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else would have to. That someone else, I supposed, might just as well be me. I did, after all, have the boy's welfare at heart.
    I decided that, at all costs, I must engineer a tête-à-tête with Timothy. In the event this was easy to do as when he failed to turn in his next two pieces of work, I had an excuse to ask him to come and see me.
    It had been my practice over the years to invite various pupils for various reasons to tea in my house which was only some ten or twelve minutes' walk from the school and it was evident to me that my little kitchen often provided a welcome refuge for the chosen few from the hurly-burly of school.
    So it was that I came to invite Timothy to tea for the first time.

 
    Chapter 3
     
    February 26th
    I wonder what has happened to Eric. I don't seem to have seen him for several days now. On Saturday morning I heard the latch click on the garden gate and I was sure that it must be he, but when I looked out of the window I saw the Colonel's wife from the other end of the village walking up my path. It turned out that she was collecting money for the village hall. I am permanently surprised by the amount of money which needs to be collected for various causes in this village. Since I have lived here, which is only for about five months, hardly a week has gone by without someone wanting money for something.
    Anyway, Eric didn't put in an appearance all Saturday and I didn't see him yesterday either, although he may well have called while I was out at lunch. I went to lunch with Victor and Patricia, yesterday being Sunday.
    Victor and Patricia live in a fairly substantial, very pleasant village house with a large garden and a paddock. They have lived there since their children were small and since Victor became a partner in the firm of travel agents in which he has worked since leaving school.
    The house is sunny and, despite the gloomy nature of its owners, it is surprisingly welcoming with its wide sash windows and pleasant views down the hill and across the churchyard to the rolling countryside beyond the thirteenth-century tower.
    I found Victor yesterday looking particularly pale and tense. He even looked a little mad, I thought, with his wispy remains of hair sticking out untidily behind his ears, his thin, drawn features and an almost haunted look behind his hooded eyes. But he welcomed me kindly as usual and handed me a generous glass of dry sherry.
    "Leo," he said, hunching up his shoulders uncomfortably as an almost imperceptible shudder passed through his lank body, "worries me. He should have a proper job. His mother thinks he needs a girlfriend, but, as far as I can see, a proper job is much more important. He'll never get anywhere in life if he doesn't drop this acting lark. I have told him time and again that he'd do much better to give the whole thing up, come down here and try to get a job with one of the estate agents. Property's booming. It would make much more sense altogether."
    I didn't think that Victor was really making very much sense himself and tried to put in an understanding word for Leo. But Victor is always very firmly set in his opinions and I doubt that he was even listening to me.
    Leo, who was out of the room at the time of this conversation, and Laurel were both present for lunch. Leo was at his best, playing the part of a casual young man to perfection. Leo is clever and full of energy so that he throws himself into whatever he is doing with tremendous verve, and usually does it well.
    Leo would not make a good estate agent but the role of an out-of-work actor suits him to a T. He has certainly managed at quite a young age to find what I feel sure will be his part for life. Perhaps it is made easier for him by the fact that he is not only clever, but handsome and funny as well. I may say that I find it quite impossible to imagine how he came by such qualities. His parents both appear to be completely nonplussed by him.
    At lunch Victor and Patricia discussed