I cut him short. “It isn’t XA 81 we’re worried about.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said. The waiter appeared with the cheeseboard; he looked at it as greedily as if it were the first food he’d seen that day.

He selected a piece of Gorgonzola, then, as the waiter was taking the board away, pointed out a petit Suisse. “Yes,” he said absently, “I’m glad to hear you’re not worried about the XA 81.”

“There was an understanding about KY—”

“KL,” he said, his mouth full. “KL 51.”

“You wrote us last month. Apart from that, your Mr. Mottram himself expressed an interest, a very great interest, not so long ago.”

“But of course. That’s just as it should be. That’s Mr. Mott­ram’s job.” He put sugar on the petit Suisse. “Mr. Mottram’s very interested. Mr. Mottram’s on top of his job. He’s on top of his job because he knows my guiding principle: I appoint a man to a job, then leave him to it. My dogs, you might say, do their own barking. If he’s as interested as you think he is, then you’ll hear from him.”

They were taking their partners for a waltz now, a slow waltz, an old waltz from the days of Carroll Gibbons and the Orpheans. He’d been in a cigarette card series; and Henry Hall and Ambrose and Billy Cotton and Harry Roy who married a princess; I knew all about the dance band leaders in those days. They were music from glamorous places, they sent messages from a world one couldn’t really hope to inhabit.

Wish you were here, the music said, assuring one of the exis­tence of that world, the gayer, richer world of the Café Royal, the Café de Paris, the Savoy, and now I was dining at the Savoy. Carroll Gibbons wasn’t here; but even if he had been, I wasn’t free to join the dancers. I went on arguing with Tiffield; there seemed to be no point in beating about the bush now. But my head had begun to ache and I had a frighteningly sharp pain just be­neath my breastbone; I didn’t, just then, care whether or not he gave me the order for KL 51 and he seemed to know it. He had defeated me; I couldn’t think of any way to get through to him. I didn’t feel any hatred for him; he was too old, he was enjoying his free dinner too much.

Sipping his brandy, he said in a surprisingly disconsolate voice, “I suppose you’ll want to go now.”

“There’s no hurry,” I said.

“I’ll send a car round here tomorrow.”

“There’s not much point in doing that, sir.” I accented the sir; I was tired of the pretence of our being companions.

“Why isn’t there any point in it? Have you forgotten your ap­pointment?”

“Send him my apologies.”

He shook his head slowly.

“Now, we have a mystery. Your father-in-law sends you all the way from Yorkshire to do a job for him. You’re halfway through the job and doing it to everyone’s satisfaction – and then you throw the job up. Why?”