‘You mean that, practically speaking, it’s findings are keepings?’ asked Inspector Kelsey. He shook his head disapprovingly. ‘That’s not very nice,’ he said primly.

‘No,’ said Adam firmly. ‘It’s not very nice. There’s more than one lot after them, too. None of them scrupulous. Word’s got around, you see. It may be a rumour, it may be true, but the story is that they were got out of Ramat just before the bust up. There are a dozen different tales of how.’

‘But why Meadowbank? Because of little Princess Butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth?’

‘Princess Shaista, first cousin of Ali Yusuf. Yes. Someone may try and deliver the goods to her or communicate with her. There are some questionable characters from our point of view hanging about the neighbourhood. A Mrs Kolinsky, for instance, staying at the Grand Hotel. Quite a prominent member of what one might describe as International Riff Raff Ltd. Nothing in your line, always strictly within the law, all perfectly respectable, but a grand picker-up of useful information. Then there’s a woman who was out in Ramat dancing in cabaret there. She’s reported to have been working for a certain foreign government. Where she is now we don’t know, we don’t even know what she looks like, but there’s a rumour that she might be in this part of the world. Looks, doesn’t it, as though it were all centring round Meadowbank? And last night, Miss Springer gets herself killed.’

Kelsey nodded thoughtfully.

‘Proper mix up,’ he observed. He struggled a moment with his feelings. ‘You see this sort of thing on the telly…far fetched—that’s what you think…can’t really happen. And it doesn’t—not in the normal course of events.’

‘Secret agents, robbery, violence, murder, double crossing,’ agreed Adam. ‘All preposterous—but that side of life exists.’

‘But not at Meadowbank!’

The words were wrung from Inspector Kelsey.

‘I perceive your point,’ said Adam. ‘Lese-majesty.’

There was a silence, and then Inspector Kelsey asked:

‘What do you think happened last night?’

Adam took his time, then he said slowly:

‘Springer was in the Sports Pavilion—in the middle of the night. Why? We’ve got to start there. It’s no good asking ourselves who killed her until we’ve made up our minds why she was there, in the Sports Pavilion at that time of night. We can say that in spite of her blameless and athletic life she wasn’t sleeping well, and got up and looked out of her window and saw a light in the Sports Pavilion—her window does look out that way?’

Kelsey nodded.

‘Being a tough and fearless young woman, she went out to investigate. She disturbed someone there who was—doing what? We don’t know. But it was someone desperate enough to shoot her dead.’

Again Kelsey nodded.

‘That’s the way we’ve been looking at it,’ he said. ‘But your last point had me worried all along. You don’t shoot to kill—and come prepared to do so, unless—’

‘Unless you’re after something big? Agreed! Well, that’s the case of what we might call Innocent Springer—shot down in the performance of duty. But there’s another possibility. Springer, as a result of private information, gets a job at Meadowbank or is detailed for it by her bosses—because of her qualification—She waits until a suitable night, then slips out to the Sports Pavilion (again our stumbling-block of a question—why?)—Somebody is following her—or waiting for her—someone who carries a pistol and is prepared to use it…But again—why? What for? In fact, what the devil is there about the Sports Pavilion? It’s not the sort of place that one can imagine hiding anything.’