CHAPTER EIGHT
The Professional Touch
“Y
ou’d
be doing me a service, Mr Lugg, if you’d refrain from referring to me as No 705. Sir Percival did my father the honour of forgetting my little lapse twenty-five years ago.”
Mr Branch, a small dignified person in black tie and jacket, paused and regarded his shady old friend with something like appeal in his eyes.
“No good thinkin’ o’ that,” he added, dropping his official voice and speaking with his natural Suffolk inflection.
Mr Lugg, himself resplendent in black cloth, sniffed contemptuously. “ ’Ave it yer own way,” he said. “Anyway, you nipped that lot out o’ the satchel as if you still knew a thing or two.”
He jerked his head towards a pile of water-colours and pencil sketches lying face downwards upon a bureau top. The two men were
