They saw us out. For a moment they were like ordinary people saying good night to friends who had dropped in for the evening. But they closed the front door rather quickly behind us. The light went off. We waited, taking awhile to get used to the darkness. Through windows in the stairwell a little dull moonlight leaked in. Silver went first. There were two flights to every story and we went down four, bypassing Louis Robinson’s unoccupied flat, then two more to the inhabited part of the house. It was about half past ten by then and all was silent but for the patter of our feet in trainers on the treads, which were, as Andrew said, made of “marble stuff.” If the old people slept upstairs in their two-story apartment they were very likely to be asleep somewhere behind that newly painted black front door. Someone, probably that very day, had polished the brass knocker and letter-box and doorknob so that they shone like eighteen-carat gold. Caught in the letter-box, under the flap, was an envelope.

Silver pulled it out slowly and gently, one finger under the flap lest it slam shut. Why the letter was there, why it hadn’t been properly put into the outside box with the rest of the post, there was no telling. Perhaps it had been wrongly delivered to the man downstairs and he had brought it up here. It was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Nyland, Flat C, 4 Torrington Gardens, Maida Vale, W9, confirming what we already knew.

We pushed it through the door and went on down through the silence. When we were outside and looked back, we saw that no lights were on there or above. The actor was more likely to be out than in bed. We walked home through the streets, both perhaps feeling we’d have been happier and more comfortable fifty feet above. Liv and Judy and Niall were in the living room and Wim had come after an absence of nearly two weeks. Watching him with Liv, I asked myself if he was less detached, if he might even be growing fond of her, for as she pressed herself up close to him on the sofa as she often tried to do, he had his arm around her and let her rest her head on his shoulder. If he was staying, he’d have to share her bed, for Niall now occupied his usual space. Judy announced that she wouldn’t stay the night, she was going home, and I told myself it was wrong to be glad, to hope she’d never come back.