“Difficult, in competition with Gilbert and Sullivan.”

They had passed into the great saloon. In the minstrels’ gallery instrumentalists, inconspicuously augmented by a clutch of Gibson’s silent henchmen, were discussing The Gondoliers. “When everyone is somebodee, then no-one’s anybody!” they brightly and almost inaudibly chirped.

Trays with champagne were circulated. Jokes about constabular boots and ill-fitting liveries were not appropriate. Among the white servants it was impossible to single out Fred Gibson’s men.

How to diagnose the smell of a grand assembly? Beyond the luxurious complexity of cosmetics, scent, flowers, hairdressers’ lotions, remote foods and alcohol, was there something else, something peculiar to this particular occasion? Somewhere in these rooms were they burning that stuff — what was it? — sandarac? That was it. Alleyn had last smelt it in the Presidential Palace in Ng’ombwana. That and the indefinably alien scent of persons of a different colour. The curtains were drawn across the French windows, but the great room was not overheated as yet. People moved about it like well-directed extras in the central scene of some feature film.

They encountered acquaintances: the subject of a portrait Troy had painted some years ago for the Royal Commonwealth Society, Alleyn’s great white chief and his wife. Someone he knew in the Foreign Office and, unexpectedly, his brother, Sir George Alleyn: tall, handsome, ambassadorial and entirely predictable. Troy didn’t really mind her brother-in-law but Alleyn always found him a bit of an ass.

“Good Lord!” said Sir George. “Rory!”

“George.”

“And Troy, my dear. Looking too lovely. Charming! Charming! And what, may one ask, are you doing, Rory, in this galère?”

“They got me in to watch the tea-spoons, George.”

“Jolly good, ha-ha. Matter of fact,” said Sir George, bending archly down to Troy, “between you and me and the gatepost I’ve no idea why I’m here myself. Except that we’ve all been asked.”

“Do you mean your entire family, George?” enquired his brother. “Twins and all?”

“So amusing. I mean,” he told Troy, “the corps diplomatique or at least those of us who’ve had the honour to represent Her Majesty’s Government in ‘furrin parts,’ ” said Sir George, again becoming playful. “Here we all are! Why, we don’t quite know!” he gaily concluded.

“To raise the general tone, I expect,” said Alleyn gravely. “Look, Troy, there’s Sam Whipplestone. Shall we have a word with him?”

“Do let’s.”

“See you later, perhaps, George.”

“I understand there’s to be some sort of fête champêtre.”

“That’s right. Mind you don’t fall in the pond.”

Troy said when they were at a safe remove, “If I were George I’d thump you.”

Mr. Whipplestone was standing near the dais in front of the Ng’ombwanan display of arms. His faded hair was beautifully groomed and his rather withdrawn face wore a gently attentive air. His eyeglass was at the alert. When he caught sight of the Alleyns he smiled delightedly, made a little bow, and edged towards them.

“What a very grand party,” he said.

“Disproportionate, would you say?” Alleyn hinted.

“Well, coming it rather strong, perhaps. I keep thinking of Martin Chuzzlewit.”

“ ‘Todgers were going it’?”

“Yes.” Mr. Whipplestone looked very directly at Alleyn. “All going well in your part of the picture?” he asked.

“Not mine, you know.”

“But you’ve been consulted.”

“Oh,” said Alleyn, “that! Vaguely. Quite unofficial. I was invited to view. Brother Gibson’s laid on a maximum job.”

“Good.”

“By the way, did you know your man was on the strength tonight? Chubb?”

“Oh, yes. He and Mrs. Chubb have been on the caterer’s supplementary list for many years, he tells me. They’re often called upon.”

“Yes.”

“Another of our coincidences, did you think?”

“Well — hardly that, perhaps.”

“How’s Lucy Lockett?” Troy asked.

Mr. Whipplestone made the little grimace that allowed his glass to dangle. “Behaving herself with decorum,” he said, primly.

“No more thieving sorties?”

“Thank God, no,” he said with some fervour. “You must meet her, both of you,” he added, “and try Mrs. Chubb’s cooking. Do say you will.”

“We’d like that very much,” said Troy warmly.

“I’ll telephone tomorrow and we’ll arrange a time.”

“By the way,” Alleyn said, “talking of Lucy Lockett reminds me of your Mr. Sheridan. Have you any idea what he does?”

“Something in the City, I think. Why?”

“It’s just that the link with the Sanskrit couple gives him a certain interest. There’s no connection with Ng’ombwana?”

“Not that I know.”

“He’s not here tonight,” Alleyn said.

One of the A.D.C.s was making his way through the thickening crowd. Alleyn recognized him as his escort in Ng’ombwana. He saw Alleyn and came straight to him, all eyes and teeth.

“Mr. Alleyn, His Excellency the Ambassador wishes me to say that the President will be very pleased if you and Mrs. Alleyn will join the official party for the entertainment in the garden. I will escort you when the time comes. Perhaps we could meet here.”

“That’s very kind,” Alleyn said. “We shall be honoured.”

“Dear me,” said Mr. Whipplestone when the A.D.C. had gone, “Todgers are going it and no mistake.”

“It’s the Boomer at it again. I wish he wouldn’t.”

Troy said: “What do you suppose he meant when he said he had a favour to ask.”

“He said it to you, darling. Not me.”

“I’ve got one I’d like to ask him, all right.”

“No prize offered for guessing the answer. She wants,” Alleyn explained to Mr. Whipplestone, “to paint him.”

“Surely,” he rejoined with his little bow, “that wish has only to be made known — Good God!”

He had broken off to stare at the entrance into the saloon where the last arrivals were coming in. Among them, larger, taller, immeasurably more conspicuous than anyone else in their neighbourhood, were Mr. Whipplestone’s bugbears: the Sanskrits, brother and sister.

They were, by and large, appropriately attired. That is to say, they wore full evening dress. The man’s shirt, to Mr. Whipplestone’s utterly conventional taste, was unspeakable, being heavily frilled and lacy with a sequin or two winking in its depths. He wore many rings on his dimpled fingers. His fair hair was cut in a fringe and concealed his ears. He was skilfully but unmistakably en maquillage, as Mr. Whipplestone shudderingly put it to himself. The sister, vast in green fringed satin, also wore her hair, which was purple, in a fringe and side-pieces. These in effect squared her enormous face. They moved slowly, like two huge vessels shoved from behind by tugs.

“I thought you’d be surprised,” Alleyn said. He bent his head and shoulders, being so tall, in order that he and Mr. Whipplestone could converse without shouting. The conglomerate roar of voices now almost drowned the orchestra, which pursuing its course through the century had now reached the heyday of Cochran’s Revues.

“You knew they were invited?” Mr. Whipplestone said, referring to the Sanskrits. “Well, really!”

“Not very delicious, I agree. By the way, somewhere here there’s another brace of birds from your Capricorn preserves.”

“Not—”

“The Montforts.”

“That is less upsetting.”

“The Colonel had a big hand, it appears, in setting up their army.”

Mr. Whipplestone looked steadily at him. “Are you talking about Cockburn-Monfort?” he said at last.

“That’s right.”

“Then why the devil couldn’t his wife say so,” he crossly exclaimed. “Silly creature! Why leave out the Cockburn? Too tiresome. Yes, well, naturally he’d be asked. I never met him. He hadn’t appeared on the scene in my early days and he’d gone when I returned.” He thought for a moment. “Sadly run to seed,” he said. “And his wife, too, I’m afraid.”