“It’s on my hip. It’s very much better—”

“Well, then—”

“—but that’s not the point. Mr. Ancred, I can’t accept this commission. My husband is coming home after three years’ absence—”

“When?” Thomas asked instantly.

“As far as we know in three weeks,” said Troy, wishing she could bring herself to lie freely to her visitor. “But one can never tell. It might be sooner.”

“Well, of course Scotland Yard will let you know about that, won’t they? Because, I mean, he’s pretty high up, isn’t he? Supposing you did go to Ancreton, they could ring you up there just as well as here.”

“The point is,” Troy almost shouted, “I don’t want to paint your father as Macbeth. I’m sorry to put it so bluntly, but I just don’t.”

“I told them you wouldn’t,” said Thomas complacently. “The Bathgates thought they knew better.”

“The Bathgates? Do you mean Nigel and Angela Bathgate?”

“Who else? Nigel and I are old friends. When the family started all this business I went to see him and asked if he thought you’d do it. Nigel said he knew you were on leave, and he thought it would be nice for you.”

“He knows nothing whatever about it.”

“He said you liked meeting queer people. He said you’d revel in Papa as a subject and gloat over his conversation. It only shows you how little we understand our friends, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Troy, “it does.”

“But I can’t help wondering what you’d make of Panty.”

Troy had by this time determined to ask Thomas Ancred no questions whatever, and it was with a sense of impotent fury that she heard her own voice: “Did you say ‘Panty’?”

“She’s my niece, you know. My sister Pauline’s youngest. We call her Panty because her bloomers are always coming down. She’s a Difficult Child. Her school, which is a school for Difficult Children, was evacuated to Ancreton. They are quartered in the west wing under a very nice person called Caroline Able. Panty is frightful.”