At this point, when everything was going as sweet as a nut and I was feeling on top of my form, Mrs. Pringle suddenly soaked me on the base of the skull with a sandbag.

Not actually, I don’t mean. No, no. I speak figuratively, as it were.

“Roderick is very late,” she said.

You may think it strange that the sound of that name should have sloshed into my nerve-centres like a half-brick. But, take it from me, to a man who has had any dealings with Sir Roderick Glossop there is only one Roderick in the world. And that is one too many.

“Roderick?” I gurgled.

“My brother-in-law, Sir Roderick Glossop, comes to Cambridge tonight,” said the prof. “He lectures at St. Luke’s tomorrow. He is coming here to dinner.”