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turned up. I expect he’s gone off to Central Africa. He does that when people annoy him. I think Mrs Denbies annoyed him yesterday. I say, I was awfully glad you came along last night. Great-aunt Catherine wanted to ask Miss Pigdon or Mr Bookham to have dinner alone, but I couldn’t agree to that, as I like them better than anyone else in the house, and, after all, it
was
my party. So we were stuck, until you two came. I do thank you very much. I didn’t have a chance to speak before you went.’
    ‘We had a jolly good time,’ said Roger. ‘The thanks are all on our side. I suppose we can’t give you a lift?’
    ‘You’d better not, thanks. I shall hang about here for a bit, and the farmer’s wife will give me my dinner. Then, at three o’clock, I’ll go home.’
    ‘But surely it’s more than ten miles?’
    ‘Not by the way I shall go. Back her, if you’re ready. I’ll shut this gate, and then the farmer’s wife will open the other one as soon as you’ve given her the shilling.’
    ‘You seem jolly keen on this shilling business,’ said Roger. ‘Do you and the farmer’s wife divvy up, by any chance?’
    The boy laughed, and then asked suddenly:
    ‘Did Sim pick you up last night? We forgot we’d be thirteen if Mr Lingfield came in. I wanted to be first up to see what would happen, but Great-aunt Catherine wouldn’t let me. I think superstitions are silly. Besides, it’s awkward when she will insist that there are the wrong number present. I don’t like it. After all he
didn’t
come in.’
    ‘Oh, yes, he found us,’ said Roger. ‘I wished at first he’d missed us, but it was worth a lot to hear Mrs Denbies play. How is her back this morning?’
    ‘Oh, just the same, I think,’ replied the boy. ‘She’s worried about Mr Lingfield. I think they all are. Rather silly, really. I’m sure he’s simply gone off exploring again.’
    ‘I suppose he didn’t go by train?’ asked Roger. The boy looked at him intently for the moment, and then said he did not know. Roger was tempted to follow up this question and ask whether the boy had been a witness to a quarrel between Lingfield and Mrs Denbies, but he knew that it was nothis business, and regretfully abandoned the idea. ‘By the way,’ he added, ‘what did he do with his horse?’
    ‘His horse? Oh, he sent it back to the house, I suppose. He had Strawberry, and Strawberry is certainly in his stable this morning, because I saw him there myself.’
    ‘Oh, I see,’ said Roger. ‘Well, so long! Oh, I didn’t get a chance yesterday to wish you Many Happy Returns.’
    Dorothy echoed this wish, and George, acknowledging their congratulations, observed:
    ‘I’ve come of age, you know. We do, in our family, at thirteen. That’s why Great-aunt Catherine wanted me to have a decent party. And it wouldn’t have been a decent party without Mr Bookham and Piggie, so I really am glad you turned up.’
    ‘Talking of turning, I think the farmer’s wife is waiting for us,’ said Bob, who, for some reason not understood by himself, felt irritated by this conversation.
    ‘I think she is,’ George agreed. ‘I say, I think I’ll come back to lunch after all. I suppose you couldn’t give me a lift?’
    ‘Hop in,’ said Bob, making room.
    By using the farmyard gate, the motorists found the turn a simple matter, if rather muddy, and, having gained the end of the Roman road, Roger drove southward until a side-turning, half a mile long, brought the car to the station approach.
    It was not very far to the house. Dorothy realized, as soon as she saw it, that she had never expectedto find it; yet here it was. The archery butts had been removed, but, apart from this, and the severe purity of the architecture of the house itself, nothing seemed exceptional. Nevertheless, she and Roger gazed at the house in silence, and even Bob sat without a word. George opened the door and got out.
    ‘Won’t you come in?’ he enquired. But Dorothy had packed up some