That one of them had said his name ‘Steerpike’ would ‘do’ had interested him. Did it imply that they wished to see more of him? That would simplify matters considerably.

His old trick of shameless flattery seemed to him the best line to take at this critical stage. Later on, he would see. But it was another remark that had appealed to his opportunist sense even more keenly, and that was the reference to Lady Groan.

These ridiculous twins had apparently a grievance, and the object of it was the Countess. This when examined further might lead in many directions. Steerpike was beginning to enjoy himself in his own dry, bloodless way.

Suddenly as in a flash he remembered two tiny figures the size of halma players, dressed in the same crude purple. Directly he had seen them enter the room an echo was awakened somewhere in his subconscious, and although he had put it aside as irrelevant to the present requirements, it now came back with redoubled force and he recalled where he had seen the two minute replicas of the twins.

He had seen them across a great space of air and across a distance of towers and high walls. He had seen them upon the lateral trunk of a dead tree in the summer, a tree that grew out at right angles from a high and windowless wall.

Now he realized why they had said ‘Our Tree that grows from the wall that is so much more important than anything Gertrude has.’ But then Clarice had added: ‘But she steals our birds.’ What did that imply? He had, of course, often watched the Countess from points of vantage with her birds or her white cats. That was something he must investigate further. Nothing must be let fall from his mind unless it were first turned to and fro and proved to be useless.

Steerpike bent forward, the tips of his fingers together. ‘Your Ladyships,’ he said, ‘are you enamoured of the feathered tribe? – Their beaks, their feathers, and the way they fly?’

‘What?’ said Cora.

‘Are you in love with birds, your Ladyships?’ repeated Steerpike, more simply.

‘What?’ said Clarice.

Steerpike hugged himself inside. If they could be as stupid as this, he could surely do anything he liked with them.

‘Birds,’ he said more loudly; ‘do you like them?’

‘What birds?’ said Cora. ‘What do you want to know for?’

‘We weren’t talking about birds,’ said Clarice unexpectedly.

‘We hate them.’

‘They’re such silly things,’ Cora ended.

‘Silly and stupid; we hate them,’ said Clarice.

‘Avis, avis, you are undone, undone!’ came Prunesquallor’s voice. ‘Your day is over. Oh, ye hordes of heaven! the treetops shall be emptied of their chorus and only clouds ride over the blue heaven.’

Prunesquallor leaned forward and tapped Irma on the knee.

‘Pretty pleasing,’ he said, and showed her all his brilliant teeth together. ‘What did you think, my riotous one?’