‘There might have been three of us,’ said Denman, with a laugh. ‘I’ve got an old Harlequin costume my wife made me when we were first married for some show or other.’ He paused, looking down on his broad shirt front. ‘I don’t suppose I could get into it now.’

‘No,’ said his wife. ‘You couldn’t get into it now.’

And again her voice said something more than mere words.

She glanced up at the clock.

‘If Molly doesn’t turn up soon, we won’t wait for her.’

But at that moment the girl was announced. She was already wearing her Pierrette dress of white and green, and very charming she looked in it, so Mr Satterthwaite reflected.

She was full of excitement and enthusiasm over the forthcoming performance.

‘I’m getting awfully nervous, though,’ she announced, as they drank coffee after dinner. ‘I know my voice will wobble, and I shall forget the words.’

‘Your voice is very charming,’ said Anna. ‘I should not worry about it if I were you.’

‘Oh, but I do. The other I don’t mind about—the dancing, I mean. That’s sure to go all right. I mean, you can’t go very far wrong with your feet, can you?’

She appealed to Anna, but the older woman did not respond. Instead she said:

‘Sing something now to Mr Satterthwaite. You will find that he will reassure you.’

Molly went over to the piano. Her voice rang out, fresh and tuneful, in an old Irish ballad.

‘Shiela, dark Shiela, what is it that you’re seeing?

What is it that you’re seeing, that you’re seeing in the fire?’

‘I see a lad that loves me—and I see a lad that leaves me,

And a third lad, a Shadow Lad—and he’s the lad that grieves me.’

The song went on. At the end, Mr Satterthwaite nodded vigorous approval.

‘Mrs Denman is right. Your voice is charming. Not, perhaps, very fully trained, but delightfully natural, and with that unstudied quality of youth in it.’

‘That’s right,’ agreed John Denman. ‘You go ahead, Molly, and don’t be downed by stage fright. We’d better be getting over to the Roscheimers now.’

The party separated to don cloaks. It was a glorious night and they proposed to walk over, the house being only a few hundred yards down the road.

Mr Satterthwaite found himself by his friend.

‘It’s an odd thing,’ he said, ‘but that song made me think of you. A third lad—a Shadow Lad—there’s mystery there, and wherever there’s mystery I—well, think of you.’

‘Am I so mysterious?’ smiled Mr Quin.

Mr Satterthwaite nodded vigorously.

‘Yes, indeed. Do you know, until tonight, I had no idea that you were a professional dancer.’

‘Really?’ said Mr Quin.