“Really?”
“‘A Shriek in the Night.’ ‘Who Killed Jasper Bossom?’—all of them.”
He stiffened austerely.
“You must be confusing me with some other—ah—writer,” he said. “My work is on somewhat different lines. The reviewers usually describe the sort of thing I do as Pastels in Prose. My best-liked book, I believe, is Grey Myrtles. Dunstable’s brought it out last year. It was exceedingly well received. And I do a good deal of critical work for the better class of review.” He paused. “If you think it would interest your readers,” he said, with a deprecating wave of the hand, “I will send you a photograph. Possibly your editor would like to use it.”
“I bet he would.”
“A photograph somehow seems to—as it were—set off an article of this kind.”
“That,” I replied, cordially, “is what it doesn’t do nothing else but.”
“And you won’t forget Grey Myrtles. Well, if you have finished your cigarette, we might be returning to the ballroom. These people rather rely on me to keep things going, you know.”
A burst of music greeted us as he opened the door, and even in that first moment I had an odd feeling that it sounded different. That tinny sound had gone from it. And as we debouched from behind a potted palm and came in sight of the floor, I realised why.
The floor was full. It was crammed, jammed, and overflowing. Where couples had moved as single spies, they were now in battalions. The place was alive with noise and laughter. These people might, as my companion had said, be relying on him to keep things going, but they seemed to have been getting along uncommonly well in his absence. I paused and surveyed the mob in astonishment. I could not make the man’s figures balance.