

Speak of the devil. Damn and blast. He must have got in early this morning, because I’d barely blown out the match when I heard a sound of footsteps at my door and glimpsed the end of Devine’s sharp nose behind the panel of frosted glass.

“Morning, Devine!” I disposed of match and cigarette under the lid of the Master’s desk.

“Morning, Straitley.” The nose twitched, but refrained from comment.

“Good holiday?”

“Yes, thank you.” He and I both know that Dr. Devine hates holidays. On the other hand, as a married man, he has, I suppose, some responsibility to Mrs. Devine, and so grudgingly, once a year, he packs off to the French Riviera and spends two weeks planning lessons in the shade while his wife—a well-preserved fifty—sunbathes, plays tennis, and goes to the spa. “And you?”

“Oh yes. Great fun. Been here long?”

“Been coming in since last week,” he said, with a casualness that filled me with suspicion. “Things to do. You know what it’s like.”