The Convalescent Home was a very small one: six single rooms for patients, and living quarters for two nurses and for Dr. Mayne, who was a widower. A verandah at the back of the house looked across a large garden and an adjacent field towards the sea and the Island.

At present he had four patients, all convalescent. One of them, an elderly lady, was already up and taking the air on the verandah. He noticed that she, like the others, had been reading the Sun.

“Well, Mrs. Thorpe,” he said, bending over her, “this is a step forward isn’t it? If you go on behaving nicely we’ll soon have you taking that little drive.”

Mrs. Thorpe wanly smiled and nodded. “So unspoiled,” she said, waving a hand at the prospect. “Not many places left like it. No horrid trippers.”

He sat down beside her, laid his fingers on her pulse and looked at his watch. “This is becoming pure routine,” he said cheerfully.

It was obvious that Mrs. Thorpe had a great deal more to say. She scarcely waited for him to snap his watch shut before she began,

“Dr. Mayne, have you seen the Sun?”

“Very clearly. We’re in for a lovely day.”

She made a little dab at him. “Don’t be provoking! You know what I mean. The paper. Our news! The Island?

“Oh, that. Yes, I saw that.”

“Now, what do you think? Candidly. Do tell me.”

He answered her as he had answered Patrick Ferrier. One heard of such cases. Medically there could be no comment.

“But you don’t pooh-pooh?”

No, no. He didn’t altogether do that. And now he really must…

As he moved away she said thoughtfully: “My little nephew is dreadfully afflicted. They are such an eyesore, aren’t they? And infectious, it’s thought. One can’t help wondering…”

His other patients were full of the news. One of them had a first cousin who suffered abominably from chronic asthma.