Carmichael resumed his seat.

‘Any more? Yes?’ It was the same man in the back row.

‘I was wondering, sir, exactly what did happen on the night in question. At Crossdyke, sir?’

‘The autopsy showed Miss Rickerby-Carrick had taken a pretty massive barbiturate. One of Miss Hewson’s pills no doubt. She slept on deck at the after-end behind a heap of chairs covered by a tarpaulin. Foljambe’s cabin, No. I, was next to the companion-way. When all was quiet he went up through the saloon to the deck and, because she knew too much, killed her, took the Fabergé jewel and handed it and the body over to the cyclist—his name by the way is Smith—who had been ordered to wait ashore for it and was given his instructions. My wife remembered that, at sometime in the night, she had heard the motorbike engine. Yes?’

A man in the third row said, ‘Sir: Did they all know, sir? About the murder, sir. Except the doctor?’

‘According to Lazenby (I’ll still call him that) not beforehand. When Lazenby told Foljambe about the diary Foljambe merely said he would deal with the situation and ordered Lazenby to keep his mouth shut, which he did. No doubt in the sequel they all knew or guessed. But he was not a confiding type, even with his closest associates.’

‘And—the way they carried on, sir. Bickering and all that among themselves. Was that a put-up show, then, sir?’

‘Ah!’ Alleyn said. ‘That’s what my wife asked me the next night in Norminster.’

I

‘It was all a put-up job, then?’ Troy asked. ‘The way Caley—he—I still think of him as that—the way he blazed away at Pollock and the way those three seemed to dislike and fight shy of him and abuse him—well—the whole inter-relationship as it was displayed to us? All an act?’

‘My love, yes.’

‘But, Hewson’s distress over his sister—’ she turned to Dr Natouche. ‘You said he was distressed, didn’t you?’

‘I thought so, certainly.’

‘He was distressed all right and he was deadly frightened into the bargain,’ Alleyn grunted and after a moment he said: ‘You were among counterfeiters, darling, and very expert hands at that. Do fill up your glass, Natouche.’

‘Thank you. I suppose,’ Dr Natouche said, ‘they looked upon me as a sort of windfall. They could all combine to throw suspicion upon me. Bard was particularly adroit. I must apologize, by the way, for losing my temper. It was when he lied about my going below during the uproar. He knew perfectly well that I went below. We ran into each other at the stairhead. When he lied I behaved like the savage they all thought me.’ He turned to Troy. ‘I am glad you did not see it,’ he said.

Alleyn remembered the uplifted ebony arms, the curved hands and the naked fury of the face and he thought Troy might have seen an element in Dr Natouche’s rage that he would never suspect her of finding.