Jaffery looked down on her, his head on one side.

“Explain what?”

“That!”

She pointed to the proofs of which I had possessed myself and was eagerly scanning.  Unblenching he met her gaze.

“That is the posthumous novel of Adrian Boldero, which I, as his literary executor, have revised for the press.  Hilary saw the rough manuscript, but he had no time to read it.”

They looked at one another for quite a long time.

“Is that all you’re going to tell me?”

“That’s all.”

“And all you’re going to tell Hilary?”

“Telling Hilary is the same as telling you.”

“Naturally.”

“And telling you is the same as telling Hilary.”

“By no manner of means,” said Barbara tartly.  She took him by the sleeve.  “Come and explain.”

“I’ve explained already,” said Jaffery.

Barbara eyed him like a syren of the cornfields.  “I’m going to dress a crab for lunch.  A very big crab.”

Jaffery’s face was transfigured into a vast, hairy smile.  Barbara could dress crab like no one else in the world.  She herself disliked the taste of crab.  I, a carefully trained gastronomist, adored it, but a Puckish digestion forbade my consuming one single shred of the ambrosial preparation.  Doria would pass it by through sheer unhappiness.  And it was not fit food for Susan’s tender years.  Old Jaff knew this.  One gigantic crab-shell filled with Barbara’s juicy witchery and flanked by cool pink, meaty claws would be there for his own individual delectation.  Several times before had he taken the dish, with a “One man, one crab.  Ho! ho! ho!” and had left nothing but clean shells.

“I’m going to dress this crab,” said Barbara, “for the sake of the servants.  But if you find I’ve put poison in it, don’t blame me.”

She left us, her little head indignantly in the air.  Jaffery laughed, sank into a chair and tugged at his pipe.

“I wish Doria could be persuaded to read the thing,” said he.

“Why?” I asked looking up from the proofs.

“It’s not quite up to the standard of ‘The Diamond Gate.’”

“I shouldn’t suppose it was,” said I drily.

“Wittekind’s delighted anyhow.  It’s a different genre; but he says that’s all the better.”

Susan emerged from my study door on to the terrace.

“My good fellow,” said I, “yonder is the daughter of the house, evidently at a loose end.  Go and entertain her.  I’m going to read this wonderful novel and don’t want to be disturbed till lunch.”