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little apprehensive about the nature of the conveyance promised for the next stage of the journey. And now, with a scream of brakes and an alarming hiss of escaping steam, the train jolted to a halt. There was only one more stage to go.
    Once more Mr Raven put his head out, and once more withdrew it to admit a fresh passenger. This was a young man dressed in tweeds which were plainly shapeless even under an almost obliterating layer of snow. His mouth was shapeless too and held open in a twisted grin; his hair was a chaos of wavy yellow locks; his features were rugged and extremely asymmetrical; his eyes, which showed wide and amused beneath heavy brows, glinted with what was either extreme vivacity or a mild madness. And he had a long nose.
    The young man shook himself like a bear, so that snow flew about the compartment. He then took a survey of those whom he had bespattered, beginning with Mr Raven and ending with Appleby. On Appleby his glance paused; his mouth opened wider and twisted further; he appeared to be on the verge of some malicious and disconcerting announcement. Then he threw himself down on a seat, folded his arms, tossed his head backwards so that his yellow locks flew in air, and finally settled into an attitude of sardonic watchfulness such as one might mark in a man who both expects and welcomes immediate catastrophe. The train, now climbing once more, rumbled through the night with very little promise of anything of the sort.
    It was odd about these people, Appleby thought. But for the fact that not one of them had uttered a word to any other, he would have supposed that there must be some degree of kinship between them. Perhaps the long nose was a consequence of the sustained inbreeding that sometimes distinguishes remote and isolated districts. Perhaps from Yatter to Linger and from Snarl to Drool this nose was the rule among people unconscious of any tie of blood. Perhaps Brettingham Scurl and Gregory Grope had it too; perhaps it was a feature still distinguishable in the unfortunate old person who came up with the bucket out of the well… Appleby was aware that things were now considerably quieter in the compartment and that Mr Raven was taking advantage of this to address him once more.
    â€œNot more than three miles,” Mr Raven was saying cheerfully. “Unless, of course, anything has gone wrong at the ford. Or there are snowdrifts in Noblet’s Lane. Or the axle really goes this time, or our man has been drinking again at the Arms, or Spot casts a shoe.”
    It sounded bad. Some sort of answering cheerfulness, however, it would be indecent not to attempt. “One can’t ever bar accidents,” Appleby said. “And I must repeat that it’s uncommonly kind of you to ask me to stop the night.”
    The effect of this was notable. The cypress-suited man uttered a low moan, the girl looked startled, the simian person ground his teeth and the yellow-haired youth gave such a harsh, short laugh as might be evoked in a theatre by some unexpected stroke of savage farce. At the same moment the brakes went on and everybody was on his feet in a movement so simultaneous as to be less disconcerting than irrationally terrifying. The three waitresses disappeared behind lurching and untidy tweeds; the flowing cloak of the melancholy man heaved itself like a universal darkness over the teeming holiday-makers on the beach; between Appleby and Chirico’s hotel, like the foul fiend barring the way to sanctuary, was the heavily breathing visage of the higher anthropoid. Appleby, amid a feeling of sudden obliteration beneath this long-nosed avalanche, heard Mr Raven’s voice raised in rapid introductions.
    â€œMr Appleby,” Mr Raven was saying. “Mr Appleby – whose acquaintance I have only just had the happiness of making. Mr Appleby, this is my brother Luke, my brother Robert, my cousin Mark, my cousin Judith. Dear me, here we are.”
    â€œAppleby, did you