Miriam began pouring out. Mr. Leyton finished his passage with a little giggling shriek of laughter and fumbled for bread and butter with his eyes still on the newspaper. Miriam sipped her hot tea. The room darkled in the silence. Everything intensified. She glanced impatiently at Mr. Leyton's bent unconscious form. His shirt and the long straight narrow ends of his tie made a bulging curve above his low-cut waistcoat. The collar of his coat stood away from his bent neck and its tails were bunched up round his hips. His trousers were so hitched up that his bent knees strained against the harsh crude Rope Brothers cloth. The ends of his trousers peaked up in front, displaying loose rolls of black sock and the whole of his anatomical walking-shoes. Miriam heard his busily masticating jaws and dreaded his operations with his tea-cup. A wavering hand came out and found the cup and clasped it by the rim, holding it at the edge of the lifted newspaper. She busied herself with cutting stout little wedges of cake. Mr. Leyton sipped, gasping after each loud quilting gulp; a gasp, and the sound of a moustache being sucked. Mr. Hancock's showing out bell rang. Mr. Leyton plunged busily round, finishing his cup in a series of rapid gulps. "Kike?" he said. "M" said Miriam, "jolly kike--did you finish Mr. Buck?" "More or less----" "Did you boil the remains?" "Boiled every blessed thing--and put the serviette in k'bolic." Miriam hid her relief and poured him out another cup. Mr. Hancock came in through the open door and quickly up to the tea-tray. Pouring out a cup he held the teapot suspended, "another cup?" "No thanks, not just at present" said Miriam getting to her feet with a morsel of cake in her fingers. "Plenty of time for my things" said Mr. Hancock sitting down in Mr. Orly's chair with his tea, his flat compact slightly wrinkled and square-toed patent leather shoes gleamed from under the rims of his soft dark grey beautifully cut trousers with a pleasant shine as he sat back comfortable and unlounging, with crossed knees in the deep chair. Mr. Leyton had got to his feet. "Busy?" he said rapidly munching. "I say I've had that man Buck this afternoon." "Oh yes" said Mr. Hancock brushing a crumb from his knee. "_You_ know--that case I told you about." "Oh yes?" said Mr. Hancock with a clear glance and a slight tightening of the face. Miriam made for the door. Mr. Hancock was not encouraging the topic. Mr. Leyton's cup came down with a clatter. "I'm fearfully rushed" he said. "I must be off." He caught Miriam up in the hall. "I say tea must have been fearfully late. I've got to get down to headquarters by five _sharp_." "You go on first" said Miriam standing aside. Mr. Leyton fled up through the house three steps at a time. 15