“I didn’t mean you to get quite so serious about it, it’s not exactly a major . . . well, now I come to think about it I suppose it probably is a major character flaw. What are you doing?”

“Oh, just making a note. Odd thing about being a private detective—you spend your time finding out little things about other people that nobody else knows, but then you discover that there are all sorts of things that everybody else knows about you, which you don’t. For instance, did you know that I walk in an odd way? A kind of strutting waddle, someone described it as.”

“Yes, of course I do. Everybody who knows you knows that.”

“Except me, you see,” said Dirk. “Now that I know I’ve been trying to catch myself at it as I walk past shop windows. Doesn’t work, of course. All I ever see is myself frozen mid-stride with one foot in the air and gaping like a fish. Anyway, I’m drawing up a little list, to which I have now added, ‘Am always extremely rude and pompous to attractive women.’ ”

Dirk stood and looked at the note for a second or two.

“You know,” he said, thoughtfully, “that could explain an astonishing number of things.”

“Oh come on,” said Kate. “You’re taking this a bit literally. I just meant I’ve noticed that when you’re not feeling good, or you’re on the spot in some way, you tend to get defensive, and that’s when you . . . are you writing all this down as well?”

“Of course. It’s all useful stuff. I might end up mounting a full-scale investigation into myself. Damn all else to do at the moment.”

“No work?”

“No,” said Dirk, gloomily.

Kate tried to give him a shrewd look, but he was staring out of the window.

“And is the fact that you don’t have any work connected in any way to the fact that you were very rude to an attractive woman?”

“Just barging in like that,” muttered Dirk, half to himself.

“Don’t tell me,” said Kate. “She wanted you to look for a lost cat.”

“Oh no,” said Dirk. “Not even as grand as that. Gone are the days when I used to have entire cats to look for.”

“What do you mean?”

Dirk described the cat. “See what I have to contend with?” he added.

Kate stared at him.

“You’re not serious.”

“I am,” he said.

“Half a cat?”

“Yes. Just the back half.”

“I thought you said the front half . . .”

“No, she’d got that. That was there, all right. She only wanted me to look for the back half.” He stared thoughtfully at London from over the raised rim of his china teacup.

Kate looked at him suspiciously.

“But isn’t that . . .” she said, “. . . very, very, very weird?”

Dirk turned and faced her.