‘I could hear them: outside there. I could hear what they found. She’s been murdered, hasn’t she? Hasn’t she?’

He leant over the bunk and shut the porthole. He drew up the little stool and sat on it, leaning towards her. ‘I think,’ he said as softly as his huge voice permitted, ‘we should be careful.’ His fingers closed professionally on Troy’s wrist.

‘You could lock the door,’ she said.

‘So I could.’ He did so and turned back to her.

‘Until the autopsy,’ he murmured, ‘it will be impossible to say whether she was drowned or not. Externally, in most respects, it would appear that she was. It can be argued, and no doubt it will be argued, that she committed suicide by weighting her suitcase and tying it to herself and perhaps throwing herself into The River from the weir bridge.’

‘If that was so, what becomes of the telephone call and the telegram from Carlisle?’

‘I cannot think of any answer consistent with suicide.’

‘Murder, then?’

‘It would seem so.’

‘I am going to tell you something. It’s complicated and a bit nebulous but I want to tell you. First of all—my cabin. You know it was booked—’

‘To somebody called Andropulos? I saw the paragraph in the paper. I did not speak of it as I thought it would be unpleasant for you.’

‘Did any of the others?’

‘Not to my knowledge.’

‘I’ll make this as quick and as clear as I can—it has to do with a case of my husband’s. There’s a man called Foljambe—’

A crisp knock on her door and Superintendent Tillottson’s voice: ‘Mrs Alleyn? Tillotson here. May I come in.’

Troy and Dr Natouche stared at each other. She whispered: ‘He’ll have to,’ and called out: ‘Come in, Mr Tillottson.’ At the same time Dr Natouche opened the door.

Suddenly the little cabin was crammed with enormous men. Superintendent Tillottson and Doctor Natouche were both over six feet tall and comparably broad. She began to introduce these mammoths to each other and then realized they had been introduced already in hideous formality by Hazel Rickerby-Carrick. She could not help looking at Mr Tillottson’s large pink hands which were a little puckered as if he had been doing the washing. She was very glad he did not offer one to her, after his hearty fashion, for shaking.

She said: ‘Dr Natouche is looking after me on account of my making a perfect ass of myself.’

Mr Tillottson said, with a sort of wide spread of blandness, that this was very nice. Dr Natouche then advised Troy to take things easy and left them.

Troy pushed back the red blanket, sat up on her bunk, put her feet on the deck and ran her fingers through her short hair. ‘Well, Mr Tillottson,’ she said, ‘what about this one?’

II