Julia smiled lazily.

‘You’ve just said Aunt Letty likes to do things herself,’ she pointed out. ‘Besides,’ she held out a well-shaped leg in a sheer stocking, ‘I’ve got my best stockings on.’

‘Death in silk stockings!’ declaimed Patrick.

‘Not silk-nylons, you idiot.’

‘That’s not nearly such a good title.’

‘Won’t somebody please tell me,’ cried Phillipa plaintively, ‘why there is all this insistence on death?’

Everybody tried to tell her at once-nobody could find theGazette to show her because Mitzi had taken it into the kitchen.

Miss Blacklock returned a few minutes later.

‘There,’ she said briskly, ‘that’sdone.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘Twenty-past six. Somebody ought to be here soon-unless I’m entirely wrong in my estimate of my neighbours.’

‘I don’t see why anybody should come,’ said Phillipa, looking bewildered.

‘Don’t you, dear?…I dare say you wouldn’t. But most people are rather more inquisitive than you are.’

‘Phillipa’s attitude to life is that she just isn’t interested,’ said Julia, rather nastily.

Phillipa did not reply.

Miss Blacklock was glancing round the room. Mitzi had put the sherry and three dishes containing olives, cheese straws and some little fancy pastries on the table in the middle of the room.

‘You might move that tray-or the whole table if you like-round the corner into the bay window in the other room, Patrick, if you don’t mind. After all, I amnot giving a party!I haven’t asked anyone. And I don’t intend to make it obvious that I expect people to turn up.’

‘You wish, Aunt Letty, to disguise your intelligent anticipation?’

‘Very nicely put, Patrick. Thank you, my dear boy.’

‘Now we can all give a lovely performance of a quiet evening at home,’ said Julia, ‘and be quite surprised when somebody drops in.’