“Then there is an antiquarian instinct. Ach!” Mrs. Bünz exclaimed, excitedly clapping her hands and losing control of her accent. “Ach, sank Gott!”

“Oh crumbs!” Miss Mardian cried, raising an admonitory finger. “Here is Aunt Akky.”

She got up self-consciously. Mrs. Bünz gave a little gasp of anticipation and, settling her cloak portentously, also rose.

The drawing-room door opened to admit Dame Alice Mardian.

Perhaps the shortest way to describe Dame Alice is to say that she resembled Mrs. Noah. She had a shapeless, wooden appearance and her face, if it was expressive of anything in particular, looked dimly jolly.

“What’s all the row?” she asked, advancing with the inelastic toddle of old age. “Hullo! Didn’t know you had friends, Dulcie.”

“I haven’t,” said Miss Mardian. She waved her hands. “This is Mrs. — Mrs. — ”

“Bünz,” said that lady. “Mrs. Anna Bünz. Dame Alice, I am so inexpressibly overjoyed —”

“What about? How de do, I’m sure,” said Dame Alice. She had loose-fitting false teeth which of their own accord chopped off the ends of her words and thickened her sibilants. “Don’t see strangers,” she added. “Too old for it. Dulcie ought to’ve told yer.”

“It seems to be about old Lord Rekkage, Aunt Akky.”

“Lori Loony Rekkage. Hunted with the Quorn till he fell on his head. Like you, Dulcie. Went as straight as the best, but mad. Don’t you ’gree?” she asked Mrs. Bünz, looking at her for the first time.

Mrs. Bünz began to speak with desperate rapidity. “When he died,” she gabbled, shutting her eyes, “Lord Rekkage assigned to me, as vice-president of the Friends of British Folklore, the task of examining certain papers.”