George drew the same as Sam because, as the Deputy Bailiff pointed out, he had a fine military record. He was on the point of sitting down when the Deputy Bailiff, displaying a sense of timing that Mohammed Ali would have envied, hit him with another hundred and fifty quid for the motor-insurance offence.

Outside, in Royal Square, Solly congratulated me.

‘You did very well. I was proud of you. And the Deputy Bailiff was very gentle.’

‘Gentle?’

‘Lord, yes. You should hear him telling off one of us lawyers if we put a foot wrong. Makes one feel like a Labour MP caught soliciting in a public lavatory. Which reminds me, what does one do with a toad?’

‘A toad?’ I squeaked.

‘Well, it could be a frog, I suppose. Sort of brown, warty thing.’

‘That’s a toad.’

‘Yes, well, it arrived this morning and my secretary can’t get it to eat. Offered it bread and jam, all sorts of things. Fussy little beast.’

‘When you say “arrived” …?’

‘In a cigar-box. Also enclosed was a piece of lavatory paper, inscribed with the word “Mortdecai”. Er, it was used lavatory paper.’

I became glad that I had eaten so sparingly at luncheon. Pulling myself together, I said:

‘A ribald pun, simply, I should think. On the word crapaud, you see.’

‘I see,’ he said; but he gave me an odd look.

* * *

Sam and I dined early, at George’s house, then made our selection of women to be protected that night and started to place telephone calls. We were quite unprepared for the stiff hostility with which our suggestions were met; we were, it seemed, social lepers. The first two people we spoke to said, with no attempt at plausibility, that they were otherwise engaged; the third put the receiver down in a marked manner as soon as she heard our names; the fourth said that her husband could look after her perfectly adequately, thank you very much; the fifth said that if we telephoned again she would inform the police. Only the last, a gin-sodden, lust-crazed poetess welcomed our proposal – and her tones made it clear that she had it in mind to do a bit of raping on her own account.

We looked at each other blankly. The telephone rang.

‘It’s for you, Charlie. Johanna.’

‘Charlie,’ she said in honeyed tones, ‘you may care to know that my bridge-party tonight is off. Yes, off. Lady Pickersgill has telephoned to say that she has a bad cold. So has Lady Cortances. So has Mrs ffrench-Partridge. I hope you are proud of yourself.’

‘Gosh, Johanna, I can’t tell you how sorry …’