I spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon in Harry Vilbert’s room in the Museum. He had been waiting for me when the motor launch had returned, and with the help of the harbour master had got me out of the boat, up on to the wharf, through the small crowd of tourists who had gathered in the hope of seeing something that would at last make their holiday memorable, and into his office. He then propped me up with cushions in an old armchair, drew the curtains, and closed the Museum. I have no personal recollection of any of this. I am just going on what Harry told me. Apparently he arranged for breakfast to be brought to me, brewed me endless cups of tea, and even sent out for half a bottle of brandy. For all I know he might also have muttered incantations over me, rubbed my limbs with strange unguents, and fed me with an extraction of newts’ eyes. I was in no condition to refuse anything. It’s certain that he bound some kind of herbal coronet around my temples, because I found bits of leaves and split ends of stalks in my hair later, when I went home and bathed. I realize that I should be grateful to him. He looked after me. He watched over me. For several hours he never left my side. If it had not been for him I might have done something drastic. I owe him, and I should be grateful. But it’s not easy.

You see, he was the one that was there when – hard as it is to recover one’s senses in a room lined with wall charts illustrating the life cycles of the common, the native, and the exotic wart – I nonetheless did recover my senses, sufficiently at least to remember who I was, what had happened, and how many responsibilities now lay before me. He was the one who listened quietly and poured me brandy while I talked about police and coroners and having to break the news to Camilla’s parents. And he – Harry – was the one who waited until I declared myself well enough to leave him, until I was out in the harbour even, shading my eyes from the light and feebly shaking his hand in gratitude – Harry let me go that far, before fishing inside his denim jacket and handing me a small manilla envelope – a business envelope – which I could see immediately was addressed to me.

I stared at him in stupefaction. ‘What’s this?’ I asked him.

But he didn’t want to discuss it. He was half inside the Museum by the time my fingers had closed on what he’d handed me. I had literally to drag him back out.