On the day after Mr Parker Pyne’s arrival, Mrs Chester made a few conventional remarks to him on the subject of the view and the likelihood of the weather keeping fine. She then chatted a little with the German lady about knitting, and had a few pleasant words about the sadness of the political situation with two Danish gentlemen who spent their time rising at dawn and walking for eleven hours.

Mr Parker Pyne found Basil Chester a most likeable young man. He called Mr Parker Pyne ‘sir’ and listened most politely to anything the older man said. Sometimes the three English people had coffee together after dinner in the evening. After the third day, Basil left the party after ten minutes or so and Mr Parker Pyne was left tête-a`-tête with Mrs Chester.

They talked about flowers and the growing of them, of the lamentable state of the English pound and of how expensive France had become, and of the difficulty of getting good afternoon tea.

Every evening when her son departed, Mr Parker Pyne saw the quickly concealed tremor of her lips, but immediately she recovered and discoursed pleasantly on the above-mentioned subjects.

Little by little she began to talk of Basil–of how well he had done at school–‘he was in the First XI, you know’–of how everyone liked him, of how proud his father would have been of the boy had he lived, of how thankful she had been that Basil had never been ‘wild’. ‘Of course I always urge him to be with young people, but he really seems to prefer being with me.’

She said it with a kind of nice modest pleasure in the fact.

But for once Mr Parker Pyne did not make the usual tactful response he could usually achieve so easily. He said instead:

‘Oh! well, there seem to be plenty of young people here–not in the hotel, but round about.’

At that, he noticed, Mrs Chester stiffened. She said: Of course there were a lot of artists. Perhaps she was very old-fashioned–real art, of course, was different, but a lot of young people just made that sort of thing an excuse for lounging about and doing nothing–and the girls drank a lot too much.

On the following day Basil said to Mr Parker Pyne:

‘I’m awfully glad you turned up here, sir–especially for my mother’s sake. She likes having you to talk to in the evenings.’

‘What did you do when you were first here?’

‘As a matter of fact we used to play piquet.’

‘I see.’

‘Of course one gets rather tired of piquet. As a matter of fact I’ve got some friends here–frightfully cheery crowd. I don’t really think my mother approves of them–’ He laughed as though he felt this ought to be amusing. ‘The mater’s very old-fashioned…Even girls in trousers shock her!’

‘Quite so,’ said Mr Parker Pyne.