In a minute or two he had finished. It would have been absolutely all right if he had never asked about her room. No need for that little scene. He hung up the last garment, glanced round the room and looked for the fourth or fifth time at the photograph of a man that stood on the top of the bow-fronted chest. A good-looking man who had signed himself ‘John’. Alleyn, yielding to an unworthy impulse, made a hideous grimace at this photograph, turned to leave the room and saw Troy, amazed, in the doorway. He felt his face burning like a sky sign.

‘Have you finished, Mr Alleyn?’

‘Quite finished, thank you.’

He knew she had seen him. There was a singular expression in her eyes.

‘I have just made a face at the photograph on your tallboy,’ said Alleyn.

‘So I observed.’

‘I have gone through your clothes, fished in your pockets and read all your letters. You may go to bed. The house will be watched, of course. Good night, Miss Troy.’

‘Good morning, Mr Alleyn.’

Alleyn went to Katti Bostock’s room where he found nothing of note. It was a great deal untidier than Troy’s room, and took longer. He found several pairs of paint-stained slacks huddled together on the floor of the wardrobe, an evening dress in close proximity to a painting-smock, and a row of stubborn-looking shoes with no trees in them. There were odds and ends in all the pockets. He plodded through a mass of receipts, colour-men’s catalogues, drawings and books. The only personal letter he found was the one Troy had written and posted at Vancouver. This had to be read. Troy’s catalogue of the students was interesting. Then he came to the passages about himself. ‘…turned out to be intelligent, so I felt the fool…Lookslike a grandee…on the defensive about this sleuth…Took it like a gent and made me feel like a bounder.’ As he read, Alleyn’s left eyebrow climbed up his forehead. He folded the letter very carefully, smoothed it out and returned it to its place among a box of half-used oil-colours. He began to whistle under his breath, polished off Katti Bostock’s effects, and went in search of Fox and Bailey. They had finished the men’s bedrooms.

Fox had found Malmsley’s opium-smoking impedimenta and had impounded them. The amount of opium was small. There were signs that the jar had at one time been full.

‘Which does not altogether agree with Mr Malmsley’s little story,’ grunted Alleyn. ‘Has Bailey tried the things for prints?’

‘Yes. Two sets, Garcia and Malmsley’s on the pipe, the lamp and the jar.’

‘The jar. That’s interesting. Well, let’s get on with it.’