“Strange matter . . .” I said.

“Oh, please, call me Ethel.”

“We are not going to call you Ethel,” I said, very firmly.

“Why not? What’s wrong with Ethel? It’s a perfectly good name. I like it. It’s honest, it’s charming, it’s . . . me.”

“We are not calling you Ethel!”

“Nothing wrong with Ethel,” said the strange matter. “Winston Churchill had a pet frog called Ethel.”

“No he didn’t!”

“He might have. You don’t know.”

“I’m calling you Strange,” I said. “It’s the only name that fits.”

“You have no sense of fun,” said Strange.

“Actually . . .” said Molly.

“Hush,” I said quickly.

The Armourer produced another of his impressive throat clearings. “How did you get on with the Matriarch, Eddie?”

“Not good,” I admitted. “She told me to go to Hell. She’d rather see the whole family collapse than prosper with me in charge.”

The Armourer nodded reluctantly. “Mother always could be very stubborn . . . But you have to keep trying with her, Eddie. You need her on your side if you’re to get the whole family moving in the same direction. She represents the past, and tradition, and all those things that make the family feel safe and secure.”

“It isn’t going to be easy,” I said.

“Of course it isn’t going to be easy, Eddie! You killed her favourite son, my brother James! I know you had to do it, and I still have trouble forgiving you. The old Gray Fox . . . was the best of us, for so many years. And don’t forget; he had a lot of admirers, outside the family. Old friends and old enemies, who won’t be at all happy to hear he died at your hands. They could turn up here at any time, ready and willing to express their extreme displeasure . . . and then you’re going to need the whole family backing you up.”

“We could say James had gone rogue.” Penny suggested tentatively.

“Who’d believe that?” I said. “The Gray Fox always was the best of us. You’d better beef up the Hall’s defences, Uncle Jack; just in case.”

I finally got to the meat of the meeting, and told them about MI5’s ambush outside my old flat. The Armourer and the Sarjeant insisted I tell it all, in as much detail as I could remember. Molly chimed in here and there, sometimes helping and sometimes not. The Armourer and the Sarjeant both reacted very strongly when I told them who was behind the attack.

“The prime minister?” said the Sarjeant incredulously. “Who does he think he is, to take on the Droods? Man’s getting thoughts above his station. We can’t allow this to go unpunished, Edwin. People might think we were getting soft.”

“I’ve already sent him a very definite message,” I said.

“Killing a few MI5 agents won’t bother him,” said the Armourer. “As far as he’s concerned, they’re all expendable. We need to hit him where he lives.”