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being poor. It was my mother gave me the name, she used to read, poor soul. Poor soul.’
    Mr Geddes was beginning to find the conversation soporific. Thoughts of the brief interlude due to him in his armchair, with the evening paper, would intrude, and he turned in relief to loud, stumbling, bumping sounds, accompanied by a voice offering excuses and explanations, which were now coming up the stairs. Lancelot Fisher advanced into the room and sat down collectedly in the other armchair, and also looked towards the door.
    ‘Well, fancy!’ cried Gladys, floundering in and flinging a sliced loaf on to the table, ‘sorry I was out, we just ran out, that Joneses they never ’ave any after six, you’d think there was another war, Jean’s, that’s the young woman downstairs, her Melinda, spoiled little madam she is, told me you was up here, and Mr Fisher too – what’s your name this evening, Mr Fisher? – ever so nice of you to come round,’ to the Vicar, with a flush rising to mist her glasses as she realized she still did not know his name, ‘I expect your curate told you I come but you was out.’
    She began unwrapping cardigans, scarves and a thick coat from herself, the while glancing distractedly towards a cupboard on which stood a tea canister, with a portrait of Her Majesty on it smiling out across the room. ‘I’m sure you could drink a cup of tea. And you could, couldn’t you, Mr Fisher? Never say no to a cup of tea, do you?’
    ‘It’s very kind of you but I won’t, thank you,’ said Mr Geddes. ‘I just –’
    ‘Oh but you must,’ screamed Gladys, scrabbling on a shelf for the milk, ‘can’t let you go without a cup of tea, and you coming all this way, wonder you didn’t get lost –’
    ‘I will have a cup of tea; thank you,’ observed Mr Fisher, raising his eyes from his study of the carpet.
    ‘Oh we all know you never say no, Annie, we’re out of biscuits again –’
    How long this struggle between disinclination and hospitality would have gone on Mr Geddes never knew, for at that moment a woman’s voice called urgently up the stairs – ‘Glad! Quick! ’E’s ’ere – the rackman. In a car!’
    Silence fell, and, instantly, every eye was fixed upon Mr Geddes, as if he – the one who had been to college, the one who knew how things worked – would know what to do, while on every face there was an expression of terror. In another moment, the young woman’s eager face appeared at the door.
    ‘It’s ’im, Glad … ’ere … let’s …’
    She pushed without apology past the seated men and, followed by the muttering and trembling Gladys, hurried into the bedroom and over to the window. She cautiously moved aside the curtain. Mr Geddes, forgetting everything but human curiosity, got up and followed, and next was made aware, by a sensation of mothlike pressure and eld, that Mr Fisher was at his side. Even Annie was leaning awkwardly sideways from her bed to stare down.
    The street was only a short way below. Its paving, heaved into irregularities by the bombing of twenty years ago, gleamed greasily in the faint light of its one lamp, and, down at the end of the dark, boarded-up, double row of houses they saw the great car, its insolent snout pointing down the Walk as if threatening it.
    ‘Consul. Does ’imself well,’ breathed Jean Simms. ‘Shuvver, too – see ’im, Glad?’ But no-one answered her.
    A man was standing there, hands in his pockets, a little beyond the rays of the lamp, staring up at the cottages. He was stout, and wore a soft hat, and that was all they could see of him.
    ‘Someone in the car …’ whispered Gladys, and instantly all their eyes turned to it.
    They could just distinguish a figure sitting in the back, with head swathed in a voluminous, spirit-like whiteness that might be a scarf.
    Transfixed, they stared. His inspection did not last longer than a few minutes but there was something chilling, something impersonal yet intent about it, that was