FOR SOME MOMENTS there was an astonished silence. Sam had become very red and was staring intently at his shoes, while keeping very close to his mother who was sitting at the table with her arm round him. The two adult newcomers were startled. Mr Albert Campion, a thin man with pale hair and eyes and a misleadingly blank expression, shot a thoughtful glance at the youngster through his horn-rimmed spectacles and Superintendent Luke permitted himself a bewildered smile. He was about to speak when Helena forestalled him by turning not on Sam but on Edward with actual ferocity. ‘How did Sam know that?’ The boy did not reply at once. He had crossed the room and was standing with his shoulders hunched and his hands in the pockets of his raincoat. His long school muffler, blue with horizontal stripes, was wound twice round his neck and he appeared embarrassed, like some shy elderly person overtaken by an awkward social situation. ‘Oh, I think he guessed, you know,’ he murmured at last.
