“Have you really, Norman?” asked Parish. “That’s very interesting. Can you trace it?”

“I think so.” Cubitt rubbed his hair and then looked absent-mindedly at his paint-grimed hand. “As a matter of fact, my dear Seb,” he said, with his air of secretly mocking at himself, “you have named the root and cause of my affection. You have perpetrated a coincidence. Sebastian. The very play you mentioned just now started me off on my Freudian road to the jim-jams. ‘Fool’s Errand’ and well-named. It is, as you say, a remarkably naïve play. At the age of seven, however, I did not think so. I found it terrifying.”

“At the age of seven?”

“Yes. My eldest brother, poor fool, fancied himself as an amateur and essayed the principal part. I was bullied into enacting the small boy who, as I remember, perpetually bleated ‘Papa, why is Mama so pale?’ and later on: ‘Papa, why is Mama so quiet? Where has she gone, Papa?’ ”

“We cut all that in the revival,” said Parish. “It was terrible stuff.”

“I agree with you. As you remember, Papa had poisoned Mama. For years afterwards I had the horrors at the very word. I remember that I used to wipe all the schoolroom china for fear our Miss Tobin was a Borgian governess. I invented all sorts of curious devices in order that Miss Tobin should drink my morning cocoa and I hers. Odd, wasn’t it? I grew out of it, but I still dislike the sound of the word and I detest taking medicine labelled in accordance with the Pure Food Act.”

“Labelled what?” asked Parish with a wink at Watchman.

“Labelled ‘poison,’ damn you,” said Cubitt.

Watchman looked curiously at him.

“I suppose there’s something in this psycho stuff,” he said, “but I always rather boggle at it.”

“I don’t see why you should,” said Parish. “You yourself get a fit of the staggers if you scratch your finger. You told me once you fainted when you had a blood test. That’s a phobia, same as Norman’s.”