‘Having done this he goes downstairs, gets the key, unlocks the pass-door in the front entrance, pulls the bolt, unslips the iron bar, lets himself out and slams the door. There’s a good chance that Hawkins, busily boiling-up on the far side of the iron curtain, won’t hear it or, if he does, won’t worry. He’s a coolish customer, is our customer, but the arrival of Trevor and then Hawkins and still more the knowledge of what he has done – he didn’t plan to murder – have rattled him. He can’t do one thing.’

‘Pick up the swag?’

‘Just that. It’s gone overboard with Trevor.’

‘Maddening for him,’ said Mr Fox primly. He contemplated Alleyn for some seconds.

‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you this. If it was Jobbins and not a murderer rigged out in Jobbins’s coat we’re left with a crime that took place after Jobbins talked to Hawkins and before Hawkins came round with the tea and found the body.’

‘And with a murderer who was close by during the conversation and managed to work the combination, open the safe, extract the loot, kill Jobbins, half kill Trevor, do his stuff with the door and sling his hook – all within five minutes it took Hawkins to boil up.’

‘Well,’ Fox said after consideration, ‘it’s impossible, I’ll say that for it. It’s impossible. And what’s that look mean, I wonder,’ he added.

‘Get young Jeremy Jones in and find out,’ said Alleyn.

II

When Harry Grove came out of the office he was all smiles. ‘I bet you lot wonder if I’ve been putting your pots on,’ he said brightly. ‘I haven’t really. I mean not beyond mentioning that you all hate my guts, which they could hardly avoid detecting, one would think.’

‘They can’t detect something that’s non-existent,’ Peregrine said crisply. ‘I don’t hate your silly guts, Harry. I think you’re a bloody bore when you do your enfant terrible stuff. I think you can be quite idiotically mischievous and more than a little spiteful. But I don’t hate your guts: I rather like you.’

‘Perry: how splendidly detached! And Jeremy?’

Jeremy, looked as if he found the conversation unpalatable, said impatiently: ‘Good God, what’s it matter! What a lot of balls.’

‘And Winty?’ Harry said.

Morris looked very coolly at him. ‘I should waste my time hating your guts?’ He spread his hands. ‘What nonsense,’ he said. ‘I am much too busy.’

‘So, in the absence of Charlie and the girls, we find ourselves left with The King Dolphin.’

As soon as Harry had reappeared Marcus Knight had moved to the far end of the circle foyer. He now turned and said with dignity: ‘I absolutely refuse to have any part of this,’ and ruined everything by shouting: ‘And I will not suffer this senseless, this insolent, this insufferable name-coining.’