"Rowe."
"Somebody called on Mr Rowe to ask about a cake. I don't quite understand. It seems he won it at our fête."
"Now let me see, who could that possibly be?" The young man spoke excellent English; only a certain caution and precision marked him as a foreigner. It was as if he had come from an old-fashioned family among whom it was important to speak clearly and use the correct words; his care had an effect of charm, not of pedantry. He stood with his hand laid lightly and affectionately on his sister's shoulder as though they formed together a Victorian family group. "Was he one of your countrymen, Mr Rowe? In this office we are most of us foreigners, you know." Smiling he took Rowe into his confidence. "If health or nationality prevent us fighting for you, we have to do something. My sister and I are -- technically -- Austrian."
"This man was English."
"He must have been one of the voluntary helpers. We have so many -- I don't know half of them by name. You want to return a prize, is that it? A cake?"
Rowe said cautiously, "I wanted to inquire about it."
"Well, Mr Rowe, if I were you, I should be unscrupulous. I should just "hang on" to the cake." When he used a colloquialism you could hear the inverted commas drop gently and apologetically around it.
"The trouble is," Rowe said, "the cake's no longer there. My house was bombed last night."
"I'm sorry. About your house, I mean. The cake can't seem very important now, surely?"
They were charming, they were obviously honest, but they had caught him neatly and effectively in an inconsistency.
"I shouldn't bother," the girl said, "if I were you."
Rowe watched them hesitatingly. But it is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself. For more than a year now Rowe had been so imprisoned -- there had been no change of cell, no exercise-yard, no unfamiliar warder to break the monotony of solitary confinement. A moment comes to a man when a prison-break must be made whatever the risk. Now cautiously he tried for freedom. These two had lived through terror themselves, but they had emerged without any ugly psychological scar. He said, "As a matter of fact it wasn't simply the cake which was worrying me."
They watched him with a frank and friendly interest; you felt that in spite of the last years there was still the bloom of youth on them -- they still expected life to offer them other things than pain and boredom and distrust and hate. The young man said, "Won't you sit down and tell us. . .?" They reminded him of children who liked stories. They couldn't have accumulated more than fifty years' experience between them. He felt immeasurably older.
Rowe said, "I got the impression that whoever wanted that cake was ready to be -- well, violent." He told them of the visit and the stranger's vehemence and the odd taste in his tea. The young man's very pale blue eyes sparkled with his interest and excitement. He said, "It's a fascinating story. Have you any idea who's behind it -- or what? How does Mrs Bellairs come into it?"
He wished now that he hadn't been to Mr Rennit -- these were the allies he needed, not the dingy Jones and his sceptical employer.
"Mrs Bellairs told my fortune at the fête, and told me the weight of the cake -- which wasn't the right weight."
"It's extraordinary," the young man said enthusiastically.
The girl said, "It doesn't make sense." She added almost in Mr Rennit's words, "It was probably all a misunderstanding."
"Misunderstanding," her brother said and then dropped his inverted commas round the antiquated slang, " 'my eye'." He turned to Rowe with an expression of glee. "Count this Society, Mr Rowe, as far as the secretary's concerned, at your service. This is really interesting." He held out his hand. "My name -- our name is Hilfe. Where do we begin?"
The girl sat silent. Rowe said, "Your sister doesn't agree."
"Oh," the young man said, "she'll come round. She always does in the end. She thinks I'm a romantic. She's had to get me out of too many scrapes." He became momentarily serious, "she got me out of Austria." But nothing could damp his enthusiasm for long. "That's another story. Do we begin with Mrs Bellairs? Have you any idea what it's all about? I'll get our grim volunteer in the next room on the hunt," and opening the door he called through. "Dear Mrs Dermody, do you think you could find the address of one of our voluntary helpers called Mrs Bellairs?" He explained to Rowe, "The difficulty is she's probably just the friend of a friend -- not a regular helper. Try Canon Topling," he suggested to Mrs Dermody.
The greater the young man's enthusiasm, the more fantastic the whole incident became. Rowe began to see it through Mr Rennit's eyes -- Mrs Dermody, Canon Topling. . .
He said, "Perhaps after all your sister's right."
But young Hilfe swept on. "She may be, of course she may be. But how dull if she is. I'd much rather think, until we know, that there's some enormous conspiracy. . ."
Mrs Dermody put her head in at the door and said, "Canon Topling gave me the address. It's 5 Park Crescent."
"If she's a friend of Canon Topling," Rowe began and caught Miss Hilfe's eye. She gave him a secret nod as much as to say -- now you're on the right track.
"Oh, but let's 'hang on' to the stranger," Hilfe said.
"There may be a thousand reasons," Miss Hilfe said.
"Surely not a thousand, Anna," her brother mocked. He asked Rowe, "Isn't there anything else you can remember which will convince her?" His keenness was more damping than her scepticism. The whole affair became a game one couldn't take seriously.
"Nothing," Rowe said.
Hilfe was at the window looking out. He said, "Come here a moment, Mr Rowe. Do you see that little man down there -- in the shabby brown hat? He arrived just after you, and he seems to be staying. . . There he goes now, up and down. Pretends to light a cigarette. He does that too often. And that's the second evening paper he's bought. He never comes quite opposite, you see. It almost looks as if you are being trailed."
"I know him," Rowe said. "He's a private detective. He's being paid to keep an eye on me."
"By Jove," young Hilfe said -- even his exclamations were a little Victorian -- "you do take this seriously. We're allies now you know -- you aren't 'holding out' on us, are you?"
"There is something I haven't mentioned." Rowe hesitated.
"Yes?" Hilfe came quickly back and with his hand again on his sister's shoulder waited with an appearance of anxiety. "Something which will wipe out Canon Topling?"
"I think there was something in the cake."
"What?"
"I don't know. But he crumbled every slice he took."
"It may have been habit," Miss Hilfe said.
"Habit!" her brother teased her.
She said with sudden anger, "One of these old English characteristics you study so carefully."
Rowe tried to explain to Miss Hilfe, "It's nothing to do with me. I don't want their cake, but they tried, I'm sure they tried, to kill me. I know it sounds unlikely, now, in daylight, but if you had seen that wretched little cripple pouring in the milk, and then waiting, watching, crumbling the cake. . ."