‘I may have done so. Years ago. I prefer – ‘ Knight said surprisingly, ‘to forget the occurrence.’ He swept it away.

‘May I ask why?’

There was an appreciable pause before he said: ‘I was once his guest, if you can call it that and I was subjected to an insolent disregard which I would have interpreted more readily if I had at that time been acquainted with Smidt. In my opinion,’ Knight said, ‘Smidt should be compulsory reading for all police forces. You don’t mind my saying this?’ he added in a casual, lordly manner.

‘Indeed no.’

‘Good. Want me any more, dear boy?’ he asked, suddenly gracious.

‘I think not. Unless – and believe me I wouldn’t ask if the question was irrelevant to the case – unless you care to tell me if Mrs Constantia Guzman really confided to you that she is a buyer of hot objets d’art on the intercontinental black market.’

It was no good. Back in a flash came the empurpled visage and the flashing eye. Back, too, came an unmistakable background of sheepishness and discomfort.

‘No comment,’ said Marcus Knight.

‘No? Not even a tiny hint?’

‘You are mad to expect it,’ he said and with that they had to let him go.

II

‘Well, Br’er Fox, we’ve caught a snarled up little job this time, haven’t we?’

‘We have that,’ Fox agreed warmly. ‘It’d be nice,’ he added wistfully, ‘if we could put it down to simple theft, discovery and violence.’

‘It’d be lovely but we can’t, you know. We can’t. For one thing the theft of a famous object is always bedevilled by the circumstance of its being indisposable through the usual channels. No normal highclass fence, unless he’s got very special contacts, is going to touch Shakespeare’s note or his son’s glove.’

‘So for a start you’ve got either a crank who steals and gloats or a crank of the type of young Jones who steals to keep the swag in England or a thorough wised-up, high grade professional in touch with the top international racket. And at the receiving end somebody of the nature of this Mrs Guzman who’s a millionaire crank in her own right and doesn’t care how she gets her stuff.’

‘That’s right. Or a kidnapper who holds the stuff for ransom. And you might have a non-professional thief who knows all about Mrs G and believes she’ll play and he’ll make a packet.’

‘That seems to take in the entire boiling of this lot, seeing Mr Grove’s broadcast the Guzman-Knight anecdote for all it’s worth. I tell you what, Mr Alleyn; it wouldn’t be the most astonishing event in my working life if Mr Knight took to Mr Grove. Mr Grove’s teasing ways seem to put him out to a remarkable degree, don’t you think?’