‘Look here, Fox, I think I’d like a word with your Sadie. Be a good fellow and see if she’s still up.’

Fox went off and was away some minutes.

‘He must have broken into the virgin fastness of Sadie’s bedroom,’ said Nigel.

Alleyn wandered round the room and looked at the books.

‘What’s the time?’ he said.

‘After ten. Ten-twenty-five.’

‘Oh Lord! Here’s Fox.’

Fox came in shepherding an extraordinary little apparition in curling-pins and red flannel.

‘Miss Sadie Welsh,’ explained Fox, ‘was a bit uncomfortable about coming down, Mr Alleyn. She’d gone to bed.’

‘I’m sorry to bring you out,’ said Alleyn pleasantly. ‘We shan’t keep you here very long. Come over to the fire, won’t you?’

He threw a couple of logs on the fire and persuaded Miss Welsh to perch on the extreme edge of a chair: with her feet on the fender. She was a girl of perhaps 22, with large brown eyes, a button nose and a mouth that looked as though she constantly said: ‘Ooo.’ She gazed at Alleyn as if he was a grand inquisitor.

‘You’re Miss Troy’s housemaid, aren’t you?’ said Alleyn.

‘Yes, sir.

‘Been with her long?’

‘Ooo, yes, sir. I was a under-housemaid here when the old gentleman was alive; I was sixteen then, sir. And when Miss Troy was mistress I stayed on, sir. Of course, Miss Troy’s bin away a lot, sir, but when the house was opened up again this year, Miss Bostock asked me to come with Mr and Mrs Hipkin to be housemaid. I never was a real housemaid like before, sir, but Mr Hipkin he’s training me now for parlourmaid. He says I’ll be called Welsh then, because Sadie isn’t a name for a parlourmaid, Mr Hipkins says. So I’ll be “Welsh”.’

‘Splendid. You like your job?’

‘Well, sir,’ said Sadie primly, ‘I like Miss Troy very much, sir.’

‘Not so sure about the rest of the party?’

‘No, I am not, sir, and that’s a fact. I was telling Mr Fox, sir, Queer! Well, I mean to say! That Mr Garcia, sir. Ooo! Well, I dare say Mr Fox has told you. I complained to Miss Troy, sir. I asked Mrs Hipkin what would I do and she said: “Go straight to Miss Troy,” she said. “I would,” she said, “I’d go straight to Miss Troy.” Which I did. There was no trouble after that, sir, but I must say I didn’t fancy taking his dinner down on Friday.’

‘As it turned out, you didn’t see Mr Garcia then, did you?’

‘No, sir. He calls out in a sort of drawly voice: ‘Is that you, Sadistic?’ which was what he had the nerve to call me, and Mr Hipkin says he didn’t ought to have because Mr Hipkin is very well educated, sir.’

‘Astonishingly,’ murmured Alleyn.