By a tortuous process something like a coherent story began to emerge. Alleyn thought he recognized the symptoms. The ton-ups had been adventurous figures to young Tom. They had a buccaneering air about them. They were cool. They were with it. They had flattered him. Troy had noticed when the Zodiac sailed, something furtive in their exchange of signals. Alleyn asked Tom abruptly what his parents thought of the acquaintanceship. He flushed scarlet and muttered indistinguishably. They bad, it seemed, not approved. The Skipper’s attitude to ton-ups was evidently regrettably square. Alleyn gathered that he had asked Tom if he hadn’t got something better to do than hang round the moorings with a couple of freaks.

‘Did they ever ask you to talk about any of the passengers?’

Tom was silent.

‘This is important, Tom,’ Alleyn said. ‘You know what’s happened, don’t you? You know why we’re here?’

He nodded.

‘You wouldn’t want to see someone wrongfully accused, would you?’

He shook his head.

‘Did they talk about any of the passengers?’

Tom’s dark eyes slewed round until they looked at Dr Natouche and then at the floor.

‘Did they talk about Dr Natouche?’

He nodded again.

‘What did they say?’

‘They—They said to—give him a message.’

‘What message? Come along. As far as you can remember it, in their own words: what message?’

‘Tom, looking as if he was about to cry, blurted out. ‘They said to tell him from them he could—’

‘Could what?’

A stream of obscenity quoted in the broken voice of an adolescent boy, jetted into the quiet decency of the little saloon.

‘You asked,’ Tom said miserably. ‘You asked. I can’t help it. It’s what they said. They don’t like—they don’t like—’ He jerked his head at Natouche.

‘Very well,’ Alleyn said. ‘We’ll leave it at that.’ He turned to Natouche. ‘I take it,’ he said, ‘the message was not delivered?’

‘No.’

‘I should bloody well hope not,’ said Caley Bard.

‘Did they talk about any of the other passengers?’ Alleyn pursued.

At Norminster they had asked, it appeared, about Troy. Only, Tom said, twisting himself about in a quite astonishing manner, only who she was and when she booked her passage.

‘Did you know the answer?’

He knew she’d booked a cancellation that morning. He didn’t know then—Here Tom boggled and shuffled and was finally induced to say he didn’t know until later that she was the celebrated painter or who her husband was.

‘And Miss Rickerby-Carrick—did they talk about her?’

Only, Tom mumbled, to say she was some barmy old tart.

‘When did you last see them?’

This provoked another unhappy reaction. The dark, uncertain face whitened, the lips opened and moved but no sound came from them. Tom looked as if for tuppence he’d bolt.