Nicola opened up her typewriter and a box of quarto paper and surveyed the library.

It looked out on the drive and the rose garden and it was like the hall in that it had distinction without personality.

Over the fireplace hung a dismal little water colour. Elsewhere on the walls were two sporting prints, a painting of a bewhiskered ensign in the Brigade of Guards pointing his sword at some lightning, and a faded photograph of several Edwardian minor royalties grouped in baleful conviviality about a picnic luncheon. In the darkest corner was a framed genealogical tree, sprouting labels, arms and mantling. There were bookcases with uniform editions, novels, and a copy of Handley Cross. Standing apart from the others, a corps d’élite, were Debrett, Burke, Kelly’s and Who’s Who. The desk itself was rich with photographs, framed in silver. Each bore witness to the conservative technique of the studio and the well-bred restraint of the sitter.

Through the side window, Nicola looked across Mr. Period’s rose garden to a quickset hedge and an iron gate leading into a lane. Beyond this gate was a trench, with planks laid across it, a heap of earth and her old friend the truck — from which, with the aid of its crane, the workmen were unloading drainpipes.

Distantly and overhead, she heard male voices. Her acquaintance of the train (what had the driver called him?) and his stepfather, Nicola supposed.

She was thinking of him with amusement when the door opened and Mr. Pyke Period came in.

He was a tall, elderly man with a marked stoop, silver hair, large brown eyes and a small mouth. He was beautifully dressed, with exactly the correct suggestion of well-worn, scrupulously tended tweed.

He advanced upon Nicola with curved arm held rather high and bent at the wrist. The Foreign Office, or at the very least Commonwealth Relations, were invoked.