HE yipped like a fussy old terrier, “you’ll have to drive me home.” “So late?” Emma protested. “Can’t you stay here, Fred? I’d be glad to give you a bed.” “Emma, I do not want your bed. I want my own bed. Get your coat, Sarah.” Arguing with an elderly relative who’d made up his mind to do as he chose regardless of what another elderly relative thought was best for him would be, as Sarah knew from bitter experience, a totally hopeless waste of time. She got her coat and found her car keys. “Please don’t wait up for me, Aunt Emma. I can let myself in.” “All right, dear. I have had rather a long day. Drive carefully.” Emma kissed her niece and went upstairs. Sarah and Frederick went out to the car. He didn’t say anything till they’d got out to the main road, then he barked, “Turn left.” “But your house is to the right,” Sarah objected. “We’re not going to my house. We’re going to Charlie’s.” “Charlie Daventer’s? Whatever for?” “Because in spite of all that yammering about micturitional syndrome Sebastian Frostedd was getting off back there, I know damned well Charlie did not get up last night to go to the bathroom, become dizzy upon voiding, and fall and whack his head on the bathtub, that’s why.”
