When, shortly before teatime, Mrs Dean went up to her room, she was still thinking deeply; and when she heard her daughter’s voice raised outside her door in an exchange of badinage with Roydon, she called her into the room, and asked her if she had been with Stephen all the afternoon.

‘No, and I don’t know where he is,’ said Valerie, studying her reflection in the mirror. ‘Probably getting off with Mathilda Clare. I’ve had a simply foul afternoon, doing nothing, except for listening to Paula reciting bits of Willoughby’s play, and talking to the Inspector.’

‘Talking to the Inspector? What did he want?’ demanded Mrs Dean.

‘Oh, nothing much! I must say, he was a lot more human than I’d expected. I mean, he absolutely understood about the hateful position I’m in.’

‘Did he ask you any questions?’

‘Yes, about what I did with Stephen’s mouldy cigarette-case, but not a bit like that other one did. He didn’t disbelieve every word I said, for instance, or try to bully me.’

Mrs Dean at once felt that Inspector Hemingway was a man to beware of, and set herself to discover just what information he had extracted from her daughter. By the time she had elicited from Valerie a more or less accurate description of her conversation with him, she was looking more thoughtful than ever. There could be no doubt that the Inspector’s suspicions were centred on Stephen, and, taking the terms of Nathaniel Herriard’s will and the damning evidence of the cigarette-case into account, there seemed to be little chance of his escaping arrest.

She was a woman who prided herself on her power of making quick decisions, and she made one now. ‘You know, darling,’ she said, ‘I don’t feel quite at ease about this engagement of yours.’

Valerie stopped decorating her mouth to stare in astonishment at her parent. ‘Why, it was you who were so keen on it!’ she exclaimed.

‘That was when I thought it was going to be for your happiness,’ said Mrs Dean firmly. ‘All Mother cares about is her little girl’s happiness.’

‘Well, I must say I’ve utterly gone off the idea of marrying him,’ said Valerie. ‘I mean, money isn’t everything, is it? and anyway, I always did like Jerry Tintern better than Stephen, and you can’t call him a pauper, can you? Only I don’t see how I can get out of it now, do you? It would look rather lousy of me if I broke it off just when he’s in a jam, and it would be bound to get about, and people might think I was a foul sort of person.’

This admirable, if inelegantly phrased, piece of reasoning almost led Mrs Dean to hope that her daughter was acquiring a modicum of sense. She said briskly: ‘No, pet, it would never do for you to jilt Stephen; but I am sure he will understand if I explain to him that as things are now I cannot allow my baby to be engaged to him. After all, he is a gentleman!’