‘I’ve heard about him,’ Troy said. ‘From Rory.’

‘I’ll be bound. Now, it’s a guinea to a gooseberry, to our way of thinking, that this leading character—this Jampot—is behind the business in Cyprus Street and therefore the Department is more than ordinarily concerned to get to the bottom of it and anything that connects with Andropulos, however slightly, has to be followed up.’

‘Even to Cabin 7 in the rivercraft Zodiac?’

‘That’s right. We’d like to know, d’you see, Mrs Alleyn, just why this chap Andropulos took the freakish notion to book himself in and when he did it. And, very particularly, we’d like to know whether any of the other passengers had any kind of link with him. Now Teddy Fox—’

‘Who!’ Troy exclaimed.

‘Inspector Fox, Mrs Alleyn. He and I were in the uniformed branch together. Edward Walter Fox, he is.’

‘I suppose I knew,’ Troy mused. ‘Yes, of course I knew. We always call him Br’er Fox. He’s a great friend.’

‘So I understood. Yes. Well, he’s a wee bit concerned about you going with this lot in the Zodiac. He’s wondering what the Chief-Super—your good man, Mrs Alleyn—would make of it. He’s on his way to this conference in Chicago and Ted Fox wonders if he shouldn’t try and talk to him.’

‘Oh, no!’ Troy ejaculated. ‘Surely not.’

‘Well now, frankly it seems a bit far-fetched to me but there it is. Ted Fox cut you short, in a manner of speaking, when you rang him from the Waterways office down there and he did so on the general principle that you can’t be too careful on the public phone. He’s a careful sort of character himself, as you probably know, and, by gum, he’s thorough.’

‘He is, indeed.’