IV
It was a cold windy evening with occasional bursts of thin misty¹ rain. SirStafford Nye turned up the collar of his mackintosh and plodded² on. It wasnot the first time he had gone across Hungerford Bridge, but it had neverseemed to him a walk to take for pleasure. Beneath him was the river andcrossing the bridge were large quantities of hurrying figures like himself.
Their mackintoshes pulled round them, their hats pulled down and on thepart of one and all of them an earnest desire to get home and out of thewind and rain as soon as possible. It would be, thought Sir Stafford Nye,very difficult to recognize anybody in this scurrying³ crowd. 7.20. Not agood moment to choose for a rendezvous⁴ of any kind. Perhaps it was Hun-gerford Bridge in Berkshire. Anyway, it seemed very odd.
He plodded on. He kept an even pace, not overtaking those ahead ofhim, pushing past those coming the opposite way. He went fast enoughnot to be overtaken by the others behind him, though it would be possiblefor them to do so if they wanted to. A joke, perhaps, thought Stafford Nye.
Not quite his kind of joke, but someone else’s.
And yet–not her brand of humour either, he would have thought. Hurry-ing figures passed him again, pushing him slightly aside. A woman in amackintosh was coming along, walking heavily. She collided with him,slipped, dropped to her knees. He assisted her up.
‘All right?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
She hurried on, but as she passed him, her wet hand, by which he hadheld her as he pulled her to her feet, slipped something into the palm ofhis hand, closing the fingers over it. Then she was gone, vanishing behindhim, mingling⁵ with the crowd. Stafford Nye went on. He couldn’t overtakeher. She did not wish to be overtaken, either. He hurried on and his handheld something firmly. And so, at long last it seemed, he came to the end ofthe bridge on the Surrey side.
A few minutes later he had turned into a small café and sat there behinda table, ordering coffee. Then he looked at what was in his hand. It was avery thin oilskin envelope. Inside it was a cheap quality white envelope.
That too he opened. What was inside surprised him. It was a ticket.
A ticket for the Festival Hall for the following evening.

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