Stop Press by Michael Innes

elucidation of mysteries. ‘I’m afraid’, he added, ‘I know hardly any of them.’
    ‘The gathering’, said the man who was eating a sweet omelette, ‘is unique. It represents one of the great romances of modern publishing enterprise.’ He was a large man dressed in loose-fitting lovat tweed and from beneath oddly mischievous eyes he spoke with a large pomposity. ‘Consider’, he went on – and it was plain to Winter that he was of the talking kind – ‘consider any twenty books sold in England. Lamentable though the confession be, it is most certain that six are merely bad. And six, without being bad, are openly dull. It is only the remaining eight which can be said to give pleasure to their readers, and of these–’ the large man made a dramatic gesture up the table – ‘two are by our host.’
    Winter said that this was a remarkable thing.
    ‘It is a remarkable thing,’ said the large man. ‘The more so in that the commodity has been perfectly steady on the market for a considerable term of years.’ He puffed himself out as he spoke with a frog-like effect which was enhanced by his hanging green tweeds. ‘It is a labour of beneficence with which I am proud to be associated.’ He made another gesture – this time of the weighty sort which Winter conjecturally associated with company directors at shareholders’ meetings. And then, unaccountably, he broke into a rumbling guffaw and turned away to his farther neighbour.
    The old lady, fortified by her meringue, now summoned up courage to speak. ‘I’m afraid’, she said. ‘that introductions are never thought necessary at this party. You don’t know Mr Wedge? His imitations are most amusing, don’t you think?’
    ‘His imitations?’
    ‘Of all the other publishers. That was Sir Richard Fell whom he was imitating just now. I’ve never met Sir Richard, but I’m sure it was done to the life. May I be very unconventional and say that I am Mrs Moule? You will sometimes see my name in teeny letters on the playbills.’
    Winter made sounds suggesting that the teeny letters had often been very much in his eye. ‘My name is Winter,’ he added.
    Mrs Moule spent some seconds evidently trying to place a Winter somewhere among the myrmidons of the Spider. Failing, she asked, ‘And you don’t know many people here?’ She hesitated, blushed faintly, and added in a burst of resolution, ‘Are you the detective?’
    Startled, Winter swallowed a bolus of fish. ‘I am afraid not. If long life is granted me I shall be called a classical archaeologist. It is a poking about sort of business which might help me to turn detective if need was. May I ask why–’
    Mrs Moule was covered with faintly pink confusion. ‘I am so sorry. You must forgive me. I believe that some policemen now are quite – But it was most stupid. You see I know that a detective is being brought down’ – she sank her voice to a whisper – ‘ quietly .’
    ‘Quite a number of people seem to being brought down quietly.’
    The old lady looked at Winter at once apprehensively and absently; it occurred to him that she was no longer using her eyes but her ears – straining them after something beyond and apart from the loud chatter about them. ‘Have you ever’, she asked presently, ‘rifled a tomb?’
    ‘I’m afraid I’ve never succeeded in walking off with any substantial treasure. But I have dug about a bit here and there.’
    ‘Oh, dear! I know I use the wrong words. But you have explored tombs’ – Mrs Moule’s voice took on an awesome quality – ‘in Egypt ?’
    ‘Yes – in an amateur fashion. It’s out of a classical man’s way.’
    ‘Have you ever come under a curse?’
    ‘Decidedly not.’
    ‘One doesn’t’, said Mrs Moule darkly, ‘always know.’
    ‘Dear me, I hope you haven’t yourself any experience of such a state of affairs?’ Winter looked at Mrs Moule and saw that this civil enquiry had been a mistake. Briskly accepting another meringue, she