Dickie groped for an answer. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I never fought you’d want ter see it.’ He picked up his tale triumphantly. ‘I posted it straight back to ’er married sister. Asked ’er to talk to ’er, I did.’ His eyes shone happily. He felt like a boxer who had fought his way out of a corner in which he was being pummelled; he was beginning to enjoy this.

There was a hint of admiration in Major Norman’s gaze now. He, too, was a man able to enjoy the battle for its own sake.

Major Norman clasped his hands in front of his mouth and gnawed both thumbnails at once. ‘It’s rather a coincidence, isn’t it,’ he remarked, ‘that this tragedy should occur on the eve of Easter?’ He awaited Dickie’s reply with the sympathetic interest of a man watching a star batsman performing.

Dickie was in his stride now. He came back without a second’s hesitation. ‘I give ’er all me money ter look after,’ he said solemnly. ‘She’ll go an’ do it all in over the ’olidays if I don’t get up there.’

Major Norman throttled an impulse to shout, ‘Bravo!’ Instead he commented sadly, ‘You know, Crawford, I’m very sorry for you. Very sorry indeed. But I can only grant compassionate leave if it’s a matter of life and death affecting some close relative. That hardly applies in this case, does it?’

‘Oh yes, sir. It does, sir.’ In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Dickie. ‘Me muvver. She’s got a weak ’eart. It’ll be the death of ’er if she ’ears about this.’ A note of emotion crept into his voice. ‘You jus’ think of it, sir. Me waitin’ ter go over the water an’ fight, maybe never come back. An’ ’er dyin’ of worry.’

This time he grinned shamelessly at the major. Somehow an understanding had been established between them. Dickie knew that the major knew he was lying; he also knew that the major did not care; and the major knew that Dickie knew he knew; and he did not care.

As two gladiators might once have fought to the death without reason and without rancour, so Dickie Crawford and Major Norman returned to the fray.

‘We’ll have to verify your story,’ said the Major. ‘Of course,’ he added, with the gentlest touch of malice, ‘that’s easily done. I’ll wire your local police station. They’ll send a man round to check up on the facts. It’s the usual thing, you know.’