‘I ’member Valmai made a face over her coffee. Took a swig at it and then did a sort of shudder and m’wife said: “What’s up?” or words to the same effect, and Val said the coffee was bitter, and then Pilgrim looked a bit sheepish and I said: “Was yours bitter?” and he said: “Matter of fact it was!” Funny—mine was all right. But my idea is that Val was feeling a bit off colour then, and he just agreed the coffee was bitter to keep her in countenance. In my opinion the girl had a liver. Pilgrim persuaded her to have a glass of port after champagne, and she said at the time it would upset her. Damn bad show. She’s a lovely thing. Damn good rider to hounds. Lovely hands. Goes as straight and as well as the best of ‘em. Look at that.’ He fumbled in a drawer of his writing-desk and produced a press photograph of Valmai Seacliff looking magnificent on a hunter. Captain Pascoe gloated over it, handed it to Alleyn, and flung himself back in his chair. He appeared to collect his thoughts. ‘But to show you how one notices little things,’ he resumed. ‘Not till after dinner that she talked about feeling under the weather. Matter of fact, it was when I took her empty cup. Precise moment. There you are.’ And he laughed triumphantly.

‘Splendid, sir. I wish everyone was as clear-minded. I remember a case where the whole thing hinged on just such an incident. It was a question of who put sugar in a cup of tea, and do you think we could get anyone who remembered? Not a bit of it. It’s only one witness in a hundred who can give us that sort of thing.’

‘Really? Well, I’ll lay you a tenner, Inspector, I can tell you about the coffee on Friday night. Just for the sake of argument.’

‘I’m not betting, sir.’

‘Ha, ha, ha. Now then. M’wife poured out our coffee at that table over there. Pilgrim handed it round for her. He put Val’s down beside her with his own, told her he’d put sugar in it, and went back to the table for mine. There you are, Inspector. Val complained her coffee was bitter. She asked Pilgrim if his tasted funny and he said it did, and —‘ He stopped short and his eyes bulged. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘wayI’m talking anybody might think this was a case of hanky-panky with the coffee. Good Lord, Inspector. Here! I say, I hope you don’t—’

‘Don’t let that bother you, sir. We’re only taking a sample case and I congratulate you. We don’t get our information as lucidly as that very often, do we, Fox?’

‘Very nice, indeed, sir,’ agreed Fox, wagging his head.

‘And then,’ said Alleyn. ‘I believe you played bridge?’