The man who had been so far the foremost in his thoughts during the last weeks that he never thought that he could have failed to recognise him.  Mario Escobar!  And with Joan Whitworth.  Millicent Splay’s letter flashed back into his memory.  The distress which he had seemed to hear loud behind the written words—­was this its meaning and explanation?  Joan Whitworth and Mario Escobar!  Certainly Joan knew him!  He was sitting next to her on the night when “The Dark Tower” was produced, sitting next to her, and talking to her.  Sir Charles Hardiman had used some phrase to describe that conversation.  Hillyard was strangely anxious to recapture the phrase.  Escobar was talking to her with an air of intimacy a little excessive in a public place.  Yes, that was the sentence.

Hillyard walked on quickly to his club.

“Is Sir Charles Hardiman here?” he asked of the hall porter.

“He is in the card-room, sir.”

Martin Hillyard went up the stairs with a sense of relief.  His position was becoming a little complicated.  Mario Escobar was B45, and a friend of Joan Whitworth, and a friend of the Splays.  There was one point upon which Martin Hillyard greatly needed information.

Hardiman, a little heavier and broader and more obese than when Hillyard had last seen him, was sitting by a bridge table overlooking the players.  He never played himself, nor did he ever bet upon the game, but he took a curious pleasure in looking on, and would sit in the card-room by the hour engrossed in the fall of the cards.  The sight of Hillyard, however, plucked him out of his occupation.

“So you’re back!” he cried, heaving himself heavily out of his chair and shaking hands with Martin.

“For a month.”

“I hear you have done very well,” Sir Charles continued.  “Have a whisky-and-soda.”

“Thanks.”

Hardiman touched the bell and led the way over to a sofa.

“Lucky man!  The doctor’s read the Riot Act to me!  I met Luttrell in the Mall this morning, on his way back from Buckingham Palace.  He had just been given his D.S.O.”

Hardiman began to sit down, but the couch was low, and though he began the movement lazily, it went suddenly with a run, so that the springs of the couch jumped and twanged and his feet flew from beneath him.

“Yes, he has done splendidly,” said Martin.  “His battalion too.  That’s what he cares about.”

Sir Charles needed a moment or two after he had set down to recover his equipoise.  He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.

“Luttrell told me you were both off to Rackham Park this week for Gatwick.”

“That’s right!  But I shan’t get down until Friday afternoon,” said Hillyard.

The waiter put the glass of whisky-and-soda at his side, and he took a drink from it.

“Perhaps you are going too,” he suggested.

Hardiman shook his head.