CAST OF CHARACTERS

P. C. Moir

A taxi driver

A sailor

Mrs. Dillington-Blick

Her Friend

Mr. Cuddy…a draper

Mrs. Cuddy…his wife

Miss Katherine Abbott…an authority on church music

Mr. Philip Merryman…a retired schoolmaster

Father Charles Jourdain…an Anglo-catholic priest

His fellow-cleric

Brigid Carmichael

Dr. Timothy Makepiece…medical officer, Cape Farewell

Mr. Aubyn Dale…a celebrity of commercial television

His dearest friend

Their dearest male friend

Their dearest female friend

Mr. Donald McAngus…a philatelist

Dennis…a steward

A wireless officer

Captain Jasper Bannerman…master, Cape Farewell

Superintendent Roderick Alleyn…C.I.D., New Scotland Yard

In the pool of London and further east all through the dockyards the fog lay heavy. Lights swam like moons in their own halos. Insignificant buildings, being simplified, became dramatic. Along the Cape Line Company’s stretch of wharfage the ships at anchor loomed up portentously: Cape St. Vincent, Glasgow. Cape Horn, London. Cape Farewell, Glasgow. The cranes that served these ships lost their heads in the fog. Their gestures as they bowed and turned became pontifical.

Beyond their illuminated places the dockyards vanished. The gang loading the Cape Farewell moved from light into nothingness. Noises were subdued and isolated and a man’s cough close at hand was more startling than the rattle of winches.

Police Constable Moir, on duty until midnight, walked in and out of shadows.