‘My wife’s charge had toothache. Brought her home. Whole damn business had been too much for her. Poodle-faking and racketing! All people think of nowadays. Goin’ through her paces from morning till night. Enough to kill a horse.’

‘Yes,’ said Alleyn. ‘One wonders how they get through it.’

‘Is your name Alleyn?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘George Alleyn’s son, are you? You’re like him. He was in my regiment. I’m sixty-seven,’ added General Halcut-Hackett with considerable force. ‘Sixty-seven. Why didn’t you go into your father’s regiment? Because you preferred this? What?’

‘That’s it, sir. The next point is—’

‘What? Get on with the job, eh? Quite right.’

‘Did you return to Marsdon House?’

‘Why the devil should I do that?’

‘I thought perhaps your wife was—’

The General glared at the second print in the Nightcap series and said:

‘M’wife preferred to stay on. Matter of fact, Robert Gospell offered to see her home.’

‘He didn’t do so, however?’

‘Damn it, sir, my wife is not a murderess.’

‘Lord Robert might have crossed the square as escort to your wife, sir, and returned.’

‘Well, he didn’t. She tells me they missed each other.’

‘And you, sir. You saw your daughter in and then—’

‘She’s not my daughter!’ said the General with a good deal of emphasis. ‘She’s the daughter of some friend of my wife’s.’ He glowered and then muttered half to himself: ‘Unheard of in my day, that sort of thing. Makes a woman look like a damn trainer. Girl’s no more than a miserable scared filly. Pah!’

Alleyn said: ‘Yes, sir. Well, then, you saw Miss—’

‘Birnbaum. Rose Birnbaum, poor little devil. Call her Poppet.’

‘—Miss Birnbaum in and then—’

‘Well?’

‘Did you stay up?’

To Alleyn’s astonishment the General’s face turned from terra-cotta to purple, not, it seemed, with anger, but with embarrassment. He blew out his moustache several times, pouted like a baby, and blinked. At last he said:

‘Upon my soul, I can’t see what the devil it matters whether I went to bed at twelve or one.’

‘The question may sound impertinent,’ said Alleyn. ‘If it does I’m sorry. But, as a matter of police routine, we want to establish alibis—’

‘Alibis!’ roared the General. ‘Alibis! Good God, sir, are you going to sit there and tell me I’m in need of an alibi? Hell blast it, sir—’

‘But, General Halcut-Hackett,’ said Alleyn quickly, while the empurpled General sucked in his breath, ‘every guest at Marsdon House is in need of an alibi.’

‘Every guest! Every guest! But, damn it, sir, the man was murdered in a bloody cab, not a bloody ballroom. Some filthy bolshevistic fascist,’ shouted the General, having a good deal of difficulty with this strange collection of sibilants. He slightly dislodged his upper plate but impatiently champed it back into position. ‘They’re all alike!’ he added confusedly. ‘The whole damn boiling.’

Alleyn hunted for a suitable phrase in a language that General Halcut-Hackett would understand. He glanced at Fox who was staring solemnly at the General over the top of his spectacles.