“Dresser?” the man said hoarsely. He kept his torchlight on her face and moved towards her. “I wasn’t told about no dresser,” he said.

She held Mr. Grantley’s card out. He came closer and flashed his light on it without touching it. “Ah,” he said with a sort of grudging cheerfulness, “that’s different. Now I know where I am, don’t I?”

“I hope so,” she said, trying to make her voice friendly. “I’m sorry to bother you. Miss Hamilton’s dresser has been taken ill and I’ve got the job.”

“Aren’t you lucky,” he said with obvious relish and added, “Not but what she isn’t a lady when she takes the fit for it.”

He was eating something. The movement of his jaws, the succulent noises he made and the faint odour of food were an outrage. She could have screamed her hunger at him. Her mouth filled with saliva.

“ ’E says to open the star room,” he said. “Come on froo while I get the keys. I was ’avin’ me bit er supper.”

She followed him into a tiny room choked with junk. A kettle stuttered on a gas ring by a sink clotted with dregs of calcimine and tea leaves. His supper was laid out on a newspaper — bread and an open tin of jam. He explained that he was about to make a cup of tea and suggested she should wait while he did so. She leant against the door and watched him. The fragrance of freshly brewed tea rose above the reek of stale size and dust. She thought, “If he drinks it now I’ll have to go out.”

“Like a drop of char?” he said. His back was turned to her.

“Very much.”

He rinsed out a stained cup under the tap.

Martyn said loudly: “I’ve got a tin of meat in my suitcase. I was saving it. If you’d like to share it and could spare some of your bread…”

He swung round and for the first time she saw his face. He was dark and thin and his eyes were brightly impertinent. Their expression changed as he stared at her.