For the second time in half an hour Alfred repeated his leit-motif. “It won’t answer,” he said. “I never thought it would.”

“Sawn-lee,” a hollow voice on the loudspeaker announced. “Sawn-lee. The four carriages in the front portion of the train now arrived at No. 1 platform will proceed to Rimble, Bornlee Green and Little Codling. The rear portion will proceed to Forthamstead and Ribblethorpe. Please make sure you are in the correct part of the train. Sawn-lee. The four carriages...”

Nicola Maitland-Mayne heard this pronouncement with dismay. “But I don’t know,” she cried to her fellow passengers, “which portion I’m in! Is this one of the first four carriages?”

“It’s the fifth,” said the man in the corner. “Next stop Forthamstead.”

“Oh, damn!” Nicola said cheerfully and hauled her typewriter and overcoat down from the rack. Someone opened the doors for her. She plunged out, staggered along the platform, and climbed into another carriage as the voice was saying: “All seats, please, for Rimble, Bornlee Green and Little Codling.”

The first compartment was full and so was the second. She moved along the corridor, looked in at the third, and gave it up.

A tall man, further along the corridor, said: “There’s plenty of room up at the end.”

“I’m Second Class.”

“I should risk it if I were you. You can always pay up if the guard comes along but he never does on this stretch, I promise you.”

“Oh, well,” Nicola said, “I believe I will. Thank you.”

He opened the door of the First Class compartment. She went in and found nobody there. A bowler, an umbrella, and The Times, belonging, she supposed, to the young man himself, lay on one seat She sat on the other. He shut the door and stood in the corridor, his back to her, smoking.

Nicola looked out of the window for a minute or two. Presently she remembered her unfinished crossword, and took her own copy of The Times out of her overcoat pocket.