‘Not since I’ve been with them. I can take one when I like now. The managing director said so in his last letter. But I don’t need a holiday. What happened just now has got nothing to do—’
‘Just a minute. Answer me one more question first. Have you ever had a nervous breakdown?’
‘No. I — don’t think so.’
‘Never been in hospital because you were upset mentally?’
‘I had a couple of months in hospital before I left Italy. That was after the war ended and I was released from the Villa d’Este, the German hospital where they amputated my leg.’
He nodded. ‘I thought so. And now you’re all wound up like a clock that’s ready to burst its mainspring. If you don’t take a holiday you’re going to have a nervous breakdown.’
I stared at him angrily. ‘You’re suggesting there’s something wrong with my mind. That’s what you’re suggesting, isn’t it? My mind’s all right, I tell you. There’s nothing wrong with it. You think I imagined all this to-night. But it happened just as I told you. He was here in this room. It wasn’t a nightmare. It was real.’
‘Reality and nightmare sometimes get confused, you know. Your mind—’
‘There’s nothing wrong with my mind,’ I snapped.
He pushed his hand through the tousled mop of his white hair and sighed. ‘Do you remember me knocking on your door earlier to-night?’