‘If this thing goes decently,’ said Katti, ‘I want to put it in for the Group. If it’s not done, it’ll do for B. House next year.’

‘I take it,’ said Troy, ‘you’ll all want to go up for the Group’s private view?’

‘I don’t,’ said Garcia. ‘I’ll be pushing off for my holiday about then.’

‘What about us?’ asked Valmai Seacliff of Basil Pilgrim.

‘What do you think, darling?’

‘“Us”?’ said Troy. ‘“Darling”? What’s all this?’

‘We may as well tell them, Basil,’ said Valmai sweetly. ‘Don’t faint, anybody. We got engaged last night.’

CHAPTER 4
Case for Mr Alleyn

Lady Alleyn knelt back on her gardening-mat and looked up at her son.

‘I think we have done enough weeding for today, darling. You bustle off with that barrow-load and then we’ll go indoors and have a glass of sherry and a chat. We’ve earned it.’

Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn obediently trundled off down the path, tipped his barrow-load on the smudge fire, mopped his brow and went indoors for a bath. Half an hour later he joined his mother in the drawing-room.

‘Come up to the fire, darling. There’s the sherry. It’s a bottle of the very precious for our last evening.’

‘Ma’am,’ said Alleyn, ‘you are the perfect woman.’

‘No, only the perfect mamma. I flatter myself I am a very good parent. You look charming in a dinner jacket, Roderick. I wish your brother had some of your finish. George always looks a little too hearty.’

‘I like George,’ said Alleyn.

‘I quite like him, too,’ agreed his mother.

‘This is really a superlative wine. I wish it wasn’t our last night, though. Three days with the Bathgates, and then my desk, my telephone, the smell of the yard, and old Fox beaming from ear to ear, bless him. Ah well, I expect I shall quite enjoy it once I’m there.’

‘Roderick,’ said Lady Alleyn, ‘why wouldn’t you come to Tatler’s End House with me?’

‘For the very good reason, little mum, that I should not have been welcomed.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Miss Troy doesn’t like me.’

‘Nonsense! She’s a very intelligent young woman.’

‘Darling!’

‘The day I called I suggested she should dine with us while you were here. She accepted.’

‘And put us off when the time came.’

‘My dear man, she had a perfectly good excuse.’

‘Naturally,’ said Alleyn. ‘She is, as you say, a very intelligent young woman.’

Lady Alleyn looked at the portrait head that hung over the mantelpiece.

‘She can’t dislike you very much, my dear. That picture gives the lie to your theory.’

‘Aesthetic appreciation of a paintable object has nothing to do with personal preferences.’

‘Bosh! Don’t talk pretentious nonsense about things you don’t understand.’

Alleyn grinned.

‘I think you are being self-conscious and silly,’ continued Lady Alleyn grandly.