He was no longer a young man and the excesses of the night dissuaded him from taking too much of an interest in his report. He felt as weary that morning in the empty tap-room of the Three Cups at Harwich as he had at the Red Lion at Kirby-le-Soken the previous evening. He looked up as the latch of the door lifted and Annie, smiling at him above her unlaced stays and white breasts, led a stranger into the room.

'Tell your master that I want new horses in three hours and a dinner in two,' the stranger said, turning his back on Sparkman as he took off his tricorn and a heavy cloak and threw them on a wooden chair on the opposite side of the fireplace. The newcomer wore a suit of bottle-green which sat awkwardly on asymetrical shoulders down which fell his hair in an old-fashioned queue set off with a black ribbon.

'New horses, sir, an' a dinner, aye, sir ...' Annie bobbed and pouted at the newcomer and Sparkman felt a mean resentment at the intrusion, at the bossing of Annie Davis, at the little whore's attitude.

'Put some more coal on the fire,' Sparkman commanded, 'and get me a pipe and baccy while you're about it.'

Annie flashed him a quick, pleading look which spoke of obligations and priorities not purchased with his single florin.

'A glass of black-strap, if you please,' said the stranger, re­engaging Annie's attention, and she curtsied again, to Sparkman's intense irritation. But before he could add to the catalogue of Annie's chores, the man turned.

He was about fifty with a high forehead from which his grey-brown hair was drawn back severely. His face was lined and weatherbeaten, though a faint, pallid sword scar ran down his left cheek. His mouth, circumscribed by deep furrows, was expressive of contempt as he regarded the dishevelled Sparkman from stern grey eyes.

Sparkman's irritation withered under the stranger's scrutiny. He felt uncomfortably conscious of his dirty neck linen and the mud-stained boot outstretched on the settle seat. He lowered his eyes, raised the tankard to his lips. The fellow had no business with him and could go to the devil!