‘Wireless?’ suggested Georgie.

‘It had been completely smashed up by the dreadful gale the day before. We drifted about in the fog for two days, and when it cleared and they could take the sun again – a nautical expression, Georgie – we were somewhere off the coast of Devonshire. The Captain promised to hail any passing vessel bound for England that he saw, but he didn’t see any. So he continued his course to the Gallagher Banks, which is about as far from Ireland as it is from America, and there we were for two months. Cod, cod, cod, nothing but cod, and Elizabeth snoring all night in the cabin we shared together. Bitterly cold very often: how glad I was that I knew so many callisthenic exercises! I shall tell you all about that time at my lecture. Then we found that there was a Tilling trawler on the bank, and when it was ready to start home we trans-shipped – they call it – and got back, as you know, this morning. That’s the skeleton.’

‘It’s the most wonderful skeleton I ever heard,’ said Georgie. ‘Do write your lecture quick.’

Lucia fixed Georgie with her gimlet eye. It had lost none of its penetrative power by being so long at sea.

‘Now it’s your turn for a little,’ she said. ‘I expect I know rather more than you think. First about that memorial service.’

‘Oh, do you know about that?’ he asked.

‘Certainly. I found the copy of the Parish Magazine waiting for me, and read it in bed. I consider it to have been very premature. You attended it, I think.’

‘We all did,’ said Georgie. ‘And after all, the Padre said extremely nice things about you.’

‘I felt very much flattered. But all the same it was too early. And you and Major Benjy were chief mourners.’

Georgie considered for a moment.

‘I’m going to make a clean breast of it,’ he said. ‘You told me you had left me Grebe, and a small sum of money, and your lawyer told me what that meant. My dear, I was too touched, and naturally, it was proper that I should be chief mourner. It was the same with Major Benjy. He had seen Elizabeth’s will, so there we were.’

Suddenly an irresistible curiosity seized him.

‘Major Benjy hasn’t been seen all day,’ he said. ‘Do tell me what happened this morning at Mallards. You only said on the telephone that he had just gone home.’

‘Yes, bag and baggage,’ said Lucia. ‘At least he went first and his bag and baggage followed. Socks and things, you saw some of them on the top step. Elizabeth was mad with rage, a perfect fishwife. So suitable after coming back from the Gallagher Banks. But tell me more. What was the next thing after the memorial service?’