About a week later I went back to London, and scarcely had I got settled in the old flat when Biffy blew in. One glance was enough to tell me that the poisoned wound had begun to fester. The man did not look bright. No, there was no getting away from it, not bright. He had that kind of stunned, glassy expression which I used to see on my own face in the shaving-mirror during my brief engagement to the Glossop pestilence. However, if you don’t want to be one of the What Is Wrong With This Picture brigade, you must observe the conventions, so I shook his hand as warmly as I could.

“Well, well, old man,” I said. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” said Biffy, wanly, and there was rather a weighty silence.

“Bertie,” said Biffy, after the silence had lasted about three minutes.

“Hullo?”

“Is it really true⁠—?”