“I don’t really want to part with it,” he said hastily, after this admission. “That’s why I’ve had it so long; it comes in kind of handy, propping up that table, you know. I’ll be in a bit of a difficulty with that table if you decide to take it.”

Finally I bought it for twelve pounds, and consoled myself that it would have cost twice as much in Camden Passage. I wanted to get it home immediately, I was full of such spurious excitement, and he was so stunned by my folly that he said he would take it round for me himself in his van. I watched him loading it: he had just managed to heave it on and was about to set off when light suddenly appeared to dawn. He leaned out of his window with the joy of deduction in every feature and said:

“I know where you’re from, you’re from that new theatre, aren’t you? You’ll be the what-do-you-call it, the property mistress, won’t you? Look, if there’s any more of this old-fashioned stuff I can be helping you with, just you let me know. I’ll get you a card,” and he got out of his cab and rushed back into his back sitting room, and reappeared some time later with an old yellow engraved card. “That’s my firm,” he said. “Look, that’s the name of my firm. E. G. Spode. He was my father. I haven’t had any new cards done for a long time, I never seemed to get around to it, but the address is the same, the name’s the same, that’s the main thing, isn’t it?”

“Oh yes,” I said, “I should have thought that was what mattered most.”

“Well, exactly,” he said, very pleased. “That’s just what I say. Anyway, miss, if there’s anything else you want, just you let me know and I’ll most likely be able to get it for you.”

“I’ll let you know,” I said, and he set off. I walked very slowly homewards. The longer I stayed out, the more chance there was that Wyndham might have come back from London and rung me in my absence. I wondered if Pascal would be very surprised by the delivery of a small marble pillar. When I did get back, it was not Pascal who was round, but David, in a very bad temper and with hair aggressively short.

“What on earth have they done to your hair?” I said mildly, to forestall whatever was coming. He did not reply, naturally, but threw all the vigour of his annoyance with the barber into his opening accusation.