A note of despair came into Crabbin’s voice. ‘Please, Mr Dexter, these people are your genuine admirers. They want to hear your views. If you knew how they have besieged the Institute.’

An elderly Austrian said, ‘Is there any writer in England today of the stature of the late John Galsworthy?’

There was an outburst of angry twittering in which the names of Du Maurier, Priestley, and somebody called Layman were flung to and fro. Martins sat gloomily back and saw again the snow, the stretcher, the desperate face of Frau Koch. He thought: if I had never returned, if I had never asked questions, would that little man still be alive? How had he benefited Harry by supplying another victim – a victim to assuage the fear of whom? – Herr Kurtz, Colonel Cooler (he could not believe that), Dr Winkler? Not one of them seemed adequate to the drab gruesome crime in the basement; he could hear the child saying, ‘I saw blood on the coke,’ and somebody turned towards him a blank face without features, a grey plasticine egg, the third man.

Martins could not have said how he got through the rest of the discussion. Perhaps Crabbin took the brunt; perhaps he was helped by some of the audience who got into an animated discussion about the film version of a popular American novel. He remembered very little more before Crabbin was making a final speech in his honour. Then one of the young men led him to a table stacked with books and asked him to sign them. ‘We have only allowed each member one book.’

‘What have I got to do?’

‘Just a signature. That’s all they expect. This is my copy of The Curved Prow. I would be so grateful if you’d just write a little something …’