But there was no question of their being followed for long. George, a sedate and careful driver as a rule, had the itch common to all chauffeurs – he wanted to find out just how fast the car could go. It was almost new. He had run in the engine carefully and with love. The car was spoiling for a test. He passed other vehicles as though they were standing still, and, apart from his passage through towns, did not slow up until he reached Esher hill. From there, steady and unspectacular progress brought the car into Kingston, from thence to Richmond, and so home.

Mrs Bradley went to bed at just before midnight. She lay awake for half an hour and then passed into her usual refreshing but hair-trigger slumber. She was awakened by a sound so slight that less keen ears, or a sleeper less accustomed to wake easily, would not have detected it.

The sound came from the narrow, iron-railed verandah which decorated the first floor of the tall, old house. Mrs Bradley stretched out a claw-like hand and pressed the starting-knob of the radio-gramophone which she had installed as a burglar alarm some months previously.

There was a slight whirring sound from the apparatus, and then the most unearthly sound of seven dogs barking at once. She had never had occasion to use this record before, but there was no doubt of its efficacy now. There was a crash, then came cries and shouts from her rudely awakened servants, and the sound of feet on the staircase. Her French cook, Henri, forewarned, came bounding in, flourishing his carving knife. There followed a Gallic screaming from his wife. This was Mrs Bradley’s French maid, who, previously rehearsed, was issuing commands and injunctions to the ghostly and intangible dogs.

Mrs Bradley switched off the radiogram and switched on the light. The bedroom curtain stirred a little more freely than usual. She suggested to Henri that he should descend to the area to find out whether anyone was hurt. She herself dressed quickly and went into the tiny front garden to reassure the neighbourhood.

Henri, threatening a fallen man with the carving knife, was blowing vigorously at the same time on a police whistle. To his subsequent disgust, his employer, having accepted a statement from the injured man, poured a glass of gin over the fellow’s waistcoat and explained him to the police as being drunk and having fallen down her area steps. She added that he was a guest and that he was still on enclosed premises.

‘He can’t do much more harm at present,’ she said, in response to Henri’s lamentations that the man was not to be charged. ‘I have another enemy who already has more than an idea, I fancy, that I am on his track. But you are a brave man, Henri, and I value your services beyond rubies.’