THIRTY-EIGHT
Clare was gone. She understood our little gang well enough to know better than to tell anyone where she was going, other than that she would be staying with family. Quincey dispatched a wire immediately to her parents in Birmingham, but I could tell that the wait for a reply was killing him. He knew that her brother lived in Ealing but did not know the address. He did know his wife’s habits well enough to know he would not find an address written anywhere at home. She did not keep letters, and she certainly did not keep envelopes.
I found him in the Holmwoods’ smoking room after supper and sat beside him on the settee.
He held out his cigarette to me, and I accepted a puff out of politeness, holding the smoke in my mouth without inhaling.
‘They’ll be all right,’ I told him
