'Did Harriman follow up this remark she made? About not doing any good? What did Harriman make of it?' Smiley was watching D'Arcy intently.

'She repeated it to Mrs Harriman, but she wouldn't explain it. However, I think the explanation is obvious enough.'

'Oh?' said Fielding.

D'Arcy put his head on one side and plucked coyly at the lobe of his ear.

'We all have a little of the detective in us,' he said. 'Dorothy and I talked it over after the—death. We decided that Stella Rode had formed some unsavoury association before coming to Carne, which had recently been revived… possibly against her will. Some violent ruffian—an old admirer—who would resent the improvement in her station.'

'How badly was the postman bitten by the dog?' Smiley asked.

D'Arcy turned to him again.

'That is the extraordinary thing. That is the very crux of the story, my dear fellow: the postman hadn't been bitten at all. Dorothy inquired. Her whole story was an absolute string of lies from beginning to end.'

They rose from the table and made their way to Fielding's study, where Miss Truebody had put the coffee. The conversation continued to wander back and forth over Wednesday's tragedy. D'Arcy was obsessed with the indelicacy of it all—the persistence of journalists, the insensitivity of the police, the uncertainty of Mrs Rode's origin, the misfortune of her husband. Fielding was still oddly silent, sunk in his own thoughts, from which he occasionally emerged to glance at D'Arcy with a look of hostility. At exactly a quarter to eleven D'Arcy pronounced himself tired, and the three of them went into the great hall, where Miss Truebody produced a coat for Smiley and a coat and muffler and cap for D'Arcy. Fielding accepted D'Arcy's thanks with a sullen nod. He turned to Smiley:

'That business you rang me about. What was it exactly?'

'Oh—a letter from Mrs Rode just before she was murdered,' said Smiley vaguely, 'the police are handling it now, but they do not regard it as… significant. Not significant at all. She seems to have had a sort of—'he gave an embarrassed grin—'persecution complex. Is that the expression? However, we might discuss it some time. You must dine with me at the Sawley before I go back. Do you come to London at all? We might meet in London perhaps, at the end of the Half.'

D'Arcy was standing in the doorway, looking at the new fall of snow which lay white and perfect on the pavement before him.

'Ah,' he said, with a little knowing laugh, 'the long nights, eh, Terence, the long nights.'