‘That’s right, dear, we don’ care, do we? Tulips, lady? Lovely tulips.’

Carrying his tulips and with his dispatch-case tucked under his arm, Richard entered Pardoner’s Place and turned right. Three doors along he came to the Pegasus, a bow-fronted Georgian house that had been converted by Octavius Browne into a bookshop. In the window, tilted and open, lay a first edition of Beijer and Duchartre’s Premières Comédies Italiennes. A little farther back, half in shadow, hung a negro marionette, very grand in striped silks. And in the watery depths of the interior Richard could just make out the shapes of the three beautifully polished old chairs, the lovely table and the vertical strata of rows and rows of books. He could see, too, the figure of Anelida Lee moving about among her uncle’s treasure, attended by Hodge, their cat. In the mornings Anelida, when not rehearsing at her club theatre, helped her uncle. She hoped that she was learning to be an actress. Richard, who knew a good deal about it, was convinced that already she was one.

He opened the door and went in.

Anelida had been dusting and wore her black smock, an uncompromising garment. Her hair was tied up in a white scarf. He had time to reflect that there was a particular beauty that most pleased when it was least adorned and that Anelida was possessed of it.

‘Hallo,’ he said. ‘I’ve brought you some tulips. Good morning, Hodge.’ Hodge stared at him briefly, jerked his tail, and walked away.

‘How lovely! But it’s not my birthday.’

‘Never mind. It’s because it’s a nice morning and Mrs Tinker was wearing her straw.’

‘I couldn’t be better pleased,’ said Anelida. ‘Will you wait while I get a pot for them? There’s a green jug.’

She went into a room at the back. He heard a familiar tapping noise on the stairs. Her Uncle Octavius came down, leaning on his black stick. He was a tall man of about sixty-three with a shock of grey hair and a mischievous face. He had a trick of looking at people out of the corners of his eyes as if inviting them to notice what a bad boy he was. He was rather touchy, immensely learned and thin almost to transparency.

‘Good morning, my dear Dakers,’ he said, and seeing the tulips touched one of them with the tip of a bluish finger. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘“Art could not feign more simple grace, Nor Nature take a line away.” How very lovely and so pleasantly uncomplicated by any smell. We have found something for you, by the way. Quite nice and I hope in character, but it may be a little too expensive. You must tell us what you think.”

He opened a parcel on his desk and stood aside for Richard to look at the contents.