he took before turning and counting the eight strides in his return. Whilst he paced he tried to clear his head of the disappointment he felt at how the day had run, and instead tried to focus on all the questions to which he had so long studied the answers.

“It takes me ten strides,” a voice announced from the doorway to the hall. “But then you must be half again as tall as I. It is ten strides in width and twenty-two in length.”

Fotherby, who at the man’s voice had turned to face him, beheld someone much shorter than himself. He was portly, and the waistcoat that he wore scarcely held closed, with the buttons straining in their buttonholes. He wore a similar wig on his head to the one that Fotherby wore but the face beneath was round and the blue eyes that stared...

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