“Ah. ‘Noses,’ you see. Plural. He’s speaking to a group. To all of us. Inciting us to once again behave as a group. And we both heard with our own ears the original comment about the sugar! Six of us were present when it was made. Ghastly little Syd had decided we were looking at a pile of the best coffee sugar as purveyed by Fortnum & Mason of Piccadilly. Shiny, purple-brown lumps. He’d already licked his forefinger and was going to stick it in and have a taste. It would have killed him, you know! Painfully, over two days.”

“And good riddance!” Oily snorted. “Greedy little blighter! Pity I stopped him.”

“But, as you’ve noted, only one of the group of six men present at that time and place could possibly have written this. Why, after all these years? That’s the puzzle! After twenty years!” he repeated. “Whose life has changed so drastically in that time, who is so discontented, so afraid, that he needs to slash about him with the sword of justice? This isn’t an old comrades’ reunion that’s being planned; it’s a scalpel-wielding on a swollen boil. Have you spoken to any of the others, Oily?”

“Yes. I could only contact two. Ralph and Herbert. Sydney couldn’t come to the phone or write, his wife told me when I finally tracked him down. He’s on his last legs in St. Thomas’s hospital in London. They’ve given up on him and he’s being moved out tomorrow into some nursing home where he can fade away peacefully.”

“What’s his problem?”

“She didn’t say. She—her name’s Grace—has one of those posho-plum-in-the-mouth voices . . . Lord knows why she married Syd, who was as common as muck. Wasn’t prepared to share much with a stranger on the phone. I had to get the information by devious means. It turns out that old Syd has succumbed to tuberculosis. The lady wasn’t exaggerating the seriousness of his state—he’s not expected to see the month out.”

“I’ll cross him off my list, then. I shan’t be sending flowers. So—Ralph and Herbert? What a choice! What did they have to say for themselves?”

“I made time to go and meet both of them. Ralph hasn’t changed. Still talks ten to the dozen. Weighs the odds and comes up trumps. You never did catch a glimpse of the card up his sleeve. He went back up north and got himself a job with a betting shop in Barnsley when he came out of the army. Did well. Prospered, let’s not enquire how, and took over the business. Oh yes, our Ratty is a big noise in Barnsley.”

“Poor Ratty! Poor Barnsley!”