To his surprise the windows of the taxi were lit up as if in answer. He peered across, shading the pane with his hand. The taxi’s fare was a solitary man in a dinner-jacket. He sat with his hands resting on the knob of a stick. His silk hat was worn at a slight angle, revealing a clear-cut and singularly handsome profile. It was an intelligent and well-bred face, with a straight nose, firm mouth and dark eyes. The man did not turn his head, and while Sir Derek O’Callaghan still watched him, the ranks of cars moved on and the taxi was left behind.

“That’s someone I know,” thought O’Callaghan with a kind of languid surprise. He tried for a moment to place this individual, but it was too much bother. He gave it up. In a few minutes his chauffeur pulled up outside his own house in Catherine Street and opened the door of the car.

The Home Secretary got out slowly and toiled up the steps. His butler let him in. While he was still in the hall his wife came downstairs. He stood and contemplated her without speaking.

“Well, Derek,” she said.

“Hullo, Cicely.”

She stood at the foot of the stairs and watched him composedly.

“You’re late,” she observed after a moment.

“Am I? I suppose I am. Those fellows jawed and jawed. Do you mind if I don’t change? I’m tired.”

“Of course not. There’s only Ruth dining.”

He grimaced.

“I really can’t help it if your sister likes to see you occasionally,” remarked Lady O’Callaghan tranquilly.

“All right,” said her husband wearily. “All right.”

He glanced at her inimically and thought how tiresomely good-looking she was. Always so perfectly groomed, so admirably gowned, so maddeningly remote. Their very embraces were masked in a chilly patina of good form. Occasionally he had the feeling that she rather disliked him but as a rule he had no feeling about her at all. He supposed he had married her in a brief wave of enthusiasm for polar exploration. There had been no children. Just as well since there was a taint of insanity in his own family. He supposed he was all right himself. His wife would have brought out any traces of it, he reflected sardonically. Cicely was an acid test for normality.

She walked away from him towards the drawing-room. At the door she paused for a moment to ask:

“Have you been worried at all by that pain today?”

“Oh, yes,” said O’Callaghan.

“What a bore it is,” she murmured vaguely, and went into the drawing-room.