Tommy knocked heavily with the iron knocker. They could hear the hollow echo of the knocking inside the house. No answer.

“This building must be tremendously old,” said Earle, in his polite, formal way—so that they all laughed.

“Come away, Tommy,” said Anne, laughing.

Tommy, with a smile, knocked four times. A dog began barking somewhere inside.

“Something’s begun to materialise,” said Edward.

“It’s the cry of a haound, Watson!” Maurice did one of his stock impersonations. Edward pulled a dreadful face. A bolt inside the door went off like a pistol-shot, making them all jump. They hadn’t heard footsteps. The door opened five or six inches on the chain. It was Mrs. Compstall, the housekeeper, who’d been taken over temporarily with her husband from Eric when Ramsbotham bought the house. She had her head in a shawl. She didn’t for a moment recognise Tommy.

“What is it?” she asked, her face a blend of aggressiveness and alarm.

“May we come in, Mrs. Compstall?”—Tommy was quite humble now. “I’m afraid it’s rather early.”

She opened the door with a bad grace, muttering an apology, of which was audible only:—“… of course, if we’d been let know.…”

They trooped in, a little awkward. Edward recovered first. As the lights were switched on he looked round and exclaimed:

“Welcome to the Hall!”

Mary caught the look of open dislike with which Mrs. Compstall eyed him. And no wonder. She naturally regarded this surprise visit as an attempt to find her out, to catch her red-handed in some sort of unlawful enterprise—baby-farming or a secret distillery. They all stood round, stale-looking in their motoring things, eyeing the dismantled hall. The daylight paled the lamps. The lamps made the daylight ghastly. The whole house felt damp and draughty and freezingly cold. The furniture looked at that hour like ugly, dirty lumber. Catching sight of herself in a mirror, Mary thought: Oh, God! it’s not half so dirty as my face.

Pamela came into the hall with a shiver and a timid grin. Could she be the same girl who, nine hours earlier, had put her head on Edward’s shoulder? She was a ’cello student at the Royal College.

“Can we have something to eat, please, Mrs. Compstall?” said Tommy, who seemed determined to see this visit through in the right style.

This was almost too much for Mrs. Compstall. She snapped:

“There’s nothing in the house.”

“We can go and get something in the car,” said Maurice, who perhaps thought that he would thus ingratiate himself, “if you’ll tell us what to buy.”

Again Mrs. Compstall was reduced to muttering:

“… couldn’t undertake…”

Tommy surprised them. He was really annoyed. He said:

“In that case, we’d better go.”

There was such unmistakable menace in his tone that Mrs. Compstall admitted:

“There’s eggs. And you could have coffee, if that would be sufficient.”

“That’ll be splendid,” said Edward.

But Tommy turned to Mary, Pamela and Margaret: