‘Oh, well now, come,’ said Ireland. He seemed thinner than ever. He looked about him, he looked at Wexford, made a face, wrinkling up nose and mouth. ‘Well, if you must put it like that – yes.’

‘There may not have been any tricks, though, may there? Paxton couldn’t have murdered James Conyngford, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t tell Gandolph he did murder him. Certainly the people who give Gandolph information seem to die very conveniently soon afterwards. He picks on the dying, first Paxton, then Lina Hurst. I suppose you’ve seen this diary?’

‘Oh, yes. We shall be using prints of the two relevant pages among the illustrations.’

‘No possibility of forgery?’

Ireland looked unhappy. ‘Ada Hurst wrote a very stylized hand, what’s called a ronde hand, which she had obviously taught herself. It would be easy to forge. I can’t submit it to handwriting experts, can I? I’m not a policeman. I’m just a poor publisher who very much wants to publish this reappraisal of the Winchurch case if it’s genuine – and shun it like the plague if it’s not.’

‘I think it’s genuine.’ Wexford smiled at the slight lightening in Ireland’s face. ‘I take it that it was usual for Ada Hurst to leave blanks as she did for March 2nd and March 5th?’

Ireland nodded. ‘Quite usual. Every month there’d have been half a dozen days on which she made no entries.’ A waiter came up to them with two large menus. ‘I’ll have the bouillabaisse and the lamb en croûte and the médaillon potatoes and french beans.’

‘Consommé and then the parma ham,’ said Wexford austerely. When the waiter had gone he grinned at Ireland. ‘Pity they don’t do Filets de hareng marinés à la Rosette. It might have provided us with the authentic atmosphere.’ He was silent for a moment, savouring the delicate tangy wine. ‘I’m assuming you’ve checked that 1900 genuinely was a Leap Year?’

‘All first years of a century are.’

Wexford thought about it. ‘Yes, of course, all years divisible by four are Leap Years.’

‘I must say it’s a great relief to me you’re so happy about it.’

‘I wouldn’t quite say that,’ said Wexford.

They went into the dining room and were shown, at Ireland’s request, to a sheltered corner table. A waiter brought a bottle of Château de Portets 1973. Wexford looked at the basket of rolls, croissants, little plump brioches, miniature wholemeal loaves, Italian sticks, swallowed his desire and refused with an abrupt shake of the head. Ireland took two croissants.

‘What exactly do you mean?’ he said.

‘It strikes me as being odd,’ said the chief inspector, ‘that in the entry for February 29th Ada Hurst says that her brother destroyed twenty rats with strychnine, yet in the entry for March 1st that Compton, whom I take to be the gardener, is still complaining about the rats. Why wasn’t he told how effective the strychnine had been? Hadn’t he been taken into Fenton’s confidence about the poisoning? Or was twenty only a very small percentage of the hordes of rats which infested the place?’