That’s a nice idea,’ said Season. ‘Carl and Vee won’t be back from the studio tour until later. Can you spare the time?’

Granger grinned. ‘For you, I could spare the rest of the day. Maybe the rest of the month.’

Season lifted her glass. The sun sparkled on the meniscus of the wine. ‘I’ll drink to that,’ she said, with an exaggeratedly flirtatious smile.

*

Morris Hunt, the governor of California, was presiding over an outdoor picnic lunch that afternoon under the shady oaks of Mrs Irwin J. Harris’s garden in Santa Barbara. There was music from a small band on the verandah, all of them dressed in red-striped blazers and 1920s skimmers, and there were more flowers on the ladies’ hats than there were in the flower-beds. Across the immaculate lawns, sprinklers left a rainbow carpet of fresh dew. The picnic cost fifty dollars a plate, in aid of spina bifida children. Nine years ago, Morris Hunt’s own child had been crippled, and finally died, from spina bifida.

A few minutes before Morris Hunt was expected to speak, a harassed-looking aide in a rumpled grey suit came hurrying across the grass and whispered in his ear. Morris Hunt frowned, and asked the aide something which nobody else could hear. The aide whispered in his ear again. Morris Hunt leaned over towards Mrs Irwin J. Harris, a strawberry-blonde lady in a huge fruit-bedecked hat, and it was clear that he was making his apologies.

Inside the house, under an oil painting of the late Irwin J. Harris himself, the telephone was waiting on a polished walnut table. Morris Hunt, a dark-haired, serious-looking man of forty-five, with a striking resemblance to Douglas Fairbanks Junior, picked up the receiver and said, ‘Morris here. What’s wrong, Walter?’

It was Walter Oppenheim, the chairman of the State Agricultural Committee, calling from Sacramento. He sounded breathless and harassed.

‘Morris, I’ve got some real disturbing news. I told my staff yesterday to call on every fruit and vegetable producer of any reasonable size throughout the state, just to check how they were coping with the blight The news is, it’s very bad. The report was completed ten minutes ago, and believe me, Morris, we’re going to lose eighty per cent of our produce this year unless we can halt this blight by the end of next week. It’s spreading so damned fast! One day there’s a field of lettuce, and the next day there’s nothing but brown splotches.’

‘Walter, I don’t believe what I’m hearing,’ said Morris Hunt. ‘Yesterday everybody was full of optimism. Oh, we might lose a quarter of our produce at the very worst! What’s happened since then?’