“Peculiar is one word, sir.” Jolly came further into the room.

“Suspicious?” asked Rollison.

“In the sense that this could be an attempt to involve you in some affair without you knowing?” asked Jolly. “Yes.”

“Conceivably so,” Jolly admitted. “Yes indeed, sir, that is possible.”

Rollison pushed back his chair, stood up, and jingled coins and some keys in his pocket. He studied Jolly in a preoccupied way, and the flat was silent as the two men were still. The shadow of the Trophy Wall seemed to loom about them until Rollison threw the shadow off and said lightly:

“Telephone apologies for my two appointments, will you?”

“I will indeed, sir.”

“If I’m not going to be in for lunch, I’ll telephone you.” Jolly would be athirst for news, and it would be stark cruelty simply to stay away if the affair of Thomas G. Loman promised any interesting developments. “I’ll get going,” he added. “I’ll take the Bristol.”

“Very good, sir,” Jolly said.

Rollison went to his room, checked his change, keys and wallet, then went back to the big room. He could not say what moved him to go to the window, a point of vantage in times of excitement. By standing to one side he could see most of the street — in fact all of it in each direction except the few square yards immediately in front of this house. Times out of number he had come here and noticed someone watching his flat.

More than once, such a precaution had saved his life. Now, he saw a girl, watching: she was actually looking upwards.

Taken by surprise, he studied her as closely as he could from this distance, and in the foreshortened perspective. She was attractive, with glossy brown hair which fell to her shoulders. She wore a bell-bottom pant-suit in olive green, itself most attractive. Had he noticed her walking along the street he would have thought simply : nice. She looked up and down the street and then up at the window again; had he moved a foot closer, she would have seen him.