Ricky sighed ostentatiously and contemplated his father.

“Well, as far as we know him,” Alleyn said, “to the epistolatory school. There, he’s a classic. In person he’s undoubtedly the sort of bore that shows you things you don’t want to see. Snapshots in envelopes. Barren conservatories. Newspaper cuttings. He’s relentless in this. I think he carries things on his person and puts them in front of you without giving you the smallest clue about what you’re meant to say. You’re moving, Ricky.”

“Isn’t it five minutes yet?”

“No, and it never will be if you fidget. How long is it, Troy, since you first heard from Mr. Garbel?”

“About eighteen months. He wrote for Christmas. All told I’ve had six letters and five postcards from Mr. Garbel. This last arrived this morning. That’s what put him into my head.”

“Daddy, who is Mr. Garbel?”

“One of Mummy’s admirers. He lives in the Maritime Alps and writes love letters to her.”

“Why?”

“He says it’s because he’s her third cousin once removed, but I know better.”

“What do you know better?”

With a spare paintbrush clenched between her teeth, Troy said indistinctly: “Keep like that, Ricky darling, I implore you.”

“O.K. Tell me properly. Daddy, about Mr. Garbel.”

“Well, he suddenly wrote to Mummy and said Mummy’s great-aunt’s daughter was his second cousin, and that he thought Mummy would like to know that he lived at a place called Roqueville in the Maritime Alps. He sent a map of Roqueville, marking the place where the road he lived on ought to be shown, but wasn’t, and he told Mummy how he didn’t go out much or meet many people.”

“Pretty dull, however.”

“He told her about all the food you can buy there that you can’t buy here, and he sent her copies of newspapers with bus timetables marked and messages at the side saying: ‘I find this bus convenient and often take it. It leaves the corner by the principal hotel every half-hour.’ Do you still want to hear about Mr. Garbel?”