‘She doesn’t say, and we can’t tell, positively, what inflamed her. I am inclined to think that it might be put down to aesthetic humiliation.’

‘What!’ Patrick ejaculated.

‘Yes. One has to remember that all the first-night agonies that beset a professional director are also visited upon the most ludicrously inefficient amateur. Miss Cost had produced a show and exposed it to an audience. However bad the show, she still had to undergo the classic ordeal. The reaction among some of the onlookers didn’t escape her notice.’

‘O dear!’ Jenny said. ‘O dear!’

‘But this is all speculation and a policeman is not allowed to speculate, ’ Alleyn said. ‘Let us get back to hard facts, if we can. Here are some of them. Miss Cost attended early service this morning and afterwards walked to the Spring to collect a necklace. It was in her hand when we found her. We know, positively, that she encountered and spoke to three people: Mrs Carstairs and Dr Maine before church; Major Barrimore afterwards.’

‘Suppose I deny that?’ Barrimore said thickly.

‘I can’t, of course, make any threats or offer any persuasion. You might, on consideration, think it wiser, after all, to agree that you met and tell me what passed between you. Major Barrimore,’ Alleyn explained generally, ‘has already admitted that he was spying upon Miss Pride who had gone to the enclosure to put up a notice which he afterwards removed.’

Miss Emily gave a sharp ejaculation.

‘It was later replaced.’ Alleyn turned to Barrimore and stood over him. ‘Shall I tell you what I think happened? I think hard words passed between you and Miss Cost and that she was stung into telling you her secret. I think you parted from her in a rage and that when you came back to the hotel this morning, you bullied your wife. You had better understand at once, that your wife has not told me this. Finally, I believe that Miss Cost may even have threatened to reveal your former relationship with herself. She suggests in her diary that she has some such intention. Now. Have you anything to say to all this?’

Patrick said: ‘You had better say nothing.’ He walked over to his mother and put his arm about her shoulders.

‘I didn’t do it,’ Barrimore said. ‘I didn’t kill her.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes.’