She went. She found it. It wasn’t greenish-yellow with long legs, it was brown and naevous and squat.

‘It’s a toad,’ I said.

‘So?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Sod you too.’

‘I think there is no one here,’ I said gently, ‘who would not be the better for a drink.’

Sam got up in a robotical sort of way and started to dish out the liquor; courteously assisted by me, for I feared that, in his distress, I might receive the wrong brand of Scotch, which would have quite spoiled my evening.

We guzzled our drinks silently, respectfully, like distant cousins helping themselves to baked ham after the funeral.

‘Oh, one other thing Violet said,’ said Johanna. We stopped guzzling: Johanna can make most people stop doing most things when she chooses, without even raising her voice. I wonder why that is.

‘Yes, that’s it,’ she went on, ‘she said she recognized the man’s voice.

‘What?’ shouted two of the three of us.

‘Yes.’ Her lovely eyes danced innocently, aimlessly around the room, alighting on everything and everyone except Sam. ‘Well, to be exact, in the midst of some alarming chatter about her mother and so on she suddenly said, “I could tell that voice anywhere, anywhere; I couldn’t be wrong” or something like that.’ She paused; too long.

‘Well, who, for God’s sake?’ George growled at last.

‘She didn’t say. Perhaps she only meant that she would know it again.’

My ensuing silence was puzzled; George’s and Sam’s silences appeared to be merely disgusted, but you never can tell.

Why I was puzzled was because Johanna was using the warm, true, real voice which she only uses when she is lying. Which isn’t often, naturally; with all those looks and all that money, why should she bother?

I had the feeling, intensely, that a lot of complicated reactions were taking place in the room which I wasn’t quite following because I didn’t know what I was looking for. I’m not at all sure that Johanna knew, either, but it was clear to me that she was less at sea than I was. I gave up after a while with a mental ‘heigh-ho’ or two and applied myself to Sam’s Scotch.

Like a good guest, I saw to it that Sam, too, ingested enough of the delicious fluid to ensure him a good night’s rest in spite of everything; then we slunk away.

Johanna went to bed; kissing me but not fondly.

Jock was up, brewing ‘Sergeant-Major’s’ which is the sort of tea you used to relish when coming off guard-duty in a January dawn: it is the cheapest Indian tea boiled-up with sugar and condensed milk. It is not at all like tea as you and I know it but it is very good indeed. I gazed at it longingly.