Heil Harris!

possible. It’s like making an anonymous phone call at midnight — you can tell somebody not to go to the Throgmortons’ hunt ball if it’s dark, you can call somebody a kike and sneer at circumcision. That synagogue they defiled the other night, they wouldn’t have done it in daylight because it would have been obviously absurd.”
    “What did they threaten if you came to the party?” Emma was instantly and efficiently an under-cover agent, which irritated her, but perhaps there was work to be done. “Did they give you any clue to their identity?”
    “They said they’d expose me as a kike for all to see, and next time I wouldn’t be blubbering, I’d be dead.” He shuddered at the memory. “I don’t know who they were. Werewolves... a few idiots. But how many idiots do you need to cause trouble?”
    Emma nodded maternally and backed towards the colonnade overlooking the rose beds. She had seen a couple of guests lurking within earshot, looking continuously at her and David Simmons and giggling at some private fancy. They were Frankenstein’s monster and the Werewolf. As she went near them they backed away.
    “Are you looking for something?” she demanded.
    “Well really!” The Werewolf was shocked.
    “Careful, Dick Turpin, it’s the night of the full moon.” Frankenstein’s monster glared meaningfully. “My friend goes rather wild on these occasions.”
    “Are you threatening us?” David Simmons sprang to her side.
    “You know what Werewolves are—” He ducked quickly as Simmons hit out at him and then butted him in the stomach. The monster was strong, of course, and his next punch sent Simmons sprawling against the veranda steps.
    “Help! We’re being attacked,” the Werewolf shouted. He turned in panic to Emma and tried to push her on to Simmons, but she swayed to one side and somersaulted him into the chair. “Help!” He kicked savagely at her midriff, then did another backwards somersault over the chair when she grabbed his foot and twisted it sharply over his head. He lay against the stone balustrade yelling for help.
    Emma smiled briefly. The monster had seized her from behind. She relaxed in his arms for a moment and then bent forward, lifted his leg up sharply and dropped with all her weight on to his knee. The monster was hurled backwards on to the ground.
    “Have we finished?” she asked.
    No, the Werewolf was trying to reach the door. He jumped at Emma with his eyes closed and his mouth open. When he opened his eyes again he was still rising, straight over the balustrade and then down into the rose bed.
    “Now,” said Emma, “let’s discuss this like reasonable people.”
    She landed on the soft ground beside him. He was whimpering tearfully and when she sat on his chest he started yelling again. He stopped after the seventh blow to the kidneys. Eventually he smiled blissfully and agreed to talk.
    “What’s the significance of dressing up as a Werewolf?”
    “You know what parties are,” he gasped. “One has to make an effort.”
    “What is a Werewolf?”
    “Can I stand up?” He was a tall, effete young man who could never have terrorised a choirboy in normal dress. “A Werewolf is somebody who turns into a wolf when the full moon—” He sat down again with a surprised thud. “Why did you do that? I’m telling you the truth. Lon Chaney used to play the part, and when Cynthia said to me—”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Picton-Murbless-Gore.Although actually I’m the younger son. Bertram. I don’t think we were introduced.”
    After a few inanities Emma had the feeling she’d made a mistake. The young man was as innocent as he looked. The only reason he had come as the Werewolf was that Cedric had threatened to give him a pint of blood if he came as Count Dracula.
    “I had a school mistress like you,” he said languidly, “in Tunbridge Wells.”
    “So what?” She hurried back up the steps to rejoin the party.
    “She used-to beat me every day.”
    “I can understand the temptation.”
    The group in the ballroom was still playing bad Beatlemusic intermingled with bad Carl Perkins but nobody was paying much attention. The guests were distributed, in couples about the stairs and bedrooms, in alcoholic stupors beneath the furniture and in a large crowd round the library door. She looked around for David Simmons but he seemed to have vanished. The pune! Asking a girl for help and then running out on her when the battle started. She decided to go