Sinopsis

ADAM BLOCKTON, on the day of his curious disappearance, ed the time between half-past twelve and ten minutes past one precisely as he had ed that particular period of his life on every morning of the year except Sundays for a quarter of a century—seated in a large leather easy chair pulled up towards the bay window of the Norchester County Club. He sipped champagne from a pint bottle of old Veuve Clicquot, smoked with obvious pleasure a shabby blackened pipe, and carried on a mumbling conversation which sounded like a monologue but was really addressed to the statue a few yards away from the pavement outside—the statue of an elderly man in a long frock coat, whose singularly benevolent appearance was sufficient evidence of a life of municipal triumphs and a generously used chequebook.