‘As we could see for ourselves,’ Caley remarked and bowed slightly to Mr Lazenby.

‘It was nothing, really,’ Mr Lazenby protested. ‘I’m a Sydneysider, don’t forget and I was in my bathers.’

‘As I have already indicated,’ Caley said.

‘The pages,’ Alleyn said, ‘were in your left hand when you sat on the bank just before the Zodiac picked you up. You had turned the leaves of the diary over while you waited.’

Mr Pollock broke his self-imposed silence. ‘Anybody like to make a guess where all this information came from?’ he asked. ‘Marvellous, isn’t it? Quite a family affair.’

‘Shut up,’ Caley said and turned to Alleyn. ‘You’re right, of course, about this. I remember—I expect we all do—that the Padre had got a loose page in his hand. But, Alleyn, I do think there’s a very obvious explanation—the one that he has in fact given you. The damn’ diary was soaked to a sop and probably disintegrated in his hands.’

‘It’s not in quite as bad shape as that.’

‘Well—all right. But it had opened in the water, you know. And when he grabbed it, surely he might have loosened a couple of pages or more.’

‘But,’ Alleyn said mildly, ‘I haven’t for a moment suggested anything else. I only asked Mr Lazenby what he did with the loose page or pages.’

‘Mr Bard is right. I did not tear them out. They came out.’

‘Cometer pieces in ‘is ‘ands, like,’ Caley explained.

‘Very funny,’ said Mr Pollock. ‘I don’t think.’

‘I do not know,’ Mr Lazenby announced with hauteur, ‘what I did with any pieces of pulpy paper that may or may not have come away in my hand. I remember nothing about it.’

‘Did you read them?’

‘That suggestion, Superintendent, is unworthy of you.’

Alleyn said: ‘Last Monday night on your way to the Zodiac you and Mr Pollock stopped near a dark entry in Weyland Street. What did you talk about?’

And now, he saw with satisfaction, they were unmistakably rattled. ‘They’re asking themselves,’ he thought, ‘just how much I am bluffing. They know Troy couldn’t have told me about this one. They’re asking themselves where I could have picked it up and the only answer is the Rickerby-Carrick diary. I’ll stake my oath, Lazenby read whatever was on the missing pages and Pollock knows about it. What’s more they probably know the diary was in the suitcase and that we must have seen it. They’re dead scared we’ve found something which I wish to hell we had. If they’re as fly as I believe they are, there’s only one line for them to take and I hope they don’t take it.’

They took it, however. ‘I’m not making any more bloody statements,’ Mr Pollock suddenly shouted, ‘till I’ve seen a lawyer and that’s my advice to all and sundry.’