Then I saw a huge building that seemed to me to stand in the park itself, or right on its very edge. In actual fact, there was an avenue running along the boundary of the park, and a house had been built on it. It reminded me most of all of the finest examples of architecture from the Stalinist period—there were even statues on the cornice under the roof, only I couldn’t make out who exactly they represented: mythological characters, maybe, or important British cultural or political figures, or representatives of the various peoples of Britain. To judge from the cars parked by the building it was inhabited by people with millions in their bank accounts.

But the GPS led me further along the avenue.

So did he really live in a little shack, then?

“Straight ahead, milord,” said the GPS. “We’re arriving now, milord.”

I halted in bewilderment. There in front of me was an old church. Well, maybe not a church, but something ecclesiastical—an abbey, or a monastic building, constructed in a strange architectural style, with two wings, like a country-estate house but quite clearly some kind of religious edifice.

“To the right, milord.”

The right wing of the building looked rather different. Well, there were the same moss-covered walls, stained-glass windows, and tall, carved wooden doors. But it was a dwelling house. Or, rather, the residential section of the abbey or church.

Well, and why not, if I thought about it? Especially in England. If there’d been a church here it would have had a house for a priest—or, rather, a vicar. Let God have the church and the people have the house. No services would have been held here for a long, long time, and the vicar’s descendants—stop, could he have had any descendants? Probably he could, vicars weren’t celibate like Catholic priests—they had chosen a different path. And, sooner or later, someone had sold the house to Erasmus. Or perhaps the house had belonged to the Darwin family and he had inherited it.

The door opened just as I walked up to it and stopped, wondering what to do—press the button of the bell, or knock with the heavy bronze knocker. An elderly, fat, gray-haired gentleman in an old-fashioned tweed suit looked at me curiously.

“Mr. Darwin?” I asked.

“Monsieur Antoine?” He had either completely assimilated his image as a Frenchman or he couldn’t quite get used to the idea that I wasn’t a Gaul. But the archaisms had almost completely disappeared from his speech. “Come in. I’ve been waiting for you for ages.”

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I replied automatically.