“You have a truly wonderful view here, Mr Barclay.”

“Wilf, please, as before. Yes, I’m finding it difficult to look at anything else.”

Defeated by holiness, the medieval illuminators stood their saints in a world of gold; then later, as perhaps—vision—became more selective, set a saintly head against an aureole. Beauty too, I think; which was what the old men saw as they sat on the wall, their voices thin and dry as the stridulation of crickets.

“Truly inspirational.”

“My God, yes. There aren’t any words.”

“Reminds me.” She unzipped her little handbag. Put back her hair with the flow of one forearm then took out an envelope. “Rick said to give you this.”

“What is it?”

There was a change of colour in her face, very slight—but then everything about her seemed suggestion rather than fact. Perhaps she didn’t exist at all but was a phantom of absolute beauty like the false Helen who caused all that pain to seek her through the world.

“Rick said to give it you.”

“May I?”

There was another smaller envelope inside it, which had a note wrapped round, Gone prospecting for our walk tomorrow. Hope Mary Lou has more luck than I did. Rick.

I glanced at Mary Lou, who had her head turned away. She was looking at the view, of course, her hands grasping the arms of her chair not quite gracefully. I opened the inner envelope. It contained a sheet of hotel stationery with a sentence or two typed on it, appointing Assistant Professor Rick L. Tucker of the University of Astrakhan, Nebraska, as literary executor and giving him such access as he might require to the papers currently in the care of Mrs Elizabeth Capstone Bowers. My name was typed at the bottom with a space above it for my signature.

I looked at Mary Lou again.

“You don’t know what this is?”

She answered in what can only be called a tiny voice.

“Rick said to give it you.”

Avoiding the lie direct, poor girl. It might be so. Probably she loathed me and the whole situation. It was an unfair loathing, for I had tried to get away and been followed to the Weisswald.

“Tell me, Mary Lou. What do you want for Rick?”

Mary Lou thought; or rather, she tried to think. The effort produced a slight corrugation in her lovely forehead, no more.

“Oh come! You must have some idea!”

“Whatever he wants, I guess.”

“Full professor? A chair? Books? Television appearances? Fame? Wealth? Maybe something in or from—I don’t know how these things work—the Library of Congress?”

“I—”

“Yes?”

“Wouldn’t you like some coffee, Mr Barclay? Cream? Sugar?”

“Just black. Wilf, please. Look, I’ll put it another way. Have you any idea at all why Rick latched on to me? You see, writers are ten a penny. A hundred a penny. There are probably more writers than there are professors, seeing that some of each are also the other. Come, no flattery. I want the cold, honest truth.”