‘Fox,’ he said, ‘the ray of light that comes through the hole in the blind alights upon your bosom. I think we are on the right track.’

‘Looks like it,’ Fox agreed. ‘What do we do now?’

‘We spend the rest of the night with my mamma. I’ll ring up the Yard and get the official party to pick us up at Danes Lodge in the morning. Come on.’

‘Very good, Mr Alleyn. Er—’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Well, sir. I was thinking of Miss Troy. It’s going to be a bit unpleasant for her, isn’t it? I was wondering if we couldn’t do something to make it a bit easier.’

‘Yes, Fox. That’s rather my idea, too. I think—damn it all, it’s too late to bother her now. Or is it? I’ll ring up from Danes Lodge. Come on.’

They got to Danes Lodge at twelve-thirty, and found Lady Alleyn reading D. H. Lawrence before a roaring fire in her little sittingroom.

‘Good evening,’ said Lady Alleyn. ‘I got your message, Roderick. How nice to see you again, Mr Fox. Come and sit down.’

‘I’m just going to telephone,’ said Alleyn. ‘Won’t be long.’

‘All right, darling. Mr Fox, help yourself to a drink and come and tell me if you have read any of this unhappy fellow’s books.’

Fox put on his spectacles and gravely inspected the outside of The Letters of D. H. Lawrence.

‘I can’t say I have, my lady,’ he said, ‘but I seem to remember we cleaned up an exhibition of this Mr Lawrence’s pictures a year or two ago. Very fashionable show it was.’

‘Ah yes. Those pictures. What did you think of them?’

‘I don’t exactly know,’ said Fox. ‘They seemed well within the meaning of the act, I must say, but the colours were pretty. You wouldn’t have cared for the subjects, my lady.’

‘Shouldn’t I? He seems never to have found his own centre of gravity, poor fellow. Some of these letters are wise and some are charming, and some are really rather tedious. All these negroid deities growling in his interior! One feels sorry for his wife, but she seems to have had the right touch with him. Have you got your drink? That’s right. Are you pleased with your progress in this case?’

‘Yes, thank you. It’s coming on nicely.’

‘And so you are going to arrest somebody tomorrow morning? I thought as much. One can always tell by my son’s manner when he is going to make an arrest. He gets a pinched look.’

‘So does his prisoner, my lady,’ said Fox, and was so enraptured with his own pun that he shook from head to foot with amazed chuckles.

‘Roderick!’ cried Lady Alleyn as her son came in, ‘Mr Fox is making nonsense of your mother.’