Chapter TwentyThree Photographs
Left alone in the big room, silent except for the hiss of the coals and Squareless’s heavy breathing, Sybil first drew the red curtains tightly shut. Then she switched on a lamp that stood on the broad teakwood desk and turned off the other one, which had been shining directly down on Squareless’s face, Hogarthian in its pallor under the cap of bandage.
She poured a little more brandy into her glass and carried it to the desk, behind which she settled herself for her vigil, even as Tim, less comfortably, was doing at the same time outside. The desk was still cluttered with papers—bills, accounts, letters, a catalogue of sporting books, a bridge hand clipped from a newspaper, all carelessly shoved together. There were a couple of books, Burke’s Peerage and
