‘Just something that caught my eye,’ she said. ‘Righty ho, dear! Home John and don’t spare the horses.’ On their return journey she exclaimed repeatedly on the subject of the children’s ringworm. She held the collar of her fur coat across her mouth and her voice sounded unreal behind it. ‘Is it tough, or is it tough? That poor kid Panty. All over her head, and her hair’s her one beauty, you might say.’

‘You and Panty are rather by way of being friends, aren’t you?’ said Troy.

‘She’s a terrible kiddy, really. You know. The things she does! Well! Scribbling across Noddy’s mirror with a lake-liner and such a common way to put it, whatever she thought. A few more little cracks like that and she’ll cook her goose if she only knew it. The mother’s wild about it, naturally. Did you know the kid’s favourite in the Will? She won’t hold that role down much longer if she lets her sense of comedy run away with her. And then the way she put that paint on your bannister! I call it the limit.’

Troy stared at her. ‘How did you know about that?’

A spasm of coughing shook her companion, ‘I was crazy,’ gasped the muffled voice, ‘to came out in this lousy fog. Might have known. Pardon me, like a ducks, if I don’t talk.’

‘Did Panty tell you?’ Troy persisted. ‘I haven’t told anyone. Did she actually tell you she did it?’

A violent paroxysm prevented Miss Orrincourt from speaking, but with her lovely and enormous eyes fixed on Troy and still clasping her fur collar over the lower part of her face, she nodded three times.

‘I’d never have believed it,’ said Troy slowly. ‘Never.’

Miss Orrincourt’s shoulders quivered and shook. ‘For all the world,’ Troy thought suddenly, ‘as if she was laughing.’

CHAPTER SIX

Paint