Hugh Curtis’s anxiety to come late had not been shared by the other two guests. They arrived at Lowlands in time for tea. Though they had not travelled together, Ostrop motoring down, they met practically on the doorstep, and each privately suspected the other of wanting to have his host for a few moments to himself.

But it seemed unlikely that their wish would have been gratified even if they had not both been struck by the same idea. Tea came in, the water bubbled in the urn, but still Munt did not present himself, and at last Ostrop asked his fellow-guest to make the tea.

‘You must be deputy-host,’ he said; ‘you know Dick so well, better than I do.’

This was true. Ostrop had long wanted to meet Tony Bettisher who, after the death of someone vaguely known to Valentine as Squarchy, ranked as Munt’s oldest and closest friend. He was a short, dark, thickset man, whose appearance gave no clue to his character or pursuits. He had, Valentine knew, a job at the British Museum, but, to look at, he might easily have been a stockbroker.

‘I suppose you know this place at every season of the year,’ Valentine said. ‘This is the first time I’ve been here in the autumn. How lovely everything looks.’

He gazed out at the wooded valley and the horizon fringed with trees. The scent of burning garden-refuse drifted in through the windows.

‘Yes, I’m a pretty frequent visitor,’ answered Bettisher, busy with the teapot.

‘I gather from his letter that Dick has just returned from abroad,’ said Valentine. ‘Why does he leave England on the rare occasions when it’s tolerable? Does he do it for fun, or does he have to?’ He put his head on one side and contemplated Bettisher with a look of mock despair.

Bettisher handed him a cup of tea.

‘I think he goes when the spirit moves him.’

‘Yes, but what spirit?’ cried Valentine with an affected petulance of manner. ‘Of course, our Richard is a law unto himself: we all know that. But he must have some motive. I don’t suppose he’s fond of travelling. It’s so uncomfortable. Now Dick cares for his comforts. That’s why he travels with so much luggage.’

‘Oh does he?’ inquired Bettisher. ‘Have you been with him?’

‘No, but the Sherlock Holmes in me discovered that,’ declared Valentine triumphantly. ‘The trusty Franklin hadn’t time to put it away. Two large crates. Now would you call that personal luggage?’ His voice was for ever underlining: it pounced upon ‘personal’ like a hawk on a dove.

‘Perambulators, perhaps,’ suggested Bettisher laconically. ‘Oh, do you think so? Do you think he collects perambulators? That would explain everything!’

‘What would it explain?’ asked Bettisher, stirring in his chair.

‘Why, his collection, of course!’ exclaimed Valentine, jumping up and bending on Bettisher an intensely serious gaze. ‘It would explain why he doesn’t invite us to see it, and why he’s so shy of talking about it. Don’t you see? An unmarried man, a bachelor, sine prole as far as we know, with whole attics-full of perambulators! It would be too fantastic. The world would laugh, and Richard, much as we love him, is terribly serious. Do you imagine it’s a kind of vice?’

‘All collecting is a form of vice.’

‘Oh no, Bettisher, don’t be hard, don’t be cynical—a substitute for vice. But tell me before he comes—he must come soon, the laws of hospitality demand it—am I right in my surmise?’

‘Which? You have made so many.’

‘I mean that what he goes abroad for, what he fills his house with, what he thinks about when we’re not with him—in a word, what he collects, is perambulators?’

Valentine paused dramatically.

Bettisher did not speak. His eyelids flickered and the skin about his eyes made a sharp movement inwards. He was beginning to open his mouth when Valentine broke in:

‘Oh no, of course, you’re in his confidence, your lips are sealed. Don’t tell me, you mustn’t, I forbid you to!’

‘What’s that he’s not to tell you?’ said a voice from the other end of the room.

‘Oh, Dick!’ cried Valentine, ‘what a start you gave me! You must learn to move a little less like a dome of silence, mustn’t he, Bettisher?’

Their host came forward to meet them, on silent feet and laughing soundlessly. He was a small, thin, slightly built man, very well turned out and with a conscious elegance of carriage.

‘But I thought you didn’t know Bettisher?’ he said, when their greetings had been accomplished. ‘Yet when I come in I find you with difficulty stemming the flood of confidences pouring from his lips.’

His voice was slightly ironical, it seemed at the same moment to ask a question and to make a statement.

‘Oh, we’ve been together for hours,’ said Valentine airily, ‘and had the most enchanting conversation. Guess what we talked about.’

‘Not about me, I hope?’

‘Well, about something very dear to you.’

‘About you, then?’

‘Don’t make fun of me. The objects I speak of are both solid and useful.’

‘That does rather rule you out,’ said Munt meditatively. ‘What are they useful for?’

‘Carrying bodies.’

Munt glanced across at Bettisher, who was staring into the grate.

‘And what are they made of?’

Valentine tittered, pulled a face, answered, ‘I’ve had little experience of them, but I should think chiefly of wood.’

Munt got up and looked hard at Bettisher, who raised his eyebrows and said nothing.

‘They perform at one time or another,’ said Valentine, enjoying himself enormously, ‘an essential service for us all.’

There was a pause. Then Munt asked—

‘Where do you generally come across them?’

‘Personally I always try to avoid them,’ said Valentine. ‘But one meets them every day in the street and—and here, of course.’

‘Why do you try to avoid them?’ Munt asked rather grimly.

‘Since you think about them, and dote upon them, and collect them from all the corners of the earth, it pains me to have to say it,’ said Valentine with relish, ‘but I do not care to contemplate lumps of human flesh lacking the spirit that makes flesh tolerable.’

He struck an oratorical attitude and breathed audibly through his nose. There was a prolonged silence. The dusk began to make itself felt in the room.

‘Well,’ said Munt, at last, in a hard voice, ‘you are the first person to guess my little secret, if I can give it so grandiose a name. I congratulate you.’

Valentine bowed.

‘May I ask how you discovered it? While I was detained upstairs, I suppose you—you—poked about?’ His voice had a disagreeable ring; but Valentine, unaware of this, said loftily:

‘It was unnecessary. They were in the hall, plain to be seen by anyone. My Sherlock Holmes sense (I have eight or nine) recognized them immediately.’

Munt shrugged his shoulders, then said in a less constrained tone:

‘At this stage of our acquaintance I did not really intend to enlighten you. But since you know already, tell me, as a matter of curiosity, were you horrified?’

‘Horrified?’ cried Valentine. ‘I think it a charming taste, so original, so—so human. It ravishes my aesthetic sense; it slightly offends my moral principles.’

‘I was afraid it might,’ said Munt.

‘I am a believer in Birth Control,’ Valentine prattled on. ‘Every night I burn a candle to Stopes.’

Munt looked puzzled. ‘But then, how can you object?’ he began.

Valentine went on without heeding him.

‘But of course by making a corner in the things, you do discourage the whole business. Being exhibits they have to stand idle, don’t they? you keep them empty?’

Bettisher started up in his chair, but Munt held out a pallid hand and murmured in a stifled voice:

‘Yes, that is, most of them are.’

Valentine clapped his hands in ecstasy.