Mrs. Forrester made an abrupt movement as if to crush the paper, but Cressida’s hand was laid over hers. “No, don’t,” Cressida said, “I’m going to show it to Hilary. And I must say I hope it’ll change his mind about his ghastly Nigel.”

When Hilary was shown the paper, which was as soon as the men came into the drawing-room, he turned very quiet. For what seemed a long time he stood with it in his hands, frowning at it and saying nothing. Mr. Smith walked over to him, glanced at the paper, and gave out a soft, protracted whistle. Colonel Forrester looked inquiringly from Hilary to his wife, who shook her head at him. He then turned away to admire the tree and the kissing bough.

“Well, boy,” said Mrs. Forrester. “What do you make of that?”

“I don’t know. Not, I think, what I am expected to make of it, Aunt Bed.”

“Whatever anybody makes of it,” Cressida pointed out, “it’s not the nicest kind of thing to find in one’s bedroom.”

Hilary broke into a strange apologia: tender, oblique, guarded. It was a horrid, silly thing to have happened, he told Cressida, and she mustn’t let it trouble her. It wasn’t worth a second thought. “Look,” he said, “up the chimney with it, vulgar little beast,” and threw it on the fire. It blackened, its preposterous legend turned white and started out in momentary prominence, it was reduced to a wraith of itself and flew out of sight. “Gone! Gone! Gone!” chanted Hilary rather wildly and spread his arms.

“I don’t think you ought to have done that,” Cressida said, “I think we ought to have kept it.”

“That’s right,” Mr. Smith chimed in. “For dabs,” he added.

This familiar departmental word startled Troy. Mr. Smith grinned at her. “That’s correct,” he said. “Innit? What your good man calls routine, that is. Dabs. You oughter kep’ it, ’Illy.”

“I think, Uncle Bert, I must be allowed to manage this ridiculous little incident in my own way.”

“Hullo-ullo-ullo!”

“I’m quite sure, Cressida darling, it’s merely an idiot-joke on somebody’s part. How I detest practical jokes!” Hilary hurried on with an unconvincing return to his usual manner. He turned to Troy, “Don’t you?”

“When they’re as unfunny as this. If this is one.”

“Which I don’t for a moment believe,” Cressida said. “Joke! It’s a deliberate insult. Or worse.” She appealed to Mrs. Forrester. “Isn’t it?” she demanded.

“I haven’t the remotest idea what it may be. What do you say to all this, Fred, I said what —”

She broke off. Her husband had gone to the far end of the room and was pacing out the distance from the french windows to the tree.

“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen — fifteen feet exactly,” he was saying. “I shall have to walk fifteen feet. Who’s going to shut the french window after me? These things need to be worked out.”

“Honestly, Hilly darling, I do not think it can be all shrugged off, you know, like a fun thing. When you yourself have said Nigel always refers to his victim as a sinful lady. It seems to me to be perfectly obvious he’s set his sights at me and I find it terrifying. You know, terrifying.”

“But,” Hilary said, “it isn’t. I promise you, my lovely child, it’s not at all terrifying. The circumstances are entirely different —”

“I should hope so considering she was a tart.”

“— and of course I shall get to the bottom of it. It’s too preposterous. I shall put it before —”

“You can’t put it before anybody. You’ve burnt it.”

“Nigel is completely recovered.”

“ ’Ere,” Mr. Smith said. “What say one of that lot’s got it in for ’im? What say it’s been done to discredit ’im? Planted? Spiteful, like?”

“But they get on very well together.”

“Not with the Colonel’s chap. Not with Moult they don’t. No love lost there, I’ll take a fiver on it. I seen the way they look at ’im. And ’im at them.”

“Nonsense, Smith,” said Mrs. Forrester. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Moult’s been with us for twenty years.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Oh Lord!” Cressida said loudly and dropped into an armchair.

“— and who’s going to read out the names?” the Colonel speculated. “I can’t wear my specs. They’d look silly.”

“Fred!”

“What, B?”

“Come over here, I said come over here.”

“Why? I’m working things out.”

“You’re overexciting yourself. Come here. It’s about Moult, I said it’s…”

The Colonel, for him almost crossly, said, “You’ve interrupted my train of thought, B. What about Moult?”

As if in response to a heavily contrived cue and a shove from offstage, the door opened and in came Moult himself, carrying a salver.

“Beg pardon, sir,” Moult said to Hilary, “but I thought perhaps this might be urgent, sir. For the Colonel, sir.”

“What is it, Moult?” the Colonel asked quite testily.

Moult advanced the salver in his employer’s direction. Upon it lay an envelope addressed in capitals: “COL. FORRESTER.”

“It was on the floor of your room, sir. By the door, sir. I thought it might be urgent,” said Moult.

When Colonel Forrester read the message on the paper he behaved in much the same way as his nephew before him. That is to say for some seconds he made no move and gave no sign of any particular emotion. Then he turned rather pink and said to Hilary, “Can I have a word with you, old boy?” He folded the paper and his hands were unsteady.

“Yes, of course —” Hilary began when his aunt loudly interjected, “No!”

“B, you must let me…”

“No. If you’ve been made an Object,” she said, “I want to know how, I said…”

“I heard you. No, B. No, my dear. It’s not suitable.”

“Nonsense. Fred, I insist…” She broke off and in a completely changed voice said, “Sit down, Fred. Hilary!”

Hilary went quickly to his uncle. They helped him to the nearest chair. Mrs. Forrester put her hand in his breast pocket and took out a small phial. “Brandy,” she said and Hilary fetched it from the tray Mervyn had left in the room.

Mr. Smith said to Troy, “It’s ’is ticker. He takes turns.”

He went to the far end of the room and opened a window. The North itself returned, stirring the tree and turning the kissing bough.

Colonel Forrester sat with his eyes closed, his hair ruffled and his breath coming short. “I’m perfectly all right,” he whispered. “No need to fuss.”

“Nobody’s fussing,” his wife said. “You can shut that window, if you please, Smith.”

Cressida gave an elaborate and prolonged shiver. “Thank God for that, at least,” she muttered to Troy, who ignored her.

“Better,” said the Colonel without opening his eyes. The others stood back.

The group printed an indelible image across Troy’s field of observation: an old man with closed eyes, fetching his breath short; Hilary, elegant in plum-coloured velvet and looking perturbed; Cressida, lounging discontentedly and beautifully in a golden chair; Mrs. Forrester, with folded arms, a step or two removed from her husband and watchful of him. And coming round the Christmas tree, a little old cockney in a grand smoking jacket.

In its affluent setting and its air of dated formality the group might have served as subject matter for some Edwardian problem-painter: Orchardson or, better still, the Hon. John Collier. And the title? “The Letter.” For there it lay where the Colonel had dropped it, in exactly the right position on the carpet, the focal point of the composition.

To complete the organization of this hopelessly obsolete canvas, Mr. Smith stopped short in his tracks while Mrs. Forrester, Hilary and Cressida turned their heads and looked, as he did, at the white paper on the carpet.

And then the still picture animated. The Colonel opened his eyes. Mrs. Forrester took five steps across the carpet and picked up the paper.