had been the town house of a Georgian wine merchant. They were reached by narrow stairs from a door between a chemist’s shop and an ironmonger’s. The door was surmounted by a semi-circular fanlight and flanked by narrow fluted pillars; traces of its original mouldings were just discernible as depressions and swellings in the build-up of countless layers of paint.
Mr Hive sniffed as he climbed the steep, uneven stairs. The smell of kerosene from the hardware shop contended with whiffs of cosmetics and cough syrup from the chemist’s. Near the top, though, another, more pungent, aroma asserted itself. Hive paused to savour it. He smiled.
He arrived at a broad landing flooded with light from a ten-feet-high window. There were three doors. On one of them he read: FECCA—Secretary and Accounts. He knocked, then softly pushed it open a few inches, enough to introduce one cautious, reconnoitring eye. This he withdrew after a moment or two.
“I said come in.” A woman’s voice, querulous, refined.
Hive reached something from his pocket—a small squat bottle—and, remaining himself out of sight, dangled it between finger and thumb just inside the room.
Miss Lucilla Edith Cavell Teatime pushed her basket chair back from the table and half rose, staring at the quartern-sized apparition that had floated through the door. She read its label. Highland Fling. Resolutely, Miss Teatime walked to the door and pulled it fully open.
“Mortimer!”
“Lucy!”
The bottle of whiskey hung disregarded on the periphery of their embrace. Then, stepping back, Mr Hive presented it to Miss Teatime with a deep bow.
She stood regarding him fondly. “How sweet of you, Mortimer, to remember my little twinges.”
“Nonsense. Any doctor would have done the same.”
She laughed, as if at a distant memory. “Poor Mortimer, that did not last very long, did it?”
“A fill-gap. Not one of my best ideas.”
“You are intrinsically too honest, my dear. That
“You said so, Lucy. You said so at the time.”
“I think your present occupation suits you much better.”
He raised his brows. “You know what it is, then?”
“But of course. Kitty keeps in touch with me, you know. And Uncle Macnamara.”
She turned and walked to a small cupboard set in the wall. “I do hope you do not object to drinking from a tea cup.” She arranged cups and saucers on a tray, together with a sugar basin and a milk jug. The china was white, patterned delicately with tiny clusters of forget-me-nots. Miss Teatime sluiced a substantial slug of Highland Fling into each cup.
Mr Hive sat down at the table. Miss Teatime pushed a pile of papers aside to make room for his cup and saucer. He sighed happily. “How nice it is to see you again...”
“Are you here for long? I suppose I cannot prevail upon you to follow my example and leave London? This altogether charming town has been a revelation to me.”
“It certainly has its attractions,” conceded Mr Hive, barmaidenly blushes in mind.
“I fancy I should find Town somewhat dull now. Londoners are so parochial. Anyway, they spend most of their lives sealed up in little containers of one kind or another.”
Hive glanced round the bright, spacious room. The panelled walls had been painted a pale dove grey. In the centre of one was an oil painting of a great fenland church with sheep huddled in complacent possession of the graveyard. Upon another hung four framed coloured prints depicting, Hive supposed, specimen candidates for compassion: a pinafored child asleep on the steps of a public house, an emaciated greyhound, two sorrowful donkeys being belaboured by a man with a black beard and leggings, and a puppy cornered by three villainous looking surgeons holding an assortment of cutlery behind their backs.
“You’re making out all right, then, Lucy, are you?”
“I am being kept nicely occupied, and that is the main thing. You can have no idea, Mortimer, of how much room there is in the charities field for proper organization. I confess I have found the work quite exciting.”
“It’s not the sort of thing I would have thought easy to corner.”
“There is, unfortunately, a long tradition of rivalry between the various endeavours. The animal factions are especially difficult to reconcile, but once they see the wastefulness of dissipated effort I am sure the situation can be—what is the modern jargon?—rationalized.”
Miss Teatime reached for her handbag, opened it, and produced a slim, brown cardboard pack. “May I tempt you?”
Hive slapped his knee. “I knew it! I knew I was right...I could smell those damn things from halfway down the stairs. D’you remember what the Cullen boys used to call them in the old days at Frascati’s?”
Miss Teatime smiled dreamily as she put a match to the slim black cheroot. “Tadger Cullen...dear me, yes...and little Arnold...”
“Lucy’s gelding sticks, Tadger used to call them. Remember he had that weird theory about cigars and sterility.”
“The Cullens could be a little embarrassing on occasion, but I do not think they meant any real harm.” She regarded the tip of her cheroot awhile, then looked up perkily. “Guess with whom I have been in correspondence during the past few days.”
Hive shook his head.
