‘Don’t bother about that,’ I said and called the waiter. ‘You can treat me when I come to London on leave. You were going to tell me how you met Lime?’

The glass of chocolate liqueur might have been a crystal, the way he looked at it and turned it this way and that. He said, ‘It was a long time ago. I don’t suppose anyone knows Harry the way I do,’ and I thought of the thick file of agents’ reports in my office, each claiming the same thing. I believe in my agents; I’ve sifted them all very thoroughly.

‘How long?’

‘Twenty years – or a bit more. I met him my first term at school. I can see the place. I can see the notice board and what was on it. I can hear the bell ringing. He was a year older and knew the ropes. He put me wise to a lot of things.’ He took a quick dab at his drink and then turned the crystal again as if to see more clearly what there was to see. He said, ‘It’s funny. I can’t remember meeting any woman quite as well.’

‘Was he clever at school?’

‘Not the way they wanted him to be. But what things he did think up! He was a wonderful planner. I was far better at subjects like History and English than Harry, but I was a hopeless mug when it came to carrying out his plans.’ He laughed: he was already beginning, with the help of drink and talk, to throw off the shock of the death. He said, ‘I was always the one who got caught.’

‘That was convenient for Lime.’

‘What the hell do you mean?’ he asked. Alcoholic irritation was setting in.

‘Well, wasn’t it?’

‘That was my fault, not his. He could have found someone cleverer if he’d chosen, but he liked me.’ Certainly, I thought, the child is father to the man, for I too had found Lime patient.

‘When did you see him last?’

‘Oh, he was over in London six months ago for a medical congress. You know, he qualified as a doctor, though he never practised. That was typical of Harry. He just wanted to see if he could do a thing and then he lost interest. But he used to say that it often came in handy.’ And that too was true. It was odd how like the Lime he knew was to the Lime I knew: it was only that he looked at Lime’s image from a different angle or in a different light. He said, ‘One of the things I liked about Harry was his humour.’ He gave a grin which took five years off his age. ‘I’m a buffoon. I like playing the silly fool, but Harry had real wit. You know, he could have been a first-class light composer if he had worked at it.’