In the end I took her gently to bed and we lay there hand in hand in the dark so that she could cry without my seeing her eyes get puffy and we listened to Le Nozze di Figaro which turned out to be a bad mistake: one forgets that it’s not nearly such a lighthearted piece for people who understand Italian. As Johanna does. When it came to Dove Sono she really broke down and wanted to tell me all about what had happened on that dreadful night. This was too much for me, simply wasn’t up to it; I rushed downstairs and fetched a tray of drinks and we both got a little drunk and then it was better, much better; but we both knew that I had let her down. Again. Well, that’s the price you pay for being a coward. I only wish one could be told exactly how much the instalments are, and when they are likely to fall due. A moral coward, you see, is simply someone who has read the fine print on the back of his Birth Certificate and seen the little clause which says ‘You can’t win’. He knows from then on that the smart thing to do is to run away from everything and he does so. But he doesn’t have to like it.

‘Jock,’ I said the next morning. ‘Mrs Mortdecai will not be down to breakfast.’ I looked at him levelly. He twigged. His good eye crumpled up into a huge wink, which left the glass one – carelessly inserted – leering up at the cornice. Sure enough, he had read my mind and the eggs and bacon, when they arrived, were mounted on delicious fried bread and accompanied by fried potatoes, all quite counter to Johanna’s ‘Standing Order Concerning Mr Mortdecai’s Waistline’. Well, dash it, why should I persecute my waistline; it’s never done me any harm. Yet.

The last fried potato had captured the last runlet of egg-yolk and was about to home in on the Mortdecai waistline when George and Sam appeared. They looked grave and friendly for I too, now, had suffered, I was a member of the club – but they both looked askance at the marmalade and richly-buttered toast which Jock brought in at that moment. Sam never breakfasts and George believes that breakfast is something that gentlemen eat at a quarter past dawn, not at half-past noon.

I waved them to chairs and offered them richly-buttered toast and marmalade. They glanced at it with ill-concealed longing but refused: they were strong; strong.