“Poetic justice,” said Liesl.

“What you please. Though it doesn’t look poetic in action; it’s rough and tough and deeply satisfying. And I don’t administer it. Something else—something I don’t understand, but feel and serve and fear—does that. It’s sometimes horrible to watch, as it was when my poor, dear old master, Sir John, was brought down by his own vanity, and Milady went with him, though I think she knew what the truth was. But part of the glory and terror of our life is that somehow, at some time, we get all that’s coming to us. Everybody gets their lumps and their bouquets and it goes on for quite a while after death.

“So—here was a situation when it was clear to me that the Great Justice had called the name of Boy Staunton. Was it for me to hold him back?

“And to be frank why would I? You remember what was said in your room that night, Dunny. You’re the historian: surely you remember everything important? What did I say to Boy when he offered me a lift in his car?”

I couldn’t remember. That night I had been too overwrought myself by the memories of Mary Dempster to take note of social conversation.

“You don’t remember? I do: I said—‘What Ramsay tells me puts you in my debt for eighty days in Paradise, if for nothing in this life. We shall call it quits if you will drive me to my hotel.”

“Eighty days in Paradise?”

“I was born eighty days before my time. Poor little Paul. Popular opinion is very rough on foetuses these days. Horrid little nuisances. Rip ’em out and throw them in the trash pail. But who knows what they feel about it? The depth psychologists Liesl is so fond of think they have a very jolly time in the womb. Warm, protected, bouncing gently in their beautiful grotto light. Perhaps it is the best existence we ever know, unless there is something equally splendid for us after death—and why not? That earliest life is what every humanitarian movement and Welfare State seeks to restore, without a hope of success. And Boy Staunton, by a single mean-spirited action, robbed me of eighty days of that princely splendour. Was I the man to fret about the end of his life when he had been so cavalier about the beginning of mine?”

“Oh, Magnus, that’s terribly unjust.”

“As this world’s justice goes, perhaps. But what about the Greater Justice?”

“I see. Yes, I really do see. So you let him dree his weird?”

“You’re getting really old, Dunny. You’re beginning to dredge up expressions from your Scotch childhood. But it says it all. Yes, I let him dree his weird.”

“I can very well understand,” I said, “that you wouldn’t have got far explaining that to the police.”

Liesl laughed, and threw her empty brandy balloon against the farthest wall. It made a fine costly crash.

(2)

“Ramsay.”

“Liesl! How kind of you to come to see me.”