Again he paused. He took up his glass. Then I saw his tongue shoot out, pink and narrow, the end of it reaching into the wine. A horrible sight. When he lowered his glass, his eyes remained closed. Only his lips were moving, sliding over each other like two pieces of wet rubber.
'There it is again!' he cried. 'Something in the middle taste. Yes, yes, of course! Now I have it! The wine comes from around Beychevelle. I remember now. The Beychevelle area, and the river and the little port. Could it actually be Beychevelle itself? No, I don't think so. Not quite. But it is somewhere very close. Talbot? Could it be Talbot? Yes, it could. Wait one moment.'
He drank a little more wine, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed Mike Schofield and how he was leaning further and further forward over the table, his mouth slightly open, his small eyes fixed on Richard Pratt.
'No, I was wrong. It is not a Talbot. A Talbot comes forward to you just a little more quickly than this one; the fruit is nearer the surface. If it is a '34, which I believe it is, then it couldn't be a Talbot. Well, well, let me think. It is not a Beychevelle and it is not a Talbot, but — but it is so close to both of them, so close, that it must be from somewhere almost in between. Now, which could that be?'
He was silent, and we waited, watching his face. Everyone, even Mike's wife, was watching him now. I heard the servant put down the dish of vegetables on a table behind me, gently, so as not to break the silence.
'Ah!' he cried. 'I have it! Yes, I think I have it!'
For the last time, he drank some wine. Then, still holding the glass up near his mouth, he turned to Mike and he smiled, a slow, silky smile, and he said, 'You know what this is? This is the little Chateau Branaire-Ducru.'
Mike sat tight, not moving. 'And the year, 1934.'