He was also handicapped by a strong desire to stare round the cottage and to ask Sophia all about herself and the two young men she lived with. He did not like the look of any of them. He deplored their behaviour. He suspected the worst – in many forms. But he did want to know.

‘There have been complaints,’ he began.

‘Who from?’

‘Myself, for one. And many other people living in the Vale. About the noise. Night after night. Until the small hours of the morning. When we should all be getting our rest. Including those who make the noise. Last night it was the same thing over again. Over and over again. The gramophone. And people running up and down stairs. You should tell your two gentlemen friends …’

‘My brothers.’

Mr Pell looked disappointed.

‘Your brothers. Two of them?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your brothers, then,’ he repeated in a tone of flat disbelief, ‘that it causes annoyance. You, I believe, have been away …’

‘Yes.’

‘You were away a week, I think. Did you go far? A holiday, was it?’

It was, thought Sophia bitterly. She quoted to herself: ‘This is a holiday, that was.’

‘I went to France.’

Mr Pell’s face brightened. This was better. This fitted in with what he had suspected.

‘Ah. To Paris?’

‘No. To Boulogne.’

Well, that was more likely than England, anyway. All French places were the same. Gay. Full of licence. Dissipation at home and licence abroad. He glanced stealthily round the cottage in search of empty bottles, and his glance was not unrewarded; Sophia had left them there on purpose.

‘We all feel very strongly about it. A peaceful little community. A village, so to speak. Each dependent upon the other. For peace. For quiet. For mutual benefit.’

‘Yes.’

‘One discordant element, and all suffer. Have you got this house on a long lease?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know? But surely …’

‘No. My brother Antony,’ said Sophia with cold recklessness, ‘arranged all that before he went to prison.’

Mr Pell’s face positively shone. So! He knew it! Licence, dissipation, crime … He had suspected it all, and here it was.

‘Dear, dear, dear … May I ask what for?’

‘Forgery. And my sister Helen. Both of them got ten years. Oh, and a bit extra for blackmail. Eighteen months, I think it was.’

But she had gone too far. Even Mr Pell heard something odd in the ring of her last words. He drew back, looking at her very queerly. He longed to believe, but something warned him not to. Probably the girl was lying … and that in itself was black enough. He coughed loudly, and delicately blew his nose, with one eye turned towards Sophia.

‘I may take it, then, that they will stop?’

‘Who? Helen and Antony? Oh, I’m afraid so …’

‘The parties – the parties,’ said Mr Pell hastily.’ The noise. The gramophone.’

‘We’ll do our best,’ she promised. And because she was a good citizen and secretly suffering shame at the social nuisance caused by the cottage, she added, ‘I’m sorry we’ve been a bother.’