'Why did you send him to Cambridge?' I asked.

'My father was there, and established a scholarship. They gave it to Sheridan as thanks-as a gift. He couldn't concentrate long enough to get into college otherwise. But then… the Master of the college said they couldn't keep him, scholarship or not, and I understood… of course they couldn't. We thought he would be all right there… we so hoped he would.'

They'd spent a lot of hope on Sheridan, I thought.

'I don't know if he meant to jump this morning when he went out on the platform,' Mercer said. 'I don't know if it was just an impulse. He gave way to impulses very easily. Unreasonable impulses… almost insane, sometimes.'

'It was seductive, out there,' I said. 'Easy to jump.'

Mercer looked at me gratefully. 'Did you feel it?'

'Sort of.'

'Sheridan's revelation lasted until this morning,' he said.

'Yes,' I said. 'I saw… when I brought your tea.'

'The waiter… 'He shook his head, still surprised.

'I'd be grateful,' I said, 'if you don't tell anyone else about the waiter.'

'Why not?'

'Because most of my work depends on anonymity. My bosses don't want people like Filmer to know I exist.'

He nodded slowly with comprehension. 'I won't tell.'

He stood up and shook my hand. 'What do they pay you?' he asked.

I smiled. 'Enough.'

'I wish Sheridan had been able to have a job. He couldn't stick at anything.' He sighed. 'I'll believe that what he did this morning was for us. "Sorry, Dad… "'

Mercer looked me in the eyes and made a simple statement, without defensiveness, without apology.

'I loved my son,' he said.

On Monday morning, I want to Vancouver station to back up George Burley in the rail company's dual enquiry into the hot box and the suicide.

I was written down as T. Titmuss, Acting Crew, which amused me and seemed to cover several, interpretations. George was stalwart and forthright, with the ironic chuckles subdued to merely a gleam. He was a railwayman of some prestige, I was glad to see, who was treated with respect if not quite deference, and his were the views they listened to.

He gave the railway investigators a photograph of Johnson and said that while he hadn't actually seen him pour liquid into the radio, he could say that it was in this man's roomette that he had awakened bound and gagged, and he could say that it was this man who had attacked Titmuss, when he, Titmuss, went back to plant the flares.

'Was that so? ' they asked me. Could I identify him positively?

'Positively,' I said

They moved on to Sheridan's death. A sad business, they said. Apart from making a record of the time of the occurrence and the various radio messages, there was little to be done. The family had made no complaint to or about the railway company Any other conclusions would have to be reached at the official inquest.

'That wasn't too bad, eh?'.' George said afterwards.

'Would you come in uniform to the races?' I asked.

'If that's what you want '

'Yes, please ' I gave him a card with directions and instructions and a pass cajoled from Nell to get him in through the gates.

'See you tomorrow, eh?'

I nodded 'At eleven o'clock.'

We went our different ways, and with some reluctance but definite purpose I sought out a doctor recommended by the hotel and presented myself for inspection

The doctor was thin, growing old and inclined to make jokes over his half-moon glasses.

'Ah,' he said, when I'd removed my shirt. 'Does it hurt when you cough? '

'It hurts when I do practically anything, as a matter of fact.'

'We'd better have a wee X-ray then, don't you think?'

I agreed to the X-ray and waited around for ages until he reappeared with a large sheet of celluloid which he clipped in front of a light.

'Well, now,' he said, 'the good news is that we don't have any broken ribs or chipped vertebrae.'

'Fine.' I was relieved and perhaps a bit surprised.

‘What we do have is a fractured shoulder blade.'

I stared at him. 'I didn't think that was possible.'

'Anything's possible,' he said 'See that,' he pointed, 'that's a real grand-daddy of a break Goes right across, goes right through The bottom part of your left scapula,' he announced cheerfully, 'is to all intents and purposes detached from the top '

'Um,' I said blankly. 'What do we do about it?'

He looked at me over the half-moons. 'Rivets,' he said, 'might be extreme, don't you think' Heavy strapping, immobility for two weeks, that'll do the trick.'

'What about,' I said, 'if we do nothing at all? Will it mend? '

'Probably. Bones are remarkable. Young bones especially. You could try a sling. You'd be more comfortable though, if you let me strap your arm firmly skin to skin to your side and chest, under your shirt.'

I shook my head and said I wanted to go on a sort of honeymoon to Hawaii.

'People who go on honeymoons with broken bones,' he said with a straight face, 'must be ready to giggle '

I giggled there and then I asked him for a written medical report and the X-ray, and paid him for them, and bore away my evidence.

Stopping at a pharmacy on my way back to the hotel, I bought an elbow-supporting sling made of wide black ribbon, which I tried on for effect in the shop, and which made things a good deal better. I was wearing it when I opened my door in the evening, first to the Brigadier on his arrival from Heathrow, and then to Bill Baudelaire, from Toronto.

Bill Baudelaire looked around the sitting room and commented to the Brigadier about the lavishness of my expense account.

'Expense account, my foot!' the Brigadier said, drinking my Scotch. 'He's paying for it himself.'

Bill Baudelaire looked shocked. 'You can't let him,' he said.

'Didn't he tell you?' the Brigadier laughed. 'He's as rich as Croesus.'

'No… he didn't tell me.'

'He never tells anybody. He's afraid of it.'

Bill Baudelaire, with his carroty hair and pitted skin, looked at me with acute curiosity.

'Why do you do this job?' he said.

The Brigadier gave me no time to answer. 'What else would he do to pass the time? Play backgammon? This game is better. Isn't that it, Tor?'

'This game is better,' I agreed.

The Brigadier smiled. Although shorter than Bill Baudelaire, and older and leaner, and with fairer, thinning hair, he seemed to fill more of the room. I might be three inches taller than he, but I had the impression always of looking up to him, not down.

'To work, then,' he suggested. 'Strategy, tactics, plan of attack.'

He had brought some papers from England, though some were still to come, and he spread them out on the coffee table so that all of us, leaning forward, could see them.

'It was a good guess of yours, Tor, that the report on the cats was a computer print-out, because of its lack of headings. The Master of the college had a call from Mercer Lorrimore at eight this morning… must have been midnight here… empowering him to tell us everything, as you'd asked. The Master gave us the name of the veterinary pathology lab he'd employed and sent us a fax of the letter he'd received from them. Is that the same as the one in Filmer's briefcase, Tor?'.

He pushed a paper across and I glanced at it. 'Identical, except for the headings.'

'Good. The path lab confirmed they kept the letter stored in their computer but they don't know yet how anyone outside could get a print-out. We're still trying. So are they. They don't like it happening.'

'How about a list of their employees,' I said, 'including temporary secretaries or wizard hacker office boys?'

'Where do you get such language?' the Brigadier protested. He produced a sheet of names. 'This was the best they could do.'

I read the list. None of the names was familiar.