‘I hardly dare ask you for a room.’

‘You can have the whole pub. Bring the whole Yard.’

Alleyn offered what words of comfort he could muster. Major Barrimore received them with a moody sneer but presently became calmer. ‘I’m not blaming you,’ he said. ‘You’re doing your duty. Fine service, the police. Always said so. Thought of it myself when I left my regiment. Took on this damned poodlefaking instead. Well, there you are.’

He booked Alleyn in and even accepted, with gloomy resignation, the news that Miss Emily would like to delay her departure for another night.

As Alleyn was about to go he said: ‘Could you sell me a good cigar? I’ve left mine behind and I can’t make do with a pipe.’

‘Certainly. What do you smoke?’

‘Las Casas, if you have them.’

‘No can do. At least – well, as a matter of fact, I do get them in for myself, old boy. I’m a bit short. Look here – let you have three, if you like. Show there’s no ill-feeling. But not a word to the troops. If you want more, these things are smokable.’

Alleyn said: ‘Very nice of you but I’m not going to cut you short. Let me have one Las Casas and I’ll take a box of these others.’

He bought the cigars.

The Major had moved to the flap end of the counter. Alleyn dropped his change and picked it up. The boots, he thought, looked very much as if they’d fit. They were wet round the welts and flecked with mud.

He took his leave of the Major.

When he got outside the hotel he compared the cigar band with the one he had picked up and found them to be identical.

Coombe was waiting for him. Alleyn said: ‘We’d better get the path cordoned off as soon as possible. Where’s Pender?’

‘At the Spring. Your chaps are on their way. Just made the one good train. They should be here by five. I’ve laid on cars at Dunlowman. And I’ve raised another couple of men. They’re to report here. What’s the idea, cordoning the path?’

‘It’s that outcrop,’ Alleyn said and told him about the Major’s cigars. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘there may be a guest who smokes his own Las Casas and who went out in a downpour at the crack of dawn to hide behind a rock, but it doesn’t seem likely. We may have to take casts and get hold of his boots.’

‘The Major! I see!’

‘It may well turn out to be just one of those damn’ fool things. But he said he got up late.’

‘It’d fit. In a way, it’d fit.’

‘At this stage,’ Alleyn said. ‘Nothing fits. We collect. That’s all.’