Michael Prenderby was a fair, slight young man, with a sense of humour entirely unexpected.
To the casual observer he was an inoffensive, colourless individual, and his extraordinary spirit and strength of character were known only to his friends.
Abbershaw took a cigarette and indicated a chair.
‘Let’s have it,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’
Prenderby lit a cigarette and pulled at it vigorously, then he spoke abruptly.
‘In the first place,’ he said, ‘the old bird upstairs is dead.’
Abbershaw’s blue-grey eyes flickered, and the thought which had lurked at the back of his mind ever since Meggie’s story in the garden suddenly grew into a certainty.
‘Dead?’ he said. ‘How do you know?’
‘They told me.’ Prenderby’s pale face flushed slightly. ‘The private medico fellow – Whitby, I think his name is – came up to me just as I was coming to bed; he asked me if I would go up with him and have a look at the old boy.’
He paused awkwardly, and Abbershaw suddenly realized that it was a question of professional etiquette that was embarrassing him.