‘But a loader, perhaps?’

My riposte was swift as light.

‘I usually drink a glass of bottled beer at about this time,’ I said, and went out to the kitchen to fetch it.

Back in the drawing-room I noticed a large, ill-assembled man in a blue suit fidgeting on the edge of an upright chair. His head was many sizes too small for his great frame but his hands made up for it; they were like shovels. He proved to be the Centenier, one Hyacinthe le Mignone, and he shook hands with great gentleness, like a man who is afraid of breaking things. His voice was just such a melancholy, long, withdrawing roar as Matthew Arnold used to delight in.

The conference had barely begun, only civilities and things had hitherto been exchanged. The Centenier began to utter.

‘Well, Mr Breakspear,’ he roared, ‘I ’aven’t yet turned up anything you could call a positive lead. We ’ave only two known sex-offenders worth the name in this Parish and neither of them seems to fit the bill. One of them has a diseased mind all right, eh? but ’is modus operandi is quite unlike that what your lady has related. ’E is chiefly interested in little girls’ bicycle-saddles which we reckon a ’armless hobby for an ageing man, though we keep a sharp eye on ’im, eh? ’E did indeed once coax a liddle lass into a daffodil field but as soon as ’e started getting above ’imself she stuck ’er finger in ’is eye and run and told ’er father, who ’appened to be the Vingtenier and ’urt the old man real nasty; I don’t reckon ’e’ll try that again, eh?’

This was entrancing stuff, it made me wish that I were a novelist.

‘The other one is just a kid of fifteen or so. ’E ’as bin blessed with an unusually large member, which ’e cannot resist showing to respectable women once in a while, eh? None of them ’as ever made a complaint but the boy always comes to me and confesses and tries to wag it at me – says ’e wants me to understand!’

‘And do you look?’ I asked, with a straight face.

‘My Chri’ no. I tell ’im to show it to the College of Surgeons and give ’im a kick up the arse, eh? I probably seen better anyway,’ he added with a betraying modesty.