The Shrike was a kindly, warm girl of about twenty-nine whom Christie had met at the Hammersmith Palais (venerated for the visit of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band) the night after doing his accounts. The Shrike had picked on Christie for a Ladies’ Invitation, and that was that. Christie was not unwilling, for the Shrike was nice, nice was the word that applied nicely to the Shrike. Soon Christie knew that the Shrike had an Old Mum up in Islington, that she was not trying to find a husband like all the other girls were, that she had a modest flat of her own in Brook Green, near splendid Lyons’ (Tapper’s opposition) and that she would quite like to see Christie again, if it suited him, she would not want to impose but she did like his average kind face, and the way he dressed, and the way he held her properly, and this was a Ladies’ Invitation after all, wasn’t it?