I think I must have become a little intoxicated that night. Everything is very hazy. I know I walked miles before I turned in at Hans Crescent. I must have wandered down Knightsbridge instinctively. I remember staring vacantly at Harrod’s window on the corner for I don’t know how long. I was barely conscious of the figure that looked like a great bat that kept bearing down on me and then disappearing. A loud cough roused me to the recognition that it was a constable in his rubber cape, that it was raining, and that I’d better get along.
It’s not too much to say that I was literally stunned by all this. When I thought it over the implications were too plain. Catherine, lovely Catherine Chiltern — was she a rose cankered at the heart? For almost six years she had lived with a man like Scovi
