“Oh, dear-I didn’t know I was going to be the first. Do you mean to say nobody else has come? I had no idea-I mean I expected my brother-he telephoned and said to be here punctually at the half hour. Nothing annoys him so much as to be kept waiting, and I do try, but it’s so difficult. Unless my watch should happen to be running fast-it does sometimes when the weather is warm, but not on a day like this. And I know I am five minutes late, because I broke a shoe-lace just when I was starting, so I didn’t expect to be the very first. ” She put a limp hand into John Taylor’s, and he noticed that she was wearing odd gloves, one being black and the other navy blue. The black one had a hole at the top of the first finger.

As she took one of the nine chairs she dropped her handbag, from which there immediately cascaded a bunch of keys, a pocket comb, a pair of nail-scissors, a bottle of aspirin tablets, three pencils, a couple of crumpled bills, and a rather dingy handkerchief.

She said, “Oh dear!” and crammed everything back in an agitated way and without any attempt at arrangement, so that the bag bulged and at first refused to shut.

John Taylor contemplated the performance in an interested manner. He hoped Jacob was getting a good view. He wouldn’t have picked Mildred Taverner himself, but then of course he didn’t know what Jacob was picking these relatives for. Miss Taverner appeared to be about forty-five years of age. She had a long, stringy figure, she poked with her head, and her fingers were all thumbs. Her fair reddish hair reminded him of Jacob’s. It had the same brittle look, and it stuck out at odd angles under a very unbecoming hat. Her rather colourless blue eyes avoided him. They were set under colourless brows in a long, pale face. She wore a navy-blue coat and skirt which had a general air of having belonged to somebody else. The skirt dipped at the back, and the coat rode up in front. Her neck was encircled by a wispy scarf of pink and blue checked wool.