Sonia sat up with an ostentatious show of discomfort, reached out her hand for the kimono and shrugged herself into it. Troy pulled the drape out taut from the cushion to the floor.

‘It’ll have to go down each time with the figure,’ she told the class.

‘As it does in the little romance,’ drawled Malmsley.

‘Yes, it’s quite feasible,’ agreed Valmai Seacliff. ‘We could try it. There’s that Chinese knife in the lumber-room. May we get it, Miss Troy?’

‘If you like,’ said Troy.

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ said Malmsley languidly getting to his feet.

‘Where is it, Miss Seacliff?’ asked Hatchett eagerly.

‘On the top shelf in the lumber-room.’

Hatchett went into an enormous cupboard by the window, and after a minute or two returned with a long, thin-bladed knife. He went up to Malmsley’s table and looked over his shoulder at the typescript. Malmsley moved away ostentatiously.

‘Aw yeah, I get it,’ said Hatchett. ‘What a corker! Swell way of murdering somebody, wouldn’t it be?’ He licked his thumb and turned the page.

‘I’ve taken a certain amount of trouble to keep those papers clean,’ remarked Malmsley to no one in particular.

‘Don’t be so damned precious, Malmsley,’ snapped Troy. ‘Here, give me the knife, Hatchett, and don’t touch other people’s tools in the studio. It’s not done.’

‘Good oh, Miss Troy.’

Pilgrim, Ormerin, Hatchett and Valmai Seacliff began a discussion about the possibility of using the knife in the manner suggested by Malmsley’s illustration. Phillida Lee joined in.

‘Where would the knife enter the body?’ asked Seacliff.

‘Just here,’ said Pilgrim, putting his hand on her back and keeping it there. ‘Behind your heart. Valmai.’

She turned her head and looked at him through half-closed eyes. Hatchett stared at her. Malmsley smiled curiously. Pilgrim had turned rather white.

‘Can you feel it beating?’ asked Seacliff softly.

‘If I move my hand—here.’

‘Oh, come off it,’ said the model violently. She walked over to Garcia. ‘I don’t believe you could kill anybody like that. Do you, Garcia?’

Garcia grunted unintelligibly. He, too, was staring at Valmai Seacliff.

‘How would he know where to put the dagger?’ demanded Katti Bostock suddenly. She drew a streak of background colour across her canvas.

‘Can’t we try it out?’ asked Hatchett.

‘If you like,’ said Troy. ‘Mark the throne before you move it.’

Basil Pilgrim chalked the position of the throne on the floor, and then he and Ormerin tipped it up. The rest of the class looked on with gathering interest. By following the chalked-out line on the throne they could see the spot where the heart would come, and after a little experiment found the plot of this spot on the underneath surface of the throne.

‘Now, you see,’ said Ormerin, ‘the jealous wife would drive the knife through from underneath.’

‘Incidentally taking the edge off,’ said Basil Pilgrim.