‘I was telling Mr Pillson he must certainly see over it first,’ said Mrs Wyse. ‘There are the keys of the cottage in my boudoir, if you’ll kindly fetch them, Algernon. And the Royce is at the door, I see, so if Mrs Lucas will allow us, we will all drive up there together, and show her and Mr Pillson what there is.’

While Algernon was gone, Mrs Wyse picked up the photograph signed Amelia Faraglione.

‘You recognise, no doubt, the family likeness,’ she said to Lucia. ‘My husband’s sister Amelia who married the Conte di Faraglione, of the old Neapolitan nobility. That is he.’

‘Charming,’ said Lucia. ‘And so like Mr Wyse. And that Order? What is that?’

Mrs Wyse hastily shut the morocco box.

‘So like servants to leave that about,’ she said. ‘But they seem proud of it. Graciously bestowed upon me. Member of the British Empire. Ah, here is Algernon with the keys. I was showing Mrs Lucas, dear, the photograph of Amelia. She recognised the likeness at once. Now let us all pack in. A warm morning, is it not? I don’t think I shall need my furs.’

The total distance to be traversed was not more than a hundred yards, but Porpoise Street was very steep, and the cobbles which must be crossed very unpleasant to walk on, so Mrs Wyse explained. They had to wait some little while at the corner, twenty yards away from where they started, for a van was coming down the street from the direction of Mallards, and the Royce could not possibly pass it, and then they came under fire of the windows of Miss Mapp’s garden-room. As usual at this hour she was sitting there with the morning paper in her hand in which she could immerse herself if anybody passed whom she did not wish to see, but was otherwise intent on the movements of the street.

Diva Plaistow had looked in with the news that she had seen Lucia and Georgie at the house agents’, and that her canary still lived. Miss Mapp professed her delight to hear about the canary, but was secretly distrustful of whether Diva had seen the visitors or not. Diva was so imaginative; to have seen a man and a woman who were strangers was quite enough to make her believe she had seen Them. Then the Royce heaved into sight round the corner below, and Miss Mapp became much excited.

‘I think, Diva,’ she said, ‘that this is Mrs Lucas’ beautiful car coming. Probably she is going to call on me about something she wants to know. If you sit at the piano you will see her as she gets out. Then we shall know whether you really –’