Ryan paused by his desk. “How did you make out, Harry?”

“Fine.” Harry Grant gestured. “It’s all here.”

“You saw her? She talked?”

“Yes.”

“Good boy … How are you writing it?”

“News item – then the back history – then the why and where – then what we think about it.”

Ryan grinned. “What do we think about it?”

Grant stared up at him. “We think it wasn’t her fault,” he said, levelly. “We think she was forced into it. We think she’s OK.”

“Funny thing,” said Ryan. “That’s just what we were thinking … Bring it in when it’s ready.”

Presently the last half-page was pulled from the typewriter, and Harry Grant started to read back what he had written, and to correct it. There was little for him to change: the story had come out smooth, accurate, persuasive, just as he had felt it, just as he had hoped. It was Esther’s whole story – Esther the idol of millions, Esther the dupe and martyr, Esther whom no one could love one whit the less for what she had been made to do.

Then there was a stir at the main door opposite the elevator, and a man – a reporter called Sparrow – came in, walking briskly, almost running, making for the glass enclosure that was Ryan’s office. Harry Grant, still intent on his last few paragraphs, looked at him briefly as he approached and drew level. Opposite his desk, not stopping, Sparrow called out something from the corner of his mouth. It was a single sentence: it sounded like: “Your girlfriend’s dead.” But it couldn’t be that. Nor could it be important. Harry bent his head to the pages again.

The last sentence ran smoothly, as everything about the story had run smoothly, once he had begun to write from the true, untricked-out centre of his heart. He altered a few final words, scored out something about ‘the judgement of the Almighty’, which sounded false – and liable to usurp the functions of the Star-Telegram’s readers – and gathered the sheets together. It was long, detailed, definitive: it was the Esther Costello story, as nearly as any one human being could get it.

Then he became aware that someone was standing by his side, and someone else in front of him, straight across the carriage of his typewriter. He half-raised his head, still preoccupied. The man beside him was Sparrow, the reporter who had just come in; the man in front was Ryan.

Harry looked straight up, to meet Ryan’s eyes. He smiled vaguely, smoothing a cold bristly chin, wishing he could smooth his slightly fluttering brain at the same time. He said: “It’s all finished.”

Ryan said: “Hold it, Harry.”

Sparrow said: “She just died.”

Harry Grant turned his head, seeing Sparrow properly for the first time. He knew the other man slightly – a young, tough, unshockable reporter who covered a lot of ground around Boston, and whose best connections were with the police. Sparrow was looking at him speculatively, as if he knew he had a good story and wanted to gauge its effect upon Grant. But whether it went well or not, the Star-Telegram would certainly print it … Harry said foolishly: “That was what you said when you passed my desk.”