Bethlehem Road

is required to govern a household of eight servants, see to the accounting, maintain discipline and good order and fellowship, raise and teach and nurse my children, entertain our business and parliamentary friends and provide them with fine meals in charming surroundings, and always see that no one is offended, embarrassed, excluded, or paired with someone unsuitable, and to keep the conversation charming, witty but never offensive, and never, never boring! And naturally always to look beautiful while doing all of this! I am sure that does not make me competent to decide which of two or three candidates should represent me in Parliament!'

The fair-haired man's face was tight and his blue eyes blazed.' 'Parthenope! You are becoming absurd!'' he hissed. 'I forbid you to stand out here and argue this in public any longer. We are going home, where you should have been all the time!'

' 'Of course.'' Still she did not shout, but her whole body was rigid with fury. ' 'Perhaps once you have me there you would care to lock the door.'

He put out both his hands and held her arms, but she did not yield in the slightest.

31

'Parthenope, I have no desire to curtail your pleasures or to be harsh with you. For heaven's sake, you know that! And you are excellent-no, brilliant-at running the house. I have always said so, and I am profoundly grateful for all you do. You are a perfect wife in every way-' He could see he was still losing; she did not want flattery, not even acknowledgment. 'Damn it, madame, you are not selecting a housemaid! At that you are unequaled, but choosing a member of Parliament is utterly different!'

'Indeed?' Her eyebrows rose sharply. 'Pray how? Would you not wish your Member of Parliament to be honest above question, of sound moral character, discreet about what he knows that is confidential, loyal to his cause, and competent in the skills of his job?''

'I don't want him to dust the furniture or peel the potatoes!'

' 'Oh Cuthbert!'' She knew she had won the argument, and lost the issue. He had not changed his mind in the slightest, nor was he likely to. His urgency was still all bent on getting her to climb into the cab and leave the areaway before someone came who might recognize one of them. Reluctantly she yielded and allowed him to hand her up. Charlotte saw her sensitive, stubborn face for a moment as she turned on the step, and the confusion in it; the new ideas could not be extinguished, nor could the old loyalties be denied. Parthenope looked at her husband with a sharp, unresolved anxiety.

Then he climbed up beside her and pulled the door shut, leaving Charlotte to come out of the shadows and walk along the footpath as if she had only this moment come out of the exit.

3

J3y midafternoon pitt was back in Bow Street. It was one of those vivid spring days when the air is sharp and the sun falls clean and pale on the pavement stones, and there was still a tingle of coldness in the wind, keen-edged and bringing a smell of dampness up from the river. A string of carriages clattered by along the Strand, harnesses polished and jingling, horses stepping high, and the crossing boys swept up behind them, cleaning away the droppings. A barrel organ churned out a popular music hall song. Somewhere out of sight a street vendor called his wares-'Hot plum duff, hot plum!'-and gradually his voice faded away as he moved towards the embankment. A newspaper boy was shouting his 'extra'-' ' 'Orrible Murder on Westminster Bridge! M.P. Dead-Throat Cut!' '

Pitt climbed the steps and went into the station. It was a different sergeant on duty, but he had obviously been fully caught up on the case.

'Arternoon, Mr. Pitt,' he said cheerfully. 'Mr. Drum-mond's in 'is office. Reckon there's a bit in-not much. Found a cab or two, for wot it's worth.''

33

'Thank you.' Pitt strode past him and into the corridor, which smelled of clean linoleum, a comparatively new invention. He went up the stairs two at a time and knocked on the door to Drummond's office. His memory went back to a few months ago, when Dudley Athelstan had occupied it. Pitt had found Athelstan pompous and, with the insecurity of the socially ambitious, never sure which master to serve. Athelstan had resented Pitt's impertinence, his untidiness- but above all his impudence in marrying Charlotte Ellison, so much his social superior.

Drummond was a totally different man, having sufficient family background and private means not to care about either. He called his permission to enter.

'Good afternoon, sir.' Pitt looked round the room, full of mementos of past cases, many of which he had worked on himself; tragedies and resolutions, darkness and light.

'Come in, Pitt.'' Drummond waved him towards the fire. He fished among papers on his desk, all