Alex Portal

In the short story The Coming of Mr Quin, Alex Portal and his wife Eleanor are guests at the New Year's Eve house party at Royston hosted by Tom Evesham which forms the main setting for the events in the story.

Mr Satterthwaite had not met Portal before the house party, but he was familiar with his family background. Satterthwaite knew Portal's father and grandfather. Satterthwaite observed that Alex ran "true to type". Like the older Portals, he was fond of sport, good at games but devoid of imagination.... what to Satterthwaite was "the usual good sound English stock". Alex is described as a man of about forty with fair hair and blue eyes.

As events in the story unfolded, it could be seen that Alex has taken heavily to drink and that there is some tension between him and his wife. Why this is so and how this is resolved forms part of the main plot of the story.