‘She got her pass from Leo Cohen for Sonia,’ said Alleyn. ‘Sonia told Ormerin she’d seen the show. Fox, what do you make of the passage where she says Sonia might as well get it both ways if Garcia is willing? Then she goes on to say she supposes it’s all right to be married and he sounds a lovely boy.’

‘The lovely boy seems to be the Hon. Pilgrim, judging by the next bit about her boy-friend that was a lord,’ said Fox. ‘Do you think Sonia Gluck had an idea she’d get Mr Pilgrim to marry her?’

‘I hardly think so. No, I fancy blackmail was the idea there. Pilgrim confessed as much when he couldn’t get out of it. If Mr Artistic Garcia was willing! Is she driving at the blackmail inspiration there, do you imagine? Her magnificent disregard for the convention that things that are thought of together should be spoken of together, is a bit baffling. I shall have to see Miss Bobbie O’Dawne. She may be the girl we all wait for. Anything else, Bailey?’

‘Well,’ said Bailey grudgingly, ‘I don’t know if there’s anything in it but I found this.’ He took out of his case a shabby blue book and handed it to Alleyn. ‘It’s been printed, Mr Alleyn. There’s several of deceased’s prints and a few of the broad one I got off the door. Some party had tried to get into the case where I found the book.’

‘The Consolations of a Critic,’ Alleyn muttered, turning the book over in his long hands. ‘By C. Lewis Hind, 1911. Yes, I see. Gently select. Edwardian manner. Seems to be a mildly ecstatic excursion into aesthetics. Nice reproductions. Hullo! Hullo! Why stap me and sink me, there it is!’

He had turned the pages until he came upon a black and white reproduction of a picture in which three medieval figures mowed a charming field against a background of hayricks, pollard willows and turreted palaces.

‘By gum and gosh, Bailey, you’ve found Mr Malmsley’s secret. I knew I’d met those three nice little men before. Of course I had. Good Lord, what a fool! Yes, here it is. From Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, by Pol de Limbourge and his brothers. The book’s in the Musée Condé at Chantilly. I had to blandish for half an hour before the librarian would let me touch it. It’s the most exquisite thing. Well, I’ll be jiggered, and I can’t say fairer than that.’

‘You can tell us what you’re talking about, however,’ suggested Nigel acidly.

‘Fox knows,’ said Alleyn. ‘You remember, Fox, don’t you?’

‘I get you now, Mr Alleyn,’ said Fox. ‘That’s what she meant when she sauced him on the day of the experiment.’