He stopped on the top step and contemplated his Cousin Lucy with some astonishment. She had her back to him and her face to Ross Craddock’s front door, and she was shaking her fist at it, absolutely and literally shaking her fist. Peter couldn’t recall having ever seen anyone actually shake a fist before. A slight whistle escaped him. Lucy Craddock turned round and showed him a strangely unfamiliar face, tear-stained, heavily flushed, and quite distorted by anger.

“Hullo, Lucinda-what’s up?”

At the sound of his voice she burst out crying. She clung to his arm.

“He’s wicked!” she said, and choked, and sobbed it out again.

Peter unlocked the door of No. 9 and got her inside. If Lucy must have hysterics, let her have them in decent privacy. He put her on the couch which had been her sister’s, pulled up a chair, and said briskly,

“What’s Ross been doing now?”

She was in such a state of agitation that it took him some time to arrive at the facts. He had to disentangle the Mavis motif from the eviction motif, and in the end he wasn’t quite sure which was upsetting poor Lucinda most. Mavis was none of his business, and he certainly wasn’t going to have a row with Ross about her, but the eviction was a different matter. He was quite prepared to fight if there was the faintest chance of success. He patted Lucy’s heaving shoulder and said,

“All right. Now take a breather. No, you’ve cried enough. Here’s my handkerchief. Blow the nose, brace the back, and listen to your Uncle Peter.”

Miss Lucy sniffed against the cold clean linen, dabbed her eyes with a shaking hand, and gazed at him with touching confidence. Peter wouldn’t let her be turned out. Peter would speak to Ross.