She waved her hand. ‘To sell would be to profit by its spurious fame and allow this nonsense full play. No, I intend to restore the Island to its former state. I have instructed my solicitors to acquaint the persons concerned.’

‘I see,’ said Alleyn. He got up and stood looking down at his old tutoress. How completely Miss Emily had taken on the character of a certain type of elderly Frenchwoman. Her black clothes seemed to disclaim, clear-sightedly, all pretence to allure. Her complexion was grey: her jewellery of jet and gold. She wore a general air of disassociated fustiness. Her composure was absolute. The setting was perfectly consonant with the person: pieces of buhl; formal, upholstered, and therefore dingy, chairs; yellowing photographs, among which his own young, thin face stared back at him, and an unalterable arrangement of dyed pampas plumes in an elaborate vase. For Miss Emily, her room was absolutely comme-il-faut. Yes, after all, she must be –

‘At the age of eighty-three,’ she said, with uncanny prescience, ‘I am not to be moved. If that is in your mind, Roderique.’

‘I’m much too frightened of you, Miss Emily, to attempt any such task.’

‘Ah, no!’ she said in English. ‘Don’t say that! I hope not.’

He kissed her dry little hand as she had taught him to do. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘tell me more about it. What is your plan?’

Miss Emily reverted to the French language. ‘In effect, as I have told you, to restore the status quo. Ultimately I shall remove the enclosure, shut the shop and issue a general announcement disclaiming and exposing the entire affair.’

Alleyn said: ‘I’ve never been able to make up my mind about these matters. The cure of warts by apparently irrational means is too well-established to be questioned. And even when you admit the vast number of failures, there is a pretty substantial case to be made out for certain types of faith-healing. Or so I understand. I can’t help wondering why you are so very fierce about it all, Miss Emily. If you are repelled by the inevitable vulgarities, of course –’

‘As, of course, I am. Still more, by the exploitation of the spring as a business concern. But most of all by personal experience of a case that failed: a very dear friend who suffered from a malignancy and who was absolutely – but I assure you, absolutely – persuaded it would be cured by such means. The utter cruelty of her disillusionment, her incredulity, her agonized disappointment and her death: these made a bitter impression upon me. I would sooner die myself,’ Miss Emily said with the utmost vigour, ‘than profit in the smallest degree from such another tragedy.’

There was a brief silence. ‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘That does, indeed, explain your attitude.’