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And presently somebody touched me on the shoulder. “Beg pardon, sir,” he said, “but was you wanting . . . anything?”

Very slowly I raised myself and turned my head; then I dropped my arms from the saloon top of my car and stood erect upon the kerb. The moon was very round and plain and the sky was deep blue, so that the moon hung in it like a great shilling. It was Nicholson, the grey-haired, infinitely discreet, head waiter at the club. He was in a soft hat and a raincoat; on his way home, I suppose. And I had something in my hand, and I said to him: “What’s this I’ve got, Nicholson?”

I think I remember that the old man chuckled, and he said: “Why, sir, that’s the apple what you took away with you from the dinner table, and you’ve been carrying about with you all evening.”

And I stared at him, and I said: “Is it an eating apple?”

And he said: “Yes, sir, they’re very good apples, those.”

“Then I’ll eat it,” I said, conscious of having reached a true decision after wading through a tangled mass of evidence. “I’ll eat it, Nicholson. And I’m bloody sorry to have kept you up so late.”